Week Five

We´d mutually agreed to get up at 08.30, but I found I couldn´t sleep that long (7 hours) so had a shower and decided on a route for today before the others got up. Then did breakfast with them and hit the station. Again, the AVE train to Sevilla sets me back 1500 pesetas. The landscape across most of Andalucia (the bits I´ve seen) is mostly flat and sandy with little vegetation except scrub and whatever the hell farmers grow here. There´s no livestock to be seen, certainly no cereal farming, and by the looks of it precious little rain. By rights, Andalucia should be a desert or at the least a dustbowel.
That said, the approach to Sevilla was shrouded in mist and by the time we got there it was actually raining (not in the train obviously, but outside the ground was wet and people had umbrellas up). The train was early into Sevilla (early - a Spanish train!!), so I had 6 minutes to make my connection to a local train instead of the 1 minute indicated by the timetables. Naturally, a few more minutes can be added to that since the train to Cadiz is an Andalucian Expres. The landscape going further west seems much the same, except that they´re doing a lot of work on the rails - nice new stuff being laid in swathes and (from the looks of it) new bridges as well.

The landscape suddenly becomes coastal, with superb long sandy beachs under a clear blue sky - ah, the Atlantic Ocean: long time, no sea (ha, ha). And then it´s on both sides of us, and then we arrive in Cadiz. I buy another extortionate map from the tiny station shop in the tiny station, get my bearings and start heading west into town. It takes me ten minutes to figure out that the station we arrived at is not the station on the map, and it takes me another 40 minutes walking along the narrow spit of land that connects Cadiz with the rest of Spain to reach the main station. They are, of course, in the middle of major renovations and, I´d guess, converting it into an AVE station. There are all sorts of unique things about AVE stations and platforms:

• The check your ticket before you get on the train (there are no conductors/inspectors),
• They x-ray your baggage,
• They have long angled conveyor belts instead of escalators. I´m not sure about the rationale behind this: possibly it´s easier for luggage, but it´s certainly quite awkward to stand on one - sort of counter-intuitive. And they go far too slowly, so it takes forever. They need to go at the speed of the flat ones in Schiphol,
• They have AVE logos all over the place.

Anyway, once I actually get to Cadiz (the centre, except that it´s not at the centre at all - it´s at the west end), the first obvious site/sight is the city walls: squat, thick, functional and quite short - they were just walls. Cutting out to the shore gives excellent views of the wide, sweeping bay and the major buildings along it, principally the cathedral. Going inland, it becomes obvious that Cadiz is essentially laid out in a grid pattern with a few triangles to make it fit the shape of the land. Almost all the streets are too narrow for more than one car; many of them are one-way; and the best (and preferred) way to get around is by (motor)bike. Most of the buildings are pretty tall - four or five floors - which means that the sun pretty much never reaches these streets at ground level, except for those which run perpendicular to its path: and then only briefly. It also means that the main residential-form in Cadiz is the flat, and there are almost none of the low houses with internal gardens & patios which are the norm in central Cordoba and exist to a lesser extent in Sevilla. Presumably, the blocks in Cadiz have some kind of central communal gardens, but if they´re at ground level then I don´t see how they can get any sun.
The place is full of women emptying basins of water into the street, stray dogs, groups of adolescents hanging about smoking, and solitary old men with sticks sitting on benches in parks for hours on end. The whitewash is grubby and the plaster is frequently peeling. Even better, the high blocks of buildings act as sound insulators so unless there´s a vehicle close to you, the place has a strange unearthly silence - a sort of other-worldly, deathly calm - about it.

On the southern shore the principle building is the cathedral, magnificently white with a golden dome and two towers: oddly it faces north, so I´m not sure exactly when it gets the sun - the same is true of a number of Cadiz´ other significant buildings. It´s next to the remains of the Roman amphitheatre, which seems to be undergoing some sort of "restoration".

I avoid the shopping area and instead head due west: the western tip of Cadiz bulges and then comes to a point. There are fortifications at each of the three (west/south-west/north-west) points. The south-west is the most impressive, since it´s a lighthouse on a fortified island linked to the rest of Cadiz by a narrow causeway. Over the years, sand has accumulated against the sides of this causeway creating artificial beaches. The main beach, however, is in the gentle curve between the west and south-west points: a few locals are splashing around. I´m guessing that this used to be the main harbour (only a guess, because it´s the best defended stretch of the shore, and the causeway acts as a breakwater protecting it).

