Southern Italy (or, 'The Cheese Binge')

Our second week in Italy, we spent two nights in the southern town of Sorrento, renowned for its pretty cliff-top views of the Bay of Naples, and for its alarming lack of traffic lights.

We spent a day wandering the ruins of resurrected Pompeii, in the shadow of Vesuvius (which is, by the way, still very much active), hopping across the stepping stones in ancient streets that spent more than a millennium and a half suffocated beneath ten metres of ash. Remarkably, some of the frescoes inside the houses survived.

We had two fantastic meals in Sorrento: gnocchi alla Sorrentina at a cute little restaurant, and take-away pizza on the roof of our hotel, from which we could see the whole bay, as well as the volcano's bare slopes.

From Sorrento, we hopped aboard a train to Rome. I'd worried that I would find the Italian capital to be too flashy, too aggressive - maybe it was because we'd rolled in during the off-season, but I was pleased to find it relaxed, a confident seductress.

La famille Hartholt explores the Colosseum

Now, it was time for a history blitz. We roamed the battered Colosseum, its pock-marked shell covered in opportunistic plants. The underground chambers have been excavated and you can see right into the labyrinth of rooms and passages in which animals and people waited out the final moments of their lives.

We wandered the Palatine, where the red-brick remains of Roman palaces are scattered on the hill overlooking the Circus Maximus racetrack.

We spent a day between St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican museums, both of which are dripping with wealth beyond comprehension. St. Peter's, built on the site where Roman Emperor Nero had Saints Peter and Paul crucified around AD 67, is stunning. The pink marble walls are decorated with lavish amounts of gold leaf, stunning frescoes, and masterful sculptures. The place is so large, so enveloping, that the crowds weren't even a hindrance.

Me and St Peter's - for Gran!

The collections in the museums are also astounding. The Vatican owns heaps and heaps of priceless ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, paintings, Renaissance-era sculptures... and that's before you even discuss the frescoes by Renaissance masters like Michelangelo and Raphael, which are in themselves priceless. The sheer volume of the collection rivals the British Museum, and exploring it took the whole afternoon. Obviously the Sistine Chapel, where each new pope is elected, is the star of the show, where Michelangelo's frescoes of muscular men and women show the creation of the universe and of man, but I found Raphael's frescoes to be just as beautiful - maybe more so.

All that said, it's hard to know that a state run by a religious organization that preaches charity has untold masses of wealth hoarded within its walls. How many Greek statues would buy food for a starving village, or a whole country? There are some very poor people out there who need the wealth more than the Vatican needs to store it.

Our remaining days in Rome were spent walking the medieval centre, enjoying the fresh air at the delightfully green Villa Borghese, eating all of the pasta and pizza and cheese I could get my hands on, and of course, enjoying each other's company - because at the airport, we left John and Val for another six months. It was fantastic to spend the two weeks with you two - thank you for everything! We miss you!

And finally, leaving Rome for Malaysia, it was time to find some new adventures.

S.

Tuscany

Although I would love to write a pile of posts about our two weeks in Italy, I'm going to try to keep it to one for each week so that I can start getting caught up with myself.

We took a night ferry loaded with large, loud Italian families and jovial, guitar-strumming monks from Split, in Croatia to Ancona in Italy. Despite all our worry over the Schengen Area visas, the Italian border guard barely glanced at our passports. So maybe counting out exactly ninety days wasn't entirely necessary.

We met Dan's parents, Val and John, just up the coast in Rimini, spent a night there sharing stories and catching up, and set off the next morning for Tuscany.

Although it doesn't look all that far on the map, the drive through the mountains to Tuscany's rolling hills took all day. And as it was Sunday, all the shops were closed out in the country. (Who knew you could get so hungry in Italy?!) But finally, we made it to San Gimignano.


We were perched on the side of a valley of grape vines, lit bright in the late afternoon sun. A kilometre off, on the crown of the nearest hill, was the silhouette of a perfectly preserved medieval city, its skyline sprinkled with tall, square towers and ringed by thick stone walls. Although our apartment for the week was nearer to the walls, but it was worth a drive out to the main guesthouse for the view (and the pool and the wifi).

