Travelling Hopefully - All the Way to Barcelona

 Ok having tried absolutely nothing else I am prepared to state that the best way to see Barcelona is from the sidecar of a motorbike.  It helps if said motorbike is being ridden by a knowledgeable and cheerful Italian woman with interesting tattoos.  Such a person presented herself to me outside my hotel and shortly afterwards introduced me to her Ural motorcycle sidecar possibly the most advanced piece of Russian engineering you can find outside of a Ukrainian wrecking yard.

Safety instructions were brief “Put this on your head, get in.” I obeyed and soon the rumble of a no doubt thoroughly reliable Russian engine signalled that we were on our way.  My guide/rider was connected to me via an earpiece on the helmet a service which was only really necessary when the traffic was really bad as otherwise the fact that her head was only a few feet from mine was quite sufficient.

Our tour was quite a wide ranging one taking in the port, the Olympic Village, la Sagrada Familia of course and various other exercises in the architectural equivalent of torture by Gaudi.  We paused for dreadful coffee at a down market bar in an upscale neighbourhood.  The interlude allowed me to ask her what she as an Italian thought of Spanish coffee.  Up until this point she had been an enthusiastic ambassador for her adoptive city but now a look of genuine pain appeared in her eyes and she just sighed deeply.  I nodded, that was pretty much what I thought.

To drive away thoughts of coffee she took me to Parc Montjuic home of various Olympic things I couldn’t care less about and spectacular views of the city which generated a fair bit more interest in her passenger.  I would return to this park later in a futile attempt to find a poisonous fountain. The views were indeed amazing with a decent chunk of Barcelona stretched out before us posing for photographs.  After that we whizzed by the obligatory statue of Christopher Columbus and a train station that at one point would take you to France.  That is you could catch a train to France.  The station itself remained firmly rooted in Catalonian soil.

With her Columbite duties done there was nothing left for my motorcycle Virgil to do except return me to within walking distance of our starting point.  She had finished with me but I wasn’t finished with Barcelona.  After a brief pause to rinse the travel dust from my frame and take out a second mortgage to pay my laundry bill I plunged back into the Barcelona heat and headed back to Parc Montjuïc.  With no motorbike to haul me to the top I fell back on the Barcelona metro system which rose nobly to the challenge.  If you get off at Paral-lel (there’s another station called Diagonal) you can catch a funicular that will haul you up to Parc Montjuic without the need to die of heat exhaustion en-route.

Once in the park I walked for twenty minutes before I realised my destination was a hundred metres down the road from the funicular stop.  My destination in case it’s of any importance was the Joan Miro Foundation a modern art museum based around the work of Joan Miro who is apparently a modern artist.  Or he was, he’s dead now so not quite as modern as many others.  I had come to see the Calder Fountain but when I got there it was closed for maintenance, something I didn’t find out until I had paid the fifteen euro entry price.  I tried to appreciate the modern art but my heart wasn’t in it so I went back to the funicular station in defeat and discovered there was a cable car station that would take me to the highest point in the park or at least the highest point accessible by cable so I threw good money after bad and rode to the top where there was a medieval castle with some suspiciously modern gun turrets.

I hadn’t exhausted all that Parc Montjuic had to offer but I had exhausted myself so I fled back to my hotel room as quickly as a cable car, a funicular and a metro train could take me.  I didn’t emerge until it was time for dinner, around 8.30pm

My noble steed and rider

Hopefully - Fast Train Edition

 Spain has trains, indeed Spain has fast trains.  Naturally the fast trains are best suited to flatter terrain.  Indeed one could say the trains in Spain run mainly on the plains.  Thank you, I’m here all week.

But back to the trains.  Despite the previous statement a fast train was waiting for us at Santiago de Compostela station to hurtle us towards Madrid at the sort of speed normally associated with road runners and transport officials trying to justify another toll road.  Once we had our baggage scanned and the unacceptable members of our crew hurled to the outer darkness we were graciously permitted to board a sleek fast train.  You could tell it was a fast train because it had a pointy nose.  I elbowed a fellow traveler in the head in order to claim the window seat and then had to endure his mocking chuckles as I wound up staring at a blank wall.  Seats fore and aft had windows but my seat was apparently where they had soldered the carriage together and as such was window deficient.  By twisting around or craning my neck I could get glimpses of the Spanish countryside flashing by at the cost of intensive treatment of from an osteopath on arrival in Madrid.  Fortunately I caught enough glimpses to assure you eager readers that the scenery between Santiago de Compostela and Madrid strongly resembles the inside of tunnels.

Our train slid out of Santiago in a sleek pointy nosed way, traveled about a kilometre and then stopped.  Nobody explained the stoppage but after sitting around for several minutes the train eventually started to crawl forward .  Finally the driver pushed the special button and the train leapt forward along the tracks and didn’t stop again until the driver did a handbrake park to deliver us to a station in Madrid.  Struggling off this super train we descended to the Madrid metro whereafter it took another forty five minutes to reach our hotel in different part of Madrid.

The next day I was taking another super train to Barcelona.  Since I had booked this one myself the train company had gone all out and given me an aisle seat next to a blank wall.  If I wanted to see out the window I had to stand on a box and lean on another passenger’s head.  Eventually the train staff asked me to take my seat.  At least I assumed that’s what they said because when I did it they removed the handcuffs and stopped brandishing the taser in my face.

The trains nose was pointed at Barcelona, at least the trains nose was pointed and that’s the bit that hit Barcelona first so I think I’m safe in my assertion.  The train left Madrid as close to on time as makes no difference and swiftly worked up to nearly but not quite 300km/hour.  As for what the countryside between Madrid and Barcelona looks like, your guess is as good as mine.  Once in Barcelona I decided to eschew the metro experience for a taxi to my hotel.

Probably not the metro’s latest model 

Travelling Hopefully - Eucalypt Invasion Edition

 As I strolled through the forests of Galicia, ok I should probably start this entry a little more accurately.  As I stumbled gasping and retching through the forests of Galicia I couldn’t help thinking there was something familiar about the trees.   I felt I had vomited onto similar trees in the past.

Indeed I had for the trees were eucalyptus and apparently thriving here in Galicia far from their native land. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked between gasps but the eucalypts didn’t answer.  They focused their energy on trying to persuade me to throw up on a native species.

Apparently 28% of the forest in Galicia is eucalyptus courtesy of some halfwit monk who, not satisfied with travelling to colonial Australia to spread the word of God returned home to spread the seed of eucalyptus.  The eucalyptus took root in Galicia’s soil and is now doing to the native flora what invasive species do in Australia.

Of course blame can’t be all laid at the door of some meddling priest.  Once the trees turned up people started chopping them down and to facilitate the down chopping planted more eucalyptus.  It’s the sort of sustainable industry the world needs except for the entire “invasive species” component.  Attempts to curb the spread of eucalypts have been blocked by big timber companies and their lickspittles in government.  In the meantime Summer bushfires are becoming quite the thing.  Across the border in Portugal they have banned any new eucalyptus planting but it remains to be seen whether the trees will pay any attention.

As for me I’m torn between the environmental devastation such a species invasion has caused and being guiltily pleased that something from Australia has had such an impact.

Travelling Hopefully - Scallop Edition

 According to legend St James the Elder was one of the Apostles of Jesus (and also his cousin) tasked with spreading the gospel in the Iberian Peninsula.  At some point he was lured back to the Holy Land where Herod promptly had his head cut off.  Thereafter a group of angels transferred his headless body back to Spain in a boat (airfares were no cheaper then than they are now) and after various vicissitudes a group of Christians gained permission to bury him in what is now Santiago de Compostela.  He is the patron saint of Spain and according to yet another legend appeared miraculously to assist the Spanish in winning a battle against the Moors.  What he was doing during all the battles the Spanish lost to the Moors is unrecorded.

