Where better to begin a trip in Spain than the very epicentre itself, Puerto del Sol in Madrid, ‘0km’ demarcated by a subtle paving slab beneath the clock-tower. From this nexus point it is possible to envisage the disparate segments from Galicia in the north-west, Andalucía in the south, Extremadura in the west and Catalonia in the north-east all straining, some firmer than others, on the moorings that prevent them from floating free and keep them anchored to the central post of Madrid.
(Side note: maybe this should be a solution for the fractious United Kingdom instead of forever slouching south towards London? A quick online search would tend to place this somewhere in Derbyshire...)
Being profoundly regionalist by nature, Spain is one country watching the developments surrounding the Scottish referendum with the scrutiny of an apprentice surgeon aware that they may soon have to perform a similarly tricky operation themselves.
As detailed in John Hooper’s comprehensive book ‘The New Spaniards’, this is a country that, since the death of General Franco in 1975, has oscillated remarkably across the political spectrum, with democratic socialism and pragmatic conservatism, together with a recline in the influence of the Catholic Church, dragging Spain into a modern Europe where, like many others post-recession, its stability is far from assured.
My girlfriend and I are instantly taken with Madrid, our expectations being somewhat more muted than for Barcelona, and the joie de vivre lifestyle and easy atmosphere seem to immediately corrupt one’s more intense London-centric sensibilities.
Traffic cascades in a steady ribbon up and down the main Gran Via and Calle Alcala but never feels oppressive or intolerable, merely a fixture of the scenery. The city feels pleasantly divested of the tourist maelstrom that we feel confident of in Barcelona; instead there is the air of a functional city – locals chat over coffee in plazas, shop for legs of ham that hang from butchers’ windows like cavemen clubs, and peruse glossy magazines from innumerable kiosks that punctuate the streets. I’m reading Hemingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’; his steady prose masterfully portraying the ecstatic abandon of the Spanish fiesta, so much so that I almost expect the tireless revellers to come barrelling round each corner before the running of the bulls commences.
The old heart of Madrid is easily explored on foot; the Plaza Mayor siphons tourists into the cobbled space from passageways leading upwards from the main street. Over the centuries, generations of aristocrats would gaze from their balconies onto the spectacle of the Inquisition’s ‘auto-da-fe’s, monarchs being crowned, fiestas and bull runs; now there is little more activity than Charlie Chaplin impersonators and a posse of waiters trying to reel in tourists to their overpriced restaurants like egregious lifeguards at the side of a swimming pool.
The sinuous alleyways of La Latina, enclosed by ochre walls and spindly iron balconies like stanzas of musical notation, break here and there onto an intimate plaza or small gothic church. We venture down to the El Rastro flea market barrio that with its beggars and street prostitutes instantly takes on a seedier, edgier vent; evidence of the tough realities of life in modern Spain for the down-at-heel.
We shelter from the heat in the Jardines de Sabatini, a Romanesque garden with intricate hedges and ornamental fountains from which the palace appears as imposing and dull as most, especially our own English Queen's pad. Indeed, it is uncertain times for Spain's monarchy, with Juan Carlos, long-feted as the king who helped steer the nation out of its post-Franco daze, withstanding a military coup along the way, deciding to secede the throne to his son Filipe IV.
Polls suggest that there is a rising tide of republican sentiment coursing through particularly the younger generations, which has lead many to conclude that perhaps Juan Carlos' true legacy of achievement is to have helped transform Spain to the point where his own role is now surplus to requirements.
We walk east along the Gran Via and into the Museo del Prado, hunting out Velazquez's realist masterwork 'Las Menines', Hieronymous Bosch's epic 'Garden of Earthly Delights' and Peter Bruegel's cataclysmic rendering of the apocalypse 'Triumph of the Death', in which an army of skeletons unleash hellfire and slaughter upon kings, revellers and countrymen alike in a chaotic danse macabre.
The greatest reverence though is reserved for Francisco de Goya's 'Black Paintings'; a series of 14 enigmatic and haunting murals that document the artist's downward spiral into hermetic madness and despair.
Madrid's artistic keg is not drained there though, for a few minutes' walk brings us to the Reina Sofia which exhibits more modernist works. Here are held numerous pieces by Dali - including 'The Enigma of Hitler' and 'The Grand Masturbator' - and of course, the piece de resistance, Picasso's monumental 'Guernica', a billboard-sized riot of high-octane depravity, chaos and symbology. Indeed so reverential does it feel to be able to examine such an icon up close and in person, it feels a little like sacrilege to leave the gallery.
It's easy to come away with a strong impression of the abstract and surreal visual style that burns brightly through avant garde Spanish culture, almost as though the common causality was the effervescent sunlight refracting colour into new dimensions and forms for the fertile artistic imagination to plunder. From Dali, Picasso and Gaudi, to Juan Gris and Joan Miro, whose starburst shapes of playful colour on everything from street murals to bank logos begin to appear almost as sunspots leaving their imprint on your retinas.
