Barcelona3 – Friday – Park Guell

We started our 2 day hop-on hop-off bus tix today and had researched the 3 routes they offered, trying to determine where exactly we would jump off.  Knowing it was busy season we were a little worried the buses would be packed and there would be long waits even to get on the buses, but it was tolerable and there was rarely much additional wait.  We rode the blue route north past the 2 famous Gaudi houses we’d seen the day before.  Kate had packed the ipod Touch and we hadn’t set foot on the bus for a few minutes before Theo was begging for it.  She relented and Theo and Maeve attempted to take fair turns with the video games.  The rest of us watched as the audio described some of the more famous landmarks and history of the city.  We reached our first stop.  I tried to give Theo as much warning as possible that it was time to pause the game, but still got grief from him.  We disembarked and started the uphill walk to Guell Park, a Gaudi work that was conceived as a high-end gated housing development.  The park itself was built first and meant to be used as a market area, guard house, and park.  However the endeavor was a commercial failure and only 2 of the plotted 60 houses were ever built.  We stopped in the Guell Park museum to learn more about Gaudi and the park and learned that the reasons for failure seemed to be the fact that there was no easy transport to the downtown and the fact that the district was competing with a more esteemed housing area further out of town, but interestingly this housing area was thriving because they’d first built a tram servicing the area and connecting it to downtown.  Here’s one of my favorite shots of Zeke and Theo looking out of a window of the guardhouse looking up at the central fountain and market area of the park. 

Now it’s time to play where’s the Sebastian kids.  Our friends Marty and Mary had come to Barcelona a year earlier, but they visited in the winter.  They showed us photos of Guell park and other areas of the city where it was just them and whatever cool monument they were getting the photo with.  Here’s what we found at the famous salamander/lizard feature of Guell park…  I dare you to try to find our kids… Maeve is trying to make it easy in the last photo.  It also helps that we changed directions and shot downhill.  Note all the other folks attempting to take their shot by the lizard in the background.

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I decided to get a little creative shooting a ceiling medallion in the marketplace, with limited success.

As we headed up towards a shaded picnic area to enjoy our packed picnic lunch at, we bumped into the bubble man, who seemed to enjoy creating huge bubbles evidently for kids to chase.  Our kids enjoyed the thrill of trying to keep the bubbles afloat,

much like we’d seen on videos where dolphins have learned to play and manipulate bubbles in the water.

We got lucky and came upon a shaded bench just as a couple was leaving, and luckier still a band was playing within earshot.  And better yet, they were really good.  So good in fact, that I couldn’t help myself but to buy their most recent CD.  Check them out at their myspace page.  The mananers (the tomorrow’ers).

After enjoying our great shaded picnic watching bubble chasers and enjoying the music of the mananers, we doused our hats in the water bubbler and moved into the open air serpentine park bench above the market overlooking the main fountain and salamander.  It was crowded and we had to work fast to get a section of bench nearly to ourselves for my planned panoramic photo.  Not too bad given the conditions. 

We meandered our way back out the park and back down the hill stopping at a few tourist shops along the way.  Back at our bus Theo once again begged for the ipod.  We stopped next in the Alta Zona district, right in the area of nice homes that was competing against Park Guell and beat it out partially due to its built in tram.  Since our walk was short, we skipped the tram.  The walk was impressive.  Very nice home after very nice home.  With a few modern buildings stuck in here and there, but seemingly blending into the area.  See if you can notice the modern building hiding in this shot.  I like the surreal tree floating on top of the building. 

We were heading up to the science museum to hopefully give the kids a little hands on break from all the ‘no touching’ we incessantly threw at them at the gift shops.  Janie bumped into a famous dead person at the desk.

Just kidding, Kate had noticed the wax model as she attempted to work through their complicated ticket process.  The museum was impressive, but the layout and the ticketing process were confusing at best.  Back to Albert… check out the stubble on his chin…

We worked our way down to floor 5 (there were 5 floors, most of them underground) and started exploring.  They loved all the hands on explanations of scientific phenomenon, so much so that they were battling their own hunger to keep going.  Once we made the decision to leave without seeing everything and go outside for a picnic, we would find another area that they decided we had to leave before eating.  And then another, and then another.  We finally had to lay down the parental law and just march them out seeing that they were getting too hungry and starting to act up. 

A quick cute story.  At one point Maeve had noticed a big spider at the other end of a series of optical illusions.  She was guiding Kate there as quickly as she could as the other kids stopped to try everything out.  When she and Kate finally got there, Maeve noticed a red rope in front of the spider and said, oh no it’s closed and became sad.  Not a few seconds later Theo’s head popped up in front of the spider and Maeve just shrieked.  Not sure if she was scared or surprised or just happy that the spider was still open.  She came running to find me and show me the scary Theo spider face.

We intended to exit through the 4000 square foot Amazon Forest exhibit, but weren’t able to quickly find the entrance to it on our way out.  The place was a bit of a maze that way, with no public signage in a language other than Catalan.  At least the science exhibitions had good English descriptions.

We finished lunch in the courtyard, warning Theo and Maeve, as always, not to feed the pigeons.  Then headed downhill back to the hop-on/off bus stop.  We hopped on and completed the loop back to our starting point.  Then walked the six blocks home to get supp and crash with a little TV and bedtime.  Luckily the couch is large enough for all 4 of them

(What did you expect from our crazy family).

Barcelona2 – Thursday – La Rambla

With the apartment and fridge and stove and oven and microwave, we’ve cut down on eating out and are mostly eating in.  Kate’s been making scrambled eggs (though the stove tops have been highly unpredictable) and cereal and toast and yogurts and pizza and good home family meals.  And that’s how we started what we thought was our Sagrada Familia day.  Oh how little we knew.

