It's 5.15am in Madrid, and Spanish motor racing champ Fernando Alonso is driving me to Barajas Airport, 16kms northeast of the sprawling city.
At least this taxi driver thinks he's Fernando Alonso, weaving in and out of lanes at speed, tearing towards intersections before executing last-second swerves. So, my last minutes in Spain are spent with eyes shut, reviewing some experiences I've had in three cities over the past eight days ...
Nothing can prepare you for the throat-grabbing sight of Barcelona as you approach the medieval coastal city from the air, the Lufthansa Airbus circling above the azure Mediterranean before swooping in to land.
Immediate impressions: the prevailing shade of terracotta, with the compact city of 1.6 million rising gently from the sea, back through a plain bordered east and west by rivers, before rising to the northern slopes of Montjuic (Jewish mount). At the base of Montjuic, overlooking the central heart of Barcelona, is an extraordinarily imposing castle, the Palau Nacional, now home to the Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya.
What's apparent from the air, or any elevated viewpoint, is that there are few high-rises in Barcelona and much of the city's layout is ordered in grids, with the corners cut off. The design is known as L'Eixample, the Extension, created by architect Ildefons Cerda in the 1860s as a solution to the city's dire overcrowding.
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