All I can say about the above is that people have believed stranger things than this and indeed still do.  Anyway bearing as it did the body of one of the Apostles Santiago etc. has flourished as a pilgrimage centre as the faithful flocked from all over the world to gain grace by association.  The medieval equivalent of Airbnb and tourist shops catering to/taking advantage of the faithful as they stumble the last few miles along a network of trails that led from all over Europe and zeroing in on Santiago.

Into this centre of devotion came our little tourist group on a bus from Porto that appeared to be on its last legs.  We dumped our bags and started looking around for the nearest Zara store.  Santiago has such a store of course because after weeks walking on muddy tracks the most pressing need of all pilgrims is new clothes.  Inhabitants of the town would probably prefer that they have a bath.

Once ensconced in our hotel our guide with what may or may not have been a malicious gleam in her eye informed us that we would only do a brief orientation walk so that we would be fresh for the fifteen kilometre hike tomorrow along the last part of the pilgrim trail.  Desperately I scanned the itinerary, surety I hadn’t signed up for this.  Well apparently I had.  I would be joining a gang of gourd toting, scallop shell bedecked religious maniacs for the last stage of their journey towards salvation or at least Santiago de Compostela.

The next day having stripped my day pack down to the bare essentials (water, cigarettes and anti inflammatories) I and my companions in implausible pilgrimation were dropped off at a random patch of the Spanish countryside.  The pilgrim path is clearly marked so that travellers don’t wander on to motorways in fits of religious ecstasy.  Signs on the motorway also warned of aircraft and low flying deer (I think I’ve got that right) so obviously there’s quite a bit going on in this part of Spain.

The path itself was pleasant, wending its way through forests and farmland except when we encountered villages.  Then it wended its way through villages.  Some thirteen kilometres of charming rural scenery later we wended our way through some of the lower rent sections of Santiago de Compostela en route to the cathedral.

Finally we stumbled into the cathedral, took photos of a scallop shell carving in the stone and pretended to have achieved the same state of grace as had been achieved by those who had been walking for days.  Incidentally I checked it out later, a pilgrimage of fifteen kilometres gains forgiveness for one parking ticket or missing a distant relative’s birthday.

Some of the more religiously minded among us capped off their achievement by attending mass with our guide who had been conspicuous by her absence during our religious death march.  I hobbled back to the hotel cursing pilgrimages in general and St James in particular.  I’m pretty sure I’ve blown my parking ticket.

Travelling Hopefully - Bridges Too Far Edition

 In a desperate attempt to rid herself of her charges our guide suggested we get out on the water.  What she actually said was “go jump in the river” but we assumed there had been a translation break down and thought she said take a cruise on the Douro.

Our guide was at least moderately pleased when she saw us clambering on board a small boat and waved vigorously before vanishing gratefully into the crowd.  The boat puttered along the Douro giving us a fishes eye view of the collection of bridges looming overhead.  Lest we think this was a coincidence trilingual bridge commentary told us who designed them and what they were for.  The name Gustave Eiffel cropped up quite a bit.

Once released from our bridge obsessed shepherds we gazed around and realised that we were at the bottom of a hill (as rivers tend to be) and that we had a grim climb back to our hotel.  Grimly we climbed trying to ignore the more ice cream crazed members of our party until gasping and famished we arrived at our hotel and cast about for dinner.

Many eating establishments presented themselves eager for our custom and we were in such a dither of confusion that we went our separate ways,  I and a woman of roughly the same age (ie several years younger but still older than two of our fellow travellers found a bar that served local beers and bar snacks.  The younglings turned up their noses because there was nobody inside but we persevered and enjoyed a steak sandwich and onion rings while listening to music we enjoyed but which the less musically mature of our party would not have heard of.  In fact the music was so good we stayed for a third beer and just as we were leaving a song came on that justified a fourth.

The next day we rose bright and early to visit a book shop but we needed to buy a ticket to get in.  The next available spot was at 2.30 that afternoon.  Book shops don’t normally sell tickets but this one was way fancy (and apparently inspired something in Harry Potter) and the queue stretched as far as the eye could see.  Having navigated their less than stellar booking system we got tickets for 2.30 and duly presented ourselves preparing to be amazed.  It was quite an impressive book shop, it had stained glass but then so did the McDonalds in Porto.  The overwhelming impression was that of the throng of people cramming every space inside.  Reaching for a book meant inadvertently punching someone.  I did buy a book and then fled before the punching became more advertent.

That night I gazed over a moonlit Porto from a monastery high on a hill.  The view was beautiful but was spoiled slightly by the fact that the hill the monastery was on was not the same hill as our hotel.

Travelling Hopefully - White Port Edition

Did you know there was such a thing as white port?  I didn’t fortunately a visit to Porto enlightened me.  Porto isn’t where port comes from but it is what most port goes through on its way to somewhere else.  For centuries Porto’s wealth has relied on people getting very drunk, emptying the house of alcohol and realising that if they want to keep drinking they’re going to have to open the port.

We left Lisbon (with at least one traveller clinging weeping to the hotel door begging for more time) and piled into a bus heading north.  By a fortunate coincidence our destination was also in the north.  Porto rests in the valley of the Douro river just downstream from a bunch of vineyards where port is produced.  Warehouses were built and fleets of small boats acquired to transport the port from vineyard to warehouse where it would be stored until the time came to ship it to Britain and other places where alcohol content is more important than taste.

Naturally being located in a river valley meant that Porto has lots of hills as most of the flat land is occupied by the river.  Our hotel was part way up one of the hilly bits.  Around us stretched the town of Porto with its handsome public buildings, external tiling and construction sites.  Particularly the latter.  Porto was being renovated when we arrived and as usual the builders had left crap all over the place.  Old buildings were getting a touch up and new metro stations were being dug.  As a result most of the construction site had only a vague resemblance to a town.  Here and there non renovated old buildings reared proudly above the clatter and challenged you to find a way of accessing them.

Our orientation walk picked its way carefully through the scaffolding and we twisted our bodies into unusual shapes in the hope of taking a photo without a crane in it.  Normally the main purpose of our orientation walks is to tire us out so we’ll go to bed when told and won’t misbehave too much but this time there was a specific objective in view.  A port tasting at a boutique (and Portuguese owned) winery had been arranged.  Actually the tasting was at their warehouse the winery itself being further up the Douro where they could grow grapes without them getting dug up for a metro station.

The warehouse where said tasting was to take place was down near the river so our orientation walk had a significant down aspect to it (as well as a significant “clamber over construction material element”).  This meant that our return would be uphill however by that time we would be fortified with port and the port was fortified with alcohol so there should be no problem.

The port warehouses are across the river from our hotel (and indeed most of Porto) which required us to walk across a rather handsome split level bridge.  We walked across the top which carries foot traffic and tram lines, the bottom carries cars and more foot traffic.  The line between roads and footpaths is somewhat blurred and not just after the port tasting.

Once across the Douro we navigated increasingly narrow back alleys until we reached the port warehouse that bore our name.

“Some warehouses,” announced our guide, “provide cheese to go with the port sampling.”

“Does ours?”

“No.”

We arrived at the cheese free warehouse and after a completely unnecessary introduction to the making and history of port were finally permitted to start drinking the stuff.  The ten year old white port was delicious.  I’m not a huge fan of tawny ports but those who liked them said they liked them.  I seriously considered ordering a a bottle or two until they handed me a discreet slip of paper with she shipping costs written on it.  I decided I would just keep cutting metholated spirits with ribena.

Travelling Hopefully - Rattly Transport Edition

To assist the Lisboneiros in getting around their topographically inconvenient city a number of facilities have been put in place.  Most of those facilities are called “steps” but from time to time there is something a little more imaginative such as the H&M store where you enter at one level, go down a few sets of escalators and emerge onto a different street.  This also gives you a legitimate reason for going into an H&M store.

Even better though are the canary yellow funiculars that rattle their way up a few of the steepest hills.  These charming little boxes on rails look as though they were built in about 1374 but are probably a little younger than that.  We took the Gloria funicular on our orientation walk.  With a grinding rattle or possibly a rattling grind our bright yellow box lurched slowly (but considerably faster than any of us could have walked) to the top.  At the top we had lunch regaled by a street performer playing the theme tune from Game of Thrones while we looked over the city.