After breakfast and the morning ritual of sunscreen, brush teeth, bathrooms, and shoes (which is somehow yet to become a routine that any of the kids independently remember!), we headed out to find Sagrada Familia.  On the map it looked entirely walkable.  Maybe only 8 blocks.  The question was which direction.  Let me explain…

We were stayin in Le’Eixample district of Barcelona.  also known as the expansion.  It was an extension of the old city of Barcelona that would fill the empty space between the neighboring villages of Gracia, Sarria and Les Corts and eventuallly incorporate them as neighborhoods into the city of Barcelona in the 1800s.  The planners at that time had mapped things out very deliberately but in so doing every block looked like the next block.  Even when I went for my run in the morning, having nearly gotten lost in Seville, I was very careful to go straight out one direction and straight back.  And still, when I left I thought I was heading towards the ocean (south) but ended up going West.  On the return half of my run, I knew I was going the right direction and would eventually bump into our plaza Tetuan.  But didn’t recognize much except for the homeless folks who were sleeping on the bench and an occasional construction site, e.g. sidewalk repair. Just a continuous line of interesting, though non-descript, 8 story building after 8 story building.  What’s amazing is that I rarely saw a building under 8 stories and rarely over 8 stories.  It seemed the entire Le’Eixample district was mandated to be 8 stories tall.  No skyscrapers in a city of this size bar a few notable exceptions at the shoreline and of course, the big pickle.  I’ve learned to spot a few of the other exceptions that help locate myself on a map.  I’ve learned that there’s often several blocks of normal roads until you hit a superwide road that allows for pedestrian walkways in the middle and also a couple of roads, for example Diagonal, that are cut at an angle and are therefore helpful to get your bearings on a map.  Also of use are the frequent green spaces incorporated into the town.

Anyway, I’d spent the morning studying the map and our relative position on the map and was pretty certain of the direction we needed to head.  We struck out on foot and despite seeing a few street names that made sense, I was still nervous because we hadn’t yet sighted Sagrada Familia and I knew it was a very tall building.  Well, I shouldn’t have been so nervous.  8 stories is a little hard to see out of.  We eventually did turn a corner to see a spire of the Sagrada Familia.  I’d noticed that Zeke hadn’t yet noticed it and was facing the opposite direction, so I pointed him in the right direction and enjoyed his face of awe as he first laid eyes on it.  It’s surrounded on the Southwest side and Northeast side by big parks.  We approached from the southwest and unfortunately the entire southwest park was under construction and closed.  After gawking at it as we approached

and getting information for the hop-on/off bus tour that we would be taking the following days we ventured up to the entry gate.  A line had already formed.  We spent more time gawking at the southwest facade of the church, the passion of christ facade, which is all about Christ’s death.   Then decided to join the line.  It looked a little long, but we were well sun screened and thought we could wait it out, until we turned the corner of the block and saw that the line seemed to continue on without end.  Our jaws just dropped and we abandoned our wait in line plan.  We’d seen an entry that had no line and Kate took her Spanish skills to go ask about it.  Turns out it’s a special line for pre-purchase tix that had no waiting and there were kiosks right at the corner to purchase tix for the following day, so we gave that a go.  The kids attempted to wait patiently as Kate navigated the kiosk.  She called me in when she thought she’d figured things out.  The kiosk sure could of used some User Interface help!  Kate showed me the series of buttons she had to click to get to the point of buying Sagrada Familia tix.  Buy tix, buy other tix, more tix, and finally still more tix.  At which point the last button was ‘Sagrada Famila tix’.  This was after the options for buying soccer event tickets and concert tickets and you name it.  For cryin’ eye, I’m at the kiosk that’s directly adjacent to the HUGE long line at Sagrada Familia, what tix do you think I’m trying to buy.  Then we had to figure out why there was only a 7 pm ticket offered.  Didn’t make sense, after a few trips through the series of buttons we realized the listing was a button itself and if you clicked it more times would appear.  So we’d solved the kiosk puzzle.  I felt like I’d earned the right to enter Sagrada Familia!  Only catch was that when we finally attempted the purchase we needed to enter a pin for our credit card and didn’t have one.  So I tried my ATM card.  Despite being on the proper network, the readers on the machine didn’t pickup my worn out magnetic strip. Strike 2.  Kate boldly asked an English speaking couple at the kiosk next to us and they were willing to purchase the tix on their credit card if we paid them cash.  They were from Belgium and we were in their debt (amazing how many other people are able to speak additional languages and not just get by, but speak them well!!!).  Kate helped them navigate the ridiculous series of buttons for their own purchase and they ran through the series 2 more times for us, once for audio guides and once for non-audio guides, which we needed to do separately as the audio-guide didn’t offer an option for our youngest kids who were supposed to be free.  With the help of our Belgian friends, we finally got our tix purchased for Monday, 3 days out.I was very very happy to leave the kiosk behind us.  We thanked the Belgian couple by overpaying them and promising them good charma! 

While we were in the kiosk I had to step out several times to discipline our kids.  It’s embarrassing always having the loudest kids anywhere.  We are the ugly Americans.  On the other hand, we’ve asked a lot of our kids on this trip and for the most part, they’ve met our expectations.  I was in the kiosk again, when Maeve came in screaming.  Now what?  It’s raining, it’s raining.  WOW, that was worth yelling about.  For the 3 weeks we’d been in Spain we hadn’t seen a trace of rain.  Not even a threatening cloud.  I enjoyed the kids enjoying the rain and was very surprised that some of the people in the huge line had been prepared enough to bring umbrellas! (look closely at the line in the background on the left and you can see 2 umbrellas)   Maybe the northern climate of Barcelona was more apt to rain?  “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Plain” or maybe not??

