Cadiz

Looking forward to spending a couple of days on the long beaches of Cadiz, Mia and I set off from Seville around midday, arriving to grey skies and chilly Atlantic winds a couple of hours later.

View from the hotel

Navigating the local bus system was straightforward, and we found our hotel. It lacked the character of our nice room in Seville, but was very clean and comfortable, providing nice views of the ocean from the second floor.

The weather ruled out the beach, and so we walked the couple of miles back into the city along the water. There were one or two brave souls in wetsuits trying to make the most of the surf, although I didn’t notice any waves above two meters.

The city itself is said to be the oldest in Europe, and unfortunately has not been maintained particularly well over the years. We spent some time wandering around, and saw the cathedral from the outside and also the ruins of a Roman theatre. The theatre was completely shut off for reparations and the cathedral looked to be undergoing some as well. We decided not to linger at either.

Roman theatre ruins

The streets are a bit wider than Seville, and it was generally easier to find our way around. We sat down for a very nice lunch of calamari and a local fish specialty.  After this the rest of the day was spent walking to see the few small sights and parks that are dotted around the small city.

Local fish

Mia was very keen to experience some flamenco dancing while we were in Spain, and the helpful lady at the tourist office recommended a place on the way back to the hotel. We found our way there later that evening and were provided with a really good (and free!) show of flamenco dancing and singing.

Flamenco

There was a guitarist, several singers and a percussionist who supported a very talented young male dancer who clapped and tapped his red shoes about the stage at the speed of a humming bird flapping its wings. It was quite a performance, and also looked to be a graduation of sorts for him, as he was rewarded with some kind of commendation at the end. The whole experience was very authentic, and it appeared that this was the thing to do at the end of the week for the local citizens. The place was rammed full of a few hundred people, and Mia and I were very grateful to be able to see the show. I have to congratulate Mia on fending off waves of Spaniards trying to pinch my seat as I battled through the throngs at the bar to get us a few drinks.

Sunbathing and beaching was again ruled out for us the following day as the grey clouds and rain set in early. We again caught the bus back into town and visited the local market that was selling huge quantities of fresh seafood as well as at least as many delicatessens around the outside selling varieties of meats, fruit and cheese. Picking up some strawberries, we wandered out to the last remaining monument we hadn’t yet caught a glimpse of, found a nice tapas bar for some lunch and wine and whiled away the rest of the day having a few drinks, reflecting on the trip so far. We would make our way back to Seville the following morning, and then back to London the day after.

Cadiz fish market

All in all, Cadiz didn’t really go the way we’d hoped. I imagine that later in the year the weather would be much warmer and more amiable to beach activities. At this time of year there is only the sights of the city itself, which couldn’t really hold a candle to the magnificence of Seville, that we’d just experienced. We were very glad to be heading back to spend one more afternoon in Seville and finish our Spanish excursion on a high note.

I found it interesting that the Spanish don’t really speak much English, which compared to other western and central European countries, was a bit of an oddity. At the same time though, they are still quite a friendly people, and are willing to engage in a bit of communicative charades. Mia and I have both really enjoyed southern Spain, and are keen to visit again sometime. Perhaps Granada?

The best part of Spain

Sunny Seville

With the royal wedding coming up, giving us an additional public holiday, Mia and I were able to take only a few days off to provide a total break of nearly twelve days.

We had already decided that we didn’t want to be around for the royal wedding itself; neither of us being particular monarchists nor wanting to deal with the throngs of tourists invading the city of London for this once-in-a-lifetime event.

Our rooms courtyard

We booked ourselves a couple of tickets to Spain and left on Easter Monday night down to Gatwick airport to sleep over at a hotel to catch our 6AM flight the next day. Once in Seville, we caught the bus to the city center and found our hotel, the Hotel Convento La Gloria, a remodelled convent. It was nestled in a few side streets quite close to the main attraction of Seville, the cathedral. We dropped off our things and began to explore.

The first thing that struck us was the abundance of orange trees all through the city.  They line the streets and are dotted around corners. It is the time of year when they are in full bloom although neither of us was adventurous enough to pick any. We were able to try some freshly squeezed in a number of places, and this was quite tasty.

An orange tree in front of Torre del Oro

We wandered around for most of the day, moving from the cathedral up through the north-east part of the town and then back down through the central area, tourist map in hand dotted with interesting looking landmarks and symbols.

It turns out that nearly all of these landmarks were churches, all in various states of use and disrepair. If Adelaide has the title of ‘City of Churches’, then I think those who gave it such a title should consider a visit to Seville.

Some of the old wall

There were a couple of more interesting things to see, such as a good section of the old wall that would have surrounded the city at some point, as well as some of the governmental buildings that were also very old. It is interesting to note that most buildings have small courtyards, usually with a water fountain or feature in the center. Also quite prominent were elaborate mosaics of painted tiles all over the city. Seville clearly has a rich history of ceramics and pottery.