Funiculars are cute but they’re hardly a mass transit system.  For that we need to flip to the second of Lisbon’s rattly public transport options; trams.  Lisbon has gorgeous old, rattly trams which lurch through the streets carrying the Lisboates about their business.  Fairness forces me to concede that Lisbon also has gleaming new, much larger trams that whisk people hither and yon.  The much larger trams glide down the main roads of Lisbon which tend to be built on the flatter bits leaving their geriatric colleagues to struggle gamely up hillsides and around tight corners to bring public transport to people who don’t live on a main road.  Lisbon also has buses, trains and a metro system but you know, whatever.

I caught a gleaming new tram to the Time Out Market which is apparently a draw card, I don’t know why unless you have an unreasonable fetish for food courts.  It would be useful if you were hungry and had inexplicably missed the literally hundreds of restaurants, cafes, pastry shops and supermarkets with which Lisbon is adorned otherwise I fail to see the point.

Having exhausted the amusement value of Time Out in approximately two minutes I then caught a cute rattly tram to my actual destination.  Or more accurately I didn’t.  My destination was the Maritime Museum in Belém.  The big sexy trams went there but the small rattly ones turned off and climbed a hill and wandered through somewhat lower rent territory.  I caught the small rattly tram anyway because I wanted to catch a small rattly tram.  I hopped off at the last point where it was convenient to walk down to the main road and pick up a big gleaming tram to the Jerónimos Monastery.  The monastery is a huge, impressive building and the Maritime Museum occupies a small part on the left if you have just alighted from your big sexy tram and are staring in awe at the Monastery.  If you can’t see the Monastery then you have got turned around and are looking at the Monastery’s gardens which occupy the piece of ground between the road and the Tagus River.

The museum was quite interesting being part a history of Portugal’s great age of discovery when various Portuguese got into ships and sailed out into the Atlantic.  In the words of the caption at the museum “establishing contact and trade with distant peoples.”  They could have added “establishing trade in distant peoples” but that might have been a little too close to the bone for a museum dedicated to Portuguese achievements.  There were also displays on struggles in the colonies without quite explaining how said colonies were acquired.

The rest of the museum consisted of models of ships used by the Portuguese at various stages of their history up until the present day.  Plus there were some royal barges and seaplanes largely I suspect because they couldn’t find a more appropriate museum to put them in.

I really enjoyed Lisbon and couldn’t happily have spent more time there but I didn’t.  Instead we hopped on a bus for Porto.

Funicular 

Travelling Hopefully - Excessive Pastry Edition

 From the Algarve we came descending on Lisbon like dark angels sent from Hell to punish mankind.  Then we hit the Lisbon metro system and realised we were too late.

All of which is an overblown way of saying we caught a bus from Lagos to Lisbon and then took a train to our hotel.  In actual fact the Lisbon metro system deposited us within camel spit of our hotel with perfect efficiency.  Too much efficiency actually as it turned out the hotel wasn’t ready for us when we arrived.  After a tense negotiating period they permitted us leave again as long as we left our luggage there as hostages in case we found a nicer hotel while wandering around.

Once we bid a teary farewell to our suitcases now trembling under the hotel’s brutal yoke we set off into Lisbon.  Lisbon has a lot of up and down.  They claim the city is built on seven hills like Rome.  I know the Romans did a lot of impressive things but copying their decision to situate a major city on the lumpiest ground available is not necessarily the best thing to emulate them in.

Despite this the Lisbites built their city and when a combined earthquake, fire and flood destroyed it rather than take the hint they rebuilt it in basically the same place. Thus parts of Lisbon have a well organised grid pattern and other parts er, don’t.  Our hotel sat roughly on the border.  

The orientation walk purported to give us a glimpse of some of the various neighbourhoods of Lisbon but rapidly turned into an orgy of pastry and warm custard (no not that sort of an orgy, although…).  Lisbon is home to the Portuguese tart which I have to say tastes vastly better than its shabby Australian equivalent.

Shedding pastry crumbs and with our fingers sticking to each other, cardboard containers and on occasion walls and passing vehicles we stumbled on.  Always ahead of us was the unobtainable perfect Portuguese tart teasing us and leading us deeper into Lisbon.  Finally we stopped and ungummed our mouths long enough to ask where we were.  Our guide who had completely lost patience with the pastry covered , custard smeared freaks she had been landed with pointed out that we were back at our hotel and that any of us who survived the inevitable type 2 diabetes might like to try a Fado performance that evening.

Fado is a Portuguese art and consists of two guys with guitars trying to drown out the manic depressive who is using song to work through some emotional issues.  We decided we did want to try it and climbed quite a number of stairs in order to do so.  The food was good and the Fado appropriately heartfelt and waily.  We all agreed it was very good, then we went in search of more Portuguese tarts.  Along the way we encountered street performers and what claimed to be the world’s oldest continuously operating bookstore.  I bought a book and some very bad coffee there while my companions trembled and suffered custard withdrawal symptoms.  Eventually we returned to the hotel while we could still fit through the door.

Travelling Hopefully - Algarve Edition

For the record the Algarve is the southernmost region of Portugal.  It has a long history involving Romans, Visigoths, Byzantines, Moors and Portuguese all of whom were eager to add the Algarves fishing villages and golf courses to their empire.  Currently the Portuguese are in charge.  They used it as a base to discover parts of the world that weren’t Portugal.

Into this history laden region came a bus, its exterior metal still glowing red hot from a prolonged encounter with Seville.  On that bus five weary travellers and one chirpy guide gazed with wonder at the Atlantic stretched out before them.  Fortunately the bus stopped before it got any closer.

Our destination was Lagos, a small charming town on the Atlantic coast.  It used to be the capital of the region before a couple of earthquakes persuaded the local authorities to move elsewhere.  Lagos became a staging post for Portuguese voyages of exploration/exploitation and the town became a wealthy trading centre particularly for the slave trade.  Nowadays the process has reversed and Lagos makes a good deal of its money from expats ie foreigners who come voluntarily and then refuse to leave.

A cool ocean breeze greeted us on arrival at our hotel and we gave a collective moan of delight.  The beach appeared to be undergoing renovations but once we made our way past the construction equipment an expanse of beach goers  came into view.  It was safe to assume that somewhere under them was sand.

The next day we sallied forth under the baking sun and commented on how much more pleasant than Seville it was.  A walk along the coast to the town culminated in an ill advised visit to the fish market.  Once that little misstep was out of the way we piled into a not particularly large boat for a trip back down the coast but from a more aquatic perspective.

It turns out that the best way to see Lagos is while bobbing on waves a short distance off shore.  Here rocks and ocean have had a rather messy collision and the ensuing debris has left holes in the land and lumps of rock in the ocean which combine for a pleasing visual effect although it would probably drive an obsessive compulsive insane.

Pigeons nested in the jagged rocks thus adding an additional element of threat to the danger of shipwreck.  Carefully our little motorboat nosed through rock strewn passages and into small bays the pilot’s sharp eyes alert for the ever present danger of kayakers who were freaking everywhere.  Weapons were kept close at hand in case these freaks of the sea attempted to board us but fortunately we escaped by scattering coins in our wake.  The coins sank of course but kayakers aren’t that bright and they clustered around where the shiny things had sunk while we fled the scene.  Rather late in the day one of our group asked about the presence of  sharks a question that should really have been asked while we were still on the shore.  If marauding packs of murder fish were swarming around the coast of Lagos it was far too late to do anything about it now except hope they satisfied their hunger on the kayakers before reaching us.

Fortunately the answer denied the presence of sharks in the vicinity while studiously and strangely explicitly refusing to extend the same assurance about killer whales.  Despite the above we returned safely to shore and wandered through the charming town of Lagos seeing (but not entering) the slave museum and no end of gelato shops to the delight of certain members of our tour.  

