Look, it did snow here. Last year. For about a milllisecond…

Anyway…

I was looking for a reason to explain the need for hot chocolate so thick it would fill the eurozone deficit and churros so hot it puts George Clooney to shame. I was searching for answers, for an explanation, for words to justify why I ended up in a churrería, reaching for the hot stuff when it’s 18 degrees outside…

Churros and chocolate. They just go together so well…

Research, that must be it. A good journalist is compelled to research. Particularly on such a cold day…

Have you ever tried churros and chocolate in Spain?

Churros and Chocolate – A Spanish Antidote for a Spanish Anecdote first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

“I’m not a cook. I’m a fixer man.”

It’s a striking opening line from anyone, but coming from Fabián Martín, it sounds particularly ominous.

“I’m not a cook. I’m a fixer man.”

Not only is Martín the head chef of a restaurant (the one I’m sitting in,) he’s also won countless prizes for his cooking (the food I’m about to eat) and on top of all that, he’s also a boxer (a skillset I’m hoping won’t come up today.)

He sprints and ducks and dives and raises his fists for the camera. I take a mouthful of fresh rocket, drizzled with balsamic vinegar, and wonder what he means by being a “fixer man.”

I decide to keep quiet.

We’re in the small (and I mean small) village of Llívia in Cerdanya in northern Spain. We’re so far north that the town itself sits completely surrounded by France.

An Island of Spain Within France. Literally.

In 1659, instead of choosing between “fixer man” and “cook,” the villages of Cerdanya (or Cerdagne in French) had to decide between “France” and “Spain.” Where some areas of the world have seen such division as a reason to fight to the death for generation after generation, in the green and mountainous area of the Pyrenees, folk took a different approach.

Some villages chose France; some chose Spain. Llívia lives on (I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help it) being just the way it wants to be: Spanish. In just the place it already is: France. With an identity that’s distinctly Catalan.

Fabián Martín himself has a healthy approach to changes and choice as well. When a car accident ruined his plans for the Olympics in Atlanta, he found himself at 25 years old with no money, no job and no future.

“I had been a bad student,” he confesses.

With few options left on the horizon, he got a job as a pizza delivery boy and turned his life around. He met his wife and together they worked to build up a pizza business. When she became pregnant, he had to learn to cook.

And create.

Pizza.

Where you or I might see a doughy base, a tomato topping, some cheese and whatever else you happen to have in the cupboard (or maybe that’s just me. If you’re interested in my experiences with Italian food then have a look over here), Martín saw ideas. Pizza ideas.

He took an Italian dish in the middle of Spain in the middle of France and turned it into something else.

He made pizza cocktails and sushi pizza. He deconstructed pizza and reconstructed it with coca cola and ice cream – and won award after award after award for his efforts.

All served on plastic tableware that Spanish children grow up with.

Martín, however, took an Italian dish in the middle of Spain in the middle of France and turned it into something else.

That’s the other interesting paradox about Martín. On the one hand high gourmet; on the other an egalitarian approach.

“I don’t want to be elitist,” he says as he pounds dough and spins it through the air. “My coca-cola and ice cream pizza isn’t on the menu, because I can’t make 100 of them in one go.

“If I can’t make it for everyone, then I won’t make it.”

He sprinkles herbs over the next round of pizzas and our drinks arrive: coca-cola, beer, cava, orange juice. At Martín’s pizzeria, you can eat and drink what you like. No pretensions, no obligations, no expectations.

I sip the pizza cocktail, a wafer of pizza dough on the side, a creamy cheese topping smothering a Virgin Bloody Mary. It’s certainly different, it’s certainly good, it’s certainly one of the most inventive things I’ve tasted.

Martín examines the next stage of his creation and continues to talk at the pace of a man in the ring, reflexes and instincts fighting for his life.

I take another bite.

A fixer man he may be. But he’s also a damn fine cook.

What’s the most creative pizza you’ve ever had?

Find out more about Fabián Martín and his pizzerias here. Disclosure: I travelled through France to reach the pizzeria thanks to the Girona Tourist Board. Sounds complicated, but it isn’t. He gets to make pizza just the way he wants; I get to write about it just the way I want. As usual. As it should be.

What’s the most creative pizza you’ve ever had?

P-P-Pizza Ideas: The World’s Most Creative Pizzeria first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Unlike the others, Olot has an art gallery, where the couple pause before walking in. The letters Xavier Carbonell stretch between a painting of the Chrysler Building and one of Olot Cathedral. They spell out the name of the Spanish artist, as well as the man who looks at them.

Both Xavier and his wife, the talented sculptor Rosa Serra, have taken time out of their busy schedule in this secluded corner of Spain to talk to me – and suffer through my inelegant Spanish.

