Dramatic Valle de Cuelgamuros is a unique place to break a cross-country Spanish drive

I've been to Spain many times, but always to a single location. The glory of this trip was a cross-country drive that took us from the hot, dry hills of the Mediterranean coast to the verdant Alpine valleys of the Basque Country's Atlantic-facing shoreline. In between was more than 800 miles of diverse landscape. 

Most of our drive was heavy on  agriculture and light on people. Spain is twice the size of the United Kingdom with less than half its population. The ten and a half hours we spent road tripping across our second week took us through majestic but desolate mountains, rolling agriculture plains, well-stocked cattle country and expansive olive groves. Had we been travelling a few weeks earlier we would have seen miles of bright yellow sunflowers turning their heads to the light. Now they're drying on their stems in advance of being harvested for their oil. It's a crop that, according to one of our local guides, has exploded in popularity this year in an attempt to capture the market opportunity left by the war in the Ukraine.  All of our driving took place on beautifully maintained but lightly trafficked highways. If not for the mountains on the distant horizon, or the occasional village dominated by a church that seemed too grandiose for its population, the trek through the vast farm fields between Madrid and Salamanca could be mistaken for Interstate 55 through central Illinois.

In the 360 miles between Valencia and Salamanca, only Madrid imposes any sense of population or modernity. It does that with force. Suburbs sprawl for miles. Modern malls loom. Apartment blocks tower. Its network of tunnels is efficient but can perplex: it took the on board sat nav and two of us concentrating hard not to take a wrong turn as we attempted to circumnavigate rather than enter the capital. Not for the first time, we wondered why our European neighbours seem to be so much better than us at infrastructure. I suspect the motorway through the the city is hellishly crowded at rush hour, but our journey early on a Saturday afternoon was easy.

If you happen to be making a cross-country drive and need a place to stretch your legs, or if you're in Madrid and hunger for a change of scene, the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de Cuelgamuros) is an intriguing choice. 

The mountaintop cross with an enormous basilica burrowed into the granite below is also spectacularly controversial. Though Spain's Fascist dictator said it was a national memorial of atonement and reconciliation, sketchy records suggest that there are far more of Franco's side buried here than his opposition. Evidence suggests the prisoners brought in to built it ... most of them political opponents of the regime ... were treated as slave labour. Many are said to have died in the construction and have been buried in the gloomy pine woods of the mountain below. There are no records. It is not a happy place. 

It's also a lonely one. There's little traffic up here; at several points we were alone on the vast, windswept plaza and in the cavernous church. Directional signs are sparse. The gate with a couple of guards on it hardly suggests a major tourist attraction. The tourist facilities facing the car park look like they've been boarded up for years. You get the impression that the government is purposely discouraging visitors, something reinforced by the monument's closure for maintenance for almost four years earlier in the century and the movement of Franco's tomb from here in 2019.

Why in the world, therefore, would you bother with this place? First, because it's an important part of history and what we don't remember we risk repeating. Second, because it's visually remarkable. The nearby palace and monastery of El Escorial would be the more logical sightseeing choice, but Spain is full of grandiose Renaissance architecture. This haunting, brutalist memorial  is unique in its style and setting; not just in Spain but, in my experience, in all of Europe.

The 500-foot tall cross at the pinnacle of the mountain sits on a plinth supported by gigantic sculptures of the evangelists who look like they've just emerged fully-formed from the granite of the mountain. It's visible from as much as 20 miles away, but you need to get inside the 3,000+ acres of woodland surrounding it to really appreciate the size. Don't attempt this without a car; there are miles of roads through the pine forest before you finally get to the parking area near the summit 3,000 feat above sea level. As the road climbs through the pine forest you start to get hints of the building below the cross; a huge colonnade built against the mountainside with enormous plazas stretching before them. There are car parks below two sides of the plazas, with ceremonial staircases leading up. At the back, the mountain rears. At the front, it falls away. The open space here is on the scale of St. Peter's in Rome. The colonnades even bigger. But the Vatican is always thronged with people. Here, the space seems all the bigger because you're sharing it with so few.

There's an archway in the centre of the colonnade, directly below the cross, with a door set within it. A pieta has been carved with jackhammers from the living rock above. Mary and Jesus look more like stone trolls than their traditional selves. The scale of everything seems intended to dwarf the visitor. Making the individual feel insignificant is one of the main purposes of Fascist architecture in Europe, but I've never seen it done to such a scale as it is here. 

That feeling continues as you step through the door, progressing through two ante-chambers at different levels before you descend into the main church. (The odd entry was mandated by Rome. No Catholic church is allowed to be bigger than St. Peter's. This basilica would have been were it not for the distinct separation of the entry porches from the church beyond.) It may be a church, but the place is more frightening than spiritual. Otherworldly guardian angels stand sentinel over the entry porch, hooded figures tower at each plinth upholding the rotunda above the altar. They are less religious, more like ancient kings or gods from high fantasy novels. In fact, the closest frame of reference I have for the place is the Dwarven city of Moria, also carved out of the living rock at gigantic scale but depopulated by the demonic Balrog. I wouldn't be surprised if something sinister was interred under the main altar here. 

