Spain

We hardly scratched the surface of what Spain has to offer, but we made the most of our time there and (as it turned out) were extremely lucky with our timing. We picked up a campervan in Seville – a MUCH smaller campervan than we’d had in Norway with barely room to swing a cat, but with warm sunshiny days, it suited us fine.

Our first stop was Tarifa and the kids’ first glimpse of Africa across the the Strait of Gibraltar as the sun set. It was super windy in Tarifa but we had the most wonderful day trip to Morocco from there and enjoyed watching the kite surfers making the most of the wind.

Our next stop was Gibraltar but to break up the drive, we had a play on the beach at Playa de Getares. Lucas had his first experience of random kids asking him to play football with them. It was super cool to see how the love of a game ignores all language barriers and the joy of scoring a goal is the same no matter where you are from!

Gibraltar was an interesting experience. Despite having pre-booked tickets to go up ‘the Rock’, there were only 2 gondolas, the gondolas take 12 minutes to complete their return trip and fit maybe 16 people inside at once…so the queue was long and s-l-o-w moving! After investing about an hour in the queue, we decided to go to the beach instead and try again the next day.

The beach was fun but it was the day before the weekly ‘seaweed clean’ so you had to wade through the seaweed to get out to the clear water. As always, the kids started digging in the sand and soon Logan was called to help save the ‘Gronklemonk Kingdom’ from the incoming tide. With a few lessons in engineering, the kids were soon building towers, bridges and sea walls, and were thrilled to see how they could overcome the water, at least for a little while.

The term ‘Gronklemonk’ was coined by Zara a few months ago to mean ‘disgusting toes’ but has morphed into anything icky. It’s amazing how often (when you’re living in small spaces) it’s used in a sentence…“get your gronklemonks off my pillow”, “look at that statue’s gronklemonks!”, “I’m going to leave this rock at the beach because it’s covered in gronklemonks”. You get the idea! With the beach all covered in seaweed, it stood to reason that the sand structure would be called ‘Gronklemonk Kingdom’!

To get from Spain to Gibraltar and back again, you either need to drive under Gibraltar’s runway, or walk across it. If a plane is taking off or landing, the gates are automatically locked on either side, but if the gates are open and the lights are green, you are free to walk (or cartwheel) across.

The following day we were up early, across the border, and in line for the gondola as soon as it opened. Despite Gibraltar only being 6 kilometers long and 1 kilometre wide, its position and natural defensibility has made it one of the most fought-over places in Europe, with 14 recorded sieges. Britain has retained sovereignty for the past 300 or so years, but that has not come without conflict and closed borders.

The population in this tiny area is nearly 33000, plus another 15000 daily commuters from Spain, so you can imagine how chockablock it felt!

It was fascinating to learn that there are 55 kilometres of tunnels inside the Rock – more than twice the length of the road network! This was space enough to accommodate 16000 people, along with supplies, ammunition, and equipment to withstand a prolonged siege, should the need arise.

With no rivers or lakes, and low rainfall in the summer, Gibraltar’s entire supply of drinking water comes from desalination, delivered from huge underground reservoirs under the Rock. The views from the top were cool and meeting the only wild population of Barbary macaques in Europe was interesting, but it’s not a place I need to go back to.

From Gibraltar, we headed to Laguna de Fuente de Piedra. One of Zara’s non-negotiables was to see flamingos and Laguna de Fuente de Piedra hosts the second largest colony in Europe, as well as over 170 other species of birds.

Once again though, we were reliant on Mother Nature for success – if there is insufficient rainfall, the edges of the lagoon dry up and the flamingos are fewer in numbers and harder to see. Lucky for us, March had brought decent rainfall and even arriving at dusk, we could see that this was a special place.

We spent the entire next day and night parked next to a small lagoon with the constant honking and quacking of birds, delighting at the behaviour of the flamingos – feeding, preening, resting, flying, and chasing each other!

The lagoon is also home to turtles and frogs, and we even saw a water snake!

It was a wonderful experience and we were grateful to Zara’s non-negotiable taking us off the typical tourist route to somewhere quite magical.

We took a slow trip from there back to Seville, enjoying the countryside with olive trees as far as the eye could see, the quaint wee villages, the kids playing football, and the warmth of the southern Spain sunshine.

After returning the campervan in Seville, we split up into a boys team and a girls team.

Lucas had been asking to go karting for ages so he had been thrilled that there were karts at the Dippermiss in Frankfurt and had enjoyed the putt-putt cars on a figure-8 track. But Logan had seen there was an actual karting place with race karts and a race circuit in Seville, so he surprised Lucas with some track time. You had to be 14 to drive the adult karts so with a quick fudging of “13 and 10 months” year old Lucas’s birthday, Logan and Lucas went head to head!

Meanwhile, Zara and I hit the city. As we don’t have the store ‘Zara’ in Wellington, I promised Zara some clothes from the country it originally came from.

As we were walking around the city, we saw 1 woman dressed up beautifully in a flamenco dress…then we saw another…and then we saw a whole group. This prompted me to Google it and we discovered we had arrived in Seville in the middle of the week-long Feria de Abril de Sevilla (Seville April Fair). This is a fair dating back to 1846 and the ‘Real de la Feria’, where the feria takes place, covers 24 blocks over 15 streets.