We had our Barcelona guidebook with us (thanks Jenna) and I’d half read up on it the night before so I had a few ideas to formulate a new plan in that area.   We broke out our laminated, and rain proofed map (thanks Marty and Mary) and headed in the direction of a few Modernist landmarks including the 2 most famous Gaudi buildings, La Pedrera and La Battla.  La Pedrera means quarry.  The name describes the outside of the building with its distinctive wavy front end (Gaudi eschewed straight lines, preferring curves whenever possible, probably because you rarely see a straight line in nature.)  La Pedrera, like Sagrada Familia, had a large line, so we simply took it in from the outside and bravely snuck a peak at the exit.   A few blocks down we found La Battla nicknamed manzana for its colorful facade and also double meaning block referring to the 3 other modernista buildings on the block of 4 buildings.  It also had a significant line, but shorter than the previous lines.

  Our kids stamina, with all the walking, had waned and we moved on.  We’d read that August was a busy tourist season in Barcelona, but didn’t expect things to be this busy.  We checked out a few more modernista buildings along the way.  That pretty much burned our morning and early afternoon, at which point it was time to head home for lunch and Siesta.  Sort of a wasted morning, but at least we had solid Sagrada Familia plans and knew we would avoid the lines.

After siesta we had a few hours left to salvage the day.  We decided to metro to the ocean end of Las Ramblas, the pedestrian street in Barcelona that is central to its identity.  Like state street in Madison, times 10.  We’d read there were numerous street performers here regularly and thought that would provide a great interactive break for the kids.  The subway ride is still a thrill for the kids and me, noticing new nuances like the wind being sucked into the tunnel as the train leaves and the wind being pushed out of the tunnel as the train enters (always a good indicator to pickup your pace so as not to miss the arriving train), and the mesmerizing bend of the spine of the metro train cars as the tracks bend right, left and even up and down.  Soon we were at the bottom of Las Ramblas and decided to venture the extra block down to the ocean front toward the tall Christopher Columbus monument ringed by lions.  Here’s our guys riding the lion, take special note of Theo’s scared face.  He pulls this expression out of his repertoire of contorted faces now and again, I think it’s one of his best.  

I’m sure you’ve heard about the distinctive regions of Spain, sort of like the states, but more so.  For the greater part of their life the separate regions have been literally separate nations/kingdoms and have long histories as such.  In Barcelona, you feel that more than any other region we visited.  They have their own language, Catalan (coming from Latin and more closely resembling french than Castillian Spanish) and a history of independence from Spain.  At one point Catalan was banned in order to assimilate the people into Spain proper.  These days it is back with a vengeance with Catalan being the primary language and Castillian Spanish the second language, leaving English as the third.  Often museums had only Catalan and Castillian and no English.  Anyway, back to Columbus.  It’s ironic that they even have a monument honoring him (and the largest monument at that)  as his discoveries did not affect Barcelona at the time.  They were banned by Spain from participating in the trade routes to the Americas because of Catalans poor behavior in not wanting to be part of a unified Spain.  I read later that some say this is where Columbus first landed when returning from the Americas.  Maybe? 

We headed across the foot bridge that was newly added (since Barcelona became a tourist town in the last 20 years, including the fact that it is the single largest cruise line destination on the Mediteranean) and is called the Rambla de Mar (ocean),  Here’s a panorama of the area looking back up at Columbus (dead center in the photo)

We made it across the bridge to the pier that held the aquarium and reversed direction to see what we could see on La Rambla proper.  The first thing we hit was a vendor (kid) selling these led rubber band launched helicopter toys.  I knew I had to buy a couple for my nephews.  And the kids each bought one.  The kids also learned how to bargain in the street… just keep walking.  The price started at 5 euros each, and as we walked away, dropped to 4 euros, then 3 euros then 2 for 5.  We noticed another vendor further up, so new we had other opportunities to purchase and mentioned the price we’d heard from the first vendor.  He easily matched the price and probably would’ve gone lower.  (Found out later that another vendor was selling for 2 euros each!)

Then we bumped into our first street performers… the weakest type… they would put a headless manequin next to a table and then stick their head through the table top and make facial expressions at you.  Sometimes still, sometimes trying to scare you.  Not impressive.  This couple was impressive however, they danced together and then stopped every few seconds until someone dropped another coin in the hat at which point they would continue their dance.  Some of the positions they stopped in were elegant and just fun to look at.  Afterward they asked the kids to take a photo with them.

There were some caricaturists that would do your portrait and other more realistic artists that would do your portraits.  Very talented and always fun to watch their talent.  Then there were these painted people who would stick in a permanent pose and attempt not to move.  If you looked close you could see them breathing, but the wonder of the performance was how they were able to stay still so long in awkward positions.  We theorized that he had some sort of support up his pant leg that he could sit much of his weight on. 

Other common performers were those folks that paint with enamels, often firing their work by igniting the cans of paint for show.  They often paint a color then lay covering mats over that color and paint over all but that layer.  Then they unveil by lifting the mask and you get to see their creation.  Fun to see how they create their final paintings.  We saw about 6 to 7 of these folks, my favorites were those who were reproducing original album covers on old LP records.  These were our favorites however.  We saw them at the top of the street just after we’d purchase our ice cream and sat down.  They came in and started playing their boom box music which was an announcement that the performance was about to begin. They were obviously experienced gymnasts and treated us to this final show (only after they passed the hat)  

We finished our ice creams and walked the final 6 blocks home.  Zeke suggested as we reached home that we finish with the metro ride and start with the walk.  Not a bad idea.