The whole high fantasy feel is enhanced by the set of eight enormous Renaissance tapestries ... each almost 30 feet long ... interpreting scenes of apocalypse from the Book of Revelations. There are monsters, knights engaged gory battles, mystical figures floating in the air, tormented sinners and a repeating theme of many-headed composite beasts. Lion's and dog's heads float on snake-like necks joined to winged bodies and cloven hooves. I've never seen a set of tapestries like them, and they're in remarkably good shape. 

I suspect that producers of Game of Thrones or the Rings of Power have salivated over the idea of using

this place as a filming location, but as it remains a consecrated church so that's not going to happen. It is still, as intended, the monument to the fallen of the civil war and on that front deserves enormous respect. Ironically, the monument itself is in a back corner of a side chapel off the main altar, and remarkably humble. It is therefore the only spot in the complex that conveys a true sense of reverence. 

We visited on a gloomy day, with inky clouds racing across the sky and the half-light of a stormy afternoon washing everything into monochrome. This no doubt coloured my perception of the place.  And yet I can't imagine a better backdrop for a visit. The monument is glowering, dark and moody; it seems appropriate for the weather to match. 

While I understand the discomfort that many Spaniards have with the Valle de Cuelgamuros being a tourist attraction, I'd argue that it should remain one. 

Civil wars are dark, unnatural and bring out the worst in people. It's somehow fitting that the architecture that marks this period evokes a literary genre that typically has people facing off against supernatural evil. One can only hope that learning about such things in the past gives us a better chance of keeping them in the realms of fiction in the future.

In Rome, rugby and culture are surprisingly happy bedfellows

The email from the Italian ministry of tourism and culture sealed my love affair with rugby. To enhance the enjoyment of rugby fans' weekend in Rome, anyone who could produce a ticket to Sunday afternoon's Italy v. England game would receive free admission to all of the city's state-run museums.

Perhaps the Italians do this for all international sport fixtures ... but it seemed a particularly comfortable fit with rugby.

Long before I understood the game, corporate sponsorship brought me into contact with fans who were gracious and interesting, and former players who were intelligent gentlemen. Both defied the usual shallow sporting stereotypes. I quickly came to appreciate that any live match is as much about the party, the bands and the costumes as it is about the game. And once I understood more about what was happening on the pitch, I got excited about what happened on the field, too.

Thus when the dates for this year's Six Nations tournament came out, and England was playing Italy in Rome on Valentine's Day, it was a "no brainer". Rugby for him + Rome for me = Romantic weekend. Clearly, this was not an original thought, as the English outnumbered the home fans by a substantial percentage.

The delights of an Italian away game
For the benefit of my American readers, most of whom will have had no exposure to rugby, I should explain that Six Nations is the annual tournament to determine the top nation from the best of the Northern Hemisphere. The competitors are always England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy, and the tournament always takes place over five weekends in February and March.  The Italians are the newest members of the top nations (it used to be the Five Nations) and, though they often show skill and strength, they are perennially the weakest team. Italian rugby is also quite a niche sport, with a far smaller fan base there than football.

This makes Rome the ideal place to take in a Six Nations game ... before you even consider the add-on delights of sightseeing, food and wine.  Back in the UK and Ireland, tickets are hard to come by and every game is sold out. At Twickenham, the English HQ, tickets are by ballot, with the odds weighted towards members of rugby clubs. And they're very expensive.

Tickets in Rome's Stadio Olimpico were half the price of the equivalents at Twickenham, and easily available over the web.

One of the glories of rugby is the way fans interact. The conflict is on the field: opposing sides can sit next to each other in the stands, buy each other drinks and acknowledge the strengths of the opposing team's play. It was no different in Rome, where the Italians were gracious and cheerful hosts to the foreign masses. Also like Twickenham, there's a Fan Zone outside of the stadium for pre-game festivities with food, drink and a great pop band. You haven't heard Volare until you've heard the disco cover version.

Once inside, the experience of watching the game is pretty much the same as in the UK. Except that we had far better seats for the money. And beer vendors circulate within the stands, allowing you to buy beer while watching the game, rather than having to leave the main arena.

The nightmare of logistics
The Italian rugby experience might be as much fun as Twickenham, but it's not nearly as well run. Sadly, the day was a long case study reinforcing negative stereotypes about poor organisation and a general lack of urgency.  My word of warning to anyone going to a game: get there well in advance.

