Tag: Spain

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Barcelona: Catalonia, Not Spain? Plus, Photos of Park Guell

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As mentioned in the last post, my trip around the Iberian Peninsula ended in Barcelona, the largest city the Catalonia region and the second largest city in all of Spain. But is it actually in Spain? Well, it’s complicated.

Spain is a nation, but it’s also a collection of autonomous communities created in accordance with the Spanish Constitution of 1978. In short, Spaniards were not keen on going through another bout of central control such as they had just done for nearly four decades under the nationalistic dictator Francisco Franco. After his death they tried to have both a country and the freedom for different regions to act on their own. The result is what some call a “federation without federalism,” which is topic others can dive into but I’ll skip. The bottom line is that Catalonia, the region of northeastern Spain that includes Barcelona, is fiercely regionalistic, going so far as to declare themselves independent. Whereas English was fairly commonly used – spoken, on menus, signs, etc. – throughout the trip, Barcelona was a bit less so, especially once leaving the big tourist areas. This was made especially obvious when we ventured down a twisted alley in the El Born neighborhood of Barcelona to eat at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant where the waiter and menu had fewer words of English than I know of Catalan [Hint: Zero].

In any case, we powered through with a lot of pointing and rudimentary Spanish to totally enjoy the visit. One of the highlights of Barcelona was Park Guell (pronounced “Gway”). This was Antoni Gaudi’s exquisite contribution to Barcelona society, a beautiful park that demonstrates why his quirky designs defined Catalan Modernism. He was a big proponent of curvy architecture and the use of mosaics made from cracked ceramics. You’ll see his influence throughout Barcelona, including in the Casas Battlo and Pedrera, and, of course, the Sagrada Familia.  I’ll have more photos from other sites as I can get them loaded.

 

Due to limits of photo uploads on WordPress, I’ll post more photos on my Facebook author page.

[All photos: David J. Kent, 2023]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

 

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Cruising Lisbon to Barcelona, and Everywhere in Between

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A few days ago, I returned from a two-and-a-half-week Windstar cruise-plus trip around the Mediterranean. We started in Lisbon and ended in Barcelona, but made several stops along the way, including Gibraltar, and Morocco. Here are the places we stopped. It was an amazing experience.

Windstar cruise Lisbon to Barcelona

This is our fourth Windstar trip. Previously we sailed in the Caribbean, yachted in the Baltic Sea, and motored from Hong Kong to Singapore via the Philippines, Borneo, and Brunei. We were supposed to be on another trip in the Caribbean to northern South America in December 2019 but it was canceled at the last minute due to mechanical difficulties. Then COVID hit and nothing happened for a while. Last year we were booked for a trip starting and ending in Istanbul that bounced around the Black Sea, including Odessa, Ukraine. Needless to say, the cruise line canceled that trip as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine. We ended up in Iceland instead, then a trip to Tanazania near the end of 2022. This was our first Windstar since late 2018 and it was wonderful. The ships carry only about 300 passengers, so unlike the big multi-thousand hotel ships, Windstar gives you the chance to get to know the other passengers and crew.

Looking at the map above you can see there are a lot of markers inland. Obviously, we didn’t sail the ship to Marrakesh, but in retrospect it turned out that we took excursions to other cities at each stop other than Gibraltar. That expanded the cultural immersion immensely.

We arrived in Lisbon, Portugal early on Thursday. The cruise didn’t board until Saturday afternoon so we played tourist in the city, hitting all the hot spots like the castle, the Belem tower, the Monument to the Discoveries, and wandering the neighborhoods. On Friday we took the train out to Sintra. Not only was it the only rainy day during the entire trip, it was a day of deluge. It rained so hard it soaked through my otherwise trusty umbrella and created its own rain on me. Still, it was worth the trip. I had been in Lisbon and Sintra about 15 years ago but hadn’t planned ahead so didn’t even see much other than the famed Oceanario.

The first stop on the ship was Gibraltar and a tour around the “Rock” and its famous apes and St. Michael’s Cave. Then we were off to Casablanca, Morocco. I had always wanted to visit because of the Humphrey Bogart movie, but was told by others that the trip out to Marrakesh was a better use of time. So onto a 12-hour excursion to the city made famous (at least to me) by the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song, “Marrakesh Express.” Long day but worth it.

