Mediterranean

One thing that I realised was that Spain is quite a mountainous country. At one point we are coming over the mountains and I see a large body of water. I'm thinking to myself 'that is the flatest ocean that I've ever seen'. Then it occurs to me that it is actually the Mediterranean. Kinda strange cause I've never seen a body of water that size being flat - use to rolling waves and giant swells.

The other thing about it was how amazingly pictureque it was with the sun shinning through the clouds, and reflecting off the water. The sun itself was a flat, diffuse light and not a harsh, scorching one that I've always known in Australia. Now all of a sudden Italian landscape paintings (particularly Claude Lorrain) and their lighting conditions make a great deal more sense. Here I was thinking that they were extending their imagination greatly when in fact it is something one can actually see.

Going through the mountains had a lot of flog/low lying cloud so as the mountain peaks went off into the distance, it was quite surreal the way that they were layered. Almost exactly like a chinese scroll image.