Over the course of the week, in addition to exploring the cobbled streets of San Gimignano, we went on day trips to Pisa where the leaning tower is much larger and at much more of an angle than I'd anticipated, to Cinque Terre, to Siena and to a small winery.

At Cinque Terre, we hiked along the number two trail, down the Via dell'Amoure (Lovers Lane) from Riomaggiore To Manarola, a pretty and very flat stroll along the cliff side and then Dan and I hiked the more rolling stretch from Corniglia to Vernazza, where we met back up with Val and John for drinks and foccacia. The views from the cliffs over the ocean are stunning, and the trail led us through olive groves and gardens that cling to the rocks, steeped in the salty breeze. Unfortunately, even in late September, the trails were busy. About half the walk, we were stuck in an ant trail behind meandering tour groups.

In Siena, the enormous cathedral took my breath away - and at this point, I've seen my share of European churches. The walls, inside and out, are striped white and deep green marble; the floor is rife with biblical depictions in carved marble; the hymnals in the library are two feet tall, their verses painted in vivid colours and gold leaf. Really, really beautiful.

We spent a morning at the Casa Emma, where big, sweet grapes grow up to become Chianti wine, the regional specialty. The tour was informative, and the tasting was a yummy breakfast (also informative. I love having wine explained because I can never decode it myself. Thank you to Carlos!)

And of course, we spent lots of time drinking wine by the guesthouse pool, looking down at the vineyards and up at the town, lots of time eating rich and hearty Tuscan food, and lots of time chatting and playing cards. Because that's what is best about Italy: wine, food and family.

S.

Cave Dwellings

Capadoccia is out of the way. It's in the centre of Turkey, hours from any other touristy destination - but it's incredibly popular as a window into an ancient lifestyle and a unique landscape.

We rolled into Göreme, the region's most popular town, on a Sunday morning, tired from a restless snooze on the night bus from Istanbul. We made our way through the little crowd of hotel owners offering lodging, and down a street full of restaurants and souvenir shops and ATV rental agencies to find our hotel.

Soft, white stone is the defining feature of the whole region. There are two major draws: the natural rock formations created by erosion, and the homes and churches that were carved out of the same stone by the Byzantine Greek population beginning in the tenth and eleventh centuries.

We were staying in a 'cave' hotel, which means that some of the rooms on offer have been carved out of soft volcanic rock to make a unique and atmospheric little room. It's a cute change of pace.

Göreme itself grew up around a collection of carved-out Byzantine churches that forms the Göreme Open Air Museum, which was our first stop while we waited to check into our cave room.

There are a number of individual churches and chapels as well as a monastery in the complex, all long-abandoned but well-preserved. They're each carved out of the cliff side and filled with artwork.

In some, the predominant art is primitive red ochre: lines and geometric shapes drawn in decorative patterns. But in others, there are full-colour frescoes of biblical stories and figures. The faces of the figures were largely smashed off in the following centuries, but in many of the churches, the colours are still clear and the designs are easy to interpret.

At the end of the string of churches is one nicknamed the 'Dark Church,' because no natural light enters the chamber, thus preserving the original, vivid colours of the frescoes, to incredible effect. From floor to ceiling and front to back, the church is covered in paintings, angular figures with black-outlined noses, wrapped in colourful robes set into a deep blue background. Here, too, many of the eyes have been gauged out, or the faces have been smashed off by rocks - some of the paintings are eerie in their facelessness, bright colour abruptly giving way to dull gray rock - but the room is beautiful and quiet.

That evening, we went for a short hike east from Göreme through the Rose Valley, a fertile little stretch of grape vines and dry shrubs and trees. On the way, we found many more abandoned cave houses, carved inside big conical formations and into ridges that swirl gently upwards like rosebuds.