The next day I walked the other way along the coast until I reached a lighthouse.  There was no particular reason for this except that I announced I would do so in front of witnesses.

Travelling Hopefully - Monoculture Gone Mad Edition

 So it’s time to address the elephant in the room.  Olives; they have been a constant companion on our journey so far.  Whether growing by the side of the road or appearing on our dinner table at ridiculously inflated prices olives have dogged our steps as we make our way through Spain.  

Now that we head for the Portuguese border it is time to give these little round greasy things their due with a blog entry in their honour.

Olives were introduced into Spain in 1923 as part of a cultural exchange programme with Ethiopia.  At first the Spanish didn’t know what to do with them and stored them in a warehouse in Seville.  A carelessly dropped match from a security guards cigarette led to the biggest conflagration in Seville’s history.  So much damage was done that the government of Seville seriously considered building another cathedral on the ruins.

Fortunately sanity prevailed but while fighting the blaze Seville firefighters commented on the purity of the flames and the lack of smoke.  Gripped with excitement the Spanish authorities begged the Ethiopian government to provide them with more.  At this point the Ethiopians broke down and admitted they had bought the lot cheap in a Greek garage sale.

Diplomatic negotiations took place with the Greek authorities and a few months later cheering crowds greeted a Greek cargo vessel as it unloaded its precious cargo at Seville’s docks.  A desperately planting program followed and a mere ten years later every dinner table in Spain was adorned with olives.  In fact olives completely supplanted oleander as the preferred meal accompaniment for the Spanish people.  Coincidentally a sudden reduction in the dinner time mortality rate helped a population boom in Spain boosting the nation’s population from a few thousand to the burgeoning numbers we see today.

Of course today olive trees have spread to the extent that there is barely any room for Spaniards and the government is seriously considering declaring them a noxious weed.  All of which simply proves the old saying “Beware of Ethiopians bearing Greek gifts.”

Travelling Hopefully - Barber of Seville Edition

The next morning was clear and cool and it remained that way for approximately twenty minutes before transitioning to clear and searing hot where it remained for the rest of the day.  For reasons that probably made sense at the time I and a couple of co-tourists had booked a tour of the Alcazar and Seville Cathedral for 3pm a time when the sun had moved from extremely hot to actively murderous.

Our orientation walk took place in the cool of the morning which rapidly became the heat of the morning.  Nevertheless the walk was done and we breakfasted in a thoroughly oriented fashion before fleeing back to our air conditioned dungeon which became more appealing with every moment spent in the sun.

Still you can’t spend the entire holiday hiding in an air conditioned room, apparently.  Thus in the early afternoon I and my companions in heatstroke sallied forth to find the Alcazar.  What we actually found was the tourist office where our tour began.  They sent me a helpful text message telling me to register at the desk.  I replied that I was right there.  The woman behind the desk stopped texting long enough to formally acknowledge my presence on the tour and offer me headphones but a helpful staff member had already given me those so somewhat reluctantly they pronounced me good to go.

A small horde of us set off for the Alcazar following a purple fluffy thing attached to a stick.  The stick in turn was attached to our guide who used it to marshal her troops for the assault on the Alcazar.  I don’t know if the Alcazar was ever attacked by an enemy but if it was I’m pretty sure the assault troops wouldn’t have got past passport control.  Once we had safely negotiated the Alcazar’s defences we set foot in the famous palace while our guide mounted a rear guard action against the passport troops who were regrouping for another assault.

And now I have prevaricated as long as I can so, what was the Alcazar like?  It’s very large, awash with handsome gardens and intricately decorated rooms and generally well worth a visit.  I have to say I was slightly disappointed largely because my expectations were very high.  I have had many reports of the Alcazar being amazing so I felt slightly let down.  On the other hand the combination of gardens and thick stone walls meant it was a few degrees cooler inside which was a blessing.  It also had hyper aggressive peacocks which is something you don’t see every day.

From the Alcazar we went to Seville Cathedral.  The cathedral has an interesting look having been built on the ruins of an earthquake damaged mosque.  The resultant look is sort of Moorish Gothic.  The bell tower is a former minaret done in the Moroccan style.  Indeed the twin of this building is in Marrakech, it’s the one that didn’t quite wind up facing Mecca.  The Spanish stuck bells and an ostentatious windvane on theirs and voila, Christian bell tower.

The interior is very Christian and symbolic of a universal church at the height of its power.  Suffice to say that normally the only people who go in for this level of interior decoration are mafia wives and gangsta rappers.  It  actually works though because the cathedral is so big that 400kg of gold and 1200kg of silver just sort of blend into the background.  This also gives you an idea of what the background is like.  The foreground is much the same but more fore.

There is one priceless, near miraculous thing that being inside several thousand tonne of stone with a ceiling halfway to heaven conveys.  The cathedral is cool dare I say blessedly cool and with the outside temperature having left 40 degrees in its wake I was more than happy to contemplate the wonder of God as long as he didn’t kick me out of his house.

The cathedral also houses the tomb of a small percentage of Christopher Columbus.  Strangely the great explorer seems to have traveled more after he died than he did while he was alive.  His body was housed in a cathedral in Santo Domingo.  As the Spanish colonial empire unraveled the body was moved from place to place before eventually winding up back in Seville.  Apparently they lost quite a bit on the way.  All they have in Seville is a finger and part of a hand and they’re not 100% sure they belong to Columbus.  It’s quite an impressive tomb though.

We saw a flamenco show that night, this is obligatory as Seville is the home of flamenco.  By this stage I was suffering from heat exhaustion and most of what I remember involved stomping.  I do recall the guitarist was better at asserting himself than the one in Granada, he actually got a solo spot part way through the performance.

The next day before we left Seville for somewhere cooler (pretty much anywhere but specifically Portugal) I went for a shave.  This was partly because I needed a shave but it was mainly so I could use “Barber of Seville” in a blog title.

Travelling Hopefully - Wooden Mushroom Edition

 After traversing the oleander fringed motorways of southern Spain our bus lurched to a halt and vomited its contents onto the streets of Seville.  Groaning and slightly dizzy from inadvertent oleander inhalation we took stock of one of the most famous cities in Spain. 

Seville is hot, very hot.  We thought it was hot in Grenada but we were wrong.  The balmy, nay chilly temperatures of Pomegranate City were behind us.  In Seville it was so hot that it is almost impossible to convey how hot it was without resorting to a list of expletives ending in the word “hot”.  Fortunately our hotel had air conditioning.

The air conditioning was the only normal thing about our hotel.  A huge iron gate barred entrance and we had to buzz the reception staff to let us in.  Once in the same iron gate effectively prevented us from leaving unless the same reception staff were inclined to let us go.  One gets the impression that the building was originally designed to be a sex dungeon and was converted to a hotel part way through construction.

With our bags offloaded and the air conditioning relished in it was time to beg permission from the staff to leave so we could get some lunch (food being something the hotel didn’t provide).  A five minute walk brought us to the closest place that served food and since we were all suffering from heat exhaustion it was decided that this was an excellent spot to stop.

This cafe was also convenient for a large wooden mushroom which was on our list of things to do in Seville. The Setas de Sevilla is a large wooden structure which looms over part of the city near our hotel.  It is described as a “cultural landmark” which is code for “we paid a lot of money for this now stop asking us what the hell it is”.  What it is is a purely wooden structure which sprawls over a block and somewhat inadequately provides shade for the citizenry beneath.

Shade for the population of Seville is an excellent idea but there are better ways of providing it than building a roughly mushroom shaped wooden lattice work which has the disadvantage of letting the sun through.  Apparently the population of Seville aren’t crazy about the thing as they feel it doesn’t really complement the current skyline of the city.  To be fair there aren’t too many cities where a giant wooden mushroom type thingy would blend seamlessly with the surrounding architecture and I’m pretty sure most of those cities where it would blend in are not on earth.

Underneath this towering monument to modernity is a collection of Roman ruins which were unearthed while excavating the foundations for the wooden mushroom type thingy.  I popped in there to remind myself of a time when structures were sensibly made out of stone and needed a vaguely rational reason for existence.  Then I fled back to the sex dungeon/hotel for some air conditioning.

