The price of gold was driven up initially by people looking for a safe place for their money after the problems in 2008-9 and then by speculators seeing an opportunity. There isn't really a commodity that can be used to price anything else like food or fuel, at least not in a stable way.
If Spain (or Greece or whoever) devalues then they will have a period of inflation (imported prices rise) and unemployment. Once wage rates fall they will become once again competitive with other countries and recover. It has worked elsewhere - e.g. Argentina. At the moment Spain is locked into the Euro Zone where it can't control its own money supply or interest rates and is and burdened with unemployment anyway.
But it looks like they may get the chance to do this - the uk.gov has told the UK banks to prepare for a
Euro collapse, and some are betting 50:50 that it will go by Christmas. The Foreign Office has warned of
riots in Europe as it fails.
If they had bitten the bullet on this a year ago they could have split the Euro Zone into North and South regions which would have reduced the pressures on it.
I'm still wondering what the Euro is there to do any more.