{"id":11890,"date":"2001-03-25T05:25:59","date_gmt":"2001-03-24T21:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/?p=11890"},"modified":"2016-06-25T02:34:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-24T18:34:23","slug":"travel-blog-a-month-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/?p=11890","title":{"rendered":"Travel Blog — a month in Spain . . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

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– March 2015 –<\/p>\n

Cordoba has long been on my travel bucket list. \u00a0Unfortunately, the ordeal of\u00a0a painful international hop-scotch to Andalucia from Hong Kong (via London and then to Barcelona followed by a 5-hour train ride to Cordoba)\u00a0made this journey logistically\u00a0infeasible. Thus, Cordoba remained a dream . . . until now — I’ve recently moved back to London and with Spain in my backyard, I am writing this blog from Cordoba!<\/p>\n

And my first impression? \u00a0Sadly, it\u00a0was not positive at all! \u00a0Thankfully, first impressions are only just that because my enjoyment of the city markedly improved once I got beyond the first few humps.<\/p>\n

My first sight of the city was marred with overfilling rubbish bins and garbage strewned all over the platform at the train station. \u00a0This was particularly surprising because we’d arrived a few days before the start of Semana Santa (Easter Holy Week) and this was a major event for the city. \u00a0Although one could attribute this to the ongoing period of deep austerity, I did not see this amount of filth (if at all) in Barcelona, Sevilla and Granada. \u00a0Prior to arriving in Cordoba, my husband and I spent many wonderful weeks\u00a0meandering around the aforementioned cities and they were generally spotless.<\/p>\n

The bigger surprise, however, was the complete lack of interest and the unhelpfulness we received at the Informacion Turistica reception! \u00a0We went to the main tourist office near the Mezquita and asked one of the ladies behind the information counter for the Semana Santa procession schedule and routes. \u00a0 This lady, aka “The Unhelpful Cordoba Tourist Officer” told us that she did not have this information. \u00a0When we’d asked where we could get this information, she told us that the schedule and routes have not yet been set and therefore was not available. \u00a0 This jarred with us because we could clearly see that the council had already started setting up stands along the streets. \u00a0As such, we ignored the misinformation from the tourist office\u00a0and went online. \u00a0Using the link (http:\/\/english.turismodecordoba.org\/seccion\/holy-week) provided to us by our AirBnB\u00a0host, we\u00a0mapped out\u00a0procession routes and timetable ourselves.<\/p>\n

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Negative first impressions aside, I must confess that I did truly enjoy Cordoba (and Spain) very much. \u00a0The two issues mentioned above were minor irritants and minuscule compared to the mountain of wonderful food, impressive sights and warm charm of the people and country.<\/p>\n

As alluded to earlier,\u00a0main purpose of this trip was to see the Semana Santa processions in Cordoba. \u00a0But, rather than do this as a fly-by-visit, we wanted to take our time and explore the key cities. \u00a0 To have a more authentic experience, we’d opted to avoid hotels altogether and use AirBnB accommodations situated in the centre of each city. \u00a0In all but 1 apartment, we had a private kitchen. \u00a0This enabled us to cook regional dishes using local produce from nearby markets. \u00a0To get around, we’d expressly forbade ourselves from taking taxis (unless we had luggage and were in transit to\/from the train stations). \u00a0Whenever and wherever possible, our primary mode of transportation in each city\u00a0was by walking.<\/p>\n

Our slow-and-explore approach meant that we’d spent 7 nights in Barcelona (6 nights at the start of the trip and then 1 night before flying back to London), 5 nights in Sevilla, 6 nights in Granada and 12 nights in Cordoba.<\/p>\n

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Like Cordoba, Barcelona was also on my bucket list for a long time. \u00a0I had visions of Gaudi and Dali exploding in urban technicolor; as a photographer, I was chomping at the chance to capture the magic of Barcelona in infra-red. \u00a0Unfortunately, the sites that I was most keen to photograph were defaced with construction cranes (at the Sagrada Familia cathedral) or with wire fences (at the rooftop of the Pedrera). \u00a0 Paradoxically, these eyesores were actually beneficial\u00a0as they forced me to find creative angles and be inventive with my composition.<\/p>\n