Our lovely guide had put off our orientation walk until the cool of the evening on the grounds that doing it at midday would kill us.  Evening rolled around and was hotter than midday.  Not wanting to end the tour with a bunch of corpses on her hands she re rescheduled for the next morning something that we her charges agreed to largely on the promise of breakfast.

That evening we had tickets to actually climb the Setas (we’ll go up in a lift actually).  There is a curving walkway which allows visitors to look out over the Seville skyline.  Coloured lights within the structure illuminate various parts of it in different colours.  It has to be said that nighttime is when the Setas comes into its own.  The light show and the views combine for a beautiful display which almost makes you forget that it’s 10.30pm and still 35 degrees.  Almost but not quite, we fled back to air conditioning.  I have never been so happy to hear a dungeon door slam behind me.

Travelling Hopefully - Random Rock Extrusion Edition

 I saw flamenco dancers in a cave.  I say cave, it was more of a tunnel.  Well I say tunnel, it was more of a room.  But it was a long low roofed room which gave off a definite tunnely vibe.  The rough, jagged ceiling was certainly reminiscent of a cave or possibly a poor stucco job.  On balance though I’m going to go with cave partly because it’s cooler to say I saw flamenco dancers in a cave than to say I saw them in a room with a poor plastering job but also because what with all the stamping if it had been stucco the ceiling would have been all over the floor by the end of the night.

Chairs had been set up against the walls of the tunnel (or cave or whatever) leaving a narrow runway in the middle for impassioned stomping.  It was advisable to keep your feet tucked as close to your chair as possible.  Drinks were provided and a procession of brightly dressed people made their way to the end of the cave (or tunnel or whatever) and assembled in a semi circle looking back at us.  There was a guy with a guitar whose sole purpose appeared to be getting drowned out by the dancers.

Once both artists and audience had been gathered together in roughly the same place the performance began.  A woman detached herself from the semi circle of performers and took her place on the runway between the audience.  The guitarist strummed a few notes relishing only moment when he could actually be heard and the performance began.

Describing the performance and doing it justice is difficult.  Imagine a drag queen on meth tap dancing and then imagine they are doing it with furious energy, incredible grace and tremendous poise.  Plus they’re doing it in a space where one false move will put them in the lap of an audience member.  It was spectacular, dramatic and very loud.  Grace and energy are difficult to combine effectively but here the two came together flawlessly.  It was an amazing performance and quite made up for the lack of stalactites on offer.

The cave flamenco was Granada’s farewell performance and quite a performance it was.  The next day a bus would perform its design function by transporting us to Seville in air conditioned semi discomfort.  Given the anticipated temperature in Seville air conditioned anything is preferable to the alternative.

Our noble metal steed barreled down a highway with olive trees stretching into the distance on either side.  From time to time a rock extrusion would rear up out of the olive tree covered earth and try unsuccessfully to assert the presence of other geographical features other than olive trees but sadly in vain.  The only other plants in evidence were oleander.  Our guide at the Alhambra the previous day had informed us that the Spanish line their highways with oleander.  The reason?  Oleander is incredibly poisonous and the mere smell dissuades wildlife from getting too close.  As a result Spain has one of the lowest roadkill rates in Europe.  This is good news for the wildlife (assuming they don’t need to cross the road) but it’s bad news for the desperate poor who are deprived of a vital source of protein and now have nothing to eat but oleander.

Travelling Hopefully - Pomegranate City

 In Granada it’s all about the pomegranates.  Well it isn’t actually nevertheless you will find various depictions of pomegranates popping up in unlikely places around the city including its flag. Even the name of the town reflects the pomegranate obsession held by the locals since earliest times.  Pomegranates were symbolic of wealth, abundance, fertility and a functioning market garden economy.  Since the founding of Grenada the Spanish have planted olive trees on every available piece of open land but it’s still the pomegranate that gets the shout out on the regional flag.  It is unknown whether this has caused resentment in the olive community.

After gazing at the Alhambra from afar the previous evening today today we would get up close and personal with all things red brick and monumental.  In deference to the hysterical weeping from one member of our tour group it was determined that we would catch a bus to the entrance rather than struggle up by foot.  Struggling by foot would commence once we alighted from the bus.

The Alhambra has a passport control stricter than many countries and we had to flash our proof of foreignership on multiple occasions just so we could continue to trespass on a national monument.  Immigration issues aside our path was smoothed by an excellent guide whose name I would repeat if I could remember it.  He was exceptionally knowledgeable and told us a lot of useful information about the Alhambra to add mental colour to our gawking.

The main thing he told us was that basically it was all about the plumbing.  The Alhambra is huge, basically a royal city encircled by a wall.  There is the palace where the Sultan hung out, a fort where the soldiers who alternately protected and menaced the aforementioned Sultan lived and the rest was occupied by all of the little people who rarely get a mention in history but without whom the Sultan would just be an overdressed guy with delusions of grandeur.  All of these people needed water, including the Sultan and this is a bit of a problem because the one thing Granada doesn’t have in abundance is water.

So for the Alhambra the whole place is designed to facilitate the flow of water (hijacked from a local river) from the top of the complex to the bottom through several kilometres of pipes and channels to ensure that every body got the wet stuff they needed and the Sultan could indulge his penchant for fountains.

Giving a silent acknowledgement to the Mario brothers of old we set off on the first stage of our tour which wasn’t the Alhambra at all but the Sultan’s summer palace a short way up the road.  It was called the Generallife a name which prompted our guide to assure us that it meant something different in Spanish and the Sultans were not in fact sponsored by an insurance company.  Given the average life expectancy of each Sultan there wouldn’t be an insurance company in the world that would touch them.

In keeping with most Islamic architecture the summer palace was pretty unimpressive on the outside with all of the cool stuff within.  This is partly modesty and a desire not to flaunt your wealth to the neighbours.  Modesty is all very well but if you happen to be sitting on a small (or large) fortune it’s probably simple common sense not to rub it in the faces of the less fortunate lest they decide to improve their fortune at your expense.

Surrounding the summer palace are vegetable gardens which have been producing edibles for centuries and continue to do so to this day.  Much of the summer palace is actually more modern as it was given as a reward to a wealthy Muslim family who betrayed the Sultan, abandoned their religion and discovered that the wages of sin were a large palace and marriage into the Grimaldi family.  You may remember the Grimaldi, they were a bunch of Italian thugs who captured Monaco by disguising themselves as monks and seizing the citadel by surprise.  They’re still there.  Anyway of course this family wanted to keep up with the latest trends so the gardens and renovations tend to be more French than traditionally Islamic.

Once past this monument to treachery and apostasy we followed the water channels down until we were in the Alhambra itself.  There’s quite a lot of it.  We first moved through the city where all those who laboured in the Sultan’s service lived.  Of this part not a shred remains.  As our guide pointed out it is the palace and the fort that gets all the publicity, nobody is going to pay scarce dollars to preserve a peasant hovel if there’s a palace crumbling next door.  And there is a palace crumbling next door.  In fact there are two.  Holy Roman Emperor (and King of Spain) Charles V demolished a chunk of the Sultan’s palace so that he could build a honeymoon palace on the site.  He stayed precisely one night and never came back.  To be fair this was at least partly because his empress (and co-participant in the honeymoon) developed an irrational fear of earthquakes and they decided to finish the honeymoon somewhere the roof was less likely to fall on their heads.

In place of the homes of the ordinary folk (although since they were direct servants of the Sultan they probably weren’t that ordinary) a handsome garden has been planted with gaps in the hedges representing the doors to various dwellings that had once been there.  My conclusion, houses were very small back then unless you were the Sultan or Holy Roman Emperor of course.

Past this leafy representation of the proletariat (or perhaps more accurately petty bourgeoisie) we come to the fort.  Towering walls with a view across the city of Grenada good enough to make anyone who lived there reconsider any treacherous thoughts they may have possessed.  There were also dungeons and grain silos which bore a remarkable similarity to each other.  The principal difference was you could exit the grain silo under your own steam.  Plus barracks which proved that the soldiers weren’t much better housed than the civilians.

