© Richard Randall

As we live so far south in France we visit Spain on a regular basis. We go at least once a month, Richard likes to stock up on Rioja and cheap cigarettes! It's weird, when we lived in London we drank lots of French wine and now we live in France we drink lots of Spanish wine!

FIGUERES

The main place we visit in Spain when we fancy a day out is Figueres. It's about a two hour drive from our home, and is a lively little town with more than enough on offer to keep us occupied. There are lots of small shops selling a variety of goods, and a large number of cafes and restaurants. Figueres was the first city in Girona province to have a pedestrian shopping zone in the city centre. Figueres' historical centre (Rovell de l'Ou) is a great open air shopping area.

The Dali Museum

The first time we visited Figueres we went to see the Salvador Dali Museum, (Open July-Sept 9am-7:45pm, plus 10:30pm-12:30am in Aug; Oct-June Tues-Sun 10:30am-5:45pm € 7:20; www.dali-estate.org). This is an amazing museum if you are interested in surrealism, and I think even non art lovers would enjoy a visit. Salvador Dali was born in Figueres in 1904, giving his first exhibition there aged just fourteen. The museum building itself is an exhibit, on the very top of the museum is a huge metallic dome, and all around the edges are large white egg shapes. The exterior walls are painted a pink red colour with terracota coloured shapes stuck all over them, these look like bread men to me? You can buy these 'bread men' from the nearby museum shop, we have one at home outside on our terrace wall. The main museum shops sells everything you would expect and associate with Salvador Dali, from cheap postcards to more expensive clocks. Once inside the museum you won't know where to look first, there is so much of interest. Inside the circular central well is a black Cadillac complete with snail infested passengers, you can water the occupants by putting coins in. There is also a boat on top of a stack of car tyres, one of the most popular exhibits whilst we were there was the Mae West portrait. You view the face of Mae West once you have walked up some stairs then you peer through a mirror at the huge nostrils, red lips and the luscious locks. The queues for Mae West were very long, and we made our visit to the museum out of the summer season when it gets even busier. We have seen the entrance queue for the museum trailing right back down into the town, mainly with coach parties of students. When we visited the Dali museum one of our guests was in a wheelchair, and although we were welcomed it is not very wheelchair friendly at all. There are lots of stairs and narrow doorways. We particularly enjoyed the jewels at the museum, which you can see in a separate part of the building, which you enter by a different entrance to the main museum. The doorman there was very helpful indeed, arranging for us and the wheelchair to be taken in through a side entrance, and we were helped into a lift so we could enjoy all of the fabulous jewellery on show. All of the items of jewellery are displayed in separate carefully lit show cases in a darkened room. One of our favourite pieces was a beautiful gold and ruby heart, which gently beats, amazing. As the Salvador Dali museum attracts a huge number of tourist, there are as you would expect, many restaurants to cater for them. You don't have to eat at these places though as Figueres does have other good restaurants, such as L'Agora on the corner of c/Ample and c/Peralada, this is a modern bar/restaurant with a good menu including Catalan specialities. Viernes, Pujada del Castell 23 serves very generous portions of traditional Spanish food. La Churraskia at c/Magre 5 is good for Italian and Argentinian dishes. There are also lots of pavement cafes where you can sit drinking whilst you watch the world go by, most of these also offer pastries and snacks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As well as driving to Figueres regularly we have visited other places in Spain, including Besalu, Bilbao, San Vincente de la Barquera, Gijon, Oviedo, Santiago de Compostela, Vigo, Tarragona, Cardona and more.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BESALU

