olé

> > by Mike O'Connor

We scanned the handwritten signs but nowhere was there one saying ‘O’Connor.’

We would have settled for ‘O’Connell’ or ‘Conner’, or even ‘Smith’ but of the driver and car I had booked in Brisbane there was no sign.

So we stood in the rapidly emptying terminal of the newly opened Barcelona International Airport, took one final, forlorn look around and began hauling our suitcases towards the dome lights of a distant line of cabs.

It was 11.30pm by the time we reached the city centre and checked into the Hotel Petit Palace Museum, off Passeig de Gracia.

Infused with the desperate desire for fresh air that 30 hours of travel from Brisbane via Hong Kong and London can generate, we dumped our bags in our room and headed into the streets.

Within minutes we were having our first Spanish bar experience in the Obama Bar on Grand Via de les Corts.

The décor was what could be described as early Kenyan Colonial with sepia photographs and tribal memorabilia, all shockingly overstated but melding into a lively ambience beneath a crown of arms marked ‘British Africa 1823’.

There was no sign of the US President but we drank chilled white wine and congratulated ourselves on having made it to Spain and then, having eaten nothing but airline food for days, walked out of the bar, turned the corner and saw another bar packed with people - and food.

Real food. Platters of tapas glistening in the golden light. It was a moment that was to set the tenet for the next 14 days of travel.

Before leaving we’d talked about buying shoes and clothes in Spain but had decided to exercise caution with our culinary expectations.

‘The food is wonderful’ we’d been told by friends but people had told us the same about Italy and in three visits there, I’ve endured more dining disappointments than triumphs as well as some of the most appalling service in the world. France? Now there’s a country, but in Spain we decided not to expect too much and so we stood in the doorway of our first tapas bar and took a cautious step into the world of Spanish food.

It was a revelatory experience, tiny slices of ham, anchovies, pink plump prawns and mussels, sausage and olives being arranged on tiny slivers of bread prepared as we watched and being passed across the counter to the crush of people lining the bar.

I pointed to a plate piled high as it sailed past my nose and nodded and a minute later I was handed another plate. I don’t know much I paid in the crush. I handed over money and was given some change. It cost maybe 20 euros. It didn’t matter.

The food was fresh and bursting with flavour and the glasses of red wine I’d ordered weren’t bad either. “Good” I said, olive oil oozing from my mouth. “Good” said my partner, stuffing an anchovy into her mouth.

We were to discover that you can get bad meals in Spain but you have to try awfully hard. We managed one disappointment in the three cities and one township in which we stayed - Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid and Cuenca - and that was in Madrid of which more later.

There must be thousands of bars and restaurants selling tapas in Barcelona and it’s this abundance and variety that astounds, the infinite combinations of seafood such as fried sardines, barbecued squid, mushrooms, ham and bacon in all its varieties, crab, pork and sausage.

We adopted a pattern, beginning with a light breakfast in the hotel - boiled egg, fresh bread and coffee - and then wandering the city until 11am when the first refreshment stop would be called at a bar with tables on the footpath to allow a good view of the passing parade and the Spaniards, it must be said, know how to parade.

Sit in a pavement café on La Gracia and it becomes a smaller, Iberian version of the Champs Elysees, the women dark eyed and dark haired, strutting past in the preferred uniform of urban Spain - skin tight, pale blue jeans, black boots, tight fitting top with a dash of decolletage and aviator sunglasses.

The mid-morning refreshment of choice was cerveza clara, local beer served extremely cold with a dash of sweetened lemon juice. It may seem sacrilegious to traditional beer drinkers but it was delicious after a couple of hours spent wandering the back streets of the Barri Gotic old quarter or along the promenades of Port Olimpico or the beachfront of Barceloneta.

At Barceloneta we squinted in to the early afternoon glare of the Mediterranean and observed that G-string bathers are still much in vogue on Spanish beaches, particularly among septuagenarian males. Uttering a prayer that the trend did not spread to Australia’s fair shores, we retreated to the beachfront restaurants which line the promenade and followed a clutch of well dressed locals into an open air eatery where we ordered pinot grigio and plates of anchovies with red peppers, prawns in garlic, ham croquettes and crumbed, fried mussels.

On another day our largely unplanned back street wanderings took us to Port Olimpic where bands were playing in the sunshine, being cheered on by locals and tourists sitting on the decks of boats moored to the quayside which had been turned into floating bars and restaurants.

It was a warm, sun-blessed afternoon, the mood one of infectious good humour given life by the rhythm of a salsa band and dancers swirling spontaneously among restaurant tables and along the dockside.

