Took some time off to spend 2 weeks travelling to Spain for a long-needed vacation with a group of good friends in the midst of the Omicron saga. It was personally an eye-opener for me to discover about the rich history of the country – how it become great for more than 300 years and then declined for over the last 100+ years thereafter.
The plan for the 6 of us was to spend 3 nights in Madrid, then another 3 at Seville before we do a historical tour of one night each in Cordoba and Granada. Finally, back to civilization for 4 nights at a Marbella beach resort before we head back to Madrid to take our flight back. The new Omicron mutation appeared a week just before we began our trip on 02 Dec, making us wonder then if we had to postpone the trip at the last minute. Thankfully, we decided to procced.
As we moved towards the south during our trip, I was fasinated at the long history that Spain had. It was once the top super power of the world about 500 years ago just as its most famous citizen, Christopher Colimbus, discovered the New World of the Americas with the financial support from Queen Isabella of Castile. The riches they brought back from the newly discovered lands financed Spain and it was able to wage mutiple religious wars which eventually bankrupted them when teh money ran out.
Sadly, their New World Stronghold did not last as other European countries ate into their monopoly routes. Yet their continued to spend on lavish lifestyles and more wars caused the empire to decline substantially by the 1900s. The death blow was the start of World War 2 where Franco took over and literally tore the country apart until his death in 1975 which Spain has yet to recover from.
Present Spain is but a shadow of its glorius past. It is no more a leader within the European union, now led by Germany, France and Italy. Most of its people do not speak English as we found out ourselves as we had difficulty communicating throughout the trip. Guide books also tell us not to mention the Spainish civil war (just before Franco took power) with locals as it is still a touchy subject after all these years.
We ate lots of tapas and drank sangria during our holidays. Meals were cheap and all of us can easily order multiple tapas as one portion can be shared within our group of 6. Spanish cusine had many similarities with Asian food and so there is little we need to adapt to. The weather was a bit cold for us, ranging from 5 to 15 degrees Celsius. But we were told that this is the best time to visit southern Spain as summer temperatures could go up to as high as 40 degrees.
Seville, Cordoba and Granada were amazing eye openers for us as we discovered more than a thousand years of history within the cities. The Romans and Jews came first and their methods of building (eg. use of aquaducts) are still visible now in most buildings, like using natural gravity to move water between locations via aquaducts.
The Moors came next and refined the use of water to flow through their courtyards. This was a system to cool their homes during hot summers and regulate temperature in winter, as well as provide running water for use throughout the palaces. Even the multiple fountains found everywhere do not need fishes to prevent mosquitoes as constantly downward flowing water provided the energy for movement and running water ensures that insects cannot breed.
The Christians came next and by the 12th century, they managed to marginalize the Muslim Moors before setting the Spanish Inquisition on everyone in the 15th century, displacing all non-Christains including the Jews.
At each and every location, we could see 3 layers of the cities that was being built upon. The lowest from the Roman times, followed by the Moorish designs and finally the Catholics. Mosque were turned to Cathedrals and the Muslim structures were build over. Yet we see arches and repeat print patterns in places that reminded us of the Moorish work.
The rich land ong history was everywhere around us in Seville (Alcazar), Cordona (Mesquita) and Granada (Alhambra). The mix of Muslim and Christain architecture resulted in a unique blend of styles and buildings which cannot be found anywhere around the world.
We took trains and rented cars to move around. Besides my wife and I who first visited Spain in 2014, the rest of the group members were seeing Spain for the first time. We finally managed to stay at Marriott Marbella which was the marketing model resort presented to us when we were in the Marriott Phuket beach vacation location. That prompted us to purchase the vacation week in 2006 and 15 years later, we have finally arrived here for a visit and stay. The resort week purchase was a mistake though as AirBnB came a few years later, obliterating the need to stay at the same upmarket vacation home every year as we can do so at a different location every year at a lower cost.
We did have an enjoyable vacation with very good friends whom we have known for a long time, so the scenery and rich history was a bonus. In these uncertain times of Covid, it felt liberating to be able to travel again for a vacation after almost 2 years.
Before we left S’pore, the return procedures was just a pre-flight verified ART test before boarding and a PCR upon landing in Changi. Thanks to Omicron, the testing now has been expanded to 7 days after landing, with more ART tests (self and supervised) to be done thereafter. Thank goodness that there is no need for mandatory quarantine. But after so many daily negative results, what is the use of doing them? Can Covid pop up again after 5 negative daily results???
So glad to be back home again after more than 14 days overseas. Older son is also coming back soon while younger son had decided with his group to postpone their Europe trip to Apr 2022.
I sincerely hope that we are into the tail end of this Covid nightmare for the world. Perhaps Omicron is the answer to having infected with midl effects and getting a natural immunity? This would rid the world of this dreaded virus once and for all and help the anti-vaxxers achieve protection? Only time will tell as more countries are looking at lockdowns again into Christmas as winter sets in.
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