The main modern docks are along the north shore - there are a number of large container vessels, as well as a couple of smaller military boats and an enormous ferry bound for the Canaries. All along the harbour are rows of refrigerated containers (Frigo Canarias) ready to restock the islands with pretty much everything from Spain: the old favourites like Boy Bimbo bread and Don Limpio cleaning liquid.
I head out of huge derelict Cadiz at about 18.00, wondering what went wrong. All the major buildings since about (guessing) 1850 are only residential - the major public buildings are all older which means the city's been going downhill since at least then. I believe, for example, that unemployment hit 20% here ten years ago. Presumably the Imperial/Atlantic trade on which it depended just dried up (ironically they have quite a big statue of Simon Bolivar). Whatever happened, if you ignore the motorbikes, the city seems to be trapped in a timewarp round about 1850-1900: it's just come to a halt, and faded gradually, rather than moving forwards. It would be a wonderful place to come and rent a flat for 2-3 months to write a novel, but possibly only if you wanted to write a Garcia Marquez novel full of fate and revenge and entropy: Cadiz gets 5/10.
I get back to the Youth Hostel just before 22.00, where Christophe (who has moved to another hostel) is waiting on Andrew, and the three of us go and find a tapas bar to sit outside and eat/drink until 01.00 or so. And then back to the hostel, where a new third occupant to replace Christophe is sound asleep.

I'd set the alarm clock for 07.45 but ended up sleeping until 08.00. Then washed my hair and had a good shower (by this time our mystery third man was alreqdy up, washed and out) before synchronising breakfast with Andrew. He heads off to the Alcazar, while I go to answer some emails - we have discussed taking the same train to Sevilla at about midday, but he isn't visible on the platform when I get there, so preumably he found the Alcazar pretty good.
This train is a Talgo, which is a type I haven't travelled on before - it's a tilting high-speed train but with the ability to run on the old Spanish broad-gauge lines as well. Disappointingly, the engine is just a regular AVE: after 40 minutes, just outside Sevilla, we stop for half an hour and there are a lot of clunks and grinding noises. I'd guess that the engine is changed and some of the carriages' wheels are somehow altered (quite clever, that). When we move off, the carriages to Sevilla seem to have already gone on without us, and the rest of the journey is bumpy and somehow normal (for Spain).

Gradually the landscape changes as we near the coast - the predominant yellow-brown of Andalucia becomes more orangey-red, and vegetation begins to get more prolific (including cactus, surely an import). There's obviously something different about this area, and that difference could easily be rainfall: by the time the train reaches Huelva (where the rail network ends), there's a mist in the air which is best described as threatening. I have three-quarters of an hour, Thomas Cook tells me, before a bus leaves for Ayamonte on the border. Thomas Cook also tells me that the bus station is about 1km from the train station but doesn't tell me in which direction.
There's no map in the station, but there is one in a nearby bus-stop: unfortunately it only shows local bus routes. I decide to head into the centre, on the assumption that I'll run into the bus station: wrong. After 20 minutes of circling the centre (I did find tourist information but it was closed), I pick on a random local and inflict my Spanish at him. It turns out that he's on his way to the bus station, heading in the opposite direction, towards Sevilla. I arrive, get my ticket, find the bus, and the driver closes the door behind me as I board: talk about cutting it fine. Within an hour I am in Ayamonte - Thomas Cook tells me there is a bus to Villa Real in Portugal, but it turns out that I've missed it. The lady at the ticket office confirms this, but there is a bus to Lagos - it costs quite a bit and takes forever, whereas there's a station in Villa Real and the train is both free and much quicker. I leave the bus station into weather that is clouded over and reason that Ayamonte is pretty much on the border and that a local bus might take me to Villa Real: I find a local bus stop. There are two schoolgirls waiting for a bus there, and they express surprise that I am looking for a bus to Villa Real - why not just take the ferry? As Skene would say ferry, huh. Okay. They give me vague, straight-line sort of directions and I set off, acutely aware that I have less than an hour before my train leaves Villa Real and the next one's hours away. With 40 minutes left I reach the ferry terminal: it is for foot passengers only, since there's a nice new road bridge to Portugal (which the bus presumably took) visible from the docks. In fact, it's a wonder the ferry's still running at all since the ticket costs less than a quid and only 15-or-so people board in total. At 17.00 the ferry leaves - my train leaves at 16.24 Portuguese time, so it's looking pretty tight.