In truth, whilst I’d enjoyed photographing Barcelona, I actually enjoyed my time there\u00a0more with\u00a0my Nikons \u00a0inside\u00a0<\/em> my bag. \u00a0My favourite moments in Barca centered\u00a0around food. \u00a0We decided to forgo recommendations from the ubiquitous travel books and blogs and instead use our instincts to select places to drink and eat. \u00a0I’m happy to report that we did not have one bad meal! \u00a0We had traditional Catalan food (such as fideua), traditional tapas, churros con chocolate, fresh seafood from the markets, gastropub food, and a few funky artisan dishes. \u00a0The standout funky dish was ‘baby sardines on filo pastry with caramelised onions \u2026 and whipped cream<\/em>‘. \u00a0Although this sounded deeply weird, the combination\u00a0worked — the tastebuds were very happy!!! \u00a0And other standout dish was veal with ‘cuttlefish noodles’ — the chef shaved the cuttlefish so thinly that the flesh curled like\u00a0tagliatelle noodles! \u00a0Surprisingly, however, the dish that I remembered most fondly\u00a0(and plan to make often at home) was actually the simplest dish we’d had — it was toasted bread with a smear of tomatoes\/tomato paste, sea salt and olive oil. \u00a0We had this dish at almost every meal and never once got tired of it.<\/p>\n

I also have very fond memories of the musicians busking by the cafes below our rented apartment. \u00a0The majority were\u00a0entertaining but one was simply exceptional. \u00a0This musician had the whole plaza singing along with him for a full 45 minutes; the crowd would not let him leave — he had to do multiple encores. \u00a0During this time, we were in our apartment enjoying our siestas but rather than be annoyed by the noises from the crowd, we accepted that we had premier seats in an open-air concert. \u00a0It was wonderful!<\/p>\n

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the view from our balcony in Barca<\/p><\/div>\n

Our apartment was only minutes from the main cathedral so it was naturally the first major site we’d visited. \u00a0Beautiful. \u00a0Classic and traditional. \u00a0Majestic. \u00a0And more importantly, it served as the perfect benchmark to make comparisons with the Sagrada Familia. \u00a0In other words, whilst both cathedrals can standalone in their own rights, both were also equally enriched by each other. \u00a0It was a symbiotic relationship. (I would recommend that visitors see the traditional cathedral first as this would enhance their experience at the Gaudi cathedral.)<\/p>\n

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Barcelona Cathedral<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sagrada Familia<\/p><\/div>\n

Barca was the perfect venue to re-introduce us to Spain. \u00a0By the time we were on the RENFE train to Sevilla, we were completely relaxed and ready for more adventures.<\/p>\n

[ CONFESSION: \u00a0Based on my experiences with English trains, I had low expectations for the Spain trains. \u00a0It was therefore a delight to find that the Spanish trains were clean and reliable and that the food (in particular, the toasted sandwiches) was actually quite delicious! ]<\/p>\n

Train travel in Spain proved to be exceptionally easy. \u00a0Prior to this trip, I’d researched the connections, timetables, etc. on an online site written by a train enthusiast (thank you Mark Smith — aka ‘The Man in Seat Sixty-One’) and used his recommendations to book the tickets online. \u00a0As these were purchased in advance, they were cheaper than the daily rate travel. \u00a0More importantly, it meant that we had\u00a0guaranteed seats. \u00a0In short, no stress whatsoever.<\/p>\n

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Once in Sevilla, we located our rented apartment and dropped off our bag. Our first priority\u00a0was to locate el mercado<\/em> – or, the local market.\u00a0 Even though we had maps and directions, we got lost. \u00a0Frequently<\/em>. \u00a0Although Sevilla is often described as a “big small city”, or as a “small big city”, as an ancient city, Sevilla is crinkly and as such,\u00a0it was difficult for us to get our bearings.\u00a0In the end, I think it took us about 2 full days before we became comfortable enough to walk around without maps.<\/p>\n

Our attempt to locate the market on the first day ended in failure. \u00a0We therefore decided to eat out that night. \u00a0Because most (non-tourist) restaurants in Sevilla do not start dinner service until\u00a08PM, we had time to kill before dinner. \u00a0We therefore decided to have a drink and walked into a tavern that had the most charm. \u00a0Little did we know that we struck gold that night. \u00a0The establishment\u00a0that we’d stumbled upon was the oldest tavern in Sevilla (it was founded in 1670) and it oozed with a friendly old-world atmosphere. \u00a0Real Iberian ham and sausages hung from the wall — these were not mere\u00a0decorations — \u00a0the waiters plucked the sausages from the wall and carved these to order.\u00a0 In addition, the tavern was full of locals whereby everyone seems to know each other. \u00a0As I drank my Rioja and soaked in the lovely charm of the place, I decided then and there that I wanted to make this establishment “my local” whilst we were in Sevilla. \u00a0 Consequently, we visited this tavern every night that week. \u00a0And each night, our experience at this tavern improved. \u00a0I was genuinely sad to leave Sevilla because it meant that I was leaving this tavern. \u00a0Our last night in Sevilla was celebrated with a beautiful Rioja, some great tapas, and a homemade flan that was simply the \u00a0BEST<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 flan I’ve ever<\/em> had.<\/p>\n