Stadio Olimpico is about 3 miles from the Piazza del Popolo, linked by a direct tram line. Sounds quick and easy, right?  Trams were sporadic. Once they appeared, security checks before allowing people to get on board slowed things even more. While police were much in evidence, no other authority offered direction to the growing crowds. Luckily, these were English people, so the masses naturally formed an orderly queue.  We turned up more than three hours in advance, and we waited more than half an hour to get on a tram. Guide books warn you that there's nothing much by way of food or drink at the stadium, so enjoy yourself in town and then go to the game. I'm fairly sure anyone who followed that advice regretted it.

Once you arrive at the stadium complex, everyone funnels towards a single access point. The gatekeepers take their time; this was another half hour spent patiently shuffling in a very slow queue, this time 50 metres wide, funneling towards about 15 turnstiles. I'm not sure what was taking so long, because security was a leisurely scan of the barcode on your ticket, a cursory glance into a bag and a multiple inquiries as to if you were carrying any water. Language might have been an issue here.  "No!" I answered confidently, and truthfully. They asked about water, so I wasn't volunteering the flask of rum. I suspect someone should have told them to ask about liquids...

Inside, more than an hour after starting from Piazza del Popolo, we were in desperate need of refreshing food and drink. Time for more waiting. There's nowhere near enough vendors to handle a capacity crowd, a situation made worse by the peculiar Italian style of queuing. Stand in one line to buy a ticket for whatever you want, move on to another to exchange the ticket for your goods. There are different queues for food and drink. Add to the confusion with frustrated Anglo-Saxons who don't understand the system, waiting for ages to get to a barman who can't sell them anything because they haven't queued up for a ticket. Finally, exacerbate the frustration with servers who move at a speed reminiscent of old Chinese people doing Tai Chi in the park. Thus we spent another hour acquiring beer and hot dogs.

But wait, there's more! It turns out there's another ticket and security check to get into the stadium proper, manned by more people working at glacial pace. So, despite the fact that we started our journey three hours before kickoff, we were still standing outside the final set of turnstiles, singing God Save the Queen with hundreds of fellow waiting fans, as the teams took the field. We finally reached our seats about 10 minutes into the first half.

I'm convinced it was only the genial nature of rugby fans, combined with the English love or order, and dislike of making a fuss, that prevented disaster. If an American football crowd had to wade through this much madness on the way to the game, I fear punches would be thrown.

Sports and history
Killing time in the second queue of the day, I turned to examine the monumental obelisk marking the formal entrance to the stadium complex and realised that it bore the bold words "Mussolini Dux" still picked out in shining gold leaf. Back in England, Oxford is seething with debate over whether or not a statue of Cecil Rhodes should come down. Meanwhile, nobody in Italy seems to care that millions of sports fans each year process to and from their games under a memorial to one of the greatest villains of the 20th century. I suppose that when your city has accumulated 2,500 years of history, you roll with the changes. If you tried to edit the architecture to fall in line with political correctness, you'd consign a lot of Rome to demolition.

You can't really ignore Mussolini here; the whole area was his pet project. Originally called the Foro Mussolini, now the Foro Italico, he commissioned it in the '30s to encourage sport and celebrate the new, modern Italy he was building. Mussolini's Italy had a distinctive architectural style: Ancient Rome re-interpreted through the filter of fascist modernism. There's probably no better place to see it than this athletic complex. Sad, really, that they don't do tours.

That obelisk is flanked by two powerful, if graceless, pink neoclassical blocks. A massive avenue runs between then to the stadium. Given the crowds on the day, I didn't realise how monumental this processional way was until I come across the arial photo shown here. All along that route, and surrounding the round plaza it leads to, you'll find exquisite black and white mosaic work done in the style of the great Roman bath and athletic complexes. Sadly, they and the white marble paving slabs leading to them are in horrific shape. This all must have been grand once, but it's not seen the intense renovation I noticed in the city centre.

Next to the main stadium there's a practice field surrounded by ancient-style marble seating, overlooked by an army of encircling giants. These, again, are copies of neo-classical art, but they're oversized, chunky and brutalised in classic Fascist style. Wooded hills surround the area on two sides, and they're dotted with temples and monuments that grant a benediction to the scene below.

It's all rather magnificent, if also a bit creepy. (As grand Fascist statements always seem to be.) And a real shame it's not generally open to the public ... because it's fascinating to compare and contrast this to the Colosseum, Circus Maximus and other grand public entertainment venues of Ancient Rome. The retractable roof on the main stadium, for example, is obviously modeled on the velarium that kept punters shaded in the Colosseum 1,800 years ago. Sadly, the dilapidated state of much of the complex reminds you a bit too much of those ruins in the original forum.

But I can imagine how gorgeous, and exciting, this place must have been in 1938. How proud attendees must have been of this as a reminder of their glorious past, AND as a symbol of a modern, forward-thinking Italy.  I wonder how long it took them to get a beer?