At the collapse of the Ottoman empire, Turkey and Greece held a population exchange. The Capadoccia region was populated primarily by ethnic Greeks, some of whom were still living in the traditional carved-out homes, but few Turks came here to replace them. We wandered through a few of the homes - it's so hard to know if these were in use at the time of the population exchange, or of they'd already been abandoned for centuries. The empty, dusty shells defy all attempts to pinpoint a timeline. In places, we saw where the rock has given out and houses have collapsed, or half a room has tumbled two stories to the ground, exposing a perfect cross-section of this bizarre, ancient lifestyle.

We sat on a ridge above the Rose Valley and watched the sun sink over the horizon before making our way home along a ATV trail.

Th next day, we took an organized day trip - nice to get a full sampling of the region and let someone else do the planning, although being shuttled around in a convoy of mini-buses on identical tours is at most a once-in-a-while activity for me.

We admired the fairy chimney formations in Göreme from a viewpoint above the town, then drove an hour across Capadoccia to an underground city, carved out two thousand years ago and used for centuries in emergencies. When war struck the region, which was often given its position on the trade route to Asia, the entire population of each town would move into their respective underground labyrinths of tunnels for safety. They could stay for a year or more if necessary and subsequent generations tunneled deeper. This city was twelve floors deep: we squeezed down the long, short stairways to the eighth floor, deep in the cold earth.

We went on a short hike through a forested, shady canyon (so rare in this dry, dusty place!) and ate lunch at a riverside restaurant, then climbed through an ancient monastery carved into the side of a towering, rocky hill.

Our final day, we were booked into a night bus to the Mediterranean coast, so we decided to spend the day hiking to exhaust ourselves. We walked back through the Rose Valley, this time making our way past the grape vines to the adjacent Red Valley. By chance, Dan noticed an opening above us in the rock wall - through it, we could see St. John's cross carved into a ceiling. We found a dusty path hiding in the shrubs and scrambled up to find a church, certainly Byzantine and so certainly old, one room decorated with faded frescoes, all to ourselves.

We ate lunch in the cool inside of the church, examining the paintings and the carvings. Once, this place was covered in polished, gleaming white stone and in bright frescoes. Amazing.

We left the valley church and walked along the sweltering, shadeless highway to the Love Valley, famous for its tall, thin 'mushroom' formations... most of which look extremely phallic. (It is the Love Valley, after all.)

The rest of our hike took us through the aptly named White Valley and after a lot of backtracking, back to Göreme for a much-needed shower before loading onto the bus for the night.

S.

Istanbul

The voice cuts through the oppressive late-summer heat, warbling out of the megaphones, insistent. In the fading light, it reaches through the tight, winding streets of Galata with their slinking, suspicious street cats, and floats over the houses and join the other voices from the other minarets, calling out to the people of Istanbul.

This is the call to prayer, and it's sung five times a day from the mosques - startling when you're standing directly below a minaret, but it's a nice reminder to slow down in a bustling, modern city.

We got to Istanbul mid-way through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. It's too big a city - and too big a tourist destination - to slow down much during the day, but the difference was evident every night when the local population spilled into the streets and the restaurants to socialize and break their fasts, and two-thirds of the stores were open until midnight.

But the tourist trade continued on uninhibited, so we were able to delve into Istanbul's goldmine of Byzantine and Ottoman-era landmarks with no problems at all.

In the overwhelming heat (we were sadly conditioned to Britain's cool weather) our first stop was the underground Basilica Cistern.

The Cistern - no bodies these days.

It was built in the sixth century as a massive city reservoir  70 metres by 140 metres and and 20 metres tall, walled with stone and thankfully cool. still propped up by its original carved-stone columns. It was forgotten somehow for a millennium, and rediscovered in the twentieth century. In the meantime it had been a receptacle for both garbage and pesky bodies.

Within a couple days, we'd payed a visit to the two biggest religious buildings in the city - first, the Blue Mosque and then the Aya Sofia cathedral.

The Blue Mosque, from the courtyard.

The Mosque was built in the sixteenth century. The domes rise gracefully, each reaching higher to the enormous central dome, surrounded by six slender minarets. Inside, hundreds of windows and stained glass flood the mosque with daylight, illuminating the blue wall tiles for which it was named. Underfoot is a thick, red carpet, on the walls hang gold-painted verses from the Koran. The whole structure is held up by four massive 'elephant foot' pillars.

