You can see all of my pictures from the trip in the slide show below, or check out the set on Flickr. I hope you can enjoy the pictures and stories at least half as much as I enjoyed living them!

I’m typically not much of an architecture guy, but in both Valencia and Barcelona, there were a couple of buildings with which I fell in love. The common theme was that the buildings seemed to re-imagine gothic architecture in graceful modern forms.

First up was the Ciutat de les Artes. It’s a series of buildings at the end of what used to be the river Turia. In the ’80 the Turia was diverted to prevent flooding, and the riverbed became a massive park running through the whole city. The 8 buildings they put up at the end of the park make you wonder what other cities would do if they suddenly discovered a massive stretch of public land in the middle of the town. I didn’t find the rest of Valencia that impressive, but these buildings alone make the city a reasonable tourist destination. We spent a whole day wandering through them and then exploring Oceanografic, the largest aquarium in Europe which is at the end of the Ciutat de les Artes.

The picture above is the back side of the Science Museum. Meant to evoke a whale skeleton, it was the building that most invoked gothic style to me, just a long series of flying buttresses propping up a large lofty ceiling. Below on the left, you see the same building at night from the other direction with El Puente de l’Assut de l’Or (bridge and tallest structure int he city) and L’Àgora (covered plaza for things like tennis tournaments). To the right is the Hemispheric, which houses a wicked wrap around IMAX screen with headsets that cater to almost any language preference.

Further up the coast in Barcelona the great architecture continued at the Sagrada Familia, the second place site that claimed to be the most visited destination in Spain. This cathedral, which is very much still a building site, is the final masterpiece of the blindingly brilliant Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi died while construction was slowing and the building was only a fraction complete. Then shortly after his death all the plans and models were destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. Construction is now back on pace, and thanks in no small part to healthy tourist revenues, the building is back on track to be finished sometime in the next half century or so. You can see in the pictures below (which are both rather poor, apologies) that the style is imagining gothic cathedral styles in natural forms. So the pillars become trees, and the vaulted ceilings are a bed of flowers. It’s an impressive place, and I hope to be able to go back and see it when it’s finished. In the meantime it’s well worth the long queue and high price to wander around. Make sure to get the audio guide and take the lift to the top of the spires.

So in the end, many thanks to Spain and your beautiful public architecture. I know I missed some of the great ones, like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but glad for the splendors I was able to enjoy.

There are more than 220 million olive trees in Spain, giving it the largest surface area of olive production of any country. And those olives, and the all of their byproducts, are delicious.

Nearly every great landscape view in Andelucia was filled with rolling hills of olive trees. We drove through them on our way south from Madrid to Seville, and promptly started ordering a plate of olives with every meal. We drove by olive oil factories, learned how to order just about any type of olive product in Spanish, and after a little while it felt like my blood was turning into olive oil.

The climax of the olive experience came when we reached the small town of Ubeda, in Jaen province of Andelucia. Our first evening in town I wandered past the church in the middle of town and was rewarded with the view above. We headed back in the morning to see great views of the olive covered hills rolling off into the distance where they met the mountains, like you see below.

After a solid hour enjoying the views, I knew we had to chase down a closer encounter with olives, and started asking around to see if we could find an olive oil factory, or tour of any nature. One lady seemed to have an idea – a little place called La Laguna that wasn’t on any of our maps and received no mention in Lonely Planet. It look a good leap of faith, and a bit of hunting, but we eventually found it. As you can see on google maps, it’s not more than a compound out in a in a sea of olive trees. But that compound is fantastic, including a cheap hotel, bar, restaurant, and the Museo de la Cultura del Olivo. It’s build on an old olive processing site, so has giant vats for olive oil in the basement, as well as 24 types of olive trees from all over the Mediterranean and 3 different type of historic olive presses above ground. There are some signs in broken English, but if you love olives anywhere nearly as much as I do, they will be more than enough to keep you captivated for a long while as you explore the many uses and falvours of olives.

Inside the Great Mosque of Cordoba

On the advice of a couple of other travellers, we wound our way over to Cordoba to see the old town and the Great Mosque – one of the greatest Islamic buildings in Spain, and one of the largest mosques ever built. It was indeed a pretty splendid building, a sea of columns with some fantastic treasures including a wall that was a mosaic of gold. It was a rough place to get a picture that really captured a sense of the space though, but it was very magnificent inside.

Unfortunately, the whole place left a bad flavour in my mouth because of the information pamphlet they gave out at the door. The whole thing had a condescending tone towards Islam, first off calling what everyone calls the Grand Mosque is called the the Grand Cathedral, and then diminishing the splendour of the mosque by saying:

Thus the beauty of the Cathedral of Cordoba does not reside in its architectural grandeur, but in the apostolic succession of the Bishop as a symbol of his pastoral service and the unity of the Church, founded upon the Word of the Lord, the sacraments, and the community of believers.

I just don’t understand why they have felt the need to diminish the grandeur of the building or the contribution of the culture that built most of it. Another choice line was:

It is a historical fact that the basilica of San Vincente was expropriated and destroyed in order to build what would later be the Mosque, a reality that questions the theme of tolerance that was supposedly cultivated in the Cordobra of the moment.

