Travel

These travel features appeared in Accent, a lifestyle glossy direct-mailed to 20,000 ABC1 readers around the North East. I’ve also written about travel for Essential Newcastle and The North Guide.

Homage to Catalonia

In 1936, George Orwell travelled to Barcelona to fight in the Spanish Civil War. All Accent’s
David John Watton grappled with in 2003 was the language…

IN A NEW documentary about Johann Cruyff, the adopted saint of FC Barcelona, an elderly gentleman describes his Catalan nationality as being “as exquisite as having an orgasm.”
Although giving new meaning to the phrase come and visit, holidaymakers in Spain’s arid and beautiful north-west region can’t deny that the old guy makes a very good point.
Catalonia, its people and its capital Barcelona are by turns serene, rich in culture and natural beauty, and fiercely independent - call them Spaniards or refer to the Catalan language as a mere dialect at your peril. But the main Catalan personality trait is their occasional sparks of utter eccentricity, just to keep you on your toes.
Witness the way that between the conservative buildings on the tree-lined Passeig de Gracia (Barcelona’s equivalent of Oxford Street) leap out such architectural oddities as Gaudi’s Casa Mila, whose melting façade and wild colours embody Art Nouveu’s liquid architecture perfectly.
Or, the way that Barca fans welcomed Luis Figo, the £30m Portuguese winger who’d committed the cardinal sin of signing for arch-rivals Real Madrid, back to the Camp Nou stadium: as he approached the touchline for his first corner, they threw a whole pig’s head at him.
My own momentary burst of Catalan-inspired madness came at the end of a two hour-long search for ‘authentic’ Spanish tapas. Faced with an impenetrable menu and a knowledge of Spanish and Catalan that stretched to, ooh, tens of words, the resulting jabbering and pointing mission resulted in four huge ham and omelette baguettes for me – I wanted roast potatoes – and one distressed vegetarian girlfriend, tutting away over her freshly ordered quadruple vodka and orange.

THE OCCASIONAL – okay, thrice-daily – food disaster notwithstanding, chancing my arm at Catalan (imagine regular Spanish spliced with French and all the words cut in half) was great fun. Much like US President Jimmy Carter greeting a captive Geordie audience with a cry of “howay the lads!”, the locals were so delighted at you making an effort at a language still banned as recently as 1975 under the dictatorship of General Franco, that they’d immediately switch into near-perfect English – with a wide grin.
Despite the vagaries of our eating out experiences (by day three we’d both plumped for that well-known Catalan delicacy, the four cheese pizza), Barcelona did provide us with a real feast – for the eyes. The city is one of the most visually stunning in Europe. Down cramped, dark alleys in the mediaeval Old Town, amazing churches seem to appear before your eyes; the mad creations of Gaudi and his peers mingle with the majestic avenues of the Eixample; and strange sculptures created in Barca’s latest, post-Olympic artistic renaissance spire up into the sky all over town.
Gaudi and his greatest unfinished project provide the first must-see experience of the city. The architect himself only completed around a third of the Temple de la Sagrada Familia during his lifetime, but the scale – eight of the spires rise to over 100ft – and the depth of detail in the sculptures adorning the cathedral make this Barcelona’s most striking building.
After devoting his last 15 years solely to representing heaven, hell and the creation within La Sagrada Familia’s magnificent facades, even Gaudi’s death in 1924 didn’t stop construction – though George Orwell fighting in Barcelona in the 1936 Civil War, famously stated that he “should have blown it up while he had the chance.” Now, new spires and facades are added all the time as work continues on the cathedral by public conscription, although adding weight to the stereotype of the idle Spaniard, we saw no less than four people working on the huge church on our visit.
Love or loath the structure, no-one could claim that climbing the 400 steps up the spires to the very top of La Sagrada Familia is anything but awe-inspiring: with panoramic views over the whole city and a chance to inspect the cathedral’s detail up close, it made me feel faint – and I’m sure that was only partly due to vertigo.
Slightly closer to earth, another of Barcelona’s favourite (adopted) sons is celebrated within the Museu Picasso. Deep in the bowels of the Old Town, the museum has an atmospheric setting – five adjoining mediaeval palaces – and probably the best collection of Picasso’s early works in the world. It’s only let down by some major in the chronology of this most influential of artists, but the disappointment doesn’t linger. This isn’t Barcelona’s most popular tourist attraction for nothing.

THE CATALAN CAPITAL was sparked into life by hosting the Olympics in 1992, and the Olympic area on the coastal hill of Montjuic is superb: see the stadiums, the new museums and some of the best views in the city. Elsewhere on Montjuic, you can see the history of Catalan art in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, wander around a showcase village built to celebrate Spanish architecture through the ages (the Poble Espanyol), and hear Freddie Mercury and Monserrat Caballe’s iconic ode to the city as it soundtracks a water and light show in the beautiful Palau Nacional fountains – a definite highlight.
Though we spent five days devouring Barcelona’s attractions at a furious rate of three a day, we barely scratched the surface of this fantastic city. Even in this travelogue, there’s barely space to mention the throbbing nightlife around Las Ramblas and the Old Town, the footballing shrine of the Camp Nou Stadium, Gaudi’s Parc Guell – planned as a kind of art noveau housing estate in a private park, it really is the thing of fairytales – or the way Barcelona combines big city chic with an enviously lazy way of life.
But for me, the highlight of our stay was not Barcelona’s culture and charms but the pilgrimage site of Monserrat, way up in the Catalan mountains. Only accessible by furnicular railway or, brilliantly, cable car, Monserrat is a secluded monastery where an icon named the Black Virgin, supposedly discovered on the site by St Peter, rests. Just about alone except for a few monks, we listened to choirboys sing Ave Maria, explored the caves, deserted hermitages and footpaths around the mountainside, and, with the mountain air blowing in our faces, gazed out as the whole of Catalonia from the Pyrenees to the Med wound away a mile below us. Magical.