Spanish Artists

They show me to their studio and pour me coffee, served thick, small and incredibly strong in the way that reassures me that I’m still in Spain. Surrounded by powder and paste, kingfisher blue and bright yellow jars, I ask Rosa about the Olympic commission that went on to define her career.

“Why me?” says Rosa, as she thinks back over 28 years to when she was first approached. “I remember asking myself, why on earth would anyone want me to create sculptures for the Olympics? I don’t know the first thing about sport.”

Thirty-eight sculptures, an international itinerary and several dignitaries later, I wonder whether Rosa has changed her views on this popular pastime called “sport.”

“No,” she replies. “I never know about the sport when the country commissions the work. I watch the games on the television, and of course in real life, to study the movement and the essence of the discipline, but it’s always new to me, I never know anything about it.”

Such constraints, she believes, have helped her to grow as an artist.

“When you are young, as you are,” she says, making me both smile and question the accuracy of my translation, “these things seem more important. You think that your ideas are the best and you want to spend your life developing your own creative ideas. You feel frustration when, rather than if, you need to take on work that pays more money but that seems to stifle your creativity.

“What you realise as you grow older is that you can be just as creative in commissioned, commercial work. Often more so. You work with other people… become exposed to more ideas… Their restrictions actually force you to expand your own creativity and they provide you with different inspiration.”

Xavier, her husband, agrees, although he also adds that “growing older makes it much easier to turn down projects and feel happy about it.”

“You can be just as creative in commissioned, commercial work.”

His career, too, has travelled across the globe. His series comparing the neon of New York with the laid back nature of Olot shows a keen interest in travel, but that’s nothing compared to the collection that waits inside his own private studio.

Poison darts, police hats, polished coins and other artefacts line the shelves, spotlit to maximise inspiration. Through the window, Xavier watches the leaves of Catalonia; inside he watches his memories of the world.

Julie, from Collazo Projects, asks how important an ingredient luck is in the secret to success.

Rosa has an immediate answer. “Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it. Coincidence, yes, but luck no. Far too many people say ‘oh, you’re so lucky’ when you succeed but I don’t believe it.

“Success is a result of work, skill and recognising opportunity. Opportunity arrives for everyone – it is up to the person whether or not they see it there and whether they choose to take it and follow a path – or not. Success has to do with the person, not with luck.”

“Far too many people say ‘oh, you’re so lucky’ when you succeed but I don’t believe it.”

At that point, I have to ask about her meeting with Tiger Woods, a man who’s splashed around plenty in the realms of opportunity and success and may have even heard a thing or two about sport.

“A charming man,” she replies. “He told me that he was nervous of meeting me!”

“He let us keep his shirt,” adds Xavier and he chuckles to himself. “I find it useful to paint in.”

A slice of California deep in the heart of Catalonia. I love how interconnected the world is, yet how different it still manages to be.

I thank them for their time and return to that quiet, sun speckled street.

Paint, Poison & Olympic Success – Meeting Tiger Woods in Spain first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

The Canyon Video

Thanks to the Visit Costa Brava Tourist Board for the invitation. Photos & video taken with the Olmpus TG-610.

Hope you enjoyed this short video on canyoning…I’m new to both video and canyoning at the moment so I thought that this would be a great way to look twice as foolish in half the time…

What do you think? Have you ever been canyoning? Would you go?

The Canyon Video: Adrenaline, Neoprene & Plenty of Rock ‘n’ Roll first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Third, and most significantly, I’m about to climb into an oversized picnic basket that’s going to whisk me hundreds of metres above the earth with not so much as a seatbelt, a lifejacket or a parachute on hand. There’s not even going to be a well-groomed semaphore routine pointing out the nearest emergency exit.

I’m about to step into a hot air balloon. And it pains me to tell you I feel nervous.

Hot Air Balloon Flames

A man unfolds a giant tent, laying it in front of an industrial-sized hairdryer and we all wait. The fabric billows slowly off the ground, air easing into its edges and rippling through to its tip.

I’m surprised at how large it is. After only a few minutes, there’s space for men to walk inside, a chamber larger than a marquee that glows an eerie soft green.

I’ve dreamed about hot air ballooning for years. As a child, it seemed a great adventure, as a teenager a romantic hope and then in my twenties, a thrilling chance to see the world. Those years have passed, however, gathering along in their wake an appreciation of pain, of accidents, and of multi-faceted safety concerns.

