Strength, valour, sharks and rice

29 October 2013 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, extraordinaryplaces, Oceanografic, paella, Spain, Valencia

We have been travelling for three months now and have seen many and varied things – old, new, weird and wonderful – and all of it has been great fun. After leaving Mallorca, the next leg on our journey of discovery took us through some of the ancient cities of southern Spain – Valencia, Cordoba and Seville. This is the first of three short blogs we’ll be posting in the coming days about our visits to each of them. Their histories are fascinating, although they all have a recurring theme of being great Moorish cities and districts; centres of learning, excellence, art and culture… until various christian kings of Spain came along and literally in some case, wrecked it all. We took the ferry from Mallorca to Valencia. It was a bright and sunny 250km sail that we were able to part-share with Geoff’s sister 17,000km away in Australia, thanks to the wonders of wifi and Skype!

Melbourne, Melbourne, this is Mallorca calling

Valencia is the largest commercial port in the Med, and the third largest city in Spain.

Valencia harbour

It is also credited as the birthplace of paella.

The home of paella

Steeped in history, Valencia’s Roman name of “Valentia” means “strength” or “valour” and has one of the largest “historical districts” of any Spanish town. Maybe we are getting spoiled or complacent about happenings in centuries past, but we decided to spend the bulk of our one day in Valencia exploring the modern, not the ancient. But we aren’t just being contrary. If you do a Google Images search on Valencia it is the more recent spectacular architecture which dominates the results – the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències or City of Arts and Sciences. The complex of modern architecture, spaces, bridges and gardens ribbons its way along the dry riverbed of the city’s Turia River and includes the science museum, landscaped walkways, an opera house, a planetarium and the oceanographic park. We spent a lot of our time in the shark house, watched as Foucault’s Pendulum progressed through space and admired our own internal workings in the Science Museum, so we really did go back to ancient times after all – as much as 400 million years back to be precise! Enjoy our modern take on an old master:

Inside the mind of a genius

20 October 2013 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog, Slide Show, Video Tagged Barcelona, extraordinaryplaces, Gaudi, Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, Spain

In the middle of one of the busiest cities in Europe stands a 130 year old building site..

The world’s most beautiful building site

Towers within towers

It doesn’t really fit in with any of the surrounding architecture; it doesn’t really fit in with anything, but we love this place and the brain of the man who conceived it. Despite its age, the Sagrada Familia is not a relic from the past, but a thriving, functioning monument to greatness– that won’t be finished for another 20 years – a hundred years after its creator died.

Seemingly chaotic, but every detail accounted for

Work began on the Sagrada Familia in 1882, but it was when Antoni Gaudi took over the following year and changed much of the original design, that this monument to nature, mathematics and sheer brilliance started to slowly take shape.

How did he even imagine it

At first glance there is no logic to the angles and curves, no discipline to the design with lines, bends, circles, ellipses and every other shape imaginable. But once you have marvelled at how anyone could even begin to think of such a construct, go down into the museum and be blown away by the explanations of the genius of his thinking and methods; the pure logic of the mathematics; the lessons learned from nature and the unique creations of his own, and suddenly it makes sense and becomes even more beautiful than it was already.

Electic and functional design

Different colours for different functions – all stunning

A forest of columns holding up the sky

Beauty and genius wherever you look

Even though it is still only half complete, it is already a UNESCO World Heritage site – one of seven World Heritage sites created by Gaudi.

Park Guell – another of Gaudi’s creations

The famous lizard of Park Guell

Everyone’s park

Gaudi gargoyles

Tragically and perhaps ironically for the creator of this and other fantastic visual feasts, it was the shabby way Gaudi looked that meant he died alone and uncared for, with less than 20% of his masterpiece complete. In his later years Gaudi had started to dress like a poor workman most of the time and rarely carried money or ID. On his way to the church one morning in 1926 he was hit by a tram. Mistaken for a tramp, he was untended in hospital and died days later from injuries that might well have been treatable. Our photos do no justice to Gaudi and the builders and designers who came after him, but we are sharing them with you anyway.

Many thanks to Cindy Baxter for also drawing our attention to a fantastic sixty second video that shows how it will look when completed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDmloG3tXU

If that whets your appetite some more, then you can also take a virtual tour here: http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/docs_instit/vvirtual.php?vv=1

But nothing beats being there – if you get the chance then grab it!