Then it was back to bounce around Spain. Porting at Cadiz overnight, we spent one day roaming the city and another day going out to Jerez, where we toured a vineyard, wine cellar, and best of all, got to taste two kinds of sherry and a brandy. [Yes, we bought some to take home] Malaga was another overnighter so we walked Picasso’s birth city one day and on the other day took a trip out to Cordoba, home of a huge mosque that was turned into a church (the mosque had been built on a previous church; such back and forth happened a lot as the Muslim Moors and Christians took turns invading each other’s space). Our stop in Cartagena gave us an opportunity to go out to Murcia, heavy in preparations for one of the seemingly ubiquitous music festivals, and still had plenty of time to wander the city of Cartagena itself.

The Windstar cruise ended in Barcelona, Spain. Again, I had been there about 15 years ago but only for a day. This time I was determined to get into the Sagrada Familia (which has grown a lot in 15 years), the Picasso Museum, and spend some time in the Catalonian city of Gaudi. In keeping with the trend of maximizing the opportunities, we took a 3+ hour bus ride from Barcelona to the tiny country of Andorra, deep in the Pyrenees mountains nestled on the border between Spain and France. I’ll write more later, but one thing I noticed is that is that English seemed to disappear as we got into the Catalonia region of Spain. Barcelonians and the greater Catalonians are feverishly protective of their Catalan heritage, going so far as to declare their independence from Spain (which neither Spain nor any other country I’m aware of has conceded to). This was especially true in Andorra where I had to struggle through my rudimentary Spanish and French just to order lunch (the waitress laughed when I asked for an English menu).

Two and half weeks later we’re back in the USA, having visited five countries, thirteen cities, one aquarium, and two or three thousand photo opportunities. It will take a while to sort through the photos, but I’ll be back to flesh out the highlights of key stops.

[Map created by Ru Sun, who in addition to being such a great travel companion, had to survive my temporary insanity in the tower of the Sagrada Familia.]

 

Fire of Genius

Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America is available at booksellers nationwide.

Limited signed copies are available via this website. The book also listed on Goodreads, the database where I keep track of my reading. Click on the “Want to Read” button to put it on your reading list. Please leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon if you like the book.

You also follow my author page on Facebook.

David J. Kent is President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of Lincoln: The Fire of Genius: How Abraham Lincoln’s Commitment to Science and Technology Helped Modernize America and Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America.

His previous books include Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World and two specialty e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

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The Hot and the Cold Climate of Tenerife

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You might guess that Tenerife would be a warm place given that it is part of the Canary Island group sitting off the southernmost coast of Morocco in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. And you would be right, but not completely right. Tenerife is approximately the same latitude as Orlando, Florida, but unlike Orlando, the island goes from sea level to 12,198 feet in altitude.

A few years ago I experienced both extremes within a matter of hours on the same day. After barely escaping Brussels in a snowstorm and spending a sub-freezing Christmas eve in Madrid, I arrived in Tenerife North Airport (site of the worst airline disaster in history, the 1977 runway collision between two 747s that killed 583 people). Luckily, no drama for my arrival.

cactus

 

The initial wave of high heat and humidity was a welcome change from the dreary winter I had left behind. There were many cacti, but also a wide variety of subtropical trees and plants. Loro Parque, a combination zoo, aquarium, and botanical garden, was like walking into a jungle and reef all in one. As the name suggests, the parrot collection alone is the largest in the world. The number of orchids was astounding, as I talked about in this earlier post. We even met a gorilla.

gorilla

After building up a good sweat, it was time to head to the highlands. More specifically, it was time to drive up the winding roads to the summit of El Teide in Teide National Park. This snow-capped volcano is the highest point in all of Spain (the Canary Islands are Spanish possessions), not to mention the highest in all the Atlantic Ocean islands and the third largest volcano in the world.

El Teide, Tenerife

The twisting roads for this trip are a topic deserving of their own post, but eventually you get to a spot where you can park and board a cable car up to just below the summit, at 11,663 feet. From there you can hike to the top, though on the day we were there the snow and ice was considered too dangerous and park officials banned hikers for the last section. The views were amazing, as was the cold.

From there we wound our way back down and continued our drive around the island. From heat and humid to cold and ice and now back to the rocky beaches. Definitely a day to remember.

Tenerife

Of course, that was just the beginning. I’ll have more on the science of Tenerife, and even some parasailing, in future installments.