A couple of days later we arrive in Valencia, the young upstart city snapping at the heels of its elder siblings Madrid and Barcelona. It's an appealing and unpretentious place, with a modest medieval centre and its arms open wide onto the Mediterranean.
We stroll around the central plazas, overlooked by the Catedral, and its Miguelete tower. Inside is purported to be one of the prime contenders for the Holy Grail chalice itself; although with a fee of €10 each to take a look we decide against it. The Crystal Palace-like Mercado Central, a cavernous indoor food market is almost a religious experience in its own right, being a veritable cathedral of produce; fruit and vegetables arranged in the dazzling abundance and variety of rare antiquities brought back from foreign lands.
We try some chewy chorizo and sickly sweet sherry, perusing a whole harbour-full of fresh fish dredged up and slapped out on crushed ice for the punters. Racks of paella pans are lined up ranging from cymbal to gong-size, alongside glazed slabs of nougat stacked like gold bullion.
In the afternoons we head for the beach, a place with (for me) alarmingly little shade as the sun blazes on through the top-30s, and populated by young Valencians who look as though they must never migrate far from these white sands. Later on we gorge on seafood paella and get steadily sozzled on wine at the renowned Le Pepica, one-time favourite of Hemingway, Orson Welles and a smattering of legendary bullfighters.
On the subject of bullfighters, the one adversarial moment in my girlfriend's now firm resolve to emigrate to Spain as soon as possible, is when I drag her into the Museo Taurino (Bullfighting Museum). It's nestled just behind the stadium itself, which (if the posters of lederhosen and steins were anything to go by) appeared to be hosting an Oktoberfest in a bizarre cross-pollination of European cultural identities. I imagine that somewhere in Munich, flurries of flamenco dancing were spontaneously breaking out.
It's only through reading something like Hemingway's stolid 'Death in the Afternoon' that its possible to comprehend the deep strata of cultural significance that have built up upon the bedrock of the Spanish bullfight. Indeed, aficionados elevate to an almost balletic precision the drama of man versus beast, the skill and adeptness of the matador in bringing the bull to heel during their dual performance.
It's a necessary by-product of the act of travelling that one becomes exposed to milieus that might shock, surprise or challenge our ingrained sensibilities. Indeed were this not the case, the very praxis of travelling would be entirely moribund.
Trying to remind my girlfriend of this though is futile as museum footage displays bulls goring horses until their guts drape behind them like the train of a wedding dress, and the bull impaled by multiple picas until they can no longer see straight through their own blood. To those not emotionally invested in the ritual, the whole thing looks like what it is - a cruel anachronistic exhibition of human power over animals.
This qualifier aside though, there is something in the flourish the matadors perform, the way they draw the bull towards them before pivoting just out of reach of the horns, I think embodies the same flamboyant energy and poetic passion that can be seen in that other Spanish tradition, flamenco.
In a small bar in Madrid, we are awestruck by the fervent intensity and sensuous power of the dancers; the way the coagulating compas (rhythms) of the acoustic guitar and the jaleo (hand-clapping, feet stomping) interlock with the anguished vocals of the matriarchal cantaora (singer). The long skirts swish in perfect synchronicity and the upper bodies held rigid as heels become a blur, sounding like a jazz drummer trying to cram in as many flourishes as possible within the confines of each bar.
The real surprise of Valencia comes from a walk away from the old centre, following the course of the Rio Turia, a drained river that threads its way through the city, remade into a landscaped stretch of urban community space. It's almost an inversion of the so-called 'Garden Bridge' planned for London, or the High Line in New York; an existing feature reappropriated and exploited for the common use of the inhabitants.
Walking along at around 9pm is a wonderfully enervating experience, families are still out and about, joggers and cyclists as well, and groups of youngsters in the designated skate parks. I couldn't help but think that were this in Britain it would quickly become clouded over by the perils of urban decay and anti-social behaviour; although maybe such thoughts reflect an anticipation of the inevitable mediarised response to such a space and not the reality.
Eventually you arrive at La Ciudad de Las Artes y les Cencies, Europe's largest cultural centre, a gargantuan complex of stunning futurist architecture that is so effective that I find my sense of location gradually ebbing away. One of the structures bulbs out from an artificial lake like a gigantic blue whale breaching the surface; another incorporates streamlined steel limbs and supports; whilst another comprises a skein of sleek arches enclosing an oasis of landscaped vegetation as though it were ancient ruins that nature has sought to reclaim.
Strolling around beneath the walkways and dipping our feet in the icy-blue chlorine water of the pool that makes up this artificial archipelago, surrounded by thrusting high rise blocks and the drone of unseen traffic flows, I'm convinced that this is a vision of the ultra-modern future in which geographic alterity and temporality has been eroded. This could be Los Angeles or Toronto, Brasilia or Berlin, Dubai or Beijing; place itself feels entirely fluid and interchangeable once cultural signifiers are obscured or altogether removed and you are left simply to upload your imagination onto this white sterile template of blank forms. To paraphrase Marx, all that is solid, in terms of being somewhere, melts into the air of anywhere.
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