Adios Mallorca

9 October 2013 by Sara Holden Posted in Slide Show Tagged boat, extraordinaryplaces, Goat, Mallorca, sailing, Spain, trees 2 Comments

We have spent nearly a month living in Mallorca. We didn’t intend to stay so long, but we were having fun, enjoying good company with our friends Richard and Sandra Pearson. We were also generously lent an apartment by fellow former Greenpeace sailor Shaun Naylor (thank you again Shaun!), so what the hell.

Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands of Spain. It was first settled between 6,000 – 4,000 BC and almost ever since has been fought over, occupied, claimed and reclaimed by Romans, Turks, Moors, Christians, Catalans, Spainish nationalists, fascists and republicans.

But by far the biggest invasion was last year – 25 million tourists filled the island, swelling its 800,000 local population. Around 80% of employment on Mallorca is tourist related.

Our mini-incursion didn’t always follow the usual tourist trails. We did some sailing on Richard and Sandra’s boat Dragonfly – if you are ever in Mallorca then book a charter, it’s wonderful; some extreme gardening; some touring and some lazing around. Geoff pulled down and dug up trees with his bare hands, we bought what must surely be the world’s biggest onion, saw glorious sunsets and great goats! Here are some of our Mallorca memories..

Insta-gratification

5 October 2013 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged extraordinaryplaces, Instagram

In case you haven’t noticed – we are on Instagram too. Check it out at: http://instagram.com/ourextraordinaryplaces

http://instagram.com/ourextraordinaryplaces

Dragons and the Underworld

3 October 2013 by Sara Holden Posted in Blog Tagged Caves, Drach, extraordinaryplaces, Lake Martel, Mallorca, Porto Cristo, Spain

It seems pure fantasy to say we crossed one of the world’s largest subterranean lakes in the Dragon’s Caves in an underground boat – but that’s exactly what we did.

The existence of the Cuevas Drach, or Dragon Caves, at Porto Cristo in Mallorca, has been known since the Middle Ages. It is thought they got their name from ancient folklore claiming a big beastie lived deep inside.

Enter the Dragon

Real exploration came much later. In 1896 Lake Martel, which flows through the caves, was discovered by and named after Edouard Martel – the founding father of speleology, the study of caves. It is around 170 metres long and up to twelve metres deep. He also discovered two of the four caves that make up the mythical dragon’s lair deep in the belly of the island.

Lakeside in the caves

The deep blue lake

Archaeologists have found evidence of Bronze Age, Carthaginian, Roman and Moorish activity within the caves, proving they were occupied for more than 2,000 years. More recently they have rightly become the premier tourist attraction on Mallorca. But the lake is only half the story. Well before the dragon’s tales were told, silent, seeping water was making magic and has created the most fantastic stalactite and stalagmite formations.

Nature is a crazy thing

Great natural sculptures

Grand columns dripped over millenia

The calcified creations come in all shapes and sizes. As we took a gentle stroll through evocatively lit walkways light and shadow was bouncing off massive structures in the 25 metre deep caves or illuminating the smallest nub as it worked towards maturity in a few millennia. All with a barely audible drip, drip, drip backdrop. The tour covers just over one kilometre in about an hour, the subjects of the tour manage one centimetre every 100 years.

New growth is a relative thing

Calcified curtains of salt rock

Which are the people and which are the stalagmites

At the end of the route the cavern opens up into a natural amphitheatre and we were treated to what must be one of the longest running live music concerts in the world. Lights were doused and through the dark, the glow of a single rowing boat strung with white lights appears on the lake and drifts through the cave, illuminating the still water. The lead boat, carrying a shadowy quartet deftly playing haunting melodies, was joined by two others and together they softly rowed and slowly pirouetted across the darkness with fine music echoing all around.

Light and shadow

The water music has been a feature for visitors since 1935 – a quartet always playing the same excerpts from Caballero’s Alborada Gallega, Plaisir d”Amour by Martini, Chopin’s Tristesse, Studio 3 opus 10 and Barcolle from Ofeenbach’s Tales of Hoffman. After the last notes had drifted away, we had the chance to also be rowed across the lake to the exit. It was all beautifully done and transformed the morning from a fascinating visit into a lovely event that will stay in our memories for a long time.

Underground boats in a Dragon’s den

Talking of memories, here’s how one of our less high-brow cavern discussions went: Geoff: “How do you remember which is which?” Sara: “Stalactites cling on tight and stalagmites try with all their might to reach them.” Short silence Sara: “Go on then, how do you remember it?” Geoff: “Tights come down” Admit it – you’re never going to forget that now!

Between reflection and reality