The Aya Sofia is a thousand years older. Built in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian, it was for centuries considered to be the greatest church in Christendom - not a small claim. After the fall of Constantinople, it was converted to a mosque, and after Turkey gained independence, it was turned into a museum.

Aya Sofia's interior, taken from the balcony

The interior of the church, essentially just one room, is the largest we'd seen in our travels - the dome arcs high over the spacious cathedral. In an impressive feat of Byzantine engineering, it is self-supported, so the sheer size has all the more impact in the absence of pillars.

The room is now a graying yellow, but in its prime, the expanse of the ceiling would have been covered in gold mosaic tiles, shimmering in the candlelight. Elaborate mosaics were created and altered right up until the building's conversion to Islam, when they were largely plastered over - biblical scenes and saints,as well as portraits of the rulers of Constantinople. Now, a selection have been recovered and partially restored.

We spent a hungover day on a Bosphorus tour - down by the piers, a horde of hopeful tour operators make their case for their boats - "Bossss-phorusbosphorusbosphrus two hours. Two hours. Good price. Sir? Hello, yes please!"

Down the straight are the upscale communities of Istanbul, Ottoman palaces and sleepy little fishing villages, all settled into the hilly sides and blue coves of the Bosphorus.

Our boat went all the way north to the mouth of the Black Sea, where we had lunch in a little tourist village before sailing back to Istanbul.

Our final day, we explored Topkapi Palace, the seat of Ottoman power for centuries. The palace buildings line the sides of four peaceful, lush courtyards, where the business of ruling an empire and family life existed in harmony.

At the end of the day, we said goodbye to the street cat family on the corner and hopped on our first night bus

S.

Southern English History Lessons

Lying on the concrete seawall, eyes closed, listening to the gulls screech as the sun beats down on my face. I can taste sticky, sweet ice cream on my lips. I can smell the salt water and the breeze is just faintly tainted with scent of decaying shellfish.

Have we gone back south?!

But wait - I'm wearing a jacket because the sun is just lukewarm. That greasy rock in my belly is most certainly from the pre-ice cream fish and chips.

This isn't the Mediterranean! This is England!

We were in the seaside village of Whitstable, County Kent, seven miles from Canterbury. We'd rented bikes and cycled the 'Crab and Winkle Way,' formerly a rail line (one of the first in Britain) dedicated to distributing the shellfish caught in Whitstable to the rest of Merrie Olde England.

The smooth, rounded stones of the beach lead up to the seawall, and the seaside pubs (where we'd had a few pints). Here and there, walking up the coast, there are piles of big oyster shells - the bounty harvested here since Roman times.

We returned the bikes the next morning and, sore-bottomed from the thin bike seats, set off to explore Canterbury's pious side.

The ornate cathedral has been a famous pilgrimage site since the gruesome murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the late thirteenth century - this is the destination in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales.' The original crypts below the cathedral are largely accessible, and in one of the chapels, the wall murals dating from the early years of the church are still visible, the familiar figures depicted with big, almond-shaped eyes, angular features and faded colours that were once bright and expressive.

On a whim, we took a peek at a Pilgrim's Hospice set up by Becket's nephew to provide lodging for the poorer pilgrims. Still used as a senior's residence today, original murals are visible in the chapel and the common space.

Finally, we went to the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey, the place where the celebrated saint first set up a church to begin his mission of re-Christianizing Anglo-Saxon Britain. The original abbey has been excavated and is partially visible, along with the outline of the Norman abbey and cathedral that replaced it. As we explored its grassy paths and red brick ruins, the site gave us an intimate picture of Britain's relationship with the church - with far fewer tourists than the overrun cathedral next door.

We packed up our tent for the final time and decided it was time for a special treat: a bed and breakfast! Fluffy towels, a television, a chocolate on the pillow, a superbly artery-choking breakfast. Amazing!

