Spain Part 2: Mallorca, Valencia, and Barcelona
Ft. the Five Families of New York, drug dealers, prostitutes, and the ghost of George Orwell
Before I begin, let me state that, to the best of my memory and ability, the following vignettes of my visit to Spain are recounted in chronological order. Temporal and other errors of strict accuracy are, however, entirely possible: the relation of memories, especially when undertaken with a stomach full of cider and wine, is a demanding and dangerous task. But this is a task I now embark on: caveat lector and all that.
(Below the main piece, you can find some relevant photographs from the trip.)
Mallorca/Arcadia
My Spanish sojourn was a result of my friendship with Matt Johnson, an independent writer and fellow Hitchens scholar from America, who invited me to tag along on a holiday he and some friends had been planning for a while.1 Though I knew only Matt, and even then only from email correspondence and Zoom, I decided to accept his invitation at my own risk. After all, I hadn’t been abroad since 2018 and I wanted to meet Matt in person, so I was willing to put my life in the hands of a bunch of strange Yankees in Spain.
Most of my childhood holidays had been in Iberia, so I was at least somewhat familiar with the landscape. The plan was to spend a couple of days in Mallorca, Valencia, and Barcelona. The capriciousness of the airlines obliged me, however, to miss out on the first full day of the holiday. Instead, I arrived in Mallorca late in the evening of the second day of the holiday. We were due to fly to Valencia, on the mainland, early in the morning.
Taking a taxi from Palma Airport, I arrived at a villa on a nondescript and very quiet street. Happy to report, the Americans (they were mostly Americans, apart from, significantly, Matt’s lovely Swiss amour Selina) were very nice. I unburdened myself of my luggage and off we went for dinner. But Mallorca was quiet: this was March, the offseason, and most of the restaurants and bars were shuttered and the streets empty.
Still, we found a nice place to eat (we were, I think, in the German quarter). I shan’t attempt to prevaricate: I was drunk, as I was for most of this wonderful trip. But as far as I could tell, my companions were decent people. One particularly attractive gentleman worked in explosives, I think. Anyway, I had a steak, we all drank shots with the waitress, and then we returned to the villa to drink some more while listening to music.
It was good to meet Matt, I should say. Strange to finally come into contact with the flesh and blood version of a man I previously only knew through email and video chat—but pleasant! As the days went by, I became more and more impressed with Matt, who is not only an excellent writer and analyst but is also annoyingly attractive. This is a demonstration of the unjustness of the universe: people should either be beautiful or intelligent, not both (or neither, like myself). Happily, I was able to separate my indignation at the universe from my appreciation of Matt, and, at least I like to think, a bond grew between us.
I didn’t mind that my time in Mallorca was short. Most of those childhood Iberian holidays I mentioned were in Mallorca, so it was hardly a strange place. True, we were in the capital rather than the further afield resorts of my youth, but it was hardly alien. Indeed, I had recognised the exterior departure area of Palma Airport as if I had last seen it yesterday. And the pavements, of all things, were lodged deep in my memory. I don’t know if the particular style has a name, but the pavements made up of little squares were deeply familiar. The sound of my shoes walking over them and of the wheels of my suitcase clattering across them—these were things I knew from long ago.
When we were walking to or from the restaurant (which, I don’t recall), I looked up on Google Maps the old places of my childhood. I had a fancy to take a taxi to them, but they were too far away. One day, though, I will return: and how those places still feel familiar, despite the fact that I’ve not visited them in nearly ten years! Sometimes I feel as if Can Picafort, in the northeast of Mallorca, belongs to me, and me alone. Untrue, of course, not to mention stupid, but such is the hold of childhood memory. And my brief stay in Mallorca last month was the closest I have been to this personal Arcadia in such a very long time.
In fact, there is a spot in Can Picafort from which I plan to spread at least some of my parents’ ashes one day—one is still alive, the other not—because Can Picafort holds so many of my purest, earliest memories. Yes, I will come back one day, to spread the ashes of my parents when they are both gone (an eventuality I dread and which I hope is a long time coming) because this was, for a time, a place—my place—of unadulterated happiness.
Fine dining in Valencia
The next day, off we went to Valencia. A short flight and a taxi and we were…stranded. The owner of the villa we were staying at hadn’t given us the proper address, so after a very early start and a tiring journey, I had to haul my very heavy suitcase and backpack for a mile or so further before I could finally rest. Then—sleep, glorious sleep!