And so to the royal palace where the Sultan sat in state and dispensed justice (at least it came from the Sultan so if you were interested in seeing tomorrow you called it justice and praised Allah for the Sultan’s wisdom and mercy).  As was traditional the palace started off unimpressive and got less so the further you got into it.  By the time you reached the room where the Sultan gave audience you had navigated twisting corridors, surprise opening doors, the obligatory pond and fountain combo and finally reached a room where the sun shone through stained glass and reflected onto the Sultan himself in such a way that it was difficult to determine what exactly you were seeing.  What you did know was you were in the presence of a man who could arrange the entire architecture of a palace so that you couldn’t quite see him even when you were looking straight at him.  Nothing about this was accidental.

At the end of the pond beyond the archway is the throne room

Having passed through the royal reception room (the Sultan was out) we emerged blinking into the sunlight and made our way through a conveniently planted forest back to the still inhabited part of the city which had the advantage of being closer to our hotel.

Travelling Hopefully - Bus Edition

 My solo travelling days, well day, were done.  After drinking deep of culture at the Prado I returned to find a semi random stranger installed in my room.  Sadly this wasn’t a mistake, I would be sharing a room for the remainder of my trip.  That evening a small gathering took place so that we could meet our tour leader and make ourselves known to her so she could identify our bodies should something happen to us that wasn’t on the itinerary.

And it was a small group, a mere five eager travelers gathered to hear the words of our leader.  As I have come to expect on these holidays we were a diverse group hailing from all over Australia.  We had two people from Perth which seemed a little excessive but I was prepared to be accommodating.  Our tour leader was perfectly qualified to guide us around all things Spanish as she came from Mexico.  She did however live in Lisbon and was quite delighted when in a pathetic attempt to impress we all announced that this was the particular part of the trip we were most looking forward to.

With the preliminaries out of the way we ate food and prepared for the next day’s journey.  The next day’s journey consisted of a five hour bus trip to Granada.  Pack snacks and water we advised.  I duly acquired a packet of crisps from somewhere but decided that flooding my body with water was not a sensible precursor to a five hour bus ride.

We left Madrid in what was essentially an air conditioning unit on wheels and headed south.  For the first time since my arrival I felt distinctly chilly.  Not that I was complaining, well I didn’t complain much.  At least I didn’t complain much once the other passengers threatened to throw me off the bus if I didn’t stop complaining.  So I shivered and looked at the scenery.

The scenery was amazing if you have a fetish for olive trees.  If you hate olive trees it’s going to be a long journey.  Actually the scenery reminded me quite a bit of Australia if you can imagine Australia covered in olive trees.  We crossed wasn’t quite a plain but certainly wasn’t rough enough to be considered hilly.  Every so often we stopped, I thought for a refreshment break but was actually so that we could change drivers.  No consideration was given to changing passengers.

As we approached Granada Spain got distinctly lumpier as we headed into the Sierra Nevada which constitute a major reason why Grenada was the last Muslim state in Iberia to fall to the reconquista.  Fall it did though but Grenada is still one of the areas of Spain where Islamic influence is visible.  As a stone example of said influence we would visit the Alhambra tomorrow.

For today once we had rinsed the travel dust from our bodies and made frantic dashes to the bathroom we had the traditional Intrepid tour familiarisation walk which consisted of finding the highest ground available and walking to it.  This took us through the old town of Granada with narrow streets and narrower alleyways and shops selling Turkish delight.  They sold other things as well but I focused on the Turkish delight.

Climbing up streets too narrow for cars, pausing to flatten ourselves against the walls when cars went by regardless, we made our way to a church perched above the city which afforded views of the Alhambra across the valley.  Even those of us muttering about the climb had to admit it was worth it.  The next day would have us up close and personal to the former centre of Muslim rule in Granada.  For some reason we needed our passports.

Travelling Hopefully - Mental Improvement Edition

 Something I’ve noticed about Madrid is they have quite the fountain fetish happening.  At least in the central part you can’t walk ten metres without some piece of stonework spitting water at you.  Not that, given the prevailing temperature, this is unwelcome.

After a brief twelve hour nap I bounded out of bed to see what Madrid could present me with.  I had one thing booked, a tour of the Prado Museum (it’s actually an art gallery but don’t tell anyone).  Aside from that my calendar was clear.  I soon discovered that I could probably have put a couple of other things in it.

My walk to the Retiro the previous day had left me physically prostrate (that’s a fancy way of saying “tired”) and I was concerned that getting to the Prado would be similarly difficult.  Happily the difference between me jet lagged and me rested would be decisive.

I set off at 8am for a 1pm tour which is taking caution to new heights but I was a man with a plan.  Having scoped out the way to the Prado yesterday I proceeded to go in a completely different direction.  My plan was to walk through a riverside park, turn right wander up to the royal palace, turn right again and approach the Prado from a completely different direction and, once culture had been imbibed turn right a final time and hopefully wind up back at my hotel.  Much to my surprise this plan came off flawlessly.

According to the park website the river is being “rewilded” which is a fancy way of saying “we’re letting the grass grow”.  The website waxed lyrical about the explosion of plant and animal life that has resulted.  I didn’t see too much of that but it was only eight in the morning so possibly they were still in bed.

I rather like Madrid or at least the part of it I was staying in.  Not only do they do parks on a grand scale but there are little plazas every block or so with a few trees and some seats for the locals to relax in.  I’ve also noticed that the population comes in two distinct types.  One half of the population are lean, fit and muscled, bursting with good health and fitness.  The other half are paunchy, flabby chain smoking wrecks.  There seems to be no in between.  I fit in nicely with approximately 50% of the population.

With the park at an all too soon end I girded my girdables and turned right towards the royal palace.  Handsome buildings and apartment blocks greeted my exit from the park.  To be fair many of the handsome buildings were apartment blocks.  At first I strolled up a broad, tree lined boulevard but as I approached the palace the roads narrowed and the buildings grew closer together.  Which meant that when I crossed a bridge and encountered both the royal palace and the Cathedral of Almudena, both of which are large enough to warrant their own post code, I was a little stunned.

The palace wasn’t anything special apart from being huge but the cathedral was as impressive as a cathedral next door to a royal palace should be.  It was now I wished I had booked a tour of the palace as well.  I had plenty of time unfortunately what I didn’t have time for was to stand in the lengthy queue to get a ticket.

I was taking a breather in the inevitable park next to the palace when the rattle of drums summoned me to my duty. They were changing the guard at the palace.  It was probably very impressive at the front gate but I was facing a side entrance where half a dozen soldiers and two guys on horseback were deemed sufficient to protect the most Catholic king from the ravening mob.  Speaking as an impromptu member of said mob I would have appreciated a few more soldiers.  Although if you want to overthrow the Spanish monarchy I can give you directions.

Once the amusement value of the exterior of the palace had been exhausted I turned right again and headed roughly in the direction of the Prado.  My path took me through narrow streets lined with cafes and shops, your basic “old town of European city” district.  It was appealing as such areas generally are but my eyes were on a bigger prize, the Prado beckoned.

Onward I strode, not just walked but strode, when I thought I was getting close I paused in front of a large building and checked the map.  If I hadn’t done that I would have face planted the Prado.  Once there it was a small matter to meet my guide, who was improbably named Macarena and set off for aging artworks.

I can’t really do the Prado justice so I shan’t try.  Large building, lots of paintings now you’ve got the gist.  I didn’t see the entire thing in a mere two hour tour but there was some creepily cool stuff by Heironymous Bosch, Velasquez hanging all over the place and paintings by a guy named van Eyck which seemed pretty impressive to a novice.  I was delighted to recognise Titian’s painting of Charles V possibly the only time I’ve ever recognised an artwork.  The tour finished with Goya and particularly the “black paintings” which were amazing; dull shades and metallic colours where there was colour at all.  The artist was apparently going through a period of depression which frankly was quite obvious.  They were grim, haunting and amazing.  He apparently painted them on the walls of his house and by some technique which was literally hit or miss they managed to transfer them to canvas so they could conveniently fit in a museum.