We had come to Portsmouth to spend a whole day at the historical harbour, where three famous ships now rest - Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose, Nelson's yellow and black checkered Victory and the greatest of the Victorian battleships, the cast iron-hulled Warrior. The ticket for these also includes a 45 minute harbour tour, which was a welcome interlude between ship-wanderings.

The Mary Rose is not available for viewing. Having sunk off the Portsmouth coast in the Tudor era, it was recovered from the sea floor a few decades ago and is now being painstakingly conserved. The museum is nice and has some eroded artifacts on display.

The Victory

The Victory and the Warrior, however, are both restored and functional - you can climb all over both as you learn about the ships, the technology and the lives of the crew.

Our final stop before the long journey north to Scotland was to Salisbury - or rather, a small village outside of Salisbury named Cholderton. Our hostel, which was a big YHA hostel built on a farm, was advertised as four miles from Stonehenge. Turns out this is only the case by highway, but we adventurous souls struck out on a Saturday morning in search of the most famous of British monuments anyway.

Although longer than anticipated at a 12 to 13 mile round trip, the walk took us along the Avenue, the ancient road approaching Stonehenge from the east. We passed a number of burial mounds along the ridge facing the site, arranged so as to line the horizon and then plodded through the cow fields towards our goal.

Although the famous sarsen stones and bluestones are just as enormous as I had imagined, I was shocked by how tightly packed together they are, rendering the site itself quite small and compact. From most angles on the ground, it's actually somewhat difficult to see the familiar horseshoe patterns in the pack of stones.

The magnitude of the stones themselves remains impressive: they are huge and took centuries of serious dedication to carve and move and arrange. That they were obviously once incredibly important to a thriving culture cannot be denied, but it is unlikely we will ever fully understand why.

Although smaller than I had thought, the ancient site is nonetheless intriguing. The stones will remain charmingly enigmatic, ripe for the romance of the imagination even as they stand steadfastly evasive. It was worth a visit to see the stuff of legend.

That said... the audio guide is great, but save yourself the seven quid. Read the Wikipedia article and then observe from the highway!

S.

Frites and Kölsh: Brussels and Cologne

 On the last Thursday in May, my parents left us at the hotel in Brussels. When we re-planned our trip following the Schengen revelation, we decided that at this point, we would strike out immediately for Cologne, opting to spend the time in Germany rather than Belgium. But in the three months we've now been travelling, we've learned that here and there it is essential for our mental and physical health to take breaks, to linger and to relax from the constant pull of European sightseeing. (Hard life, right? Don't hate me. I saved hard for this!)

So now in Brussels, both recovering from nasty colds and reeling from three weeks of motion through the alps and through Normandy, we decided to stay another night, and then another and another. After five days, we found that we'd fallen in love with the lively, charming city we'd planned to practically skip.

The only truly touristy thing we did was to explore an old-fashioned lambic brewery at the Musée Bruxellois de la Gueuze, where we were pleasantly surprised by the sour, but delicious gueuze beer. The brewery itself still uses largely original equipment, and still relies on naturally occurring yeasts to ferment and flavour the beer in a unique way. Highly recommended if you're in the area.

Past this, we wandered the twisting, patio-lined streets, admiring the gorgeous buildings from afar. We drank alarmingly strong (and shockingly delicious) beers in brew pubs. We were in town on the weekend of the free jazz marathon - so all of these lovely streets stayed alive long into the nights. And we slept with earplugs, because Brussels knows how to party.

Finally, when we were stuffed to bursting with waffles and frites and moules and frites and beer and chocolates (and frites. I love Belgian frites with mayo SO much), we grabbed a Eurolines bus into the Rhineland.

Here's the thing about Belgium and Germany: you can drink on the streets, in the parks and in any public space. Technically you aren't supposed to drink on public transit, but no one really cares. Kiosks (variety stores) all have bottle openers next to the cash so that you can pull back on your quart right away. And they sell shot-sized bottles of Jagermeister. Although you see the occasional smashed bottle or drunken stumble, this freedom certainly doesn't breed drunken rioting.