I don’t believe in mystical karma. I really don’t, yet is there a whisper of unexplained uncertainty in my semiconscious, slumbering mind? I have tried and tried and tried to get to this stage before, in many different countries with many different alarm clocks. I’ve taken time off work, driven through darkness, stayed up late and monitored the wind, the thunder and the raindrops before enforced cancellations reminded me time and time again how impotent we all are in the great scheme of things. How utterly insignificant.

After a while, I gave up trying. Perhaps some things are not meant to be. Then, a few months ago, the chance appeared again.

Then disappeared.

Maybe some things are not meant to be.

Now I stand in that field, mist curling around the trees like an 18^th century painting. My breath hangs translucent in the air and I watch the tent take on the shape of a nuclear-powered lightbulb.

Maybe, maybe things aren’t meant to be. Maybe all that science means nothing. Perhaps never-ending near-misses really do mean that I should stay away, that the malevolence of the weather has protected me from danger and disaster in the sky.

I climb in.

I’m with friends and colleagues, a free-spirited crowd who don’t seem to have noticed the power-lines, the thin balloon fabric, the fire, and the insubstantial wicker basket.

Before I realise it, we’re gone. Not in a lurching, crushing, driving sense, but in a surreal, dreamlike flotation that teases us away from the earth.

The tyre tracks in the dew grow smaller and smaller. The second balloon fills my viewfinder before fading back into the field. On the horizon, the sun wins the race against the clouds and the slopes of the Pyrenees take shape, dressed in their finest British Racing Green.

The wicker feels stable and I can’t hear the wind.

We glide. Silently, weightlessly, floating through the sky.

Sunlight spreads across the forested volcanoes, highlighting each rise and fall with the excitement and care of a new mother introducing her baby.

I lean over the edge of the basket with a smile I haven’t felt since childhood.

This is the world we live in.

This is a brand new day.

And this, almost embarrassingly, is a dream come true.

I think about science, about superstition, about hope and dreams and joy and opportunity.

Earth, air, fire and water. That’s what ancient Greece believed to be the building blocks of the world. And from where I’m standing, only one of those is missing.

A friend taps me on the shoulder and passes me a glass. It’s cava rather than water, but I hope the Greeks won’t mind.

The bubbles sparkle as the sun strides onto the stage and the contours of Catalonia flow past below.

I know it’s not fashionable to say this, but I’m really, really happy.

Find more of my hot air balloon pictures here.

My first (successful) hot air balloon ride came courtesy of Visit Costa Brava. All views, however, are my own. Obviously.

I flew with Vol de Coloms, a local firm that organises hot air balloon rides complete with cava and a Catalan brunch afterwards. Great service, great fun, highly recommended.

Have you ever been in a hot air balloon? Or waited for years for the chance to do something?

Fire, Frost & Floating Across Volcanoes – A Hot Air Balloon Ride in Spain first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Spain has more than one surprise tucked up its Mediterranean sleeve. In addition to the celebrated flamenco of the south, the controversial popularity of bullfighting, the sweet-salt taste of paella and the many other flavours that coalesce to form a stereotype, Spain has a wild and rugged outdoors.

Up in the northeast of the Iberian peninsula, the region of Catalonia has plenty of international sparkle. Barcelona and the Sagrada Familia, for example. The medieval city of Girona, as another. The beaches of Costa Brava, the art and eccentricity of Salvador Dali and much more besides.

But this week, I’m lucky enough to be off for a week of adventure in the Pyrenees: hiking, cycling, flying, riding and canyoning across Catalonia’s corner share of this mountain range. I’ll meet boxers turned award-winning chefs, ultra long distance runners and who knows who else besides?

With my mind still reeling from last week’s events, I’m hoping that the combination of muscle burn, cold water shocks and surges of adrenaline will somehow jumble up to form a soothing and refreshing tonic.

If not, I’m sure I can take comfort in the food. Catalonia’s quite keen on gastronomy – and I’ve already had my first taste of pizza in a glass. And it’s not every day you get to say that.

Pizza. In a Glass. (at Fabian Martin's)

Disclosure: I’ll be travelling through the Pyrenees with the Catalonia Tourist Board, although, as ever, I am free to write, photograph and ramble on about whatever I want. If you’re in to twitter, you can follow along on the #InPyrenees hashtag. If that means nothing to you, how about checking the Inside the Travel Lab page on Facebook? And if that’s all too much, then just sit back and wait for the articles to appear here…once I’ve got my breath back and had a hot bath.

UPDATE: Hot Air Balloon Pictures in the Pyrenees

Adventure in the Pyrenees first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Hospes Palacio de Los Patos – An Ugly Duckling Story

The Hospes Palacio de los Patos, a luxury hotel in Granada, has a story. Maybe even a story and a half.