The Prado’s cafe lives up to the tradition established by all cafes located in a place where food isn’t the priority by serving truly dreadful coffee.  I didn’t risk the food but sat there sipping coffee, occasionally grimacing and feeling as cultured as anything.  Sadly the Prado doesn’t allow photos so I can’t actually prove I went there.  Although I can certainly prove I saw the outside.

Oh yes and I got a Spanish football shirt as well.

Travelling Hopefully- Random Fountain Edition

 It had to be said a brief lamination inspired moment of terror notwithstanding my trip was as smooth and easy as a three flight journey can be.  Turkish Airlines fed me honeycomb and clotted cream and topped it off with Turkish coffee and then while my eyeballs were still rattling around inside my head they deposited me in Madrid where clearing customs took less time than baggage collection.  There are definite advantages to flying during the week.

Having transformed my hotel room from a smart little location to an elephant’s graveyard of shabby clothes in the blink of an eye I looked about for something to do to stave off physical collapse until nightfall.  The next day I was booked in for a tour of the Prado museum and it seemed a sensible idea to wander up there the day before to get an idea of how long the walk was and to get the getting lost out of the way while I had time on my hands.

In my defence I only got lost once and not irretrievably (I obviously survived to make this post) and in more time than it takes to tell I found the Jardin Retiro..  Keen readers may note that I was looking for the Prado but the Retiro was right next door and a worthy target in its own right.  It is a large public park with the usual collection of trees and signs warning you not to feed the animals.  Hopefully birds don’t count as animals in Madrid because literally everyone seemed to be feeding them.  I took photos of the more photogenic.  “Photogenic being defined as those that stood still long enough to be photographed.

But the real draw card of the Retiro (apart from the Observatory, the Crystal Palace, random bird life and well sculpted nature) is the fountains.  It seems that everywhere that doesn’t have a tree has a fountain.  I had a particular fountain in mind and felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment when I blundered across it.  This is the Fountain of the Fallen Angel and is possibly the only statue to Lucifer on public display.

It was definitely worth photographing although paying twenty Euro for a potato omelette from the little shop nearby was probably unwise.  On the other hand I may not need to eat again for the rest of my trip.  There were many other handsome statues and some equally impressive ducks but simply attaching that photo was a strain on my somewhat disheveled intellectual state so you’re just going to have to use your imagination.

Travelling Hopefully - Jet Lag Edition

 I must definitely choose to fly on Mondays more often.  It would appear that not many people do and the absence of other human beings makes for a much more pleasant journey.

On arrival at Sydney airport I was greeted by short queues, little confusion and a general lack of teeming throng.  I may have mentioned in the past that Sydney airport bears a strong resemblance to Limbo, the gloomy, featureless netherworld where the souls of the dead await their final destination.  No longer was that true, now it looked like Limbo from which most of the souls had been removed.  Even Hell is desirable if you have the place to yourself.

Smoothly I was whisked through baggage checks, smoothly I made my way to the departure gate and smoothly we boarded the plane as close to on time as makes no difference.  Then of course the captain announced smoothly that something had fallen off the aircraft  and there would be a delay while they nailed it back on.  We were an hour late taking off but it was a smooth hour delay.

It was at least thirty seconds into the flight before the baby started crying which I thought showed genuine restraint. Despite the hour long delay we were assured that we would arrive in Jakarta on time which begs the question what the hell would we have been doing for that extra hour if the plane had left on time?

We were waylaid at Jakarta airport by a guy with a laminated sign who demanded that everyone flying to Istanbul had to accompany him.  Such was the power of the sign that we all accepted this without question.  He could have been literally anyone.  Well anyone with access to a sign laminating machine.  Never underestimate the power of lamination.

Having herded those who admitted to an Istanbul destination into a deserted niche he of the laminated sign then vanished for ten minutes or so which was just enough time for some of us to envision cavity searches in our immediate future.  He reappeared with a couple of security guards (or cosplayers) and collectively they fired up a small X-ray machine and scanned both our hand luggage and ourselves.  Then apparently satisfied they released us into the wild a few short minutes walk from our departure gate.  At no point was it explained why we had been honoured in such a fashion.

Lest anyone think international travel is easy I should point out that I used my steak knife to butter my roll and was thus reduced to cutting my steak with a butter knife.  Also the steward dropped a cherry tomato into my lap; the struggle is real people.

After the lamination induced excitement at Jakarta our arrival at Istanbul was pretty low key, possibly due to the fact that it was four in the morning.  We appeared to be somewhat early which was handy as the airport was huge.  Still I managed to get to where I needed to go which was quite an achievement as my sleep patterns were so messed up by this stage that I was relying on my passport to remind me of my own name.  The picture in my passport was taken one day when I was quite unwell and it is pretty much perfect for identification at this stage of my journey.  If I ever get enough sleep and a change of clothes I’ll probably be detained as an imposter.

Silly After Action Report - They're Here! Reverse!

 Capitano Verdelho Frascati stood bolt upright in the turret of his M13/40 and struck a heroic pose as regulations demanded.  Around him the air was full of the sound of diesel engines doing their best.  Ahead little L6/40s, pilot fish to the mighty M13 sharks, nipped and weaved as they ploughed forward across the sand.  In Frascati's wake trucks hauled guns and infantry, dropping slightly behind but eager to be in at the kill.  Frascati adjusted his jaw to an appropriately Mussoliniesque angle, breathed deeply and promptly started gasping, coughing and retching.

At a rest break fifteen minutes later he was still gasping and choking.  Tears had transformed the dust on his cheeks into muddy channels.  It was difficult to attempt a heroic pose when you were doubled over retching but he did his best.  The maggiore was unimpressed.

"What the hell did you think you were doing Frascati?" he demanded.

"I was striking a heroic pose," wheezed Frascati, "to encourage the men."

"Well congratulations, you've sprayed your "heroic pose" all over the turret of your tank.  I think you can consider your men encouraged.  I've never seen a crew leave a vehicle that quickly.  Now get a squeegie and wipe down the gun mount we're moving again in five minutes.  And possibly you've learnt a lesson about not striking heroic poses in a dust intensive environment.  I suggest you go buttoned up from here like the rest of us."

"Buttoned up?" muttered Frascati glancing at the rather messy interior of his tank.

"Buttoned up," confirmed the maggiore.  "It's a good thing your men are so well encouraged.  You couldn't pay me enough to get into that particular tank right now."

At my increasingly pathetic pleading Dave very kindly agreed to play Scenario J47 - They're Here! Reverse! a scenario which has the highest ratio of exclamation marks to words in it's title that I have ever encountered.  I of course desperately wanted to play the Italians and Dave (who likes winning) was happy to oblige.  He even gave me the balance which added another two L6/40s to my OB.  This was almost a mistake as those little dinky toys punched well above their weight.

It is pre-Rommel north African desert and what's left of the Italian army is in fast rewind desperately attempting to get to Tripoli before the British do.  Unfortunately the sneaky British have cut across behind them and are now waiting in ambush.  There is intense heat haze, there is dust, there are smoke tanks.  What more could a man want?  I command an Italian tank force that is either attempting to clear the path for follow on troops or (more likely) stampede past the British and keep on running.  To do this I have to clear one of two hillocks of all British troops.  Standing in my path is Dave's doughty but outnumbered force.

It has to be admitted I have quite the force.  Thanks to the balance I have four L6/40 tanks, a dozen M13/40s and a pair of AB40 armoured cars.  An 8-1 armour leader commands.  I also have ten squads of bersaglieri commanded by a pair of deeply mediocre officers and carrying collectively a medium machine gun and a pair of hernia inducing 20mm antitank rifles.  Four trucks prove insufficient to cart all of these forward, some would have to march.  I also have three antitank guns, two 37mm and one 47mm all towed behind smaller trucks barely capable of carrying the gun crews.  This is the force that must sweep the British aside and gain Italy an unlikely victory.