We took the high speed train to Valencia which claims to be the home of paella and in a vine covered courtyard all but hidden down a side street had our first experience with paella de mariscos, the seafood version of paella, paella’ merely meaning plate.

Valencia is known for its seafood and as beads of moisture formed on our wine bottle, we sat on opposite sides of a vast platter of squid, mussels, extra virgin olive oil, sweet peppers, clams, prawns, shrimps, tomato, saffron and fish stock – counted to three and attacked it with what could only be described as mucho gusto.

The classic Valencian paella or paella valenciana is made with chicken, rabbit, beans, extra virgin olive oil, peppers, tomato, rosemary and saffron but we favoured the seafood version. We had it on at least three other occasions but none quite matched that afternoon beneath the trellised vines.

Cuenca is a medieval town which sits atop a massive rock surrounded by deep gorges and is roughly halfway between Valencia and Madrid. Below sits the unremarkable new town but the old town looks out across the countryside giving views that were enjoyed by the Muslim invaders who occupied and fortified it in the 11th century.

In the La Mancha region, it is famed for its 16th-century clifftop houses with their timber balconies that appear glued to the sides of the cliffs.

We stayed one night in what had been a monastery and was now a state-run hotel or parador. It was built in the 16th century and the carpets may not have been vacuumed since then but it offered spectacular views across the gorge.

In one of these cliff-clinging houses known as las casas colgados was the Meson Casa Colgados restaurant, said to be the best restaurant in town and it was to there that we headed for dinner.

The table was laid with white linen and gleaming silverware and the timber floorboards creaked worryingly underfoot as I read the menu and my eyes locked on the suckling pig.

It was a dish for one and remains one of my great dining memories, half a roasted pig served on a platter with vegetables and enough crackling to clog an elephant’s arteries.

It was perfectly moist, oozing juices and flavour. There was no bantering conversation that night, just a steady slurp, chew, suck, slurp interspersed with the occasional sigh of pleasure as I worked my way through this monument to traditional Castillian cuisine.

Ham is central to Spanish cuisine, shops decorated with hundreds of smoked hams dangling from ceilings and walls are a regular sight. The hams can be cured for up to three years, the black Iberian pigs being fed a diet of acorns as slaughtering time approaches to give the meat its distinctive, rich flavour.

It is served in bars, the leg ham locked in a stainless steel clamp atop the counter from which the thin strips are sliced. You buy it by the plate and eat as you drink for the Spanish believe in enjoying both food and wine together.

We consumed kilos of the stuff washed down with local reds and months later I still salivate at the thought of sitting at a bar in Cava Baja in Madrid, eating wafer thin slices of ham, delicately sliced and decorated with a thin line of fat and drinking red wine.

The one bad meal was in a tapas bar off Plaza Mayor in Madrid, the olives tasteless, the squid overcooked and something indefinable which had been crumbed and deep- fried to the point of being inedible. The owner spoke perfect English so we told him that it was the worst meal we had ever attempted to eat and left. It was fortuitous for 20 metres down the street we found The Mushroom Restaurant which served nothing but mushrooms and so we dined on mushrooms in garlic. Nothing else, just huge plates of garlic mushrooms.

In Madrid you must also go to Mercado San Miguel, a newly renovated market which is like a cathedral of food.

There are maybe 40 or 50 individual stands selling oysters, hams, a hundred varieties of tapas prepared while you watch, oysters in the shell, mussels, scallops and champagne and wine. We once spent an entire night there, grazing from one end to the other and back until we could eat no more. It was wonderful.

You can enjoy Spain on many levels - its history, its culture, its rugged beauty, its peoples’ passion for
living and its food. One down, four to go.


factfile
GETTING AROUND: We solved the getting around the cities by staying at properties ideally located in the centre of the cities - Hotel Petit Palace Museum in Barcelona, Hospes Palau De La Mer in Valencia, Parado de Cuenca in Cuenca and Petit Palace Mayor Plaza in Madrid.

We booked through Tempo Holidays (www.tempoholidays.com) and all accommodation was comfortable, secure and well appointed. Train was our choice of travel for getting to and around Spain. We bought Eurail passes through RailPlus Australia (www.railplus.com.au).

VISA: Australian and New Zealand citizens require a passport valid for at least period of intended stay. No visa is required for stays of up to three months within a six month period.

GETTING THERE: We flew Cathay Pacific to London Heathrow and connected with the low cost carrier Iberia to Barcelona. In addition Thai Airways and other major airlines also fly to London.