Built in 1890 or so, as a grand expression of fine living in Granada, it quickly acquired the nickname of the “Palace of the Ducks” – a cheeky reference to the model swans that, well, swanned about inside the main gate.

Framed by palm trees and basking in the Andalucian sunshine, the Palacio enjoyed one hundred or so years as a private family home. Then UNESCO recognised its status: great news for the building, expensive news for the owners.

To comply with UNESCO preservation techniques, the family felt forced to sell.

What had become a crumbling building shrouded in cobwebs became a sparkling new hotel with an interesting twist of old and new at the hands of the Hospes group of luxury hotels.

Hospes Palacio de los Patos - View Beneath the Fountains

Granada’s New Luxury Hotel

 A Hospes Facelift

They pulled off an interesting idea: keeping the old old and making the new fresher than a shower of ice cubes dropped by a younger brother down your back.

Where marble remains, it looks as grand as it ever did. Yet where modern light fittings, TVs and bathrooms are concerned, they’re as futuristic as possible so that guests can tell the difference between history and right now.

Rooms at the Hospes Palacio de los Patos

Each room is unique – and the style varies greatly.
My room (room 43) made a feature out of the latticed stone window, leaving the rest of the room to dazzle in white. Others had rooms in muted shades, where golden mesh curtains rested on dark, polished wood. The bride woke up in the palatial presidential suite.

Luxury Spa & Gardens

Downstairs, an intimate spa offers a small pool, steam room and massage facilities.

The walled gardens provide tranquillity, while the conference rooms open themselves to the public for poetry readings and more beneath the speckled reflections of the fountains overhead.

It’s obvious by now that I’m a fan and, as it happens, I paid a reduced rate to stay here. Yet, as for every review I write, I always give my opinion and I always make suggestions for how things can be improved. Otherwise, what’s the point?

For a hotel in the centre of Granada, this is hard to beat. It’s beautiful and luxurious, yet its service has a few minor kinks to iron out.

Summary: Hospes Palacio de los Patos, Luxury in Granada

Chic, traditional and modern. Somehow this luxury hotel in the heart of Granada combines these words to create an unforgettable stay. Highly recommended.

Reception: Hospes Palacio de los Patos, Granada

Gardens - Hospes Palacio de los Patos

Room 43 - Hospes Palacio de los Patos

Luxury Spa

Funky Sofa in Room 43

Keeping the old...

A Luxury Hotel in Granada – Hospes Palacio de los Patos, An Independent Review first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

“Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man.”

Inside the Alhambra

In the scorching cauldron of Andalucia, the Sierra Nevada mountains rise up to tickle the skies and gather enough snow to cover the peaks for most of the year. Beneath them, amidst rolling countryside of rust-coloured paths, cypress trees and white-washed towns, the city of Granada gets on with life.

On its steepest slope sits the Alhambra.

The Alhambra, Granada

The name comes from the Arabic “al hamra,” the red one. Its stocky outside walls wear the standard European fortress look, albeit with an unexpected glimpse of charisma at sunset, when they glow a soft copper-red against the lilac night sky.

Inside, however, reveals a completely different world.

Like many castles in Europe, work on the Alhambra began seven or so centuries ago. Unlike most of the others, this work took place at the request of the Moorish Sultans, kings who used Arabic instead of Latin and who practised Islam instead of Christianity.

Their work and influence live on across the Iberian peninsula, from the architecture of the haunting Mezquita in Cordoba to the expressions of everyday Spanish. Ojalá in Castilian derives from In šāʾ Allāh in Arabic. Both translate to a form of “god be willing” that has taken on more of a “fingers crossed” meaning in more secular times.

Yet, it’s within the vast grounds of the Alhambra that the majesty of the Moorish heritage becomes clear. At the same time as French and English kings sheltered in draughty, damp castles eating turnips and porridge, the Nasrid kings basked among elaborate engravings, elegant courtyards and olive groves, sheltered from the angry sun.

Instead of howling wind and dripping rain, the lyrical chatter of fountains filled the air. Instead of wall to wall mildew, ivory carvings decorated the space.

Carvings inside the Alhambra in Granada

Ancient History & Myths of Today

Yet for all the delicate beauty of the building, the history of the Alhambra issues another deeper message about today’s myths that link beauty with doing good, and motherhood with kindness.

When the Moors lost this paradise to the reconquest of the Catholic monarchs, the last sultan of the Alhambra sobbed as he watched them enter.

In an era devoid of political correctness, his mother turned to him and uttered the phrase that became immortal:

“Do not weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man.”

Ouch.

Not that the incoming mother, Queen Isabella, offered up a much better alternative. She sent her baby daughter off to marry the King of England, who turned out to be the murderous and maniacal King Henry VIII.