I wish I’d had more time in Valencia, but the time I spent there was most enjoyable. One night, we wandered the city centre. It was, like Mallorca, quiet, given the time of year, but the wide spaces and architecture were a joy to behold. Throughout the city, there were dotted many fabulous statues, which I later found out were erected for the Falles, a festival heralding the beginning of spring and held in celebration of Saint Joseph. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the main celebrations, which include, alas, the burning of the gorgeous statues, but just seeing those fantastic creations was a treat in itself.
On our last night in Valencia, we dined at an exclusive, Michelin star restaurant, the Ricard Camarena. We were served a ridiculous amount of ridiculously tiny courses, most of which were good, some of which were outstanding, and a minority of which were disgusting, and we had the entire place to ourselves. It was, I must say, quite the experience—we were seated at a round table, the room was dimly lit, and waiters and sommeliers circled around the table to present us with (mostly) delicious food and libations. I felt slightly like I was in a mob movie, at a meeting of the Five Families, and this was a feeling I riffed on to my fellow diners (probably a little too much) for the entire night.
I wore my best jacket and tried to conduct myself in a civilised fashion. I mostly succeeded, I think. But, though it was an experience, and an enjoyable experience at that, I couldn't help but feel slightly cheated. I won’t tell you what my bill came to, but let me just state that the place was underwhelming for the price. Maybe I’m just uncouth. Yes, we had a restaurant to ourselves, and yes, we were waited on exclusively, and yes, it was (mostly) pretty good fare, but I’ve had nicer meals in much cheaper places. Is fine dining a con, then? Maybe.
Still, I’m glad I had the experience, and yes, as I said, it was pretty enjoyable. I’m not sure I’d do it again though. I like dressing up and being fancy, but I like my fancy evenings to be mixed in with at least a little sloppiness and raucousness and savagery. Yes, I do like wearing my lovely red velvet jacket, but I think I prefer to wear it in less salubrious surroundings.
Barcelona Nights: sexy dancers, grimy clubs, attempted robbery, transexual prostitutes, and more
After a four-hour coach ride, we were in Barcelona. Another gruelling walk later, we entered our apartment, just off the Plaça de Catalunya, a lovely little place with quite the view over the square. Once more, I had to spend a few hours recumbent while the others went off out. When I awoke, I joined them in a nice little square for a meal. During this meal, some street performers provided entertainment, most notable of whom was a group of very handsome and very shirtless and very athletic male dancers. I enjoyed their performance very much.
Later, a few of us ventured off into the less polished areas of the city, to a nightclub called Moog. By this point, I was very, very drunk, and spent most of the rest of the night waving my arms in the dark to some indecipherable music. (This, incidentally, is perhaps the religion of our age: the tribal dancing and rhythmic pounding to nightclub beats, out of one’s mind on booze and whatever else, wherein one loses oneself to the sound and the fury. And this, I’ve found, is a much truer religion than any other.)
Throughout the night, I often left the others to go outside to smoke. And outside, let me tell you, it was a fucking jungle. Here are three experiences I had in the course of a very short period of time:
A man offered me some drugs. I said no. Then another man came up to me and told me he was an undercover police officer who had been tailing the alleged drug dealer. The former asked me to incriminate the latter. To my shame, I did tell him that the guy had just tried to sell me some stuff. What happened next, I don’t know. But it was pretty clear, anyway, that the policeman was not really a policeman, but just a fellow drunkard having a joke at my expense.
As I was smoking, a man came up to me, smiling and laughing, and we embraced for no particular reason. But I am no fool. I knew his game. I felt his hand slide into my pocket to grab my phone. I allowed this to happen. As he slid the phone out, I grabbed his wrist, smiled brightly at him, nodded knowingly and in disapproval, said, “Oh no, I don’t think so,” and the fellow also just smiled before walking away. In retrospect, this could have gotten rather nasty, but it didn’t, so I’m happy to class it as an amusing memory.
As I smoked, a person I believe to have been a transexual propositioned me. Twenty euros for a blowjob, s/he offered! I said no, obviously. Twenty euros, though! Such a blowjob could only have ended in a (literal) dismembering, I’m sure. I couldn’t help but feel, anyway, that s/he had misjudged the available consumer base.
Such was my first night in Barcelona: drugs, robbery, and transexual prostitutes. I’m not ashamed to say that I liked it very much.
The ghost of George Orwell
Over the next couple of days, I went off on some adventures of my own down La Rambla, the main thoroughfare of Barcelona that runs from the Plaça de Catalunya to the Columbus Monument by the waterfront. Federico García Lorca, the great gay Spanish poet murdered by fascists in 1936, once spoke of La Rambla as "the only street in the world which I wish would never end." Having walked its entire length more than once now, I find I cannot but agree with this assessment.
