sixeyesontour

In denial, we faffed around for an hour or so doing a final pack this morning, trying to consolidate 6 ½ weeks of travelling and the acquisition of stuff, including a car seat, into two suitcases and a couple of side bags. In the end we got it down to 20 kgs into Sarah’s case, 30 kgs into Gabor’s case, grossly overstuffed laptop bags and camera bags, a backpack, a baby backpack, a baby and a car seat. All was well, and the apartment owners were happy to inherit 30 nappies and a few bits of clothing that Kaspar had outgrown after eating too many buttery pastries. After several attempts at readjusting the load, we hit the streets just after midday, making our way up La Rambla towards Placa Catalunya. We clearly underestimated the effort to ... read more

Well there is certainly a lot of rumbling in La Rambla at night! In between the women upstairs pacing up and down in their high heels, the slamming of the doors to the apartments, the comings and goings until all hours of the morning, and the super charged fireworks that echo across the city, probably the thing that kept us up most of the night was Kaspar’s new trick of lifting his feet up and slamming them down so the boards under his bed bounce. He’s a fast learner, we’ll give him that! His bed is on the mezzanine floor above us, and is actually just a mattress on the floor, but boy can he make some noise! We had decided prior to getting to Barcelona that we would take a bit of a load off ... read more

As decided last night we were going to spend the day inland, most of it at the hilltop town of Morella. We made a pretty poor start by taking the scenic route, making the wrong turn at the town of Calig, and heading in the wrong direction for about 5 kms through a riverbed (dry, of course) and onto a gravel road before we decided to retrace our steps. But, no problemo! It was the start of the day and we can handle mishaps like that in the a.m. - in the afternoon, THAT’s when we start getting ratty about unscheduled detours). We had 4 or 5 towns on our agenda today and the first one was a nice little number called Sant Mateu, about 50kms inland. There was not much activity in Sant M on ... read more

Neighbouring Gandia, we had read, was worth a visit so we jumped in the car and drove up the road for a gander. Of course, we forgot that no where is really worth a visit on a Sunday as everything is closed. Nevermind, we found a map at the closed tourist - quite a cool idea, it was touch screen behind some safety glass that allowed you to navigate the town and find out a bit about it before choosing what was worth further investigation. Apparently, not much, as although there was an old town, the info didn’t elaborate enough. So we grabbed a shot (of coffee) and the mandatory chocolate buttery pastry while locals ogled Kaspar, agreed on a direction, and walked. And wouldn’t you know it before very long we stumbled across the rather ... read more