Zeke’s blog 2nd Hello

Hello you f.fs (fellow friends) well I hope that you liked the last blog because this one is going to more boooooring….. just kidding well we saw a lot of cool street performers but this topped all the others check it out, they are gymnastic phenomenons, they were able to flip with the slightest of ease and since there were no mats I knew that they must have a bunch of calluses on their hands, i only got to video tape a small part but my dad was able to get some more of them later, so here they are.

 

There were other street performers and one spray painted himself to look like a old bronze sculpture, and had some kind of trick so that he never moved and just sat there! This street performer really stuck out because  he was  a marble moving statue of a man on the toilet. The other street performers scared people out of their wits, Theo walked past one not knowing what would come and then aaaaaaaaaaaah! Theo got scared and cuddled up to me.

Barcelona1 – Wednesday – transport day

We had an early train, and were told we needed an hour by bus to cross town to the train station, so after a quick breakfast buffet, we strolled downhill with our luggage in tow about 1.5 blocks to the bus stop in front of Alhambra.  A bus arrived quite shortly and although it was a different bus number than we were told, Zeke asked and they said they went where we needed to go, just in front of the cathedral.  This time we got the bono tickets that allowed us to transfer, and very shortly were in front of the cathedral and quickly located one of the city buses that said they headed to the train station.  Turns out they meant near the train station as they never did make the turn.  We were only alerted to our stop by a couple of people on the bus who could see we were travelling with kids and luggage and were kind enough to speak up.  Another lady on the street gave us more specific directions and after a short 2 block walk we were there.  Awaiting us were our friends Bob and Trisha from North Carolina who were heading to Madrid and then south to Toledo.  We enjoyed swapping stories with them.  I particularly enjoyed our kids telling them stories and was impressed by how much our kids had absorbed from our trip.  Especially Zeke and Jane, though Theo even participated too. 

We knew we had 1st class tickets (thanks to Gerri our travel agent) but weren’t sure whether that included a meal.  Sure enough, our Granada to Madrid leg included breakfast.  OK kids, eat up.  I not wanting to waste anything, stuffed in what they had left.  We arrived in Madrid at around 2 and revisited Attoche train station, finding these big baby head sculptures in the arrivals (llegados) area of the station.  Both Theo and Maeve wanted to pose with them (the poses they struck were uniquely their own)

Again, we were uncertain whether a meal would be included in the Madrid to Barcelona leg of the trip.  And since this leg was on the AVE, the 200 mph bullet train, we arrived at about 6:30, much earlier than a normal Spain supper.  Even so, Kate asked at the Renfe info booth in Madrid.  Nope.  no meal.  So we set out to get food in the kids during the 1 hour layover in Madrid.  Kate watched the luggage and I took the easy route locating a Burger King in the far corner of the courtyard.  I didn’t really want to eat there, but knew I could easily find stuff for the kids and order in near English.  Zeke finished early and headed back to guard the luggage and give Kate a chance to find something.  The rest of us headed out a little later, and just in time as our train had already arrived.  We boarded.  I pointed out to Theo that this was the bullet train and had him pose by the AVE signage on the train.   I wanted the kids to experience the bullet train, but mostly they didn’t notice.  Theo continued to claim we were at bullet speed, even though we were still slowly rolling out of town, because I’d put that clause on him getting to play the Ipod Touch.  What I will say about the AVE is that it was noticeably faster, but not so much that it was an experience for the kids.  I noted that it was hard to actually focus on something in the near distance.  It was gone before you could really focus on it.  Other than that, you got used to it.  The tunnels in the mountains also seemed like they were cut larger, I assume to allow for more air passage around the train.  Because of this, despite the increased speed, the pressure change at the tunnels didn’t seem as severe as the regular trains.  We arrived in Barcelona and now as veteran Metro-riders, easily navigated the metro ticket dispensers and easily found our line and ramp.  Even transferred easily to line L2, with the wisdom to know that we’d arrived at L2 somewhere in the middle of its run and needed to select one of the legs of the L2 run to get on, which translated to one or the other side of the tracks and usually meant 2 different access points via the escalators.  The Barcelona metro was the best we’ve seen.  Each train has a little map on it above the doors with each stop indicated and the stops light up as you arrive at them.   So you’d know exactly how many stops to your departure stop.  The only thing they seemed to lack were the down escalators, having only up escalators.  We arrived at Tetuan plaza and struggled a bit finding our place.  First off, our address was not a street address but a plaza address.  All of Tetuan plaza was circled by buildings that were numbered Tetuan plaza.  hmmmm….  And secondly, despite the metro map clearly showing the left stairs surfacing near one road and the right stairs surfacing near the other, we had to take the elevator because of our luggage (actually, we found out later there was an escalator on these stairs).  And third the block was completely symmetrical with no road signs, not even on the building.  A quick question to a passerby would’ve likely solved the problem, but lacking those skills we forged on.  In the end, I asked that the luggage and the family sit still while I circled to find the apartment.  I circled the entire square before stumbling upon the pattern that the square had its own addresses.  We got the keys to our apartment from the man waiting for us and were pleasantly surprised by our accomodations.  Kate was extra happy to see a wash/dry machine (all in one).  Jane and I headed out for groceries, and after asking a few passers by, found a store about 3 blocks away.  What Jane realized too late, was that the store did not have a bathroom.  She spent much of her time fast-pacing around the store as I rushed to finish our shopping so we could get home.

