Spanish Motorcycle Dairies - Day 1. From Barcelona to Alicante. (2 May, 2017)
Great first day. Never easy getting on the beast after a long break and feeling confident from the get go. Thus relieved it all went swimmingly.
The Yamaha FJR 1300 going strong as always; 11 years after I bought her second hand and 25,000 km later, she is still as sleek, reliable, sexy and powerful as on the first day. 146 mechanical mustangs at the ready to unleash fury with the flick of a hand, feeding the Adrenalin junky in you, installing fear and excitement in equal measure.
Passing Sitges, Tarragona, stopping in the delta of the Ebro river - which was less than the Camargue than I had hoped, much more agribusiness and less wild - on to Villa Real (of the yellow submarine football club), then Valencia, capital of the region to the south of Catalunya, the abominal development feast for package tourists at Benidorm, and finally through winding mountains into Alicante.
Motorcycling is like therapy. You have to focus on the road lest you make a tragic error, and that focus clears the mind and let's it wander.
About our host region, Catalunya, treating us to 'the best year in our lives'. Many superlatives, but one matter that nags me. Catalunismo, the constant harping about independence, more powers, the supremacy of cultural and linguistic and historic identity. Like listening to the Bavarians, only they don't dream of a Declaration of Independence.The Generalitat will organize a referendum in September and is very serious about it. People in the sauna in the sports club are serious about it, and all cite their grandparents' suffering during the civil war in evidence, no matter which side they wereon.
But to be frank: the people governing Catalunya are no less papal than the PP/PSOE local magnates in the rest of Spain. Corruption between the unholy trinity of local municipalities, developers and construction companies has been rife, flamed by the abundant and near-free EU transfers. 3% commission appears to be the standard. So Catalan air of supremacy smacks of hypocrisy.
It's apparently not (only) about the money, they say. Catalunya generates 1/6 of the GDP of Spain and is one of the net contributors to poorer regions. Not enough coming back. - Well, so what? Tell that to the Bavarians or Swabians who have been sending money to the north of Germany for 50 years; or to the Milanese or Torinesi who do so to Pula and Basilicata. Or to the other 450m Europeans who pay extra taxes to fund regional and structural assistance funds that helped Spain make up lost ground and build the marvellous motorways on which I sped down today. (One of which is named after famed Catalan cellist Pablo Casals - not often cellists, to whom I am partial, get honoured with so much cement.)
It's called Solidarity. Last time I checked it was the name of a Polish trade union that helped liberate half of Europe in 1989. And which European taxpayers have been affording laggard Spain when it joined he EU in the 1980s.So don't tell me it's about the money. Catalan businessmen are among the most savvy in Spain; you can negotiate a better deal with Madrid, even the Euskadi one. But for that you have to stop posturing and start talking; and force tepid Rajoy/Madrid with a soundly argued case, within the constitutional grounds of modern Spain.
National self-determination then? Well, let me tell you, it's an anachronism. Germany and Italy, the last two large European nation states to unite their many little princedoms, did so in the 1860s. What can you not realise within Spain and Europe? -- For me, the painful parallel is Slovenia, another beautiful small county full of bright and proud people upon which the Lord bestowed the mountains, the sea, and all other wonders of nature. It's hasty Declaration of Independence in the early 1990s, unthinkingly supported by Germany, generated huge collateral damage when Croatia and Bosnia Hercegovina followed suit. Maybe Spain will hold together; but it is time for Brussels to call Barcelona to order and tell them to get a ticket and get in line behind Ukraine and Turkey for post-separation accession talks. Time to stop playing with fire and to focus on saving Europe, not creating more microcosms.
Alicante was first inhabited 7,500 years ago; it was the last Republican city to fall into Franco's hands in 1939. I was here first in 1989 as a young student. The pavements and the fortress have not changed, most else has. English tourists dominate, the buskers alternate between Romanian gypsy bands and indigenous guitar artists. The paella is as good as in Valencia. Un Buen Día.