(Published: October 2003, Accent)

Destination Dublin

David John Watton raises his glass to Dublin: city of literature, rebellion and quite extraordinarily good beer.

STILL HOLDING SACRED the divine institutions of music, hospitality, drink and a fierce – if friendly – rebellious streak, Ireland knows exactly why she’s loved the world over. And the reason Dublin, its homely, romantic capital city has become one of the Europe’s top destinations in the last twenty years – with, of course, nods to Ryanair, the Celtic Tiger economic boom and Mr Jack Charlton – is because it still celebrates each of these life-enriching foundations of any sane society better than anywhere else in the world.
Dublin’s centre is tiny by usual capital city standards, and is split in two by the laconic auburn beauty of the river Liffey. The south side is generally more affluent, with Georgian townhouses, distances between pubs measured in steps, major shopping districts and the bulk of the tourist attractions. The north side by comparison is pure, undiluted, Joycean Ireland, looking barely unchanged since the 1950s, and gives Dublin its edge.
Though the temptation for any tourist entering a new city for the first time is to launch straight into sightseeing, something about the Dublin air – rich with the smell of hops from the nearby Guinness Storehouse, but more on that later – makes you ache for a chance to sample that first pint before committing the day to any other activity.
Swinging back the saloon doors into a wood-panelled tavern cluttered with photographs and artefacts, the sounds of pub chatter mercifully free from piped chart hits and TVs; beer crafted by the gods and warm companionship all around may seem like a ridiculously rose-tinted idea, but in Dublin, this is how it’s done. When a wandering fiddler strikes up a tune in the corner, you’ll forgive yourself for laughing at the uncontrived perfection of it all.

IT’S TRUE THAT the Temple Bar cultural quarter (which runs perpendicular to the Liffey, just off O’Connell Street) is the centre of tourist-oriented Diet Dublin, but that doesn’t stop Oliver St. John Gogarty’s (58-59 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, 00 353 1 671 1822) or The Palace (2 Fleet Street, Temple Bar, 00 353 1 677 9290) being excellent little haunts.
Elsewhere, The Brazen Head (20 Lower Bridge Street, 00 353 1 677 9549) is Dublin’s oldest pub and once housed enough rebel meetings to fill a building’s worth of M15 dossiers – ask a local. Now, you’re more likely to find traditional music sessions and good food, likewise at the very central and late-licensed Arlington Hotel (23-25 Bachelors Walk, O’Connell Bridge, 00 353 1 804 9100). Whelan’s (25 Wexford Street, 00 353 1 478 0766) and the terrific Temple Bar Music Centre (00 353 1 677 0647) are the places for new music, hosting the city’s best gigs between them. But on a straw poll of Dubliners to find the finest pub in town, you’ll generally come up with the answer: Mulligans (8 Poolbeg Street, 00 353 1 677 5582). Simply magnificent.
If tearing yourself away from this kind of paradise seems like a foolish idea then you could do much worse than combine your drinking with some entertainment. The Dublin Literary Pub Crawl (00 353 1 670 5602) features two actors who guide you around bars immortalised in the rich literary tradition of the city, and begins at Davy Byrne’s on Duke Street, itself preserved within the pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Alternatively, join the hordes of exiled Bostonians on the Traditional Irish Musical Pub Crawl to learn all about the Bodhran, the ballads celebrating Irish heroes and what exactly went on at Finnegan’s Wake.

ONE ALCOHOL-RELATED attraction quite literally towers above all the rest in Dublin. The Guinness Storehouse (St James’ Gate, 00 353 1 453 8364) is an eleven-storey museum in the heart of the actual Guinness brewery telling the story of the world’s favourite stout from Arthur Guinness’ 11,000-year lease on the building to Rutger Hauer and the seahorses, in thrilling style.
It’s Ireland’s finest tourist attraction, and architecturally very reminiscent of the Baltic Gallery, with lots more inside. The top floor Gravity Bar, where you’ll receive your complimentary – and best – pint of the black stuff has panoramic views of the city, and takes the breath – if not the thirst – away.
Dublin is steeped in history, from magnificent cathedrals and the bloody spectre of its insurrections to the cultural landmark of the Book of Kells. Trinity College in the city centre holds this richly decorated 9th century Latin gospel, as well as other treasures like ancient harps and a library of over 200,000 of Ireland’s oldest books.
For history junkies, the three branches of the National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History (Collins Barracks), Archaeology and History (Kildare Street) and Natural History (Merrion Street, all 00 353 1 677 7444) – will satisfy any cravings.
Another remarkable artefact of Dublin’s past is O’Connell Street’s General Post Office. Symbolically seized by the nationalist rebellion in 1918, the GPO stands replete with bulletholes in its walls and provides a stark reminder of the turbulent last century of the country.
For peacefulness though, Dublin’s cathedrals are simply transcendental. Christ Church (00 353 1 677 8099), whose bells traditionally ring in the city’s new year is the older of the two, but St Patrick’s (Patrick’s Close, 00 353 1 475 4817) has much to recommend it, not least the fact that this glorious building housed the first ever performance of Handel’s Messiah, in 1742. These places of worship make a perfect counterpoint to the buzz and bustle of the fabled social scene, and sum up the sanctity and exuberance of this beautiful city entirely.

(Published: March 2003, Accent)