Granada2 – Tuesday – La Alhambra

Day 2 was all about the reason we were in Granada, La Alhambra.  We’d heard and read so many great things about this ancient.  It’s  name means Red and refers to the color of the rock forming the fortress walls.  Much more can be read at wikipedia on Alhambra and Granada.  Because of the proximity of the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) to Africa, Southern Spain was under control of the moors (muslims) for centuries, see this map and more info on this page under the ‘moors of Iberia’ section and this must-read on the Reconquista, from which I found this great explanation:

The Reconquista was largely completed in 1238, when the sole remaining Muslim state on Iberia, the Emirate of Granada, became a vassal state of the Christian Crown of Castile. This arrangement lasted for 250 years until the Castilians launched the Granada War of 1492, which finally expelled all Muslim authority from Spain. The last Muslim ruler of Granada, Muhammad XII, better known as King Boabdil, surrendered his kingdom to Isabella I of Castile, who with her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon were known as the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos).

The 4 great Northern Christian Kingdoms of Spain formed an alliance and eventually pushed the muslims off the peninsula.  BTW, much like there is the British Gibraltar at the southern tip of Spain, there is a Spanish city at the North Eastern tip of Africa!!   The city of Granada was left alone for many years and indeed was in a sort of alliance with Castile allowing them a direct trade partner with African gold.  See the maps on the right of this wiki page.  When Portugal found a more direct trade route by sailing around the southern tip of African, muslim Granada became unnecessary.  The muslim king years earlier had also attempted to expand his territory only a decade earlier by attacking Castile, and had been defeated and captured.  In fact, he seemed to be allowed to keep Granada by becoming subserviant to Castile.  But in 1492 Granada was signed over to the Christians after Aragon and Castile lay seige to the city. That year may ring a bell to some of us Americans.  That’s right, it was the year Christopher Columbus discovered America.  Coincidence… NO!  Columbus was the 2nd priority of King Ferdinand II (of Aragon) and Queen Elizabith I (of Castile).  The first being getting control of Granada again, making all of the Iberian peninsula once again Christian.  As soon as AlHambra was signed over to the King and Queen, Columbus’ voyage to discover a Western trade route to the Orient was approved.  In fact, the papers were signed at the Alhambra!  Which is why there is a pomegranate (Granada means pomegranate and likenesses of the pomegranate are all over town) prominently featured on Columbus’ tomb that we saw in Seville.  Alrighty then… That seems to tie our little historical tour of Spain up quite neatly. 

The other thing we learned at nearly each of the cities we visited in Spain, was that Napolean played a big part.  Usually in destroying something!  He occupied the palace in Madrid and melted down silver to support his efforts.  He melted much of the silver adornments of an altar at the major church in Seville!  He destroyed ALL of the housing complexes of the 2000 people that used to live within the walls of Alhambra.  And he destroyed the Monastery at Montserrat (coming in a future blog)!  ‘That darn Napolean’ is a phrase we have repeated many times on our trip.

Back to day 2 in Granada… Our day started with a quick breakfast buffet at our hotel (the best buffet we had at any of our hotels by far!), and then we waited out front for our tour transportation to arrive.  It was quite late and we feared we may miss our tour group.  We were even more surprised to realize when a man walked up and found us.  Turns out we were staying only 1.5 blocks from Alhambra and he simply walked us over.  Our tour guide, Antonio spoke Spanish, French, German and English!!  Today his group was both German and English.  I made a point of listening to his German as well and was surprised how easily I understood nearly all of it.  Of course, I had the advantage of hearing nearly exactly the same thing in English first.  We’d introduced ourselves to the other Americans, Bob and his wife Trisha.  He’s a professor studying change on the barrier islands outside of North Carolina.  So esteemed by his college that he teaches only one of the semesters and researches the other semester.  We also warned them of our children and hoped they wouldn’t be too much distraction for them, rather they seemed to enjoy them, especially Trisha. 

The walking tour was a 2.5 hour tour and kept a pretty good pace.  I realized later that they needed to keep a tight schedule as some of the group came from a tour bus and had a strict departure time.  We, on the other hand, often felt rushed at points where we would’ve liked to have lingered and I thought to myself, maybe the audio-guide would’ve been better!  Still we learned a lot and it seemed to help keep our older kids more engaged.  Theo and Maeve, however, were often in their own little play world.  Not exactly sure what they took in other than maybe some of the sights.  Kate had found a kids book of the Alhambra the night before when we went out for food (turns out this book was at nearly every tourist shop, and tightly price controlled too.  8.50 euro) that she’d read to them.  It mentioned a hand and a key over the gate, where legend tells that at the return of the sultan (king) the hand would seize the key and the all of the Alhambra would disappear.  Here’s Theo and Janie searching for said key and hand.

We learned that the porcelain art work was not carved, but actually pressed.  That pictures of human form in their temples was forbidden by their religion, that their writing runs from right to left, that whenever you see the letter W it refers to Allah, the Nasrid Dynasty was fond of the idealogy, noone conquers but God.  And this phrase is repeated throughout La Alhambra.

  That King Charles the V so appreciated Alhambra, that he made a home there.  But was called away on other duties, and only 2 of the 3 floors was completed and the roof over the courtyard was also never finished.  That a large city wall used to encompass all of Granada.  That the gypsies (to whom flamenco is credited) lived mostly outside the city walls in caves that today host nightly flamenco shows.  (the old city wall can clearly be seen in this photo taken from Alhambra snaking up the hill in the background)

That Bill Clinton spent a summer/semester in Granada, spending much of his time in the area of the city at the left of the above photograph.  Zeke was especially surprised by this.  I think because he assumed a president must have always been a hard worker.  I explained that there’s great value in getting breadth of knowledge, including knowledge of other cultures.  

We also learned that the ceilings are often the most ornate part of the building.

