San Sebastian

We are now in San Sebastian, on the bay of Biscay, in northern Spain.  It is a seaside town.

Firstly - what a relief the weather is.  Who would have thought that 80% humidity and mid- twenties Celsius was a relief - but it is!

Secondly - I had no preconceptions of San Sebastian - and was surprised to see how beautiful it is.  Old buildings and a beachside setting.  It is a lovely city.

Some pics:

 

Too busy walking to get some of the city buildings - but a lot of similarity to Paris.

And many buildings were built by, or named after, Queen Maria Christina.

This bridge:

And she built this palace - called Mirimar Palace - with its gardens open to walk around.

.

,

Eclipse Day

Or eclip-se in Spanish!

Our viewing site was to the south of Burgos, at a winery called PradoRey.

 People getting ready.

Shadows getting sharper.

Waiting....

Totality - taken with my hand-held camera.

And, for this eclipse, the sun set before the moon had fully moved across the sun's surface. You can see the moon's shadow to the left.

And always packing up to be done.

 All eclipses are different.  This one, being so close to sunset and low on the horizon, had different tones and colours. Also, you could smell the grass as the air cooled. The first part of the eclipse seemed to happen quickly, and perhaps this is because it is a short eclipse - about a minute.

On the road to Burgos

More dry countryside.

 

 

Our first close-up (sort of) with the fires in Spain

It was in Segovia that we first saw the whipping up of these wild/bushfires.  As we  walked past this lookout on the way to the town square there was no sign of any fires.  On the way back, we saw this.

 

Segovia

 Segovia is famous for its very well preserved, Roman aqueduct.  It still works - but I think they have discovered pipes.

The Romans had to find a water source, figure out the lie of the land, and build a channel to where they wanted the water, sometimes building a bridge underneath.  No computers - just engineers, a plumb bob and slaves.

The aqueduct is visible from outside town.

More pics. 

We were told that there was no mortar involved in building this aqueduct.  Just stones fitted together properly.  Wonder how many tries they had to make? Or how many slaves were harmed in the making of this bridge!

 

On the road to Vallodolid and Segovia

Some pics taken from the bus.  The countryside is certainly yellow and brown, but still pretty.  Typically autumn.  No fires - as yet.

 

L'escorial

It was the feast day for the patron saint of L'escorial, Saint Francis aka San Francisco. This monastery is outside Madrid, on the way to Segovia.

Kin Mun went on the monastery tour, with all its steps, but I piked out.  I spent time in  the town centre.  There was a street parade for San Fran - all very dramatic and noisy.  It was a cheerful version of the mournful Semana Santa parades at Easter.

Some pics - don't ask me who's who.

 

Some cute shops in the town.

But I was more interested in  the meringue slice - my weakness!

Flamenco

 No visit to Spain is complete without flamenco. We had never seen a display, so were happy to go along with what Travelquest had organised on our last night in Madrid.

The guitar player worked all night!

 

Guernica

We had a day before the tour began, so went to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (or Reina Sofia Museum) to see Pablo Picasso's Guernica.

Guernica is a town in northern Spain. Spain was in the midst of a civil war, and Nazi Germany supported the right-wing ruler, Franco. The Nazis bombed Guernica in April 1937.  More info  here but I have also read that it gave them an opportunity to fine-tune the bombing of cities and civilians, information which was used during WWII.   

I never really got Picasso, with his mixed up faces etc.  But Guernica is in another league. It is instantly gripping.  It is a big work, all in monochrome - well greys and black and white.  Again there are mixed up faces, but this time here were mixed-up animals and objects as well - and everything was in very obvious agony. The spread of this agony was across the whole canvas.  I just stood there and took it all in, before even reaching for my camera.  

Won't look at Picasso in quite the same way. 

Some pics:

The painting

Other people looking...

And this is the entrance to the Museum.

 

Frankfurt to Madrid

In Frankfurt (FF), we had to connect to a Lufthansa flight to Madrid, and fortunately were given both our boarding passes at the Singapore check-in.

FF is busy, huge, seemingly chaotic.  We had to get to Gate A68, and the signage seemed to have gaps in it.  We would show our boarding passes to someone, who would tell us where to go, even though people were coming in the other direction.  We thought we were transit, but found ourselves heading towards luggage collection.  There is more than one Lufthansa lounge, and went into one - who told us that we were welcome to come in, but it would be a long walk to our gate.  We asked how long - and  found we had to go through the dreaded EU immigration! So we left the lounge and began the next leg of our terminal journey.

Actually, the immigration pre-registration wasn't too bad - it worked.  It is a bit like Sydney, where you got through a machine first to get a ticket, then make your way to the immigration gate.

So we did all that. Queued at immigration checkpoint for about 15 minutes - better than the media reports we had read.  Found the nearest Lufthansa lounge, was hungry for breakfast,  and waited for our flight to Madrid.

Getting to the gate was just the first stage! We had to go on a bus to the aircraft.  It was a long trip, under various buildings etc etc.  Finally got on board.

Once on board, normality prevailed!  We discovered Lufthansa is 100 years old - so that was why we saw stylised little statues around the place, including this seat-back cover.

Next time we will go through Munich or Zurich - anywhere but FF.  We can blame US foreign policy for all this hassle - we were originally to go trough Dubai!