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Showing posts from April, 2021

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Seville

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SEVILLE Sevilla After living up to some wonderful moments at Granada, the birthplace of the renowned Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, we decided to further our coadventure through the heartland of the southern Iberian Peninsula, composed of lowlands, mountains and valleys. You’ve got it right. To arrive at Seville, we traversed the fascinating Spanish heartland. The landscape presented some vistas composed of rustic plains, lowlands, winding roads through the Sierra and then vast stretches of olive orchards. About 200 years back, a couple of decades after Napoleon’s army plundered and destroyed parts of Alhambra, an American diplomat and writer, Washington Irving and his Russian counterpart traversed the path from Seville to Granada. It was highly adventurous then, because of the fact that the transport system at that time was horse-drawn carriages and muleteers. It was such that they could ‘wander among the romantic mountains of Andalusia’ (Tales of Alhamb...

Barcelona 2

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BARCELONA 2   Sagrada Familia- the amazing, still unfinished cathedral   Barcelona is proud of Antoni Gaudi. It is Gaudi's city. The two seem to be almost indivisible after Gaudi delivered some architectural wonders to the city he loved. Park Guell and Sagrada Familia are two architectural masterpieces he created and gifted to his city. Though Sagrada Familia is now in UNESCO World Heritage sites, I perceived it as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I was stumped when the temple façade loomed up for the first time. Awesome! It is an incredible beauty! The only similarity to the Gothic architecture was the Latin Cross Floor Plan which Gaudi maintained in his design. The core in the Plan is occupied by four aisles of 7.5 M wide each and a nave of 15 M wide totaling 45 M The complex geometries developed by Gaudi deviated significantly from the Gothic designs. Such as introducing a system of angled columns and hyperboloidal vaults to do away with the need for...

Barcelona 1

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Barcelona SPAIN  A fascinating country. An engrossing history. And exotic in every sphere. The thrilling story of the Spanish Armada; the chivalric romances of the errant knight Don Quixote; the daredevilry of the brave Matadors in tackling the bulls continue to fascinate me. The Romans, the romantic Moors who ruled for almost 800 years, the swashbuckling Spaniards who demonstrated their prowess as conquerors, explorers, bullfighters, flamenco dancers, football players all seemed to be beckoning me to unravel the mysteries of this captivating land. Finally, in 2019, we chalked our visit to Spain. My traveling companion (my wife) is an ardent learner of Spanish, which proved to be a forte during our journey to Spain. Our adventure in Spain started with Barcelona.  We flew into this city from Frankfurt. Surprisingly Barcelona's El Prat International Airport (also known as BCN) wore an ordinary look, in unexpected contrast to the jazzy name and character of th...