Though I visited Barcelona in the offseason, La Rambla was thronged with people, not to mention crowded with shops and restaurants. Of course, it is a very touristy place these days, but, to my admittedly touristy eyes, it has lost none of its charms. My main preoccupation, though, was with George Orwell, who stayed on La Rambla during his time in Barcelona. Orwell had come to Spain to fight for the Republic against Franco’s Nationalists, which he did from December 1936 until June 1937, when he was forced to flee Spain by the Communist/Stalinist repression following the May Days conflict.
I don’t want to get into the details here, as you can look up Orwell’s time in Spain for yourself.2 The relevant thing is that all down La Rambla, you can see many of the places that were central to the May Days as mentioned by Orwell in Homage to Catalonia (1938). I made a point of visiting many of these places. On the Plaça de Catalunya, there is the Movistar Centre, which used to be the Barcelona Telephone Exchange, where the May Days conflict began. On La Rambla, opposite the Café Moka, is the former Cinema Poliorama, on whose rooftop Orwell was stationed with a rifle for a few days to keep an eye on the Assault Guards who had taken the Moka. Further down, you can visit the Biblioteca Gòtic-Andreu Nin, named for the leader of the POUM, whose militia Orwell fought for; the Biblioteca building was once a boarding house for this militia. Nin was tortured and executed by the Communists after the May Days.
I have to admit that it was utterly thrilling to be in the presence of history. And none of it was apparent to the untrained eye. All of these buildings were just that—unless you know the history and are looking out for them, you would never know that these are the places where the events that so transformed the thinking of George Orwell and which directly inspired Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four took place. Imagine it—there, on that rooftop, the relatively little-known journalist Eric Arthur Blair once sat, bored out of his mind, reading some Penguins, a rifle in his hand, little knowing that the events in which he was taking a small part would soon inspire two of the most famous novels of all time, novels that would make his rather pedestrian nom de plume famous to millions across the globe.
Orwell believed that the lies and alternative facts engendered by the Spanish war were an indication of the world that might come, wherein totalitarianism would win out and objective truth be abolished. Happily, he was wrong in this aspect of his analysis. Franco fell, Spain became a democracy, and the crimes of the fascists and the Stalinists in Spain are now public knowledge. Moreover, there is now a Spanish street named after Nin and a square in Barcelona named after Orwell. Of Orwell’s writings on Spain, Christopher Hitchens once wrote that they were “a modest, individual illustration of [the] mighty proposition [that truth can prevail].” So, too, stands said street and said square.3
Speaking of Plaça de George Orwell, I naturally ate and drank there, too, as well as on La Rambla. It is a small, unprepossessing little square in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, in whose centre stands a surrealist monument by Leandre Cristòfol. Spanish Wikipedia tells me that this monument is a monument to women and sex and that Plaça de George Orwell was and still is known for its “dirt, noise, homelessness and the illegal sale and consumption of alcohol and drugs, among other uncivil acts.” Well, I can only say that I witnessed no such iniquities during my brief visit, which I very much regret. Instead, I ran into a fellow Scot, ate a good meal, and enjoyed many, many drinks in a bar overrun with Frenchmen singing La Marseillaise in honour of a rugby game that was being televised that night. Hopefully next time I shall view some of those “uncivil acts” of which Spanish Wikipedia speaks so disapprovingly.4
And there will be a next time, I am sure of it. I am not done with Barcelona yet. In fact, it reminds me of my beloved Edinburgh—it stands by the water, it is full of the narrowest as well as the most open of spaces, it contains enchanting elegance as well as the most sinful sordidness, and it is marred by a dark history while standing as a shining testament to modernity. Yes, I have fallen in love with Barcelona-by-the-sea, and very much look forward to returning.
The Hotel Continental and homeward bound
I feel I have rather gotten away from discussing the holiday specifically. But I also feel that I have gone on rather too long, as is my wont. Let me just say, then, that throughout my time in Barcelona, I enjoyed good food and conversation, not to mention a lot of alcohol (including at the world’s third-best bar), with Matt Johnson and my other fellow travellers. Indeed, I only wish I had had more time with them all, especially Matt, whose conversation was, unsurprisingly, sparkling.
I also met up with an old university friend, who lives in Barcelona, and who is now in training for the priesthood. Obviously, and to say the least, we have our disagreements, but our friendship is still a strong one, or so I hope. It was lovely to meet up with him again. For a priest-in-training, his womanising past and knowledge of Barcelona’s gay scene would be, to more innocent eyes than mine, scandalous.