The little ferry docks after only ten or twelve minutes (it's a wide river that separates the two towns) and I'm off. There's a convenient map at the ferry terminal, which I glance at en passant: I know I'm going in the right direction, but unfortunately have no idea what scale the map was. Villa Real turns out to be tiny, so the map is almost at a 1:1 scale, but the walk is still particularly nerve-wracking because the station's at the end of a long straight street and I can see my train for two or three minutes before I get there. I keep expecting it to start moving, but suddenly I'm aboard and the train leaves, 1 minute late, about 30 seconds after I board: whicvh in most countries would have meant that I'd missed it. And oh, it's good to be back in a country where they don't bother closing the (manual) doors but just set off, relying on gravity to do the job for them (it doesn't).

And now that I'm out of Andalucia, I can comment on their most obvious physical attribute (along with receding chins) which, to quote Coward, was the width of their seat. Yep - they all have major butts, and that's not a sexist comment since it also applies to the men. I don't know what genetic advantage it gives/gave them but it's become dominant now: possibly it helped in some way against the Moors, though I can't (and daren't) imagine how.
It's raining in Portugal: in Huelva it was 31°, in Ayamonte it was 24°, and by the time we reach Faro it's 20° and falling. As I try to train myself out of saying "gracias" (in Andalucia it's sibillant rather than lithped) since that would doubtless only annoy the Portuguese, we pass through Portimão - it seems a pretty big port, even though I've never heard of it.
I change trains at Tunes (TOONsh) and finally into Lagos (LAHgosh) (where I'm approached by wo separate people offering me a room with private bathroom for 3000 escudos) which looked kind of interesting from various holiday programmes. Unfortunately, an infinite number of other people seem to have thought so too: it's package- and club- Holiday Central. The huge variety of restaurants are packed with English and Germans (apart from the dominant burgers and pizzas, a hundred varieties of fish seem to be the menu), and the bars and nightclubs are full of Scots, Aussies and Americans (and staffed, of course, by Aussies). Despite the Youth Hostel (good ol' Youth Hostels) putting me in a room with three girls, this is the first place so far I regret coming to: I'll move on pretty soon tomorrow.

Bed at 01.30 and up at 07.00 (my roommates got in after I went to bed, and brought an infinite amount of sand with them), a shower and then a look around Lagos before the sun'n'surf tourists get up. Lagos' tourist culture extends to the Youth Hostel, which only starts breakfast at 09.00 (when some other hostels would be finishing). Then I pick up some provisions for today and tomorrow from a supermarket and wonder how many villages across ther Algarve are like Lagos - an insignificant medieval fishing village (walled) which is fairly run-down and poor except for a.) the rather tatty tourist centre and b.) the only-slightly-more-upmarket marina. it has an excellent beach and a good harbour, which explains its current change in fortune - except that the presumably significant influx of money doesn't seem to have spread much outwith the very centre and the touruist shops. Lagos gets 2/10.
I meet my three roommates, who are Americans (one of whom is amazing from the waist down, but that still won't slow my departure), and then to the station. There's a non-stop train from Tunes to Lisboa at about 15.00 so I hit Tunes, get my reservation, wait for an hour and half and then off. Portuguese provincial stations are great places to wait - they're full of people and stray dogs who have nowhere else to go: strange phased old men (generally rotund), equally strange old women (invariably angry about something), homeless beggars (rifling through a circuit of bins, over and over again), and a small number of people who're actually travelling.
Travellers' Tip: In Portuguese "ão" at the end of a word is pronounced as the French "en". If you bear that in mind, a lot of words make more sense: estação (where I'm sitting), Capitão (as in Capitão Corelli), São Paulo (the place), não (which means "no"), and so on.

We go north, and the landscape gradually becomes more fertile and wetter - after two hours we're passing through fields (and a downpour). Finally, without a stop, we reach Barreiro on Lisbon bay: Lisbon is like San Francisco, in that it's built on various sides of a huge bay - it even has a huge suspension bridge as well s another low bridge that seems to go on forever. The station at Barreiro is at the ferry terminal, and there's a short trip across to Lisbon proper - all of Lisbon bay is full of different ferries permanently crossing to and fro. Despite the fairly calm crossing, the water is incredibly choppy at the shore (possibly the ferry just came in too quickly) and the entire disembarkation is like a ride at a funfair. The boat, gangplank and floating jetty are all lurching violently from side to side, at different rates. Great fun.

