Going home.

On our last day in Spain, I had a swim, although the sea is remarkably cold, and then we whiled away the time between checking out of the hotel and the flight by having a look at Marbella and Puerto Banus.

The old town in Marbella is rather nice though not very extensive. There is a not very good art gallery, mostly prints and photos, in the old town, but in one of the suburbs there is the Ralli Museum. It was founded by an Israeli banker, who through his travels, got interested in South American artists. Now there are at least four museums, one in Marbella, two in Latin America, and one in Israel. The museum boasted of having gone international without going commercial – up yours, Guggenheim!  There is no shop or café, and you are allowed to wander around to your heart’s content and take photos. The founder’s philosophy is that art should not be “explained” – it is up to the viewer to find their own meaning, and that means taking time. He argues that no artist sets out to paint some message.

We really enjoyed the gallery. The only artist we were familiar with was Beryl Cook, who also seemed to be one of the few non South Americans. There’s a fair amount of surrealism and some striking abstract stuff, and some large bronzes.  The two photos which came out best are below, although they aren’t by any means representative of the whole.

Here’s one of a series showing the deadly sins and cardinal virtues, by an artist from Chile, called Carmen Aldunate, who has a consciously medieval style, but paints women in modern predicaments. This one is "Envy".

And this is by Ponciano Cardenas, who is Bolivian.

With still time to kill, we went to Puerto Banus. Last time, there must have been at least ten huge yachts, some with helicopter pads. There were security men in black trousers and white shirts on the gangplanks, and all the signs were in English and Arabic, and were for lap dancing and gambling clubs, or places that were pretty clearly brothels. This time there was only one really big boat, and it didn’t have obvious security staff.

That might be the time of year, I suppose. But the dodgy adverts are less obvious, and now in Russian, not Arabic. There’s still a whiff of sulphur about the place, though – lots of girls on the make, lots of middle aged Russian men, and clubs which are clearly not for us.

There are still plenty of Bentleys, Aston Martins, Mercs, the odd Rolls, but I did slightly feel it has gone down in the world a bit. Perhaps the jet set has moved on.

Then we went to airport, got rid of the pig of a car, and hung about for quite a long time. I don’t mean to complain, because lots of flights were cancelled, so the fact that ours was simply late, really didn’t matter. Apparently the French ATC are worried about job losses if the pan-European ATC finally happens. Frankly, I’d cheerfully sack the lot of them. They strike at least once every summer.

It’s really great to be home, even though it is chilly and rainy!