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A Spanish Sojourn
Moumita Deb
“Oh this year I’m off to sunny Spain,
Y Viva Espana,
We are taking the Costa Brava plane,
Y Viva Espana…..”
The strains of the popular song drummed in my head as our flight
landed at Barcelona Airport. A boisterous group of stocky men shouted
exuberantly to each other and flirted in rapid-fire Spanish with
a group of giggling girls down the aisle. The holiday spirit around
us was infectious and cries of ‘Hola Hola’ filled the
air as passengers stepped out of the airport to embrace the warm
Spanish sunshine. Hopping into our rented car, my husband and I
set off on our week-long Spanish sojourn.
 Our
first halt was at the Parador De Tortosa, a fortress style castle
remodeled into a hotel, located in Tortosa about 180 km from Barcelona.
As we drove in to Tortosa that evening, we witnessed a long procession
of priests, children and young people in traditional and colorful
outfits carrying candles, banners and singing hymns. This was the
Fiesta of Nuestra Senora de la Cinta being celebrated and all the
roads inside the town were blocked till the end of the fiesta at
midnight. We managed to catch the attention of a policeman for directions
and since we didn’t know any Spanish, all we could do was
try pointing towards the castle on the hill and make gestures. When
we finally drove uphill to the Parador after a roundabout route
through labyrinthine lanes and narrow alleys, it was well past 10pm.
Utterly famished after the long journey, we hurried off to the hotel’s
dining hall to sample traditional Spanish delicacies of Gazpacho
soup, "anguila en suc" (eels in broth) and vermicelli
cakes, and retired for the night.
The Paradores of Spain are a unique
chain of heritage properties scattered all over the country, ranging
from medieval castles, palaces and fortresses of Moorish princes
to monasteries and ancient villas. Parador De Tortosa was built
by the Emir and Caliph of Cordova, Abd-Ar-Rahman III in the 10th
century. The rugged architecture of the castle buildings with its
thick stone walls, huge Gothic windows and Arabic motifs on the
walls exuded an enigmatic atmosphere of history and romance.
 At
the hotel car-park, we observed a curious sight. Several of the
cars were covered in white dust – it seems this was quite
a frequent phenomenon as the sand and dust from the Moroccan deserts
was carried across by the winds over hundreds of miles before settling
down on the cars! After a marathon car-cleaning session, we revved
up the engine and zoomed off towards the Costa del Sol region in
the south of Spain.
We reached our B&B accommodation
at the charming Cortijo El Papudo in the Guadiaro River Valley near
Sotogrande. The property is a renovated farmstead situated in the
quiet village of San Martin de Tesorillo and a complete contrast
to the crowded and touristy beachfront towns like Marbella and Fuengirola.
At around midnight, we headed off towards Sotogrande to check out
the restaurants, and though we were a bit skeptical about restaurants
being open so late in the night, our hotel proprietor assured us
that the Spanish are die-hard night-birds. True to his prediction,
we were amazed to see a buzzing crowd at the Sotogrande marina.
There were restaurants and ice-cream parlors dotting the marina
and we could see mammas with babes in arms enjoying their meal,
frisky children running around, youngsters lounging and having drinks
and grannies and grandpas having animated conversations with their
families. After the dead quiet at Cortijo El Papudo, it was hard
to believe that just an hour’s drive away from our sleepy
village, there was a throbbing night life just waiting to be discovered.
By the time we finished our lip-smacking dinner of grilled lobsters
and sea bass, it was 2am and the crowd at the marina seemed to have
gotten only bigger!
 A
massive round of beach-hopping was on the cards the next day and
as we checked out the beaches at Marbella, Fuengirola and Puerto
Banus, the latter emerged as my clear favorite. Puerto Banus called
as the ‘Marina of Marbella’ boasts of a charming harbor
lined with luxury yachts, restaurants and boutiques. We would often
saunter from one end of the beachfront promenade to the other, sampling
delicious Tapas nuggets at the outdoor bars and restaurants and
cooling ourselves with pitchers of chilled Sangria.