As the day drew to a close we wandered back to a pub we’d stumbled upon earlier in the day with an old wooden bar and many legs of cured ham hanging from the ceiling. It turns out that it is the oldest bar in Seville, and we quickly made friends with the bartender who could speak a few words of English and recommended some excellent (and cheap!) wine, as well as a great selection of ham and cheese. He also introduced us to the idea of drinking a white wine after dinner instead of the stronger spirits, and that turned out to be very refreshing; a concept we intend to pursue further.

Tapas in a 300 year old bar

The following day we decided to examine the two main tourist attractions, being the royal palaces followed by the cathedral. The royal palaces were interesting enough, but in my opinion once you’ve seen a couple you’ve seen them all. Windsor Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Seville Royal Palace… which one are we in again? To be fair, it was quite unique, as Seville used to be an Islamic state, and the palace had been taken over from the days when it was used by the Muslim royal equivalents. As a result, much of the architecture has a strong Moorish influence, as well as the gardens outside.  The gardens themselves were quite enormous, extending well out behind the palace with plenty of water features adorning corners and pathways.

Courtyard of the Alcazar Palace

Inside there were a variety of massive tapestries, paintings and the like, as well as an innumerable quantity of mosaic tiles covering all of the walls. Apparently the palace is still in use, however the Spanish royalty chose not to make an appearance amongst the thousands of tourists and tour groups piling through the place.

Gelato.

After a couple of hours in there I was properly bored, and managed to drag Mia out and back into the baking streets of Seville. She got in the rather long line to enter the cathedral whilst I sought out a cash machine, coffee, some water and gelato. Returning with my prizes, to find Mia quite a long way through the queue, we finished off these items and entered the third largest cathedral in the world. It was definitely massive, with many little chapels surrounding the central nave, each dedicated to a saint, king or other noble dignitary.

We made our way up the 34 ramps and 17 steps to the viewing area of the bell tower that provided views across all of Seville. To be honest, the city does not have much to offer in terms of tall views. The roofs are fairly plain, and few of the churches have spires or identifying features that would otherwise break up the splay of housing. It was quite clear to see from above all of the snaking narrow roads that reminded me quite a lot of what it is like in Venice. The difference here is that the roads are actually named, so with an accurate map it is not too hard to find your way around.

Inside the massive cathedral

The descent back down into the cathedral was fairly rapid, and we finished circling the inner area, finally finding what I was most curious to see: the tomb of Christopher Colombus. It is a very grand sculpture of his sarcophagus being carried by four kings, and it stands in the back of the cathedral. I spent a while checking it out, whilst Mia exclaimed ‘I didn’t know he was Spanish!’

Me 'n Chris

We had a look at the bullring, although couldn’t enter due to a bullfighting show that was happening in a few hours.

Bullring

It was quite expensive for a ticket, and neither of us was particularly interested in the spectacle. We had a look at the Plaza de Espanol, a huge semi-circle construction with an enormous water fountain in the center, and then spent some time in the surrounding gardens.

Plaza de Espana

Exhausted from the miles and miles of walking over the past couple of days, we went back to the old bar and had a meal, which was unfortunately not as great as the tapas we’d had there the day previous.

We then slept in until midday, rising a few hours earlier for breakfast and then determining that we hadn’t quite rested enough, and simply wandered around from bar to bar eating tapas and drinking orange juice, beer and wine. Finding ourselves at a recommended restaurant, we ate yet more pork for dinner with some great wine and finished the evening off at the ‘religious bar’, which is exactly as it sounds. With more figures of Mary and Jesus than most churches, it was most uncomfortable (for me) to be stared at by these lifeless effigies as we sipped on our ‘Blood of Christ’ cocktails, a mixture of whisky, champagne and grenadine.

Blood of Christ in the religious bar 'Garlochi'

Deciding not to stick around for a second drink, I scurried Mia and I out of there and recovered our senses with a white wine followed by the smoothest Anis I’d ever tasted at a more traditional Spanish bar.

So ended our time in Seville. The following morning we rose for another excellent breakfast in the hotel, made our way across to the train station and departed for our next destination, Cadiz.

After a three and a half year hiatus, I decided to update this little journal of travel, adventure and general shenanigans.

What’s happened in the interim? The cliff notes would read something like this:

Arrived in London, found girlfriend, got job at soulless bank working in quantitative finance. Had several trips back home, spent Day of the Dead in Mexico City, saw Northern Wales with girlfriend, proposed in Scotland and spent the next year between London and Edinburgh planning the wedding. Went to Portugal as best man for best mates stag party, and held the title of longest rider of the mechanical bull. Performed best man role back in Melbourne and soon after had my own stag party in Amsterdam where I found my way on stage during a live sex show (my clothes stayed on). I then got married to my wonderful wife with a traditional African ceremony in London and white wedding a couple of days later in Edinburgh. Six months later we had our honeymoon cruise through the Caribbean and spent new year’s eve of 2011 in New York City.

That was all good fun.

So that brings us, dear reader, to my most recent excursion to the alien landscape of Iceland. Mia (that’s the wife) and I were planning on visiting during our honeymoon, however logistically this proved difficult. We deferred it to February of 2011 and spent the most recent extended weekend within its deceptively hospitable shores.

