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| Part 1 Costa Azul |
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| Barcelona, May 9 |
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Barcelona lies northeast of Spain near the border with France, facing the
Mediterranean Sea.
This location lets me recall my hometown Shingu City. It is southeast of
Wakayama Pref. at the border with Mie Pref., facing the Pacific Ocean.
The warm climate is almost the same around both cities.
The name of Barcelona also makes me visualize Sagrada Familia of Antoni
Gaudi at once. Some people may associate this city with the summer Olympic
in 1992.
It is the largest city in Catalonia District with the population of 1,600
thousand. I hear the independence movement from Spain has been enthsiastic
around this city as the center of Catalonia.
The above was just most of my preliminary knowledge before the trip.
Leaving the hotel in Sitges, our large bus ran along Costa Azul (Cōte d'Azur
in French) for 30 minutes to the east under the blue sky and entered Barcelona.
Our sightseeing plan in Barcelona was only half a day from 10:00 to noon. Therefore, the spots we visited were limited to Sagrada Familia and Park Guell.
There are additionally several others there even only as the masterpieces
of Antoni Gaudi, like Guell Pavilions, Colonia Guell and its Cripta, Casa
Mila, Casa Vicens, ...... We would not have enjoyed them all even for 2
days.
It cannot be helped as it was the characteristic of our trip. We understood
and applied for it.
The following is the Gaudi world that we toured around for two hours.
Park Guell
According to WIKIPEDIA, this park was built between 1900 and 1914, and
was officially opened as a public park in 1926. In 1984, UNESCO declared
the park a World Heritage Site under "Works of Antoni Gaudi".
Guell, patron, and Gaudi imagined an organized grouping of high-quality
homes here, decked out with all the latest technological advancements to
ensure maximum comfort, and finished off with an artistic touch.
They had planned 60 subdivided housing units with good infrastructure of
squares and roads. But the fact was only two houses were sold at last and
the buyers were Guell and Gaudi themselves. I wonder if their art sense
and dream had been far from the longing of citizens.
The park was donated to the city as a municipal park after Guell's death,
and the house where Gaudi lived temporarily is opened to the public as
his memorial hall.
It had a fine view. Our couple sat down on the tiled bench and enjoyed
Gaudi's masterpiece and a row of streets and houses below, which had a
well-unbalanced matching.
No less popular was the multicolored mosaic salamander at the side step
of the stairs to the terrace named Greek Theater. It was called as "el
drac" (the dragon). Emiko and I fixed eyes on it for a long while
like other young and adult.
Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia
(Basilica and Expiratory Church of the Holy Family)
Sagrada Familia was surely one of the features of our tour.
It was started building about 130 years ago in March 1882, but soon after
that the first architect resigned on account of the conflict of opinions.
Antoni Gaudi took over the project the next year as the second architect
and reframed it from the beginning. He devoted his energies as his lifework
for 40 years since then. However he was crushed under the street car and
died suddenly in 1926 at the age of 73.
WIKIPEDIA's following report may be some help to us.
| Less than a quarter of the project was complete at his death. Sagrada Familia's
construction progressed slowly, as it relied on private donations and was
interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, only to resume intermittent progress
in the 1950s. Construction passed the midpoint in 2010 with some of the
project's greatest challenges remaining and an anticipated completion date
of 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death. |
Although incomplete, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November
2010 Pope Benedict XVI is said to have consecrated and proclaimed
it a "minor basilica, as distinct from a cathedral," which must be the seat of a bishop.
The inside of the temple was surely under construction, and yet in the
atmosphere of worship. We walked along the narrow passage at the corner
and glanced over.
I hadn't known Barcelona is the place associated with Picasso, Miro and Dali.
There seemed to be art museums of each of them. With another half day,
I would have had a much more gorgeous and pleasant day!
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| Part 1 Barcelona Reading: 9' 05" |
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| Valencia, May 9 |
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After lunch, our large bus ran straight to Valencia along Costa Azul facing
Galfo de Valencia of the Mediterranean Sea.
We could see Balearic Islands far beyond. "Which is Mallorca Island?"
It is said to be the hometown of Rafael Nadal, a professional tennis player.
But in my mind, Mallorca is where Chopin stayed for recovering his health
with his girlfriend George Sand and composed Prelude No. 15, well known
as the Prelude of Raindrops.
Attendant Y announced "Mallorca is now famous for the beach resort
of European people."
Valencia is located nearly 400 km south of Barcelona, populated by about
750 thousand people, the 3rd largest city following Madrid and Barcelona
in Spain.
Our dinner of paella was at a restaurant in the city. This city, according
to the attendant, was the birthplace of this dish. However, I did not think
we tasted it well because of a little bit of tiredness of the trip.
The dessert must have been Valencia orange because of the noted name. But
the attendant said, "Valencia may not be the place of origin. There
are various opinions including Santa Ana in California of the US."
As soon as our bus arrived at the hotel called Tryp Azafata at 9:30 pm,
everybody disappeared to each room.
Our plan of the next day, May 10, was a tight schedule too.
We are going to start for sightseeing of Valencia City just after 8:00
am.
After that, we will head for Cuenca 200 km away to the inland before noon
and see the sight of the town, and then will aim at Madrid more than 150
km ahead. The dinner will be there.