Lisbon hasn't changed at all (thank goodness): magnificently grubby and grandiose, climbing sharply up the shore on all sides. Shabby, dirty and dodgy are all words which could equally apply. When I was here last, this was the cheapest place in Europe to buy cannabis, though there was a high risk of being ripped off - I'm pretty sure the same is probably still true.

I walk along the shore to the station, which is exactly as I left it except that they have a new International Departures area, with its own waiting room. There's a nasty surprise waiting there, which is that the ticket/reservation (you now have to reserve a place) is over 4,500 escudos - about £17 or $25 (that's 50% of the full fare, which is ridiculous). I know they've seriously upgraded the train (it's a Spanish Talgo), but it's the same as the overnight Barcelona-Cordoba service and that only cost me £2 ($3). I briefly toy with the idea of taking an alternative route by swinging north and making a couple of changes, but eventually bite the bullet and just buy a ticket.
The second of my three surprises at Lisbon station is the 50 escudo toilets in the International lounge, which obviously weren't upgraded at the same time. The toilet has no seat and no paper; there's a sink with soap, but the hot water doesn't work - after some violent effort I get the cold water on, but then it won't stop. The floor is covered in urine and litter, and the blowdryer only works of 3 seconds in any 30 second period and then cuts out. There's actually a shower in there, of a sort. Finally, on the way out, there's a sign which advises me to "turn right for [my] own safety": right is the departures lounge, left is the platform.
My final surprise is that there's no Irish bar within 200 metres of the station (which must make Lisbon unique), so my efforts to watch the Celtic game are doomed to failure. I spend my last escudos in the station café (actually I give my last escudos away as a tip), and board the quite-nice-actually train. This is the first train of the trip so far which I've actually travelled on before (albeit in the opposite direction) and things on this route have definitely improved (except the price - last time it was free).

Awake at 06.45, which is 07.45 Spanish time, and into the station for 08.30: a fairly new station (I don't remember it being here before) with no showers. There's a sign in the toilet warning not to waste water since there's a drought on - the sign is so faded that there must have been a drought on for at least five years. I catch a local train to good old Atocha station, dump my rucksack in a locker, and hop on the first train to Toledo. My 3 or 4 litre waistbelt or shoulderstrap daybag is a damn sight more convenient than all the pissing about I've previously done.
I'm in Toledo in less than an hour and a half, and avoid the newsagent stand with their map and head for Tourist Information instead. The free map comes with short English notes on the major sites, on a separate piece of paper. Cunningly, not all the numbers on the extra sheet match the numbers printed on the map. Also interesting, they describe the Mosque of El Cristo de la Luz as the only building conserved before the reconquest "at the present time", which kind of implies they may be planning some "restoration". Unfortunately they were working on that building while I was there and I couldn't get in.

Toledo - the geographic summary - it's part of a massif, situated just where the land falls away into the flood plains of the Rio Tajo, after the river almost doubles back on itself. So on three sides are a deep gorge cut by the river. It's a bit like Luxembourg, except in Luxembourg you can see the cliffs and sheer drops - here they've built on them. The town was Roman but came to pro,inence under the Visigoths in the seventh century (I knew there were Visigoths here - Alaric and his lot). Like the Franks and Ostrogoths, the Visigoths quickly became Latin-speaking and Christian (i.e. "civilised"): there are plenty of pseudo-Visigoth symbols in the town - horned helmets, pubs called "Valhalla", and so on. The Arabs took over apparently without a struggle and, the opposite to Cordoba, converted the church of San Roman into a mosque: you can go in - they're still doing work on it and, when I was there, appeared to be uncovering a pre-Arab mural (if Visigothic it showed how romanesque the Visigoths had become, if in a kind of clunky way: it took the Arabs to bring back Roman precision).
Unlike Luxembourg, Toledo never really flattens to a plateau, so pretty much all the streets are at jaunty angles and the buildings are all multi-levelled: also, because the city has such obvious natural boundaries it's become very densely packed - there are no parks and almost no open spaces in the centre. In fact the biggest open space I saw was inside the Cathedral (a building which is at least 3 or 4 metres higher at one end). The whole place is like one of those Espana adverts - you have to consciously avoid saying "Olé!" all the time.

