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mid
July 2001
Barcelona
Arrived
at the airport quiet late after a good flight from Heathrow.
I had booked a cheap hotel over the Internet, but had no idea
where it was, luckily the taxi driver managed to drop us of
close by. The place looked OK over the Internet, quiet a bargain
I thought, but it was in a noisy side street of La Rambla
and the walls super thin, so not much sleep for the next few
nights.
The three
days we had in Barcelona were mainly spend walking around
town (hot) or taking the very easy to use metro to further
away places. I guess we did the usual touristy stuff, visiting
La Sagrada Familia (huge church that has been in construction
since 1882, nowhere near finished, definitely recommend going
up inside the narrow towers for superb views over the city),
Park Guell, various other buildings that have been created
by Gaudi, walking through the narrow streets in the Gothic
quarter and having lots of cool drinks to avoid heatstroke
in between. Alison was not to keen on the Spanish food (not
ideal for vegetarians) so we ended up having Pizzas most nights.
We did
spend a lot of time on the beach as well, not because it was
a particularly nice beach, but more because we had both not
seen the sea for a while and were keen on getting tanned up.
I liked
Barcelona, but was not overly excited by it. As always in
big cities the locals we got in touch with were friendly but
it was obvious they had been dealing with a whole load of
tourists for too many years. So I was quiet happy move on
after a few days, and, after an old friend of mine who happened
to be in Barcelona at the same time managed to get us some
tickets we go on the train down to Seville.
Seville
Seville,
Alison and I agreed after the trip, was the favorite city
we visited in Spain. The town centre, where most of the budget
hotels are, is a collection of a number of small steets, leading
to the impressive Cathedral in the centre. There are literally
hundred of small cafes and tapas bars to choose from and the
pace of live seems a lot slower than inn Barcelona. We spent
2 days walking around town, visiting the old palace, strolling
down to the river and having nice, cheap meals. There is a
bull fighting stadium as well but we both agreed not to see
it.
Marbella
Alison
had been told that Marbella was, or used to be, a favoured
holiday destination of the rich and famous, however I think
she got it slightly wrong. It was my first time at the Costa
del Sol but it was pretty much as I had expected, completely
built up with large apartment blocks along the beach, overpriced
restaurants and loads of tourists. It was not all that bad,
the tourists were not of the English hooligan type, and we
found a very nice place in the old centre of Marbella to stay,
and the beach though busy, was quiet nice and we had a few
short swims.
 Granada
From
Marbella we took the bus to Granada, no hassle, and got picked
up by some guy at the bus station who brought us to a cheap
hotel in town. The place turned out to be a bit of a disappointment,
the room was hot, the fan not nearly strong enough, and the
bed terrible, but is was only for two nights. The lesson learnt
though, is that even with one and two star hotels there are
some that are a lot better than others and it is better to
trust the guide bokk (Lonely Planet in our case) than to just
go and have a gamble. The 2 places we chose without a guidebook
(Barcelona and Granada) were not nearly as nice as the one
recommended by LP in Seville and Marbella.
The rest
of the day we spent just wandering around town. Granada is
in many ways similar to Seville, again losts of historic buildings,
small streets and lots of places to eat, but it felt bigger,
dirtier and busier. Also it was quiet hot and we decided to
go back to the hotel for a littel fiesta, but unfortunately
completly lost our way in the identical looking streets that
lead away from the town centre. We eventually found our street
and had a good few hours sleep before setting out for a late
dinner.
The next
day we went up to Al Hambra, the famous old Roman then Muslim
fortress that overlooks Granada. It is quiet impressive and
we spend a good few hours wandering around the several different
buildings, towers and castles that make up the monument.
The rest
of the day we spent wandering around town some more, including
the Albayzin area, the old Muslim quaters, which was nice
as only a few yards after leaving the busy main street one
is surrounded by incredibly old looking buildings with hardly
a soul in sight.
We also
went into the big Cathedral in the town centre, which was
in the process of being renovated but still impressive.
Cabo
De Gata
We were
not sure where to go next, with another 6 days or so of our
two week holiday to go. Alison wanted a beachy place and so
we decided to go to San Jose, a small village in the Cabo
De Gata national park, next to Almeria in the very south-east
of Andalusia. Getting there was not straight forward as there
are only about 2 buses there form Almeria a day, but we managed
to get on one after a 3 hour train ride from Granada to Almeria.
A constant
worry for me had been accommodation, as the Lonely Planet
warns that there is a shortage of rooms in July/ August as
the Spanish all head to the beaches. Again this prooved not
to be the case as we found a very nice place right next to
the bus stop in the centre of the village. Newly decorated,
with TV, aircon and fridge!, this was a complete bargain at
at around £25 and we decided to stay here for the next
few days.
San Jose
is a very chilled out place, basically a long beach with almost
crystal clear warm water, a number of small cheapish hotels
and a number of Spanish and Italian restaurants. We had a
lazy couple of days, reading, swimming and sunbathing a lot,
with me dreaming about crazy Internet ideas. As there was
no public transport further into  the
Cabo De Gata national park we could not go and explore, but
what we saw did look very promising is certainly worth a return
trip.
Back
Home
The journey
back to the UK went pretty smoothly, we got the train form
Almeria to Seville (6 hours) and the the overnight train from
Seville to Barcelona (12 hours). We had another night in Barcelona,
so we checked back into our old hotel, went down to the beach
for a while and did some last minute shopping before flying
back to the UK.
Spain
was good, though I did not get that 'let'smove here' feeling
that I sometimes get when I really like a place. I do want
to go back though and try some of the more remote locations,
and, if possible walk the GR10, Gr11 or High Route along the
Pyrenees.
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