  That for the moors water was cherished (no surprise they come from an even more arid climate than Spain!) and it was impressive to afford pools of water that would not evaporate and were replenished continually from water coming down from the Sierre Nevada mountains. That Washington Irving, having written Tales from the Alhambra, is a modern day superstar in Granada!!  That our little guys can walk a LONG WAYS and can even enjoy eachother in harmony (but for much shorter durations) 

After leaving Alhambra proper and bidding adieu to our new American friends (or so we thought) we headed toward town.  The mountain water ran everywhere including outside Alhambra and made for pleasant background noise as we walked (when Maeve wasn’t sing-songing).

  We even dunked our hats and heads into it to cool down in the summer heat, although most of the walk was well protected with shaded trees.  As we entered the city proper we stumbled upon this modern day entry to the fortress portion of Alhambra where the kids fulfilled their search for the key and the hand.

Due to overheated/exhausted kids, we didn’t enter the fortress (and unfortunately, never did later) but headed downhill into town.  We found some food and did some souvenir shopping.  Kate left back with the kids as I continued my quest for a few gifts, only to purchase a gift in a shop that I had previously already unknowingly visited until the shop lady implied I had returned.  Returned?? returned from where??  Needless to say it was easy to get lost in the maze of shops, many of them looking very similar offering exactly the same products.  You found yourself quickly assessing a shop’s worthiness by whether they displayed anything unique, i.e. not yet previously seen.  Nope… next shop.  This was certainly the most unique thing I found in any of the shops, a stuffed bull (though it was not for sale)

I returned wondering if I should stop at a store for supper food.  I guessed wrong.  Kate and the kids decided to eat at the restaurant buffet (Theo and Maeve were free and the other 2 half price).  I wasn’t that hungry and Kate allowed me to go for a run.  I decided to see if I could conquer the hills in front of the hotel and behind the Alhambra.  I ran up that way and got lucky.  What appeared to be signs identifying the hill as parkland and bicycle tracks as if it were for biking.  I was able to find a manageable path up the hill and was rewarded with a breathtaking view. 

Sections of the old city wall still stood at points.

  I enjoyed the park so much that it seemed like an absolute must on any visit to Granada.  I was surprised it wasn’t even mentioned in any of our guidebooks.  After watching the sunset from the hill, I started my jog back down.  On the way down I shortcutted through the Alhambra parking lot and bumped into 2 guys attempting to push start their dead car.  I was happy to lend a hand.  Turns out one was a Spanish man who was lending a hand, the other had a wife and child in the car and was responsible for leaving the lights on.  We were unsuccessful at push starting it.  I felt obliged to stay and help as they had a child and I knew how my children would’ve been feeling in this situation. She spoke very good English and good Spanish too, and was able to ask at the guardhouse for jumper cables (pincers).  They didn’t have them, but one of the guards called a personal friend who delivered them and drove his car over to give a jump, which just added to my great impression of the Spanish people!! 

Granada1 – Monday – transport day

 

Our last morning we simply ate what we had left of our supplies, checked our luggage at the hotel and attempted a little more shopping before leaving town.  None of the shopping panned out however and soon it was time to find food and get to the bus station.  Zeke helped me mule the luggage to a restaurant near the bus station as Kate ordered.  Turns out we made the bus station in plenty of time as the bus was about 20 minutes late.  Started to get a little nerve wracking, but I spotted a woman who was also getting nervous ask about Granada.  Later Kate struck up a conversation with her in Spanish and we helped each other find the bus when it finally appeared.  The bus turned out to be one of our hottest rides yet on a city to city bus as the AC was not working fully, but we survived and most napped well. 

The bus station in Granada was one of the nicest we’d been in, including a neat movie running on a couple screens that did stop-motion of graffiti in Spain.  Very interestng.  Sure enough, google helped me find it on youtube. 

We didn’t get to see all of it as we had to rush on to get to our hotel.  Not knowing, yet again, exactly where it was.  I found an English speaker at the info stand who confirmed our route and mentioned that we needed to get a special bus card to handle the transfer.  Unfortunately we lost that in translation as things were a little rushed at the bus driver and we ended up paying twice.

  At the midway bus stop we watched yet another incredibly well behaved dog.  Seems like all European dogs are well behaved.  Most of them don’t even have leashes.  They just trail behind their owners not minding anyone else or any other dog around.  Amazing really.  They all seemed like you could easily stroll up to any of them and scratch their tummies.  Of course, the tiny Chihuahua Maeve did ask to pet at the bus station in Ronda, the owner warned us that she might bite.  Regardless, mental note to get one of those well trained European dogs for our next.  Anyway, at the bus stop we saw a man bike by and then trailing by half a block his dog following him.  Earlier  we saw a skateboarder, cruising down the sidewalk and again a dog w/ a bandana trailing behind.  Impressive.  Very few dogs we saw had leashes.

The 2nd bus turned out to be a bus up the hill toward La Alhambra.  It was a smaller bus evidently to fit the tighter streets and our bus driver attacked the hill like a formula 1 racer.  We’d shown him the name of our hotel when we’d gotten on to confirm we’d found the right bus, and he dropped us right at the door.  Zeke gave him the thumbs up as we left the bus, and the driver shot a greeting back at Zeke with his pointer finger as the barrel. 

As we arrived at the hotel we had the misfortune of landing immediately behind a big tour bus.  We decided to wait out the check-in line outside with the few snacks we had remaining from Fuengirola.  Once we made it to our rooms, the kids were happy to find a flat screen TV in each room.  The stations were adequate for their purposes.  We settled them in for some TV and Kate and I headed out to round up some quick food to bring back to the room.  There were no groceries nearby, but we did bump into one tourist shop that had a cooler.  We grabbed some bread, meat and a few drinks and headed back.