So it was with some trepidation that I walked around the rose-scented gardens of the Alhambra with my own mother, an inspirational woman who has also shown great courage, strength and guidance over the years.

She also tells me the truth.

“I’ve looked at your twitter feed. It’s boring. I don’t see the point.”

Ouch. Fair enough. Back to the drawing board.

And, hey, getting things into perspective, at least I don’t have to marry a tyrant.

The Alhambra, Granada

Visiting the Alhambra

Unlike most tourist attractions, to get inside the Nasrid Palaces you MUST, MUST, MUST, MUST book in advance. If you turn up on the day, you are likely to gain admission to the rest of the (stunning) grounds but you may miss out on the intricate Nasrid Palaces.

Beauty, Brutality & Motherhood – The Alhambra first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

 Speed

Speed. It thrills when it’s loud, when it feels real, when it’s up close. Fast isn’t just about Formula One, it’s become the keyword for modern life. Faster internet connections, faster food, faster travel and faster friendships.

Formula One changes tyres in less than three seconds; Amazon loses sales with every tenth of a second’s wait.

No, this isn’t going to be a post about how we all need to stop and slow down (I like speed and I’d love a faster internet connection.) It’s going to be about Formula One and the illusion of speed.

The Illusion of Speed

Time may wait for no man but it does freeze for photography. As Sherry Ott explained, it’s easy enough to snap a crisp shot of a car on the tarmac as it hurtles past. Problem is, the photo gives no hint of the movement, the pace, the excitement, and the intensity of the real-life experience. Said car may as well be plonked in a supermarket car park.

There’s video* (which I played around with this year) but without a press pass, a helicopter and an incredibly good-looking presenter, that too, has limitations. I’m a huge fan of words (spilling many on my inside look at the Lotus Garage) but this time I wanted to better my efforts at photography.

Taking Photos at Formula One

The trick is simple, its execution messy. The idea is to swoop the lens of your camera along the track at the same rate as the car as you press the shutter. Crisp car + smudged background = the illusion of speed.

Last year I ratcheted up a good four or five hundred of these shots. And by good, I mean it as an expression of quantity not quality. Most had the car out of focus, many had no car at all.

This year, with totally unfounded optimism, I decided to do better.

Time may wait for no man but it does freeze for photography

Prowling around the stands in 30 plus heat and risking the kind of repetitive stress injury that comes from watching too much tennis, I had precisely 57 laps and 24 cars to get one good shot. Yet, crouching in the far corner of the stands as the scaffolding throbbed with the cheers of the crowd, I had a second epiphany about Formula One and the meaning of speed.

There’s a viewpoint here where the track snakes in front of Valencia’s dazzling Arts & Sciences building. It’s away from the spectators and only visible if you’re up to the kind of deranged acrobatics I was in my quest for a decent photo. Right here, beneath the melting Valencian sun, the Formula One secret became clear: the cars slow down.

There’s a hairpin bend so tight that even when fractions of seconds lose you millions, when tyre changes happen faster than Facebook status updates and when aggressive overtaking makes London’s cabbies look tame, there’s still a point, a moment, a corner where drivers hit the brakes and drive at a reasonable speed.

Speed, of course, cuts both ways. Slow as well as fast. Visible and invisible.

That corner also reminded me that the real success of Formula One doesn’t come from super-slick, second-splitting events. Its power and skill comes from the hours and days and weeks and months of training, rehearsing, developing and researching. Of practising, refining and reviewing. The work of many to put a spotlight on the few.

It’s just not that sexy to say so.

The real success of Formula One doesn’t come from super-slick, second-splitting events.

Back at my computer, I waited while another few hundred sets of pixels shuffled from my camera onto the screen. With my well-honed delete finger at the heady, I began scrolling through.

Another surprise. Over the course of a year, with many more hours at the viewfinder, something interesting had happened. My photos had improved.

How did this mysterious ability to predict F1 car trajectories come about?

I can’t say. Sometimes it just takes a while to get up to speed…

Formula One Photo Gallery Coming Soon…

*Find the first video about the trip inside the F1 safety car here. As for the follow-up video, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while longer. This internet connection just isn’t fast enough… Disclosure: The Land of Valencia invited me to the Valencia Grand Prix

Formula One and the Illusion of Speed first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Last year, I was lucky enough to travel inside the Formula One Paddock and interview Lotus race engineer Gianluca Pisanello.

This year, I bring you the view from the track from inside the safety car.

Tune in again soon for more Formula One action (Ed (aka me) – do people really talk like that?)

The Valencia Grand Prix: Inside the Safety Car first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...