The town is walled, and the best gate is probably the Puerta de Bisagra: from there it's pretty much uphill to everything. There are a lot of interesting little buildings in Toledo, but only three really significant ones. The Santa Cruz museum (in the old hospital - it has a lot of El Grecos: he was from here and his house is also a museum); the Alcazar (alCAHthar) (originally a Roman palace, which the Visigoths turned into a castle when they made Toledo their capital, now a fairly dull square and courtyard); the the magnificent Catedral.

Before going into the Catedral, I stop for a bite to eat and phone Bea - she's between jobs at the moment, and any time would be good for me to arrive. There is a train which will get me into Atocha at about 17.30, so that's the one we agree on. Naturally, at about this time, the rain which has been intermittently threatening and spitting finally decides to start in earnest. It's possible that they were expecting drought conditions as well, because Toledo is a disaster in the wet. All the quaint streets are cobbled with large shiny slippery stones, which look loverly and are a deathtrap when wet. At one point I come across a white van trying to negotiate a steep junction (most of the junctions are steep here): his cause is not helped by the fact that he has no grip - putting the van into reverse only causes the rear wheels to spin spray and steam over the onlookers. Eventually, with the assistance of good-minded citizens levering him sideways, he is able to carry on.

The Cathedral, at 800 pesetas, is dry inside (yes, 800): it has hopes, I think, of being the pre-eminent and most significant church in Spain (like Turku or Uppsala), but that's a much taller order here than anywhere in the north of Europe. Mind you, it's trying pretty hard. As well as the main church, which has some great (plaster?) figurework and murals, there are numerous chaplets hanging off the sides - opne of these has paintings going back to the reconquest, of each resident bishop/archbish/cardinal. There are representations going further back, and I notice they had a Pelagius running the place round about 325. I don't know if he was the one who started the heresy - one of the best and most reasonable heresies, it has to be said. The sacristy (which they've made into a museum) is trying quite hard to be the Sistine Chapel: it's got a good ceiling by someone, and an excellent (for it's size) collection of paintings. There's stuff by El Greco (of course), Titian, Rafael, Rubens, Velazquez, a good Caravaggio and an excellent Goya. They also have some stuff they use for occasionally parading around the streets and (of course), a big lectern in the shape of an eagle - the symbol of Rome, be it the Church or the Empire. How many churches, you have to wonder, have that last symbol of the classical world?

After the Catedral, down to a little stone footbridge over the Rio Tajo, and back to the station to board the 16.20 back to Madrid. I did mean to buy a pair of scissors here (you know, of Toledo steel), and the whole town is full of shops selling suits of armour, swords, knives and scissors - but all at tourist prices. Toledo is a good day trip from Madrid, and gets 4/10 in my book (site).

The train leaves on time, which is good, but then the lights go out at 16.30 and then the train stops at 16.40, which is less good. RENFE staff move up and down the train, on mobile phones mostly, but they seem as much in the dark (as it were) as the passengers. At 17.10 the train returns to Toledo and I dash out to phone Bea and let her know there's been a delay: the phone at the station is broken, though, and will only take phonecards (which I don't have). The next train, the 18.00, is due to leave by now - it now has double the number of expected passengers, which makes it fairly busy. The 18.00, though, takes us to somewhere called Algodor and then stops: after ten minutes everyone gets out - there's a group of RENFE people standing in front of an engine with large hammers and wrenches. I get out and take a photo - before you know it, half the train is filming or snapping away. There is a rumour circulating that the electric overhead lines to Madrid are down and that RENFE has brought us to this station because there's a diesel engine here - but the coupling is broken.

After 40 minutes, there seem to be some signs of success - everyone boards again, but no: the engine still won't connect to the carriages. All through this pantomime, the passengers are getting on and off the train in waves as rumours circulate about what's happening. Eventually passengers for Madrid are ushered onto a bus (by this time I've hooked up with an English couple from Wokingham - the guy is working himself towards a heart attack and keeps muttering "it's like the Third World"), and at about 21.15 we finally get into Atocha station.
I phone Bea (who was waiting for me here for a couple of hours earlier) and, bless her, she comes and escorts me back to her (rather snazzy and very central) flat. Her flat is third floor, with a little balcony, overlooking a narrow streets with a couple of restaurants and a nightclub: a great place for just standing and watching the world happen from, especially the dregs and remains of Madrid's nightlife. We eat spaghetti and then discuss life into the wee small hours.