FuengirolaALL – Beach

Our hotel was 1.5 blocks away from one of the 2 major bus stations in the city, San Pedro Sebastian.  We headed out past the little restaurant that we’d frequented and a quick stop at the one known ATM in all of Spain that seemed to be able to read my worn bank card to withdraw the maximum and hopefully hold us over until we found another.  The bus station wasn’t really a bus station, but more of a road that they’d closed down just for bus and trolley traffic and an underground to the metro.  We knew we wanted the C2 to the train station, but didn’t see rhyme or reason as to where the C2 would stop.  Kate asked someone who seemed to be in the know.  They pointed us to the bus shelter across the street.  We navigated our luggage through the construction that was underway on the trolley tracks and arrived just as a C2 bus was waiting for us.  The bus was nearly full so I stood with the luggage.  Theo and Zeke wanted to stand too as this was a double long split bus with a sort of turntable in the mid-section that was bordered by accordian type walls.  They thought it would be fun to try riding on the turntable mid-section.  The bus had signs that said keep the windows closed for the air conditioning, but many were already open as the AC was evidently not working.  Most of the buses we were on throughout Spain had AC, but several did not.  It was early enough that the heat was not stifling, but being Seville it was already plenty warm at approx 10 am.  And the packed bus stuck in the early morning traffic didn’t help.  We’d covered the distance of about 1 block in 4 minutes as the bus driver worked his way out of the bottleneck of traffic and pulled a right turn which seemed to finally free us.  Just in time too, I’d noticed a few hand fans already waving and even a couple of natives looking like beads of perspiration were close to forming, as we finally got a little air circulating in the bus.  Kate had heard a Chinese couple ask for directions to the train station so we kept a close eye on them, not knowing exactly when we should depart.  BTW, that’s the major difference between taking the bus and the metro.  The metro is much easier to navigate as there are far fewer stops and the stops are very clearly marked.  The buses run every direction like a spiderweb through the cities, tough to know exactly which bus to catch and where to catch it and tougher still to know when to get off.  I noticed a large train-station like building off the right-side and saw what appeared to be a drawing of a train on the building.  A medium-sized parking lot full of cars and the Chinese pair departing convinced me this was our stop.

It was.  We’d planned much too much buffer time on our trip to the train station and had about 2 hours to kill.  There were a few stores so we walked about and shopped.  Choruses of ‘no touching’ later we’d exhausted that option, leaving only people watching and old fashioned talking.  The train station was not air conditioned and also was already getting warm.  We knew the train itself would have air so we headed down to it as early as possible.  Unfortunately too early as the train was there but not yet boarding passengers.  First came Maeve’s ‘I have to go potty’ then, after Kate had left with her, came Theo’s.  So I left Zeke and Jane with the luggage and made the long run back up the escalator ramp to find the nearest bathroom closed so hurried back past all the shops to the far bathroom.  When we got back the train was boarding.  We found our seats and waited in Air Conditioned comfort.  The train ride to Malaga was mostly non-descript.  Closer to Malaga we seemed to need to break through a mini-mountain range so the scenery was a little more interesting.  We arrived in Malaga and faced our next test.  Where to find the bus station.  Kate noticed an info desk and asked a lady there about Fuengirola.  She directed us outside.  The train station in Malaga doubled as a fantastically large Mall that would’ve been fun to spend a day searching through, but we knew there may be a last bus out of town, so we kept moving.  Once again we heard the potty call and quickly scanned for the nearest bathroom. Not having seen any since we left the train station into the mall, we were a little concerned.  Zeke noticed on the kiosk a nearby bathroom upstairs, but the only elevator or escalator or stairs we could see was inside a store!  That was new to us, but we took it out of necessity.  After our ride Kate noticed a sign that said something about please don’t use our elevator unless you are our customer.  I imagined some fine print about kids needing a bathroom so excused our trespassing at least in my mind.  The bus station was supposed to be half a block from the train station, but due to construction we had quite a time finding our way there.  And once we got there, despite all my previous research on the web, they told us to go back to the train station.  Sure enough, a new option was available.  A tram that ran from the train station straight to Fuengirola and best yet, our train ticket allowed us to transfer without a fee.  Only problem… where would we end up?  We knew the bus station in Fuengirola was only blocks from our hotel.  But where was the train station.  Luck stuck again as we stumbled off the train nearly into the bus station.  Whew!  From there, Kate’s Spanish got us the rest of the way.  The hotel had water problems and had to put us into 2 separate rooms instead of our apartment.  Promising that if they didn’t have it fixed by tomorrow they’d put us up in their penthouse.  The kids were pretty excited to hear this, and I’ll admit even I was hoping.  We let the kids check out the new TV stations… their new favorite cbbc, which was Brit TV for kids.  Including Horrible Histories, where the topics included the laundry practices of Romans, and Stupid Deaths.  All of it based on real history.  And most of it potty humor.  They loved it.  We ate a quick bite and decided to just walk down to the beach and check it out.  It was late enough in the day that we decided we didn’t need sunscreen.  I don’t know what we were thinking, but the kids, despite us asking them to stay dry in their street clothes, got completely soaked from head to toe.  I guess we were just enjoying them enjoying the ocean.  I know I enjoyed the enthusiasm and excitement that I saw from each kid as they met the ocean.  Especially Theo, who nearly immediately started attacking the waves much like he did in the Dells wave pool when he was 4.

On the way back, with every kid soaked, Kate offered to let the girls get their hair braided.  Maeve nearly fell asleep during the operation.

   We found out the lady braiding the hair spoke 5 different languages and was working on English as her 6th!!

The boys and I were heading back to the hotel when we spotted freshly roasted almonds and couldn’t resist.  We decided to take some back to the girls and wait for them to finish.  I tried to shake the sand out of Theo’s pockets while we waited.

