Finally Madrid

We glided over the Spanish countryside, sometimes at around 300 km/h, sometimes crawling along at only 220 km/h. Once in Madrid, we used several connections on the Madrid Metro system to get ourselves to a place that was best described as "the wrong intersection". As it turns out, if you go to the trouble of getting travel directions onto your Kindle, you do still need to read what's actually there. A little more Metro-ing got us to our hotel.

We needed to experience the Spanish culture, so Lyn decided to sample a Spanish delicacy called siesta (sleeping off the sangria). We dedicated the evening to Flamenco music and dancing.

It looks slow in the video. I really needed a much higher frame-rate camera to do justice to the speed of those feet.

Here Be Dragons

Most of Antoni Gaudí's work is inspired by nature - the sea and sea creatures, trees and flowers, animals, particularly lizards and dragons. 

You can see the spine of the dragon on the roof ridge of Casa Batlló

Who needs gargoyles when you can have Observant Chameleon?

These arches in Park Güell had a pangolin feel to me

Under these arches there was a Kora player.

Now we find the dragon in the park

Apparently huge lizards are not that scary

Don't go through the gate. Just don't.

Barcelarchitecture

Yesterday and today we did hop-on-hop-off circuits of Barcelona. Architecturally it's an incredible city.

View from in the Forum

Walking around the alleys of the gothic sector

Inside the Barcelona Cathedral

Here's a sample of what it sounded like inside the Barcelona cathedral

And Sagrada Família was even more impressive.

Inside Sagrada Família (turns out my lens was smeared)

Outside Sagrada Famíli, looking at one of the facades (just one small part)

Column footings show that Gaudí knew about Great A'Tuin

The Cruise Ship of Dr Moreau

A cruise ship is an environment that can breed its own weird lifeforms. (We both found out what a good incubator it was for bronchitis-causing species.) Sometimes we suspected that lifeforms were not just the product of natural selection processes. Each night when we returned to our state room, we'd find a new creature.

Leghorn

Okay, I'll shut up. I'm not one that has to keep talkin'. Some fellas just have to keep their mouths flappin', but not me! I was brought up right, my pa used to tell me "shut up" and I'd shut up! I wouldn't say nothin'! One time, darn-near starved to death ...
Wouldn't tell him I was hungry!
-- Foghorn Leghorn 

The stop at Livorno (traditionally called Leghorn) allowed lots of the cruise passengers to head to various locations: Florence, Pisa, winery trips, etc. We didn't want the long road/rail trips, so we decided to explore the port city of Livorno itself. We took a guided boat tour of the canals and saw some of the old Medici houses, and smelled some of the old fish market smells.

Neapolitan

Naples has a mix of different flavours. It's flavoured with antiquity, business, and screw-you-jimmy.

A multi-flavoured fountain

We started our tour of Naples on their hop-on-hop-off bus tour, which drove around 5 city blocks to get 1 city block further from the port. That got us to their ticket office where everyone had to get off to stand in line to buy tickets, well, to stand in line anyway, and then stand in line for a bit more. Eventually we decided that their flavours of antiquity and business weren't as tasty as the third flavour, so we went walking instead.

Charon

There Chairon stands, who rules the dreary coast -
A sordid god: down from his hairy chin
A length of beard descends, uncombed, unclean;
His eyes, like hollow furnaces on fire;
A girdle, foul with grease, binds his obscene attire.
…
An airy crowd came rushing where he stood,
Which fill'd the margin of the fatal flood:
…
Such, and so thick, the shiv'ring army stands,
And press for passage with extended hands.
Now these, now those, the surly boatman bore:
The rest he drove to distance from the shore.

- Virgil (Aeneid, translated by John Dryden)

Charon herds the sinners onto his boat 

The god described by Virgil has now changed,
No longer garbed in foul obscene attire.
See now his dapper uniform arranged
To show command and set young hearts afire.

Tired travelers stand ready for his sign
Of seven blasts plus one of longer tone.
Then gather they on deck three in a line
While tardy souls back to the dock are shown.

His passengers no longer wear their cash
For passage on their mouths or on their eyes;
Prostheses made of plastic store their stash
And virtual coins beam hell-ward through the skies.

His craft is crammed with creditworthy scores
All heading for inevitable shores.

Santorininini

Back on Santorini. Yesterday was at Argostoli but I lacked the energy to go ashore and explore. (Ship's doctor says it's acute bronchitis, so I'm on antibiotics and cough mix.) Today we got off the cruise ship and boarded a local boat to visit the volcanic island in the centre of the caldera, and then Therasia, the island on the opposite rim.

Lovely clear water

From part way up the volcanic island looking across to houses on the rim.

Oia with some iron-rich foundations

The toilets on Terasia had some maintenance issues.

The Bells! The Bells!

On Corfu there must be a competition for who's got the biggest and loudest. It didn't seem to matter what time of day it was, they'd have a good old ring - and it sounded like an over-enthusiastic remedial ringers class - two high bells alternating as fast as they'd swing and two low bells with something approximating Morse code for number 7 on one, then the same pattern on the other.

The whole cacophony continued for about 5 minutes. Then an hour and a bit later (also not on any  hour or quarter hour), the same thing happened again. It was enough to stop the street gangs from their accordion assaults.

Statue just outside the belly church. I think they used Terry Pratchett as a sculpture model.

Besides belltower envy, I think there might be a little compensation thing going on with the ice creams. Lyn asked for lemon and raspberry; I asked for mandarin and strawberry. The store keeper said, "You'd better sit down."

We've only just begun

A Hot Time in the Old Town

The old town of Dubrovnik is a walled city, a very impressively walled city. We walked the walls, although the word "walked" doesn't really describe the activity. In as much as staircases are things to be scaled, one could say that we scaled the walls, but that too gives the wrong impression. Let's just say that we ached and sweated the walls and will take the memory with us for the next day or two.

Sometimes there are gardens where you least expect them.

The location of this garden requires 3 coordinates.

A cloistered garden at the museum in the Franciscan monastery.