So here they are bashing the Islamic empire for a lack of tolerance in a pamphlet that is itself contains. It also condemns the destruction of the historical building, yet the Catholics plunked a massive cathedral right in the middle of the mosque. In any case, if you are in Andalucia, it is well worth seeing the building but I’d avoid the pamphlet.

This massive castle/palace complex claims to be the most visited site in Spain. Though Sagrada Familia in Barcelona also makes the same claim, the Alhambra is undoubtedly the best camera candy in the country. There has been some sort of palace/fortification on the site since at least the 11th century, with major construction taking place in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was the last hold out of the Islamic empire in Iberia, eventually captured by the Christians in 1492. In the 16th century Carlos V built a whole new palace on the grounds. But after that attention shifted away and the whole complex started a slow slide into disrepair until it started to attract tourists in the 19th century.

We spent a solid day wandering around the grounds, starting before sunrise as we had to queue up early in the morning to get some of the limited number of tickets to the Palacios Nazaries – the old Islamic palace. You can see one of the stunning ceilings from Nazaries above and a view out some of the windows looking over the city of Grenada below.

Next to the Palacios Nzaries is the Palacio de Carlos V, the most recent addition to the complex of palaces, which Carlos V meant to be the seat of his empire. Below is a picture looking out from the courtyard.

Above the Alhambra is the Generalife, a palace built in the 14th century overlooking the main palace and fortress complex. Cuz, you know, sometimes you just have to get away from your palace, and the best way to do that is another palace with a view of your main palace. The picture below is the view through an open terrace looking out over Grenada.

The picture on the left is one of the last of the day as we left the Generalife and had a view over looking the Alhambra. The church spire is the Iglesia Santa Maria, also built by Carlos V. The queue on the right is for the Palacios Nazaries around noon. So as you might imagine, I highly recommend going early in the morning when you don’t have to wait in such a massive queue and can actually wander around without the throngs of people getting in your way.

You can see a few more pictures from the Alhambra in my previous encounter with Islamic water features.

It’s cruel to even call it ‘ice’. While we were in Madrid we encountered what appeared to be a little urban ice rink set up for the holidays. Closer examination revealed that it was, in fact, plastic – like a plastic cutting-board. Kids were slipping and sliding all over the place, unable to stand up well or do anything that even vaguely resembled skating. It was sad watching these poor kids suffer the the joyless indignity of scrambling around wearing ice skates on a giant cutting board. Whoever’s idea it was to ruin these kid’s experience of winter sports should be punished.

The first place we slowed down during the trip was the little town of Ronda where we bunked up for x-mas. It was a cute little old town in a location that must have been selected by some mad bastard as the town is divided by the giant Tajo gorge. At the end of the 18th century they built a bridge (that you see below), and linked up the sides of the city which previously required a long roundabout trip to a smaller bridge which is practically outside of the town.

The town was naturally photogenic. The gorge was stunning from above and below, and even though it rained a good deal of the time we were there, the weather added to the beauty – a couple of rain induced pictures are after the jump.

If you’re looking to unwind in Andalucia, this is the place to do it. Just settle in, see some views, and enjoy the hearty local eats. It doesn’t pack in all the cultural sights of the major cities, but it a beautiful spot to find yourself for a couple of days.

My travelling buddies in Spain loved pastries, so much so that we were in most every pastry shop that looked half decent. You can see the in the image above scoping out the options at one shop in Sevilla. Not that I’m complaining, I love a good pastry, but there are a very large number of pastry shops in Spain as it turns out. Out of all the shops in all the towns, there is one that you have to visit: Pan y Chocolate in Granada. Try anything they have with dulce de leche, you’ll be glad you did. You can find the place here:

Everywhere we went in southern Spain there were traces of the Islamic empire, even though it was driven from the peninsula 500 years ago. One of the first sites we toured was the Alcazar in Seville (first picture below is from there), a visit that set the tone for all subsequent visits to Islamic sites. The very first sign we read described the many fountains and indoor ponds in all caps bold letters as, “the Islamic penchant for water features.” Inevitably the phrase stuck with us as we wandered around the many water features of the palaces and courtyards of Andalucia.

Most of the fountains and falls were very peaceful and made for great camera fodder, especially when they caught the reflections of the beautiful building surrounding them. My favorite fountain was the water stairs at the Generalife in Gernada. The banisters funneled water down and into pools into landings – surrounding you with gently gurgling water.

I might not have spent as much attention to the fountains if it weren’t for the running joke, and in the end I’m glad we were able to have a laugh and pay attention to the water features. They were beautifully incorporated into the architecture and made me think about how to incorporate water into my home someday in the future.

The first week of our trip in Spain was cold, punctuated with snow at the very end of our stay in Madrid. Our fortunes changes on arrival in Seville, a chance punctuated with orange trees. They were everywhere, lining the streets, in courtyards, and arranged in parks. Every single one was laden with fruit, making me wonder if they were secretly poisoned or just taboo to eat. We refrained from picking them, but picked up sacks of them at markets for a penance. I also took as many pictures of the tress as I could, including the one above, shot from the Seville Cathedral minaret.

As the road trip took us into Valencia province we started seeing large scale orange farming for the first time, and decided that our reluctance to take the delicious looking fruit straight from the trees was a cruel abstinence. Driving through Deltebre (don’t go, it’s a large swamp) we pulled over to the side of road and stocked up on some succulent citrus hanging over the road. I won’t hesitate in the future.