Besalu is a beautiful place, a medieval town with steep narrow streets, pretty squares, and shops that resemble caves. Besalu was an important town before the medieval period, seeing Roman, Visigothic, Frankish, and Moorish rulers. One of the monuments from the eleventh century is a very grand bridge where the rivers Fluvia and Capellada meet. In the centre of the bridge is a fortified gate house with portcullis. In the old Jewish quarter along the river bank at the heart of the old town is the Miqwe or Jewish bathhouse which was originally joined to a synagogue. The key for the Miqwe can be obtained from the tourist office for € 0:60. In the centre of Besalu is Placa Llibertat which is completely surrounded by medieval buildings, the most interesting of these is the thirteenth century Casa de la Vila, which is now home to the turisme. The c/Tallaferro takes you to the ruins of Santa Maria, unfortunately you can not enter. For two years; 1018-1020, this was the designated Cathedral of the Bishopric of Besalu until union with Barcelona ended it's short lived episcopal independence. The only building to remain from the towns Benedictine community is the twelfth century monastery church of Sant Pere founded in 977. The Catalan Romanesque church of Sant Vincenc stands in a square with a cafe/restaurant and outside seating. There were lots of people in Besalu whilst we were there mainly students and the craft and souvenir shops were very busy. Some of these shops actually sold some nice bits, not just the usual tourist tat. There were quite a few places to eat and we chose the Pont Vel, c/Pont Vell 28. This restaurant was in a really beautiful location, with a large outdoor eating area which was practically under the beautiful bridge. The service was good and the food; classic Spanish dishes, well cooked and nicely presented ... delicious!

BILBAO ~ Guggenheim Museum

We went to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim Museum. As we drove nearer to the city it didn't appear that welcoming, as it is surrounded by graffiti covered tower blocks and factories whose smokes billows out across the sky. Once we were right in the centre of the city though it felt more accommodating. Lots of large buildings old and new, bars, cafes, restaurants, shops and friendly inhabitants. We drove round for some time looking for parking only to find an underground car park right along the road from the Guggenheim Museum, excellent. The walk from the car park was a very pleasant stroll along the river with hundreds of other people, mainly young families. We could see the museum long before we entered it, the huge silver exterior gleaming in the bright sunlight. The opening of the Guggenheim Museum in 1997 was responsible for the city's rebirth after the collapse of its traditional industrial base, with luxury flats where the shipyards and steel mills once stood. Bilbao is home to some of the best eating places in the Euskal Herria. As we spent the bulk of the day in the museum we didn't really get to explore much more of the city. But apart from the Guggenheim Museum there are many other places of interest such as the Gothic Cathedral de Santiago and the Museo Arqueologico, Ethnografico e Historico Vasco, c/Cruz 4 (Tues-Sat 10:30am-1:30pm and 4pm-7pm, Sun 10:30am-1:30pm; € 1:80). The museum is housed in the former school of San Andres, it has a beautiful cloister and a large collection of coats of arms of the former Bizkaian nobility. The collection also includes a huge three dimensional map of Bizkaia and an exhibition on Basque emigrants to the Americas. In the old town in the Siete Calles (seven streets) you will find the best bars/restaurants the city has to offer. Frank O Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, (Tues-Sun: July and Aug 9am-9pm, Sept-June 10am-8pm; € 7:20), is why we were in Bilbao and it is definitely the biggest attraction in the city. The building dominates the quay side, and there are great photographic opportunities from the Zubizuri foot bridge. We had wanted to visit the Guggenheim for some time, and on first sight of the exterior we were not disappointed. Once we were inside though it was slightly disappointing as far as I was concerned. The Guggenheim houses a large collection of twentieth century art and yet I felt the art was secondary to the building, the interior space is vast, but there seemed to be a lack of substance. There was nothing inside that particularly held my attention, and it wasn't because I don't enjoy galleries, I have spent many happy, contented hours in the art galleries that London has to offer and many others around the world. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to appreciate it (I was feeling slightly unwell) Richard was not as disappointed as I was. The Guggenheim Museum Restaurant Tel: 944 239333, serves good food at surprisingly inexpensive prices, booking by 1pm for lunch is advisable. The museum also has a website, www.guggenheim-bilbao.es or you can call Tel: 944 359 080.

Caribbean

Sundries

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Oceania