A day for doing almost nothing - at least partially because I have no interrail ticket (my next one starts tomorrow, which is why this has always been my target date for Madrid). I get up and have a long shower: after breakfast and using the washing machine (and then filling Bea's flat with my damp socks and underwear), we wander to an internet place: everything in Madrid is only 10 minutes' walk from Bea's. Then we drop off my next few films to be developed, wander round looking for a new address book and passport cover, pick up the photos and after grabbing something to eat and drink go back to the flat. Bea's had an eventful morning (she had things to do while I was at the 24-hour internet place), and she's a bit out of sorts: the constant drizzle and low temperatures don't help.
I decide which photos to post on the net, and which to carry round copies of, and we drop them off at another photo place and then hit the gallery of contemporary art (Reina Sophia) which I missed last time I was in Madrid. A fairly wide range and some really good stuff as well as some fairly iffy stuff (I still can't get my head round Guernica) - lot of Picasso and Dalí. Incidentally, I'm also convinced that the Palacio Nacional has turned into the Palacio Real - Bea reckons it's never changed and that I'm raving: which of us would you believe?

(Another) interesting change since my last visit is that they've dug up half of Atocha station (they're making Chamartin the new big one, but most of the trains still go through both), and they've planted a jungle where the lines used to be. It's faintly surreal, since I remember when there used to be trains there. I take a photograph, which brings the total numbner of photos I have of Madrid up to 2, across 15 years - that speaks for itself.

We finish the day off with more food and alcohol and I formulate a plan for tomorrow: I'll spend the day in Segovia (there are lots of trains) and then catch the overnight train to Algeciras, which is in comfortable striking distance of both Morocco and Gibraltar. Discussion reveals that I haven't actually heard of Segovia (the place) at all - I thought it was where they made guitars, but it turns out that the Segovia with a guitar connection was a person. Bea seems to think there's an aquaduct there. Ah well - Segovia will come as a surprise to me.

I get up at 5-something and hit the internet place for a few hours - it's only 50pts per hour at the time in the morning - and then I hit the station for a morning train to Segovia. It's a double-decker job, and packed: mostly with Spanish schoolchildren with rucksacks, but also with a lot of Spanish, German and English daytrippers: serves me right for going on a Saturday. The landscape quickly becomes quite different: south of Madrid (and including Madrid) is probably best described as "barren" - just a little to the north it climbs into higher ground and becomes relatively fertile - there are fields and livestock and stuff. The open, uncultivated ground is even covered with weeds and grass. Soon we're travelling through tunnels and along the sides of steep valleys, and even passing cloud-covered peaks: the schoolkids get off in the middle of the hilly area, presumably on some kind of school hiking trip. There are quite a lot of holiday-style chalets in this area too, mostly adjacent to quarries (probably no connection).

And then we're in Segovia station, and I wander into the centre. The route is flat and gentle (and I pass an excellent romanesque church) right up to the aquaduct - and what an aquaduct! None of this Sevilla 5 metre crap - this thing apparently runs for 15km, some above and some below ground: a lot of it's been "restored", but the most impressive section (28m high) is authentic Roman blocks of granite held in place by nothing but gravity. After gawping for a bit and taking photos, I hit the gallery of modern art (before it closes for siesta) where there is a substantial Dalì exhibition. Some great pictures, including the dream on the instant of waking one (with the tigers): what I hadn't realised was how small a lot of his paintings are, despite the epic feel he managers. I've seen reproductions of the dream painting which I now know are larger than the original: a huge amount of his detail must have been done with single-thread brushwork: and how he manager his colour fades on that scale, or the accuracy (eg. of his shadows) I have no idea.

Leaving the museum as it closes (and getting caught in a ferocious wind and almost losing all my bits of paper), I make my way to the main sqaure - unlike Toledo there doesn't seem to have been as much population pressure here, so there's quite a few open spaces: the one at the Catedral (very late southern gothic) is not large enough to get a good photo of the building, but it is much larger than the plaza at the Catedral in Toledo. Avoiding the tourists (avoiding the other tourists, I suppose that should be) I wander a back road around to the Alcazar, right at the tip of the spur that is Segovia - and what a surprise.

It's not southern gothic, or converted arabic, or feudal medieval, or romanesque - it's fully-fledged northern gothic with a definite Habsburg finish: it's like something out of Hungary, or Bavaria, or (worse) Disney. It's also very perched,which makes some of the routes around the perimeter (in this wind) distinctly dangerous - mind you, that could just be my vertigo talking. In case it is my vertigo, I deal it a killer blow by climbing to the top of the central tower to get a good view of the catedral.
I briefly contemplate walking all the way around Segovia, which would also have let me see the alcazar/castle from below, but that would have taken a couple of hours and time is pressing.

