Interspaces

As I was telling the story of the trip Beograd - Sevilla, I wrote a lot about big cities and busy highways. I left out three of very important episodes which as far away from this atmosphere, happening far away from lively city centers of Barcelona, Milano or Zagreb. Taking place in kind of different time and space, then the rest, containing totally different experiences and being a separate part of the wandering. A complimentary part, but at the same time being a crucial fragment of the trip. Part allowing to taste solitude and this freedom known so well from mountain hiking.

Monfalcone

Between Trieste and Milano we got "stuck" for one day in Monfalcone. A town, where there's practically nothing - and that was the beauty of it. The main square caught in full sun, surrounded by a few old buildings - but none of them on the checklist of sights-to-see. Specific void of time and space between the train and next ride from Blablacar, a void that can be filled freely, but there is not much to fill it with. One thing left is to wander through the streets without any purpose, to sit on every other bench hoping that it will differ from the previous. We're left with time to look at everything carefully - buildings, people, ourselves. Timetasting.

Setting the camp in nearby forest and a trip to the town.

Albino

After making the decision about not going further with hitchhiking we had three days to spend somewhere around Bergamo. Why not Apls, then? We got to the last tram going from Bergamo to Albino and this way we got to next unknown town late in the evening, looking for a place for the tent. Going higher and higher, as far as we could from the last buildings of Albino.

This is how we inhabited a stone mine with view on the mountains, with a little a pathway leading down and with all the time that is possible to have during twenty four hours.

Time for a good breakfast in the morning, late supper with the candlelight of thousand city lights. For talking, playing guitar and cards, and when we ran out of knwon games, to invent new ones. With time for trip "to the town" - again with no purpose, just to drink a beer and look at the people, at the kids spinning on a merry-go-round on Sunday morning. Tasting the remnants of yesterdays party on the main square, still present in the air. Time to find a kilogram cake in a discount price in a small shop and time to enjoy it after we get back to our tent hidden in the stone mine.

And this kind of spending time delivers adventures not less exciting than being in big cities - such as discovering that the stone mine is not totally abandoned and that there are workers on the only way inside, while all of the things and our tent stayed up there...

Guillena

Tired of Sevilla we've spot first random location with a tree sign on map and we hopped on the bus to camp for two more days while waiting for plane back home. Set up the tent under a cactus-like plant, cook carbonara with spanish wine, watch a movie in a forest cinema. Buy strange fruits for some pennies just to find out, that they taste like feet.

Or to gather our things early in the morning and with flashlights on our heads make sandwiches for the road. For the airports in Sevilla and Bergamo, which was our last stop together, before Dani would return to Bulgaria and I would go to Poland, to pack my bags before moving to Sofia.

Flamenco in Sevilla

Spain. X.2013

We arrive in Sevilla in our own characteristic style - late at night, just in time for an evening kebab. When we leave the bar and start going towards Parque de Alamillo to find a good spot for a wild camping I find 10 euro on the street, so luck must be on our side. Partly, because on the other side of Canal de Alfonso XIII we cannot find any good spot for the tent. Luckily we have a plan B - Feeling Sevilla Hostel, that was recommended by Lorenzo. I must admit it is worth recommending further for all travellers going to this city. Though on the official website it states 10 euro per night (which is still a good price for Spain), we manage to get places in October for 7 euro with breakfast included. Definitely the cheapest hostel ever, even counting in the Eastern Europe. Big bathrooms and enormous common area... but that's not a place to talk about Real Estate.

Or is it? We compensate ourselves for not seeing Alhambra in Granada with free entrance to Alcazar palace - gardens and part of the undergrounds.

While eating baked castanas we go through the center. The weather is quite bad - cloudy with short periods of rain - Sevilla in October. Maybe because of that, or maybe because lame research we've done before the trip, we miss visiting Plaza de Espana, which I can't let go now. The square that served for some of scenes from Star Wars - how awesome is that? Ah, next time.

But the main point of interest is flamenco, which has partly grown up right from this city. We look for something "authentic", so because of recommendation (from somebody on Couchsurfing, I think) we get to La Carboneria. Although it is also recommended by all-ruining Lonely Planet and slowly filling with foreign tourists, it makes a positive impression on us with it's low metal ceiling with slowly turning fans. But show itself, performed by the trio visible on the main photograph of this text, just blows our minds.

Maybe it was the weather, maybe exhaustion of the whole long trip, or maybe the not visited Plaza de Espana (I cannot let it go!), but Sevilla doesn't impress us that much itself.

We spend one more night in the city, and for the last days we want to breathe with something lighter.

Granada

Spain. IX.2013

As I described before, in Granada we stayed at Travel House, run in 2013 by Travel Club from Serbia. Genious initiative - I still don't know where will they be this year, but I really hope somewhere on my way!

Warmly welcomed after arriving close to midnight we open the bottles - Dani with her homemade rakia, me with not homemade nut vodka, which always gains some fans wherever I carry it. Maybe I should apply to become Soplica's ambassador, but on the other hand I always carry it in nameless plastic bottle to reduce weight, so no marketing effect. We're joining the party and learn, that there's another fiest in Granada (another one? we've got some luck!). Delgation from Travel House is gathering to join celebrating granadians on the streets, but it takes ages to get some final decision... Slowly awakens my avertion to big groups and their indecisiveness. When we finally take off we get caught by rain, so we end up having our own fiesta in a nearby square under some trees.

For the first night we cannot find a free space in bedrooms, so we place our sleeping mats on the kitchen floor, where party goes on till late hours. Not the best place to sleep, but we have a certain roof over our heads and we get to know more and more travellers on different stages of their summer wandering.

It is some of them - Bosnian girl Sara, Lorenzo from Italy and others - that we set off for Free Granada Tour next morning. Tour, which was led by American guy, speaking perfect spanglish. Even with our embarassing level of knowledge in Spanish we've got some reasons to smile at his sentences.

Granada is a marvelous city placed on the foot of Sierra Nevada mountains, which results in a lot of narrow, steep and winding streets. Combining it with Almohad's culture present here for ages gave this city an outstanding atmosphere and architecture.

Alhambra palace - next position from UNESCO list on our road - dominates over the whole city. Tickets must be booked at least four days in advance, there's such a crowd wanting to visit it. We reserved them maybe two days before planned visit, but as we thought we are lucky we didn't manage to pick them up from an ATM/Caixa machine. Luckily no money were taken out from Dani's account. Maybe we were even misled about if we actually booked the tickets... Anyway, to hell with that kind of regulated sightseeing.

One more thing, that raised my attention in Granada is "hidden" few minutes outside of the historical center, in Sacromonte neighbourhood. Dozens of caves in Valparaiso hill inhabited with bigger or lesser permission of the authorities, gathering people of various origins, though historically it was a Gitano quarter. Without address, without taxes, with marijuana bushes planted in rich gardens, almost every night with dances and music... and in the same time so close to the center of a city that counts over 200 thousand people.

Street art laso catches my attention, of course:

After wandering through Western Europe, noise and crowded cities, two days spent in Travel House with constant and numerous company, something starts to change in me. I start to feel the lack of loneliness, so intensively present in my previous travells. This space to breath, being alone with emptiness of mountains - except for short and low episode in Alps we didn't manage to see much of wilderness, only cities. Completely other type of experience, and frankly speaking not my type of experience. Looking upon even such beautiful city as Granada can change from this point of view, and I have enough. Dani is also upset by this missunderstanding of Alhambra and rain, so while eating churros in the morning we decide to get out of here as soon as possible and look for more positive vibe in Sevilla.