I mentioned at the beginning of this overlong account that I arrived in Spain a day later than everyone else. Well, I also left a day later. On our final night together, we all went to an underground nightclub and, you might have surmised, got very drunk (a highlight was downing a shot of Johnnie Walker Black with Matt, which seemed appropriate). Most of them had to rush off to the airport in the wee hours. I hugged Matt before collapsing into bed. By the time I woke up, long after we were meant to have all been out of the apartment, everyone was gone. Luckily, despite some threatening noises on the part of the apartment owner, relayed to me via a fellow traveller who had organised our accommodation, nobody noticed I was still in the place long past the time by which it should have been vacated. So, I packed my stuff and got out, before heading off to the Hotel Continental, at the top of La Rambla, not far at all.
The Hotel Continental was where Orwell and his wife Eileen stayed while they were in Barcelona. I had of course passed it on my little Orwell tour of La Rambla, which inspired me to book a room there for my last night in the city. I wish I had had more time at the Continental because I enjoyed it very much. It was housed in a strange and wonderful beast of a building; there were other hotels on different floors, and you had to press buttons and wave at cameras in hopes that the receptionist noticed you if you wanted to access the hallway in which your room was located. In the reception/dining room area, there was a buffet, which amusingly included a San Miguel dispenser, and a glass case full of Orwelliana. Alas, the room in which Orwell stayed (and which was raided by Stalinists5) is no longer in existence, so there is no ‘Orwell Suite.’ At least they’re honest about that: it would be quite easy to swindle gullible fools like me by claiming any old broom cupboard to be Orwell’s room and charging us a fortune.
The receptionist during my stay was a formidable lady. She was very insistent on masking up and very motherly in a stern way towards me when I forgot to pick up my bag or when I struggled with the buffet system. At first, I was irritated at what I perceived to be her haughtiness, but I came to realise she was actually quite a nice woman, and even came to appreciate her concern, even if I was initially confused at the way in which she conveyed it.
I realise I indicated above that I would finish this off quickly. I have betrayed that promise, for which I apologise, but will now fulfil it. Having spent a night in Orwell’s old hotel, so evocatively described in Homage to Catalonia as a place of intrigue and desperation, I woke up early, got a taxi to the airport, and flew home, promising myself that I would return to Barcelona and stay once more in the Hotel Continental, both of which I never got to fully appreciate.
When I wasn’t sleeping on my homeward flight, I was forced to make conversation with an ebullient woman who was sitting beside me. As it turned out, she was from Stenhousemuir, where I lived as a child—small world! I somewhat enjoyed our chat, but was also tired, and wished for it to end. At Edinburgh Airport, I lost her and her rather odd-looking boyfriend at border control. Then: the bus home.
And so it was over, my first trip abroad in years. How quickly it passed, how fun it was, yet how much I regretted—I could have and should have gotten more out of it! Easy to say from far away, perhaps, for when you are actually in distant and exotic climes, you are still just a person, as easily tired as you are at home. Still, I loved it, and the fact that I feel that there is still so much left to do in Spain, and Barcelona in particular, should really be no cause for regret, for it simply means that there is still so much possibility left in life.
Yes, life is short, but that is a kind of blessing. The universe is so big that it would be impossible to run out of things to do in one’s laughably tiny human lifespan. There is still so much more to do and to experience! And what else but this, the infinite variety and limitless richness of experience, is worth caring about, anyway?
Matt is the author of the forthcoming book How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment (Pitchstone Publishing).
See here for an article detailing Orwell’s time in Spain, which I used as a guide during my Orwellian rambles down La Rambla.
On La Rambla and in Plaça de George Orwell, I naturally took the time to re-read some of Orwell’s Spanish writings. At this time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was still in its infancy, though there were some encouraging signs that Putin had massively underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainians. The parallels between Ukraine today and Spain in the 1930s are hard to resist. No comparison is ever pure, of course, but here again is a European democracy under siege from fascism and asking the free world for all the help it can afford—one which has, moreover, invited foreigners to join an international legion in defence of democracy. Indeed, as Matt Johnson said to me during this Spanish holiday, the case for Ukraine is even better than for the Second Republic: it is not nearly as tainted by illiberalism or totalitarianism, the Azov Battalion notwithstanding.
The city authorities apparently didn’t intend any irony when “[t]o combat incivility and insecurity, in 2001 Orwell Square became the first public space in the city controlled by municipal video surveillance cameras, a practice that the City Council later extended to other trouble spots in the center of the capital.” (Spanish Wikipedia, again.)
Orwell’s papers and diaries were stolen by the Stalinists and are still missing. They are often thought to be squirrelled away in a Russian archive somewhere, but my old Spanish Civil War professor told me he thought they’re more likely to be in a Spanish one. What a find that would be—Orwell’s lost writings!
Hitchens was a great mind, but to be a scholar of him...why?