Back to the station, giving Segovia 3/10, and back on a much quieter/less-crowded train to Madrid (Atocha) where I buy a ticker for this evening's train to Algeciras. I detour via the main Post Office to post some stuff back to Scotland (it's closed, probably because it's Saturday), and then to Bea's (she had a plumber round this morning but nothing seems to have been plumbed, as it were). She's a good soul and is lending me her small rucksack for the next few days while I plummet down to Morocco and back up, so I do a major repack and end up with something much lighter. Then I take the metro up to Chamartin station and board the train - I'm sharing a 6-seat compartment with three older Arab gentlemen, presumably from Morocco. As we pull away from Madrid we mutually offer and refuse hard-boiled eggs and biscuits: they conduct a political argument into the night. Apart from the occasional proper noun ("Taleban" and "American"), I understand absolutely nothing - Arabic is going to be a serious challenge.

Awake at about 08.30
The train stops at San Roque-La Linea (which I have to make my way back to as soon as I arrive in Algeciras!) but is wasn't in Thomas Cook that I saw so I'm not ready, so we sail past - on the horizon is a large rocky mountain: that will presumably be Gibraltar. The landscape down here is quite different, again. It's quite mountainous and, for Spain, very green - there are farms with fields, crops, cattle and sheep. There are hills and winding river valleys. "Fertile" is what it says. It's a mystery to me why the Arabs didn't base their capital here instead of at Cordoba - Cordoba itself is quite green, with the river, but the surrounding area is pretty desolate. Equally with modern Spain and Madrid: why not that little bit further north where there's more water?

Out at Algecrias, where I bid farewell to my travelling companions (it turns out that we have some French in common). The bus station is just over the road from the train station, and there's a bus to La Linea (just round the bay) in half an hour. The bus drives through the suburbs in between, since it's a local rather than direct service, and I get to read grafitti like "Gibraltar = Espanol", which is kind of ironic considering the Spanish have a similarly sized enclave on mainland Morocco. And then out at La Linea bus stations which is only 2 or 3 blocks from the border: actually, you can understand how it pisses them off, because the rock dominates La Linea, looming over the tower blocks. All along this stretch of coast, Africa is clearly visible over the water - it doesn't seem much further than Fife from North Berwick. Wow - Africa!

The border is a formality of flashing passports - apparently the Spanish are sometimes intransigent, but not today, and it's faintly bizarre to see short-sleeved bobbies on the other side, complete with helmets. Just after the border is the tiny airport - they've built it at 90 degrees to the small strip of land that links Gibraltar to Spain, presumably reclaiming the land to do it. There's a small shop at the airport which is selling Silk Cut at £9.50 a carton (which I later discover is too much), which I pay for in sterling. Then into Gibraltar itself - we have to wait while a plane lands, because the runway crosses to the only road.

Gibraltar town was basically a fort for most of its existence - the only entrance through the bastions and walls was "Landport": a tunnel through the defences (now you can enter round the side, past the marina, instead) which leads to the main street ("Main Street"). Gibraltar town lies on the western flank of the rock, where the land is flat down to the water. On the east side of the rock (which has two peaks and runs north-south) there is apparently a narrow coastal strip of beaches. I wander through the town, detouring from time to time but pretty much sticking to Main Street. All the normal shops are here - M&S, Pizza Hut, Top Shop, C&A, and so on - that, plus the bobbies, the red pillar boxes, and the fact that the currency is sterling makes the whole place seem like a surreal English tourist town only warmer (kind of like something out of The Prisoner). Actually, not that much warmer - today is still overcast with a little rain, and doesn't get much about 20 degrees.
Most of the people walking the streets on a Sunday are either Spanish-speaking tourists or English-speaking (South-East), whether local or tourists is difficult to tell. The local lingo appears to be either Spanish with some English words, or else English with some Spanish words. There is an Irish Town area, and also sizeable Jewish and Muslim populations judging by the number of synagogues and mosques. Also there are a number of uniformed armed forces personnel, often with women and children. In fact, Gibraltar has so many armed forces installations (Army, RAF and RN) that you have to wonder just how much firepower is based here.