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at El Rinconcillo<\/strong>, the oldest bar in Sevilla<\/p><\/div>\n

As if finding this tavern by sheer blind good luck was not enough, we\u00a0struck gold again a few nights later when at dinner we heard some commotion on the streets. \u00a0It turned out that a nearby church was practicing their Semana Santa procession. \u00a0I immediately jumped out of my seat (sorry Bruce!) and raced onto the street to record this short video. \u00a0And I was doubly lucky because this video was recorded as the procession passed by the enchantedly beautiful Macarena.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Sevilla-practice-procession.m4v<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

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My good luck with Semana Santa continued in Granada. \u00a0In this instance, I wouldn’t described us as being ‘lost’ (because Granada was easily navigable compared to Sevilla) but we did managed to wander ‘off-plan’. \u00a0During our\u00a0aimless walkabout, we stumbled upon a church group that was taking their display out of storage. \u00a0Never shy (especially when it pertained to photography) I got permission to photograph their Madonna. \u00a0It was particularly special because I was able to get real close and I didn’t have to jostle with other tourists.<\/p>\n

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Later that week, we came across more practice processions. \u00a0I’ve always known that these heavy displays needed many men to carry but it didn’t occur to me that a “medium” display would need as many as 35 men (as demonstrated in this video). \u00a0It was insightful to see the men practice — not only were the men ‘beasts of burden’, but, they also had to walk in complete unison and march based on instructions barked out by their drill sergeant.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Granada-practice-session-1.m4v<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

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It was quite fortunate that we saw the practice session in Granada because it really made us appreciate how much effort and coordination were required. \u00a0In the video below, you can see the Semana Santa team (in Cordoba) very skillfully navigate a narrow alleyway and then make an exceptionally tight corner turn. \u00a0Remarkable!!!<\/p>\n

https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/CordobaSemenaSanta-Wi-Fi.m4v<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

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The themes of good food (from Barcelona) and good luck (from Sevilla) continued as we moved onwards to Granada.<\/p>\n

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In my research for this trip, I had read that Alhambra has a daily limit on the number of visitors and therefore it was highly recommended to purchase tickets in advance. \u00a0I assumed that this was only true during ‘peak seasons’ — i.e. during the summer months. \u00a0But, I didn’t realise that the week prior to Holy Week was a high-demand time and when I went online to ‘browse’ for tickets, I was shocked to see that several of the dates were already sold out! \u00a0We therefore booked our tickets quickly based on the dates that were still available. \u00a0It transpired that we were lucky (again!) as the day we visited Alhambra was the only dry day of the week. For the rest of the week, it poured and poured and poured with rain.<\/p>\n

[ A little digression here: \u00a0technically, you don’t need tickets to visit Alhambra as there are some public spaces. \u00a0But you do need tickets if you want to visit the towers or the palace or the famous landscaped gardens. \u00a0In addition, you can visit Alhambra at night — this makes sense if you can’t get day tickets or the day temperature is too onerous. \u00a0]<\/p>\n

In addition to purchasing day tickets, we also purchased night tickets because we thought that we would be able to see and to experience something special. \u00a0To be completely honest, this was both a waste of time and money. \u00a0Nothing was really open; the palace and the towers were locked. The tickets allowed us access to the landscaped garden but this wasn’t worth seeing at night. \u00a0Plus, if we wanted to walk around Alhambra at night (minus the landscaped garden) then we could have entered the grounds without<\/em> a ticket.<\/p>\n