The next day we decided to invest in some beach goods… A sun umbrella, a couple of towels, an inflatable bed chair, a sand mat, a pair of paddles w/ ball, and our best purchase a blow up puppy dog for Maeve (and don’t those braids look good!!)

BTW, the above photo was taken in our penthouse rooftop pool.  Yup, they’d been unable to fix the water problem and came through on their promise.  We were a little excited.  The view from the rooftop was fabulous…  With the beach on one side of the rooftop and the hotel pool on the other side.

That night Theo came up with the idea of sleeping on the rooftop.  After a little thought, I said sure why not but that we’d have to keep it our secret.  He couldn’t have been more excited.  I asked him if it was OK if we invited Maeve along and he agreed.  We had only the 2 reclining pool chairs to sleep on and with Maeve with me it was tough to get sleep.  It was an awesome clear night and we enjoyed connecting the dots on some stars and seeing a few planes, even a couple that “collided” as they headed opposite directions, and even spotted a few satellites.  Theo said, I sure am glad they weren’t able to fix that water leak and then soon dozed off to sleep just as the moon was rising over the ledge of our building.  I tossed and turned a bit with Maeve trying to find a comfortable position.  I must’ve gotten some sleep as I remember the moon in about 4 different positions throughout the night until finally I saw the sky start to lighten and watched as the sun rose over the far off mountains that are only visible when the sun is partially hidden behind them.  Here’s Maeve and I awake the next morning, with Theo still wrapped up tight in his blanket.  There were absolutely no bugs and only a few seagulls flashing white overhead.  The breeze picked up a bit overnight and by morning I was getting a little cold as was Theo.  You can see the moon had crossed completely behind us by this morning shot (the moon is above and left of that chimney looking protrusion)

We spent much of our days at the beach and a few swims at the hotel pool and our private pool.  Water has always agreed with our family.  We did make a trip down to the castle.  A walk of about 30-40 minutes on a hot muggy day.   It was nearly too long for me.  Mostly the castle was a bust, except that we crossed a bridge to save the day and Theo and Maeve through their flowers to the fish who instantly hit them then spit them back out.  Later we created a story on the train about Harry, Roger and Penelope rabbit.  Zeke added a part about the fish throwing rocks back at the rabbits on the bridge in retribution for being fooled.  Theo, Maeve and I also played superhero on the way back and saved the bridge from collapse as the cables were “starting to shake violently”.  In reality it was just harmonics on the cables.  Interestingly enough, the vibrations were dampened and eventually subsided by simply holding onto the cable firmly.  Theo and Maeve weren’t big enough to pull if off, but superDad was able to.  About 10 cables later, I exclaimed “I wish the world would just stay saved for once” ala Mr Incredible knowing full well that the wind would soon start the wave in each cable again.  Our work done, we headed back up the beachfront in search of a bathroom for Jane and cool drinks for All. 

We also bumped into a leather store and spent way more than what we intended to spend.  We were only there for wallets for the kids, but found some good shoes for Kate and I and then Kate found the perfect leather coat, which she looks incredible in.

We did some carnival rids solo with Maeve one night and then with all the kids a 2nd night.  They all especially liked the bungie jump…

At some point during the week Kate was helping Maeve count past 10.  For whatever reason, Maeve latched onto the sound of 15.  Here’s Maeve doing her quince song and dance,

a dance she repeated many times throughout the week.

Janie met and talked to a Brit girl on our final day, and they talked and they talked and they talked.  I didn’t have the heart to say we have to leave.  They exchanged emails.

We also met an ex-flamenco dancer on the beach.  A very kind couple that we passed much of our beach goods down to.  She particularly enjoyed kids and gave Maeve a beautiful flamenco song and a big lipstick kiss.

We left Fuengirola knowing we’d gotten the most out of our beach experience.  Shell collecting, burying daddy in the sand, several sand castles, modifications on sand dikes to help keep the big waves off our beach towels, and lots of paddle ball… our record 53.  And one of my favorite memories… We could clearly see the waves from our hotel room.  Each day was the same with tiny waves and every so often 1 to 2 foot waves crashing in.  But in our 2nd or 3rd day you could see the waves were larger.  From our hotel room we could see boogie boarders picking up the waves out past the buoys.  When we got down to the beach we could see that the normal wave was 1 to 2 foot and the larger waves were 3 to 5 feet. There was even one smaller athletic boy who was able to surf the waves standing up.  He was obviously very athletic and he finished each of his rides by diving off the board with a somersault into the water.  We planted our umbrella and set our sand mat in the newly created shade.  As experienced Fuengirola beach goers we knew not to start too close to the beach, as by later in the afternoon the tide would rise and force us to move further inland.  Maeve quickly set off with her dog with Theo and Zeke and Janie played some paddle ball.  Soon however we were all in experiencing the big waves.  And at one point Zeke and Maeve were paired up, with Maeve riding her perrito (puppy).  We were all watching for the next big wave, trying our best like the boogie boarders to guess which wave would turn out to be a good one.  I found the best technique to be watching them, and when they would turn I would turn.  Zeke found that often if a big wave would crash the warf further out, then it would also materialize into a larger wave at the beach.  But not always.  Anyway, one of the largest waves we’d seen that day, maybe 6 feet, popped out of the ocean.  Zeke had been helping Maeve over the crest of the wave, and with this wave he attempted the same.  But with the size of the wave the perrito slid away from him.  By the time I noticed what had happened Maeve was already nearly at the shore.  That’s right, she and Perrito rode the wave nearly all the way in.  The next wave finished the job and she was at the shoreline.  Zeke had swam and run up to her to see if she was afraid.  But she was grinning from ear to ear.