En-route to Barcelona

A slower day today with nothing but a couple of long train trips with a 3 hour wait in between. I took advantage of the eggs again, and after packing we headed out on the short walk to the train station, this time getting there more-or-less just in time to board the train.

The trip to Montpellier was completely uneventful, other than the "musical chairs" we had to play for much of the trip because our seats were faced backwards and Karina gets motion sickness. Fortunately the train was little more than half full and we had no trouble switching to forward-facing seats after each stop. At Marseilles, the train reversed direction and we could return to our assigned seats.

We grabbed lunch at Montpellier station, and I then went in search of an English book to read on the rest of the trip - something I had been trying to do since Italy! No luck, and after getting somewhat lost wandering around the shops, I found to way back to the station in time to let Karina go for a bit of a walk.

The train to Barcelona was a bit of a let-down - it was obviously designed sometime in the 60s and looked like it still had the original carpet! It was roomy, but certainly nothing like the trains we were accustomed to - certainly no power for the laptop!

The trip seemed to crawl by, not helped by the fact that we stopped inexplicably for quite some time at some stations. In the end we arrived in Barcelona only a few minutes late, so they were no doubt scheduled.

It was difficult to guess where we crossed into Spain, and several times after I thought we had, it became apparent that we were still in France. The architecture was very Spanish for quite some distance inside France.

No mistaking the border crossing - it was announced as we pulled into the station that we were entering Spain. I noticed several "Most Wanted" posters on the train station walls, quite visible in the train. Spanish police came through and checked all passports, which resulted in a lengthy delay. Finally the train pulled out, minus one passenger.

We finally arrived around 10pm in Barcelona, and after a brief visit to the tourist information office we head for the metro around the corner, only to find the train tickets we bought weren't metro tickets! At least they only cost Euro 2.30. We emerged at the metro station near our hotel, to be faced with a walk straight up a steep hill - not much fun when dragging bags at 11pm. Finally we made it - later I found that is NOT the closest station, despite being on the hotel website - and checked into room 'S2'.

WOW! We had one of the penthouse suites - the better of the 2 if the view is anything to go on - and it was *NICE*. The only problem was - it obviously had a smoker in it despite the fact that the hotel is non-smoking! It stunk like an ashtray - so we opened up the sliding glass balcony doors for some respite as we unpacked and wound down from the trip. What a great room - the best yet - with a king size bed, free wireless internet, LCD TV, huge bathroom with twin basins and a spa bath! And the view - a wrap-around balcony with views over the city since we were on the side of a hill. Still not quite sure how we managed to score this room?!?

After catching up on some emails and making some plans for tomorrow we crashed. And the pillows were even comfortable!

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