We were discussing tactics on hiding our cans for some covert street drinking during the jazz festival in Brussels - a kiosk owner laughed at our conversation and shared this little detail. No need to sneak.

The result? Breakfast beers! Park beers! Beers while wandering the streets! It was all very exciting for us oppressed (and extra-classy) Canadians.

Once we got to Cologne, we met up with Stefan, my friend from school, and his new friends Laura and Jasmine. We spent about eight hours drinking kolsch, the local brew, in the park by the Rhine, catching up and plotting bathroom visits (tricky when the park has no public toilet!).

We shook off our hangovers the next day (I definitely did not envy Stef having to work in the morning) and went out to explore more of this fun, welcoming city. We climbed up the 509 steps of the enormous Dom, Cologne's cathedral, which houses the world's largest in-use bell. Size is, in fact, awfully important when it comes to bells... it rang while we were in the stone passages directly beside it.

So let me tell you this: do not drink the night before you plan to climb church spires.

From the top, the view is unlike that of most of the other European cities we'd seen, Cologne has big, wide streets and modern architecture rather than a tight, congested medieval core. As we were soon to learn, old buildings in Germany are rarer than elsewhere - as in Cologne, many cities were entirely rebuilt after being severely bombed during the war.

Cologne from the top of the cathedral

From Cologne, we grabbed a train to Frankfurt-am-Main to meet Dan's friends, Jan and Daniel for dinner. We only spent a night, in the red light district near the train station - more hilarious than dangerous. Dinner was delicious, in the student area just few U-bahn stops away.

And thankfully, as the e-coli scare ramped up and we were avoiding salads, we were back in the land of my beloved currywurst.

S.

Gypsy Rhythms

There are still two towers guarding the former city walls

Our final week in Spain we spent three days in Valencia and four in Barcelona.

So from Seville we grabbed a nine-hour train to Valencia, where we did two things of note - went to the massive aquarium and went to a flamenco show.

The aquarium, or L'Oceanografic, is the biggest in Europe and is home to thousands of species of fish, birds and aquatic mammals. It has new tanks and lots of english information, which is great because its always a plus when I understand what is going on. It was expensive; but we spent five hours wandering through the exhibits and the various climate displays. The dolphin show was packed with daring tricks that to my knowledge aren't standard in North America - a trainer would have a pair of dolphins throw her up into the air ten or fifteen feet to do flips and dives, for example.

The flamenco show we saw was small. The venue was a gently lit bar full of locals, mostly - the kind of place where performers know their audience. We grabbed a glass of vino tinto and settled into a bench against a side wall as a guitarist, a drummer and a singer took their place on the stage. Flamenco music is beautiful. It's a gypsy art taken to new heights by the Spanish; the intricate rhythms and graceful, yearning melodies pack a powerful, wild sadness.

Just as we'd become resigned to the idea that we would be only seeing a music show, which is common, a woman in a feathery black and white dress joined them sitting on the stage. She looked nervous - maybe she doesn't perform often - but she put on a hell of a show. Swaying to to the rises in the music, twirling her hands and twisting about, then suddenly the stacatto of her heels and her arms snap sharply. As the music became more intense, she beat the crazy rhythms out and swirled and snapped faster - gorgeous. By the end of the show I was standing on the bench to see because the enthusiastic crowd had moved up from the bar and I wanted to watch her feet.


I'd been hesitant about going to a show in Valencia because I'd heard that flamenco is just not the same away from its heartland in the south of Spain. I could not be happier that we stumbled on such an informal, intimate show.

We grabbed a bus the last Saturday afternoon in April and headed to Barcelona, only a four hour ride and on a decently comfortable bus.

We'd heard a lot about the pickpockets in Barcelona - a few years ago there was apparently a real problem, and even today it isn't safe to take too many valubles out onto the streets. dan noticed a couple of guys watching me closely when we first got into the metro system with our giant backpacks (obviously holding everything we own...) but we were careful to be aware and over our four days we felt as safe as in any other big city.