We drove to the mountainside village
of Mijas one day, from where one can get beautiful views of the
Mediterranean. As we wandered along the narrow cobbled streets meandering
between white-washed stucco houses (Mijas is called the white village
of Andalucia) with red-tiled roofs and flowering plants adorning
the balconies, we experienced a bit of the rustic village life of
Andalucia. Wizened old ladies in small shops were selling hand-made
pottery items, vases, paintings, scarves, flat brimmed Spanish hats
and other local artifacts. Mijas has the smallest bullring in Spain
where a bullfight is actually staged once a week. Unfortunately
we were unable to witness this sport which would have surely been
intriguing.
That night we went to a Flamenco
club in one of the narrow alleys of old Marbella quarters. A group
of dazzling dancers mesmerized us with their breathtaking dance
performance while the lead singer sang passionately in his full
throated voice to foot-tapping tunes. When we headed back to our
sleepy village at 3am, the scintillating dance performance kept
playing in my mind and the lively music reverberated in my head.
After three days at Costa del Sol,
we started on the last stretch of our journey from the southern
mountainous region of Andalucia through the rugged tableland countryside
of Castilla-La Mancha towards Barcelona. En route we spotted hundreds
of windmills dotting the countryside, reminding me of windmills
made famous in Cervante’s legendary novel on Don Quixote,
‘The man from La Mancha’.
 As
we entered Barcelona, the staggering variety of modern buildings
and stunning architecture (like the curiously gherkin shaped building)
greeted us at every corner. We headed off promptly to the most talked-about
sightseeing attraction, Antoni Gaudi’s incomplete masterpiece
and controversial cathedral - La Sagrada Familia, a sand castle-like
structure which has been under construction for over 100 years!
Gaudi worked on the project for 40 years till his death in 1926,
after which work recommenced from the 1950s and is expected to continue
till 2026, if gets completed at all by then. The external façade
was very impressive with its intricate sculptures of Christian iconography
with Nativity scenes, saints, angels, flowers, birds and animals
embellishing the towers. The interior of the cathedral has beautiful
decorations in some of the cloisters. But most of the interior is
still being built and one can see an ensemble of construction equipment,
scaffolding and construction workers busy at their trade, while
hundreds of visitors troop past them and take the elevators or climb
the narrow stairs to admire the 100 meter high spires.
Our next stop was Montjuic –
a mountain with a castle on the top, several museums, sculptures
and gardens. The Magic Fountain which greets visitors at the entrance
of Montjuic Palace Stairs offers a fascinating display of light
and sound synchronized to tunes of various genres of music, ranging
from rock and pop to opera and classical.
 Another not-to-be-missed
attraction, at least for my husband - a die-hard football fan, was
the Nou Camp stadium of F.C. Barcelona Club. We stood in a long
queue to purchase our entrance tickets (much to my boredom and chagrin,
while hubby was goggle-eyed with excitement) and then gained entrance
to the club’s history museum with its collection of trophies,
football memorabilia, photographic archives and sporting material.
Later, just outside the Club there were stalls selling cheap FC
knick-knacks, hubby dear insisted on spending our precious Euros
and bought some silly t-shirts and FC Barcelona stamped fake footballs.
Really, these men are so crazy about football!
The last stop on our itinerary was
the famous old quarters of Barcelona, the Barri Gothic with its
maze of narrow streets, historic palaces, cathedrals and town halls.
Later, we strolled along the buzzing street of La Ramblas –
a bustling, cosmopolitan promenade with its street musicians, shops,
flower sellers, galleries, theatres and cafeterias. There was so
much more to see in Barcelona and we had so little time! The little
that we managed to see made us admire Barcelona’s variegated
contrasts of historic monuments, art and culture rubbing shoulders
with urban design and development, exhilarating nightlife and myriad
of designer shopping options.
All too soon our holiday was over
and our last few hours culminated in a superb dinner at one of the
restaurants dotting the Port Vell harbour. On our flight back home,
in an uncanny coincidence we spotted the same set of boisterous
stocky men whom we had seen on our incoming flight. This time around,
there were no exuberant shouts and no flirting. They seemed to be
in a somber mood, precisely echoing our sentiments of bidding a
sad farewell to sunny Spain. Adiós España, we shall
come back again!
About the Author
Moumita Deb is a Software Engineer based in Mumbai,India and currently
on a break from her chosen profession to pursue her other interests
of traveling, writing and volunteering with NGOs.
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