So in fact, we saw the sights of both cities with a long history at a trot,
written as follows.
Catedral, Valencia
This Gothic-style cathedral is said to have started construction at the
place of originally a mosque in the 13th century, and was completed in
the 1st half of the 15th century. This kind of long-period construction
may not be uncommon here in Spain.
The guidebook says it partly has Baroque-style and new classic style too
by the addition and rebuilding afterward.
It had three entrances and we entered it through the gate of Puerta de
los Hierras with Baroque-style facade.
The inside was striking by the light coming through the 16 stained-glass windows.
The pictures on the wall were by famous painters including Goya. The Holy
Grail was stored here, which was said to be the cup used by Jesus Christ
at the Last Supper.
The octagonal belfry of Gothic style next door is called Torre del Miguelete,
which is 70 meters high and has a whole view of Valencia. Regrettably we
did not go up.
La Lonja de la Seda, Valencia
(Silk Exchange of Valencia)
This Gothic building was built in the second half of 15th century and shows
how prosperous the economy of Valencia was then. It was registered on UNESCO's
World Heritage List in 1996.
Just because of the visit in a hurry, I do not have much impression here.
The exterior wall was set with sculptures of angels, birds and beasts,
which reminded me of my presently-writing novel "The Story of the
Auditorium Where Monsters live". The auditorium belongs to a cirtain
university, located in the suburbs of Tokyo. The birds and beasts studded
with on its outer wall have much more horrible look. The auditorium is
Romanesque-style, built by Dr. Chuta Itoh of a giant in the modern architecture
world in Japan. Its inside is full of fierce monsters made by himself.
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| The Auditorium |
The Central Market was right in front of La Lonja. It looked like a historic
building, but it was really a busy food market inside.
I felt refreshed by drinking Valencia orange juice. It is not necessary
to make a fuss over the place of origin.
------
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962), a French composer, composed "Escales, Tableaux
Symphoniques" in which No. 3 is "Valencia". Compared with
the previous 2 (No. 1 Rome, No.2 Tunis), this part, Spanish dance music,
is a little noisy with castanets, percussions and wind instruments. The
Valencia port may be in the same atmosphere now too.
Young Ibert sailed around the Mediterranean Sea as a navy offcer during
the World War 1. This part of the symphonic suite takes only several minutes,
but is enjoyable imagining a flamenco.
Though there was no choice because of the late arrival, I felt sorry for
not seeing Valencia as a port town.
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| Part 1 Valencia Reading: 8' 20" |
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| Cuenca, May 10 |
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We drove 220 km west from Valencia and before noon arrived at Cuenca, a
city in the autonomous community of Castile–La Mancha in central Spain
at an altitude of 1000 meters, populated by about 42 thousand people.
According to the attendant, Cuenca is located across a steep spur, the
slopes of which descend into deep gorges of the two rivers. That means
it used to be a fortress on the huge sheer cliff.
After going up a steep hill, we saw the houses of the Middle Age lined
partly over the cliff. They were so-called Casas Colgadas (Hanging Houses）.
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| Hanging Houses |
The houses are said to have been built in 14th century and been used as
the city office until the end of 18th century.
They are now changed to the museum of abstract art, so we entered.
The pictures of the modern artists like Miro and Antoni Tapies were displayed.
Lunch was at the restaurant in the cave of the museum, with a dish of pork,
Russian salad and wine. We enjoyed the wonderful lunch time seemingly in
an inconvenient atmosphere.
While walking down the hill, we saw a cathedral over there and visited
it.
It is said to be a Gothic building in the 13th century with Renaissance-style
decoration.
The facade was also impressive. It was built at the same time with the
cathedral but the present one shining brightly before us was rebuilt in
the 20th century.
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Time passed by as planned. It is just after 3:00 pm, quite fine with no
wind.
Our large bus left Cuenca and drove comfortably 165 km to the west for
Madrid. However, the arrival time at the capital city was 7:00 pm.
The dinner was Chinese dish at a restaurant in the city.
We got to Fiesta Gran Hotel Colon at 9:30 pm. It was a long day.
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| Other Pictures in Barcelona |
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| Other Pictures in Valencia |
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| Other Pictures in Cuenca |
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About Iberian Peninsula
In a world atlas, the Iberian Peninsula looks like the clenched fist of
a left hand pushed out from the European Continent toward the Atlantic
Ocean.
According to WIKIPEDIA, it is located in the southwest corner of Europe
and is divided among three states: Spain, Portugal, and Andorra; as well
as Gibraltar, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. With an area
of approximately 582,000 km2 (225,000 sq mi), it is the third largest European peninsula,
after the Scandinavian and Balkan peninsulas.
Spain takes up 85% of Iberian Peninsula and most of its rest belongs to
Portugal which lies long and narrow in the west.
Rotating the globe, Both Spain and Portugal are on the same latitudes with
Japan's north from Tokyo up to the southern Hokkaido. Barcelona is between
Aomori and Hakodate.
However this peninsula has a mild climate thanks to the Mediterranean Sea.
Now in May there must be young people swimming in the daytime.
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| Part 1 Cuenca Reading: 5' 18" |
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