There are over 1000 ‘casetas’ tents of varying sizes decorated with lanterns, flowers and fairy lights. The casetas belong to local families, groups of friends, businesses, clubs, trade associations and political parties. Most of the casetas are private and open only to members and their guests and, as the Real de la Feria is now full, there is currently a 26-year waiting list to have your own! Each casetas has its own bar serving Rebujito (sweet wine mixed with lemonade), kitchen serving a variety of seafood, music (sometimes with live performances), and areas to dance flamenco.

Many people arrive at or are transported around the feria by horse and carriage, and many, from the wee kids to the elderly, are dressed in traditional costumes.

When we met back up with the boys, Zara and I were excited to share what we had learnt and we convinced the boys that instead of the early night we probably needed before our early train the next morning, we should spend the evening at the Feria de Abril de Sevilla! The bus departed from right below our accommodation – it was so fun to look down on the animated fair-goers and it was really exciting to get amongst it!

Although most of the casetas are private, there are a few open to the public so we thoroughly enjoyed joining in the celebration. We didn’t have flamenco dresses but we felt pretty festive in our fanciest clothes and a quick purchase of some flowers for our hair!

It was such a joyful, happy place, filled with colour, music and dancing! Like our day in Morocco, it was such a buzz to be part of something that was oblivious to us being tourists and, when we were up early the next day, it was hard to tell if the party-goers we saw were getting ready for the day ahead or still going from the night before!

Our final stop in Spain was Barcelona, where we met up with our friend Katy and her family. Katy and Logan met in Antarctica 25 years ago and we had last seen her in Colorado when we were travelling in 2007. At that time, Katy and her parents had shown us the true meaning of ‘host-ess with the most-ess’ so we were looking forward to spending the weekend with Katy, Anthony, Mathilda and Adeline. It was so good to be part of a family again and we all enjoyed the chilled pace of weekend-life – playing at the beach, playing with toys, watching tv, playing computer games, chatting, laughing, eating delicious food, and playing with the cutest kitties Reggie and Zaza.

On Sunday, Katy took us on a lovely walking tour of their local area – it was easy to see why they’ve made Barcelona their home as it felt like such a happy, clean, interesting place. We were warned by many different people to be wary of thieves, but we experienced nothing but friendliness everywhere we went.

Back at Katy’s apartment, we had a lovely dinner together and, as Barcelona was preparing for ‘Sant Jordi’ on Tuesday, Mathilda and Adeline told us an animated story of Sant Jordi – a tale of a dragon, a knight, a princess, and roses! Thank you Katy, Anthony, Mathilda and Adeline for your hospitality and kindness – we had a wonderful weekend with you.

Monday was a chance for us to check out some of Gaudi’s masterpieces. Logan and I both knew how much our parents loved Barcelona so we held them close in our thoughts as we walked the city.

It was crazy to think how much the Sagrada Familia would have changed since any of them were here, and how it would likely be finally completed by the time any of us would see it again. It absolutely poured with rain in the late afternoon – a good opportunity for a much-needed early hometime.

Lucky timing had us in Barcelona for Sant Jordi on Tuesday – a day celebrated by the giving of roses and books to loved ones, friends and family. The giving of roses is an old tradition, stemming from when Sant Jordi killed the dragon who was terrorising Montblanc (southwest of Barcelona). The dragon was always hungry and he’d already eaten all the animals in Montblanc, so the villagers sacrificed one person a day, chosen at random, to keep him satisfied. One day the princess’s name came up and just as she was about to be eaten, Sant Jordi (who was obviously both handsome and brave) rode into town and killed the dragon. From the blood of the dragon, a red rose bush grew and Sant Jordi picked one rose and gave it to the princess. The giving of books is a much newer tradition, begun in 1926 to celebrate the joy of books. The death of Sant Jordi on April 23rd just happens to coincide with the birth or death of many globally recognised authors (including William Shakespeare) so this giving of books was declared ‘World Book Day’ by UNESCO in 1995. Whilst ‘World Book Day’ is celebrated internationally, Barcelona certainly takes it to the next level, with many streets taken over by booksellers setting up stalls to sell their books and book signings by renowned authors, all set amongst stall after stall after stall of roses!

Logan gave felt roses to Zara and me and we had lunch at a delicious tapas restaurant recommended by Katy that was right in the middle of the main stalls.

We just happened to see that David Walliams was in town for Sant Jordi so we ran to the English bookshop to buy his latest book and joined the queue to have it signed by the man himself! What a delight it was to be a part of this historical celebration!

In the evening we had booked tickets for Parc Güell – a sprawling park designed by Gaudi, filled with his nature-inspired architecture, sculptures and mosaics.

The full moon rose over Barcelona and we stayed until closing at 10pm, by which time we were pretty sure it was just us and the security guards left in the 17 hectare space! It was such a calm, beautiful park, and we loved finding the completely unnecessary details that Gaudi had included to make it such a unique and special place.

We walked back down to the Sagrada Familia to see it in all its nighttime glory, giving us a chance to reflect on what had been a quick but oh so memorable adventure in Spain.

It had been a time of being in the right place at the right time, mostly due only to luck being on our side, and we had made the very most of that time.