Despite the fact that some enterprising taxi/bus operators have stuck up "Cable Car Not Operating" signs on the town plans, it is operating. It leaves from the far end of Main Street, costs £5 for the return trip, and runs pretty much continually. I take it up to the top, which has great views across to Africa and also inland across Spain. There is a surprising amount to Gibraltar: centuries of fortifications and Neanderthal remains, for example, but my main target up the top is to see the damned Apes. They turns out to be monkeys, not apes - macaques, in fact. They also turn out to be very cute, potentially dangerous (according to the signs, and several of them make a determined grab for my plastic bag of food), and flea-infested: I'll be scratching in sympathy for days. There's an area on the (one) road called the "Apes' Den" where they're supposed to mainly hang out, but they're all over the top of the rock, especially as the rain stops and the sun comes out.

Along the same road is St. Michael's Cave, kind of like Jameos del Agua on Lanzarote, where they sometimes hold concerts in a great cavern. And then I catch the cable car from half-way down, and make my way back over the border and take the bus back to Algeciras.
Gibraltar gets 3/10, on account of being a totey wee place, but having quite a lot to do for a totey wee place - and being cheap.

The ferry companies to Tangiers all work as a group, and advertise each others' sailings and sell tickets for each other, all at the same price (amd 30% discount for interrail). There's a sailing at 17.00, with almost exclusively Moroccans on board: there are another 5 obvious westerners and 2 Japanese, out of a couple of hundred. 17.00 comes and goes, and only then do they start loading the stacks of containers at the port: I get into a conversation with a German guy called Olly from Wuppertal. He's just spent 10 months in Morocco, but the permit for his bus just ran out so he's left it on the beach in Spain and is returning for a couple of days to collect his girlfriend and meet a friend from England. He also tells me of his experience of a single night in a Moroccan prison (he overstayed his original visa) - this fills me with upbeat enthusiasm about the whole country.

At 18.15 we set sail, and get our passports stamped onboard: the boat sails out into the Strait and then turns west towards the Atlantic. We pass Jebel Musa on the African shore, and the view from the back of the boat includes both pillars of Hercules - you can easily imagine them as the broken stumps of vast pillars stretching up into the sky. Perhaps the Romans were poets at heart after all. Also, we're sailing directly into the sunset, which adds to the whole dramatic feel of the journey. The trip takes about 2.5 hours (mostly sailing west to Tangiers rather than south) and the fairly-cheap-but-nothing-special Duty Free shop doesn't hold the attention for long - so it's just as well the journey itself is so interesting.

And then into Tangiers: Morocco follows GMT with no summer time, so it's 2 hours behind Spain - we arrive at 18.45. Straight off the boat we are leached by a "guide", whom Olly shoos away. The banks at the port are all just closed, so I can't change money. Olly takes me on a brief tour to an ATM machine: our leach from the port rejoins us and proves difficult to shake despite Olly's angry and hostile responses to his non-stop questions and banter. We are briefly joined by another hawker - both clearly spot me as an easier mark than Olly and attempt to separate us: out port mosquito warns that Olly is angry and dangerous and will get me into trouble if I am with him (possible - but he's only been angry and dangerous since we picked up our friend). The newcomer, more imaginatively, claims to be with the Moroccan Narcotics agency - they are watching Olly, and I shouldn't spend time or be seen with him (this is possibly true).
Eventually both of them give up: Olly explains that this kind of hawking is much more of a pain recently, with the noticeable fall in tourist numbers. He takes me through the medina, which is still packed and busy: it is pitch black in the square, outwith the light of the streetlamps, but there are still stalls: I have no idea how customers are supposed to browse the rows of leather goods and toiletries and clothing. We end up in a district of small Pensions (Morocco was French for a while, after all) and I pick one at random. He wants 50 Dirhams for a room, and I ask to see it first. It's whitewashed with a cracked sink; black, red and white tiles on the floor; a single bed with mattress, pillow and blanket; a shuttered window looking onto an alley; a couple of cupboards; and I don't want to think about the shared WC along the corridor. But it's only å3 a night, so I take it. In its favour there is a lovely, if derelict, courtyard.
Next we go for something to eat at a street stall - Olly reckons we are ripped off at 50 Dirhams for both of us, but it seems not too bad to me (if we've been ripped off, it wasn't by much). Effectively I've got a night's accomodation and an okay meal for less than a tenner, so Morocco should be cheap. Then back to the Pension where, on balance, I decide to use my sheet sleeping bag on top of their linen, and I crash out after a fairly long day.