David J. Kent has been a scientist for thirty-five years, is an avid science traveler, and an independent Abraham Lincoln historian. He is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (now in its 5th printing) and two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate. His book on Thomas Edison is due in Barnes and Noble stores in spring 2016.

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The Orchids of Tenerife

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As you read this I’m on my way to an island adventure (more on that later), which got me thinking about a past island adventure – Christmas in Tenerife. A quick Google search will show you that Tenerife is the main island in a group called the Canary Islands. Located off the coast of Morocco in northwest Africa, the Canaries actually belong to Spain. So my snowy escape from Brussels got me to frigid Madrid and then on to the nicely toasty Tenerife. [Toasty at sea level anyway; the summit of the volcano in the center of Tenerife was covered in ice and snow.]

Back to the toasty, even downright tropical, climate near the sea. While roaming the island and visiting Loro Parque I fell into a pod of orchids. Now I’m no orchid expert (to say the least), so I’m counting on all of you to let me know what to call the orchids that follow. Enjoy the photos.

Orchid DSC03453 DSC03454 DSC03455 DSC03456 DSC03457 DSC03458 Orchid

Orca

Okay, that last one was an Orca, not an Orchid. My bad.

I also suspect not all the orchids are orchids. Any orchid experts out there?

More on my travels.

David J. Kent is the author of Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity (2013) and Edison: The Inventor of the Modern World (2016) (both Fall River Press). He has also written two e-books: Nikola Tesla: Renewable Energy Ahead of Its Time and Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla: Connected by Fate.

Follow me by subscribing by email on the home page.  And feel free to “Like” my Facebook author’s page and connect on LinkedIn.  Share with your friends using the buttons below.

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The Great Wall of China and Mount St. Helens – A note about the header photos

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I’ve been asked whether I took the photos you see in the header.  The answer is yes.

As of this writing there are several photos that alternate in the header as you click through the various pages.  I’ll write separate posts on each of these as this site develops – including showing the full photo (they had to be cropped to fit the header size). Click on the photo title to get to posts that have already been written. Here’s a quick synopsis:

The Great Wall of China: Taken on film in December 2000 on my first trip to Beijing, China.  The day was freezing. Actually, below freezing.  In fact, 5 degrees F.  But the experience was something that I couldn’t get out of my mind even if I wanted to (which I don’t).

Mount St. Helens: A special access visit to the Park Service location in Washington State as part of a scientific conference. You can see where the side of the mountain blew out in 1980. The hot vapors you see are from new volcanic activity occurring while I was there in November 2004.

Palau de les Arts and L’hemisferic: Two of the amazing modern buildings in the ancient city of Valencia, Spain. Taken in 2008, they are part of the “City of Arts and Sciences” that also includes a world famous aquarium. As with the other photos, the original is even more impressive because there is a reflecting pool in the foreground.

Sunset in Fairfax: A spectacular sunset I encountered by chance one day upon arriving home from work.  The photo is shot from my back deck and the moment was gone within a minute after taking it.  The jet contrails add some intrigue to the reddest sky I have ever seen.

Stonehenge: The famous archeological site about two hours west of London. Seems they still can’t figure out for sure what its purpose was, but that doesn’t stop everyone from guessing – everything from a celestial clock to a sign that we once had alien visitors. It’s actually pretty cool for a bunch of big stones.

Gondolas: The photo was taken near Piazza San Marco – St. Mark’s Plaza – in Venice during a beautiful late summer day. The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore can be seen in the background.

El Teide: The third largest volcano in the world, El Teide sits on Tenerife, the largest island of the seven Canary Islands. This was taken Christmas day. At the base it was hot as the tropics; at the peak it was below freezing and snow covered.

Perito Moreno Glacier: Perito Moreno is in southern Patagonia, Argentina. I went there in February (their summer) to visit and travel with a long-time friend from my days in Bermuda. The site truly is breathtaking.

James Joyce: The photo that accompanies this post is a detail of the James Joyce statue taken in downtown Dublin, Ireland in 2010. This photo plays an important role in my “Adventures in Europe” photobook.

The book Stack: This photo shows a stack of my published books through September of 2016, including the two Fall River Press books, the two e-books, and the photo book. It will be replaced with each new book that joins the stack.

More about me.