We arrived late on a Wednesday night and found a bus to Hotel Bjork where we would spend the next several nights. Luckily the hotel did not subscribe to the Icelandic musician of the same name, and we managed to find our room and bed< by about two thirty in the morning where sleep was quickly embraced.

Our first full day was spent with Iceland Horizons ‘Southern Shores’ tour. This would be the first of two full day excursions spent with a British guide, David, who had relocated to Iceland over a decade ago. He was an entertaining man with a penchant for describing things in great detail. This included a history of the island and its Viking heritage and language. The landscape is quite striking, with large volcanic mountains separating large open rock plains. Iceland is a continually growing island, both outwards due to tectonic and volcanic activity, but also rising up from out of the Atlantic ocean. This means that many of the plains that we drove through used to be ocean seabed.

There are many and various farming homesteads out in the lava plains. David explained how as new materials and building methods were brought to Iceland over the past hundred years or so, the residents would build a newer, better house not too far from the old one, and convert the previous to a storage facility for livestock or supplies. As a result, each of the different farming areas would generally have a fairly old turf building, usually built into the rock and a couple of other more modern structures.

We passed by Eyjafjallajoekull, the volcano which erupted in April of 2010 and caused untold inconvenience to most of Europe and around the world. Interestingly enough, only about 25 homesteads were affected in Iceland itself. The volcano is on the south shore of the island, and the winds blew the eight kilometre high ash cloud south and away from the island. Icelanders continued flying in and out of the Americas, whilst the majority of Europe was grounded due to the airborne ash.

The area around the south shore is amazing. We saw two large waterfalls, both of which it were very accessible. This provided some nice photo opportunities before we continued on to a glacier within the foothills of the surrounding mountains. I had never seen a glacier outside of a photograph before, and the deep blue of the massive ice formation is not given justice by my camera. Apparently this is created from oxygen, compressed under the immense weight of ice.

We continued along the coast to the southernmost village of Vik, where Mia and I both ordered a traditional lamb soup. We saw some incredible black sand beaches with a basalt cave that I felt was one of the highlights of the trip. The wind and weather in this area was quite violent, so we quickly piled back into the van and headed back to Reykjavik.

That night we attempted to see the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights), my primary motivation for coming to Iceland. The forecast for the aurora was the strongest all year, so we went out with high hopes for a stunning light show. A massive solar flare had been registered only days earlier, and it is this sort of solar activity that is the necessary prelude to the atmospheric event.

Unfortunately the Northern Lights are a natural phenomena and are never guaranteed. Apparently the solar flare was so strong that it pushed the corona much further south than Iceland, and was probably visible as far as Scotland and Ireland. Luckily our tour guide for this trip was also very entertaining and gave us a good history of the area we were shivering in and some of the details of the more recent fishing wars between Iceland and Britain.

Undeterred, we ventured out again the following evening and after standing in the biting wind for a few hours we were rewarded in a small, but still very striking display of the Northern Lights. I finally was able to fulfil a dream of playing Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon whilst standing under such an incredible spectacle. Mia and I both agreed it was a very cool thing to experience and was worth braving the cold.

Of course that was in the evening of the second day. Before that we had spent the sunlight hours on the Golden Circle tour with David. This consisted of another beautiful and enormous waterfall that we couldn’t get quite as close to, and seeing some of the natural hot water geysers in the surrounding area. Both of these sights were interesting and I managed to get drenched by one of the larger geysers attempting to create a killer photo.

We also managed to stop by and pet some Icelandic horses, one of which seemed to take a particular liking to the taste of my ski jacket. Iceland has had a law in place for over one thousand years that prevents any horses from being imported into the country. As a result, the seventy thousand horses that currently populate the island are all descendants of the original Norse breeds that were introduced over a millennia ago. They are a very pure species, fetching a high price among horse collectors the world over.

The last stop was in the national park that we had spent the first night waiting for the Northern Lights, and whilst it had some quite pretty scenery, by this stage Mia and I were a bit over sight-seeing.

The following day we had a wander through the main strip of Reykjavik, visited the flea market and ‘world famous hot dog stall’. Neither of these were particularly good, and so a bus was found that took us to the rather more world famous Blue Lagoon. Mia and I spent the afternoon there, alternating between the warm blue water pool, smearing silica mud on our faces (Mia more so than me), and the various steam rooms and saunas that were available. A great way to relax after two very busy days of seeing the main sights of Iceland. Once our skin was sufficiently waterlogged, we dried off and found our way back to the hotel for a much needed sleep before our rather rude four thirty morning alarm clock to get our early flight back to London.

Overall Iceland was a great trip. The scenery is incredible and unlike anything I’ve seen elsewhere. The whole island might as well be one massive volcano (rather than the forty odd that comprise it currently), and the landscape is something out of another world. Between amazing waterfalls, the lava plains, the Northern Lights and the steam vents coming straight out of the ground, Iceland is a very unique place to be, and I can see why its residents are very proud of their home despite some of its harsher living conditions.