The obvious crowning jewel of Granada was the Alhambra; the other crown jewel was less obvious — \u00a0‘Los Diamantes’ was a modern bar in the centre of town that served some of the yummiest tapas we’ve had in Spain. \u00a0I particularly recommend the fried baby squid and aubergine chips (with honey). \u00a0[ From the street view, Los Diamantes looked like a tourist trap but surprisingly it was almost always full of locals — a very clear sign to us that this was worth a try! ] \u00a0Although we’ve eaten at Los Diamantes several times during our short stay, we also took the opportunity to cook for ourselves and to buy fresh produce from the local markets. \u00a0 It was a delight (and quite a surprise) to find Rioja wines that normally costed us about EUR 80 to buy in Hong Kong on sale at the corner market for about EUR 8! \u00a0 Needless to say, we’d happily enjoyed knocking back a few bottles of our favourite brands.<\/p>\n

Onwards to Cordoba . . . .\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As much as we’d enjoyed Barcelona, Seville and Granada, it was time to hop back onto the train and head to our\u00a0raison d’\u00eatre<\/em>. \u00a0I’d timed the trip so that we would have a few days to explore Cordoba before the start of the festival. \u00a0In hindsight, this was a very wise decision because it gave us the opportunity to map out the backstreets and passages which meant that if we needed to bypass or avoid a festival procession en-route, we could easily do so.<\/p>\n

Succinctly, the Santa Semana surpassed all of my expectations. \u00a0This was largely due to the fact that our wonderful AirBnB host managed to secure for us highly coveted tickets for front row seats along the main procession route. \u00a0This enabled us to watch and to experience the processions unencumbered. \u00a0It also meant that we were able to get great images without having to shoot over someone’s shoulders. \u00a0But, in truth, I liked the fact that we experienced the festivals from both these seats as well as from the streets; in many ways, the atmosphere from the street was so very different from that from the procession seats that it often felt that we were experiencing two very different events.<\/p>\n

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\"Cordoba,<\/a>

Cordoba, Spain<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Cordoba,<\/a>

Cordoba, Spain<\/p><\/div>\n

An unforgettable highlight of the festival was the 2AM procession. \u00a0This procession was vastly different from the others — it was very sombre; there were no marching bands or musicians and some of the penitents walked the entire route barefooted. \u00a0I had thought that this procession would have been lightly attended given the lateness of the march but I was woefully wrong. \u00a0There were several\u00a0hundreds lined along the procession route as the penitents slowly meandered thru the back streets of Cordoba to the Mezquita.<\/p>\n

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Our evenings were spent watching (or chasing) the processions. \u00a0Our days were spent exploring the city, eating well and\/or simply relaxing. \u00a0Our rented apartment was only 2 blocks away from the Mezquita and as such, we took advantage of this proximity by exploring this iconic building multiple times in the morning. \u00a0(Entry is free before 10AM; moreover, groups are banned from the morning entry — a very welcomed banned!) \u00a0In hindsight, this was a smart move because it was easy to become overwhelmed by the majesty of the building at first sight. \u00a0By our second and third visit, I found that I was more discriminatory in the types of images I was photographing. \u00a0During our fourth and last visit, I actually spent more time with my camera in my bag as it was important to ‘drink in the experiences with my eyes and not with my camera’.<\/p>\n

The Mezquita is\u00a0a truly impressive building. \u00a0(The only other building that I have found to be more impressive is the Haghia Sophia in Instanbul.) \u00a0As such, I would recommend a visit to Cordoba if not for the Santa Semana festival, then at least for a visit to\u00a0the Mezquita. \u00a0This is well worth the effort — even if Cordoba has an extremely unhelpful and disinterested tourist officer stationed at the Tourism Desk.<\/p>\n

I would happily spend another month in Spain again . . . .<\/p>\n

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Happy Travels \u2026. from Tram & Bruce<\/p><\/div>\n

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– March 2015 – Cordoba has long been on my travel bucket list. \u00a0Unfortunately, the ordeal of\u00a0a painful international hop-scotch to Andalucia from Hong Kong (via London and then to Barcelona followed by a 5-hour train ride to Cordoba)\u00a0made this journey logistically\u00a0infeasible. Thus, Cordoba remained a dream . . . until now — I’ve recently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,41],"tags":[337,320,323,328,322,336,340,339,334,341,324,321,357,338,354,325],"class_list":["post-11890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain","category-travel-blog","tag-alhambra","tag-barcelona","tag-cordoba","tag-el-rinconcillo","tag-granada","tag-holy-week","tag-informacion-turistica","tag-mezquita","tag-santa-semana","tag-semana-santa","tag-sevilla","tag-seville","tag-spain","tag-the-man-in-seat-sixty-one","tag-travel-blog","tag-unhelpful-cordoba-tourist-officer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11890"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12801,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions\/12801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/le-mckernan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}