For his part Dave is short on numbers but high on quality.  Nestled in sangars on the desired hillocks are six first line British squads equipped with a mmg and an antitank rifle.  They are led by a gallant 9-1 and a less than enthusiastic 7-0.  But Dave's real power lies in his armour.  He has four A13 MkII tanks carrying a 40mm gun, easily the equal of the 47mm mounted on my M13s and a pair of A13 MkI tanks with the same armament but sadly deficient in the armour department.  He also has a pair of A13 MkII CS tanks which fire smoke.  Just that and nothing else.  To ram the message home on turn four he receives another pair of smoke tanks.  At least they have a machine gun.  Possibly the most potent weapon Dave had was the 2 ROF on his A13 tanks.  A mild breeze is blowing across the battlefield and intense heat haze is in effect.

Here is the start set up with a horde of Italians waiting to enter

Despite the appearance of the map I had set up to hit the smaller, easternmost hillock with the bulk of my force while a group of tanks made threat displays towards the other hillock generated dust and generally attempted to divert the attention of his tanks on and around the other hillock.  L6/40s would lead the way and hopefully protect their bigger cousins with some dust.

The Italians obviously have a much larger force but the likelihood is that they will lose a decent chunk of it along the way.  The Italians are on the move making shooting difficult while the British are hull down behind hillocks (if the British have any sense) and the first couple of turns are a shooting gallery as the British try to whittle the numbers down while the Italians think dustlike thoughts and hope for the best.

End of Italian first turn

This was pretty much the situation for the first couple of turns.  Dave started as he meant to go on with one of his A13s getting rate and smashing up a couple of flanking M13s.  Burning wrecks would add to the amount of hindrances in the air.  There was so much dust it looked like a scene from The Mummy (the cool one with Brendan Fraser not the slobbering bucket of godforsaken crap with Tom Cruise).  Within that dust my surviving force ploughed doggedly onward.  Up front my faster moving armoured cars positioned themselves ostensibly so that they could start shooting up his infantry but actually so that his tanks would shoot at something less valuable than the M13s.  They were only partially successful in that regard.

By the end of Dave's first turn another M13 was knocked out and one of the armoured cars was ablaze.  The other had been shocked by a squad with an antitank rifle but at least it had lost concealment.  In my second turn I had pretty much reached the hillock and could start attempting to inflict some damage myself.  A trio of L6s surrounded his forward squad with the atr, admittedly one was immobilised and another had broken its MA but they were there goddammit.  M13s started to circle around to the east trying to find dust free shooting positions and my long suffering infantry gasped and stumbled towards the battlefield in support.  The trucks hauling my atgs were grimly battling through the dust as well.  I gained my first kill when I blew up the tank holding his armour leader and more smoke drifted across the battlefield effectively shrouding his mmg team and best officer.  Little did I know it them but that smoke was to prove my nemesis.

Incidentally how good are the L6 tanks.  They're nippy, they can place 6FP on infantry targets and that boxed 3 frontal armour makes them actually harder to kill through the front than the M13s quite apart from the fact that they're a small target as well.  They all died eventually of course but "they all died eventually of course" is basically the autobiography of any armour under my command.

End of Italian turn 2.  More dust, more smoke

In Dave' second turn a pair of L6s met their nemesis.  The atr killed one and another on the far west was immobilised.  Destroying it proved difficult but repeated hits eventually forced the crew to flee.  On top of that he shocked a pair of M13s and one which had broken its MA in the previous turn decided, wisely, to flee for the rear rather than take any further part in proceedings.  Meanwhile Dave had finally found a use for his smoke tanks.  We had spent much of the game to this point wondering what possible use they could be, now Dave proceeded to demonstrate.  He sent them forward into my rear and started shooting up my long suffering infantry as they attempted to catch up with the armoured spearhead.  I had disdained to shoot at them when I had the chance and now I paid for it as they made play in the backfield.

Suddenly the smoke tanks are useful after all

My third turn was one of ups and downs.  I killed the second tank on the hillock thus leaving only a pair of infantry squads between myself and my goal.  On the other hand armoured leadership was having a bad day.  Dave's armour leader was burning inside a tank and mine managed to break the MA of his tank taking a shot.  The tank would die before it was repaired.  One of my shocked tanks recovered but the other was killed by an A13.  On the target hillock Dave had been driven out of the first sangar and the smoke from his burning wrecks was hampering the efforts of his mmg team to gain useful results.  Such of my infantry as had ridden to the battle on trucks now pushed forward to the hillock but the stragglers were prey to his smoke tanks.  Foolishly I sent one of these squads into CC with a smoke tank and had to watch in disbelief as not only did I not get a result but the tanks return fired wiped out the squad.  A squad with an atr now felt obliged to linger in the rear to deal with these guys and I unloaded a 37mm atg as well.  The other 37mm was right up at the front on the east side of the hillock  The 47mm also unloaded to try its luck against his other tanks.

Casualties have been high but I seem to be getting somewhere

Things brightened up when my atr team shocked one of his smoke tanks and the other broke down while attempting to start.  Unfortunately the shocked tank recovered the next turn while the infantry I had at the front was insufficient to truly challenge for control of the hillock.  Still I was hopeful.  I had a pair of M13s behind the hillock and now the hulldown status would start to benefit me as well.  If I could deal with the remaining infantry Dave would have to attack and I hoped that what little remained of my armour could beat off any such effort.  Rather surprisingly he brought his surviving MkI (with the thin armour) closer up onto the road where it rapidly gained an accumulation of acquisition counters from what little remained to shoot at it.

Foolishly I'm starting to feel hopeful

My poor little L6s didn't survive the sudden renewal of attention on them now that the bulk of the M13s were gone.  In return my 37mm atg set his MkI ablaze thus providing more smoke while in the rear his smoke tanks dropped down smoke rounds rendering the other two atgs pretty much impotent.  Dave's reinforcing smoke tanks rolled forward and headed straight for the hillock.  Smoke and dust now shrouded the hillock to the point where it was almost impossible to see anything.

The reinforcing smoke tanks have arrived.  You just can't see them under all the dust and smoke.

In actual fact the term "almost impossible to see anything" turned out to be an understatement.  What with smoke from burning wrecks and vehicular dust it was impossible to see anything.  I rolled my remaining platoon of M13s up adjacent to his surviving sangar dwellers only to discover that even at point blank range they couldn't see the defenders in the next hex.  Dave moved his smoke tanks into the hexes occupied by his infantry to create more dust and make it impossible for such of the Italian infantry as was left to completely clear them out even assuming they passed the 1PAATC required to even try.  With five turns down and time getting late I gave Dave the concession.  I had been brought to a standstill.  The plethora of smoke and dust meant there was very little chance of his tanks inflicting any more harm on me but I could not get forward the final hex or so I needed for victory.

Literally no-one can see anyone else

This game would be appalling to play face to face.  As Dave put it, it was counter clutter from Hell.  On line however I found it enormously enjoyable.  I am deeply grateful to Dave for playing what was certainly not his first choice.  So victory to Dave and my surprisingly gallant Italians coming up short at the last.

"Well I see you manage to survive Frascati," noted the maggiore.  "I was hoping, sorry expecting you to find a hero's death on the hillock like so many of your comrades."

"I'm sorry sir but the dust and smoke were so bad that I couldn't see anything at all."

"You managed to see the exit clearly enough.  And what the hell did you do to that gun?"

Frascati glanced with embarrassment at his tank where a team of mechanics with rather nauseated looks on their faces were attempting to "repair" the main armament.  Finally one of them got a high pressure hose and simply sprayed the inside of the tank.  Finished he gave a thumbs up.

"Just needed to clean out the dust and organic matter," announced the chief mechanic.  "Where did you find organic matter in the desert anyway?"

"I believe Capitano Frascati provided it himself."