Me and Mindy on a tapas mission

The next day we met up with Mindy and Lindsay, who I worked with in Ottawa - Dan and I got day-drunk with Mindy, hopping from bar to bar while we wandered looking for beer and tapas and catching up on each others' adventures. Lindsay's flight didn't make it until late in the evening, at which point her and I got the full Barcelona experience and stayed out til six in the morning talking to Brits and drinking tequila. I was obviously pretty rough the next day, although I didn't have to catch a flight like the girls did. It was so great to see familiar faces - good luck in your travels, ladies!

Sagrada from Park Guell - Just. Massive. 

Barcelona was a great city to wander around - the buildings in the old city are gorgeous and the streets are alive with patios and revelers every day of the week (when the weather is nice!). And the architecture... we spent a full day on Gaudi. We bought day passes for the metro and flitted from site to site to check out the most famous sites - the Sagrada Familia and the Park Guell.

The inside of the Sagrada

The Sagrada Familia is well known as the church that has been under construction since the 1880s (and is certainly nowhere near finished) but the architecture is what astounds people once they get anywhere near it. Two of the three facades on the outside of the building are finished - elaborate illustrations of the life and death of Christ in the form of statues and carvings, overlooked by masive towers, the grandest of which are as yet also unfinished. Gaudi took much of his inspiration from the natural world, so the columns on the inside are designed to appear as trees stretching up to a leafy canopy. The most intricate details are drawn from Gaudi's research into the mechanics of the natural world, and the rejection of straight lines makes for a daring and unique look that stands out in a country already known for its giant cathedrals and elaborate churches.

I feel as if I could spend weeks in Barcelona and barely scratch the surface. I was worried that because I had fallen so in love with Portugal, I wouldn't enjoy Spain, but I worried needlessly. Spain is a stunner and I'd go back in a heartbeat.

S

Seville

Seville is every Spanish stereotype you can think of. It unabashedly embraces late nights, wild gypsy music, bullfighting, Flamenco dancing and partying til dawn. It is the hottest place in Europe, literally, and is featured in more operas and stories (think the Barber of Seville and Carmen) than anywhere other Spanish city. And rather than resent these labels, or try to fake an image to live up to them, Seville simply IS the label, with a passionate zeal for life.

Cathedral from the tower

After our evening drinking Sangria on the hostel rooftop, we decided to get some culture into us. We took the hostel`s free (well, tip-based) walking tour and over the course of a four-and-a-half hour ramble through the city, we learned a LOT. What sticks out most to me now was the architecture - Seville`s signature cathedral, one of the biggest in all of Europe, stands where the Islamic mosque stood until the city was captured and Christianized in the 12th century (in fact until a fire a few centuries after the conquest, the cathedral actually just existed in the building of the mosque itself, because the king liked the building).

the organ

The tower that adjoins to the cathedral, called the Giralda, was once the minaret of the old mosque. The windows have the traditional keyhole shapes, and the way to the top of the tower is a ramp rather than stairs so that the man calling everyone to prayer five times a day could ride a donkey up the seventy metres rather than walk.



We went into the cathedral the next day to explore and the thing is huge... the organ alone is over a hundred feet high. The decorations were all made in the colonial era, so there is Peruvian gold all over the elaborate displays. It is stunning.

Ham hocks hanging in a traditional tapas bar

After our walking tour, we jumped right onto the tapas tour, also organized by the hostel. Tapas are small plates of virtually anything... meat platters, mushrooms stuffed with cheese, stews, salads, fish, olives, pig cheeks, eeevvverything. It is essentially how you eat in southern Spain. This tour took us to a traditional tapas bar, the kind with full smoked pig legs hanging from the ceiling, to a more modern place with contemporary dishes, and to one half way between that had amazing tapenade  (on fried bread. So oily. So delicious).

All fed and mildly liqoured, we took off on the bar tour (all tours all day!) led by a leaping madman of a guide. On a Monday night we found decent bars and saw the nightlife districts of Seville. Dan and I left early... at 3:30 am. Seville is a wild, fun city. Dan even danced. Well. Swayed.

The next day we took it easy, explored the cathedral and went out for more tapas for Dan`s birthday dinner. A nice day after a wild party.

S