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Published: January 17th 2010
I will start this blog with a question/rant, readers. What do you do when you finally get on the road after 7 days sitting around getting drunk, and at the bottom of your first big hill, your car won't start and is making funny alternator noises when you turn the key. Hmm? You call the RAC of course! The RAC is the UK's NRMA equivalent, so this is usually a dandy idea. However, it also means you have to somehow get hold of their international phone number. Directory existance? In France? You must be kidding me.
The numbers for RAC are stupid; similar to us having those idiotic 13-something numbers that you can't call from outside the country. Credit card fraud in the Bahamas? No worries! Just call NAB on 13 10 45. If you're lucky, you'll get a nice message from the local network operator saying, “Sorry, moron, your country's stupid number doesn't work over here, enjoy your bankruptcy!” That's how we started off the 3rd of January, dear friends, as we headed out of Les Gets. Car started fine in Les Gets, of course. We parked 20 minutes down the road in Tanenges, ate a sandwich, and then
Greetings Espana!
The Border Crossing From France To Spainit wouldn't start. Go figure. After I finally managed to get the RAC's number, I talked to a lovely English girl called Liana who sorted everything right out cheerfully, and that brought my blood pressure down.
Three quarters of an hour later the small angry looking mechanic turned up in a hurry, jumped the battery off one of his own, and we were away. I've never heard a car's alternator make whizzing clunking noises when the battery is dead. They usually are dead, and nothing works at all. So it was a new experience for me. Hoo-rah.
We got on the road like a shot out of a gun then, destination Barcelona. 'Twas a fairly uneventful day though, as much of the countryside was stuff we'd seen previously. Yes it was a bit of backtracking, but totally worth it for the week we'd spent in the Alps! We pulled up outside Nimes for the evening at the EXACT SAME TRUCK STOP we'd stayed in last time going in the other direction... completely by accident. I was having a serious case of deja vu then had some flashbacks and realised what was going on. We had some righteously crap
Nemo In The Main Square
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain pasta (surprise!) for dinner and slept very well, five hours of the trip already done. The next day was more of the same after a late start, and we covered the rest of the distance (total 13 hours drive) and only spent €50 on tolls (picture Aleks throttling me.) That night we stayed in a truck stop near Montserrat, about 50km northwest from Barca, as the monastery atop the 1200m cliff was our tourist destination for the next day. We had a beer at the AutoGrill and splashed out on some two minute noodles for dinner.
Not much of an introduction to Spain, I know, but it was a bit of a flat out ride down there. We got some photos at the border in amongst the tobacco shops and restaurants, but other than that we kind of just got on with it. There were a few interesting things that we noticed along the way. Firstly, what a phenomenal change to go from alpine, snowy conditions to something that looked essentially like a backdrop for a spaghetti western. It was all red dirt and rubble as soon as we got close to the border, and not very much moist
Inside The Basilica
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain vegetation at all. The fuel price also plummeted from €1.25-€1.35 to just under €1.10. I'll soitanly be strapping a few jerry cans to the outside of the van before I head over to Italia. The other thing that we noticed was that everything got, well... a bit shabbier. Northern Spain isn't exactly what you would call the most manicured of places. Bit like southern California really. But again, I digress.
After breaky in bed we drove up the winding mountain road to Ministrol de Montserrat, perched almost a kilometre up a series of weird, bulbous peaks in the mountains northwest of Barcelona. The town at the bottom wasn't much chop, but the drive up was low-gear and quite spectacular even though low cloud inhibited our views a fair bit. The monastery itself was free, but the parking slugged us for €5, but it was definitely worth it. The place was quite touristy, with cafes and restaurants and gift shops and all that sort of crap, but behind the facade was a beautifully preserved church, exquisitely decorated and filled with religious paraphernalia. The selling point for the place was the La Morenetta (the Black Virgin, if there is such a
The Gold Mosaic Ceiling
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain thing), a 12th century wooden carving of the Madonna and baby JC. A chance to touch her FOOT sees thousands of cowering, praying fanatics rushing over to the place every year to free expunge their souls of sin, herpes and whatever else. I didn't really care that much for the statue, but got a photo anyway. What really grabbed my attention was that it was so dark inside. Not in a light sense, but in the fact that all the marble in the church was a really dark polychromic marble, almost black. It was crazy, after seeing so many places in France trying so hard to be light and fluffy; this place almost revelled in dripping with gilded fittings and heavy blackened wood. It was a real eye opener. There was also an alcove just near the album was a room fitted out with one of the most extensive and intricate medieval mosaics we've ever seen.
So on the whole, the place was a win. There was some crappy audiovisual tour of the working parts of the monastery itself, but we gave it a miss. The clouds cleared up enough toward the end of the visit for us to
The Black Virgin - La Moreneta
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain see across the flat, steppe'd mesas of the region, looking like lego. See photos. We arrived in Barcelona at around midday, parked the car, and made a beeline for the local religi-house, Barri Gotic.
… Yes, yes I KNOW I spend a lot of time in churches, but don't let it fool you, I'm just as full of disbelief and cynicism as ever. It's just the bigness of it all. I'm Generation Y, and that means I like big, pretty and expensive from time to time. Thank my American TV upbringing for that.
Anyway, this place was built on top of the ruins of an 11th century Romanesque church, and also ticked the big, gaudy, and expensive boxes. The interior was, of course, MASSIVE... the naves were something in the region of 40m high, and the alcoves around the main tabernacle were filled with enormous gilded shrines to various saints and angels. The cloister out the back was a surprise though, as it was like the old open cloisters we had seen in Ireland, but there was stacks of plants and trees and little ponds in there too. Oh, and big, white honking geese just waiting to attack
Looking Over The Basilica
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain silly tourists. So that was great. After we bailed from the church we then had a roll for lunch and went to the Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat. That's a mouthful isn't it? This place contained a 4000m2 excavation of ancient Roman ruins, and the Palau Reial Major, which was once the residence of the Kings of Catalunya and Aragon.
We did a bit more walking around that day, checking out Spain's most famous boulevard (La Ramble) and followed it all the way down to Port Vell (Old Port) for a view of the newly designed marina area. And get this: it was EXACTLY like being in Darling Harbour. Exactly. Down to the red brick pavement. We also bought a Spanish SIM card for the phone and then got ourselves to a little cafe called the Cat Bar. There we had ourselves a couple of pints of Moritz beer. It's great stuff: one of those beers that you keep saying “Worr! Tha's orright ay!” to, in a manly way, with each gulp to the bottom. We also managed to jump on the internet there and publish a couple of blogs. After that we went to the Eglesia de Santa
Giant Clam Anyone?
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain Maria del Mar (phew!). It was also nice but nothing special, see photos. On the way back to the car to finish the day up, we had a slice of pizza each and walked past a museum that was charging €8 for entry - the place was completely dedicated to the study of woolly mammoths. Surely that's interesting subject matter, and fairly unique, but it aint worth eight bucks. We spent the rest of the evening hunting for shopping centres, being tired and argumentative, and headed to bed at a medium pace.
At 6 am the next morning, the 6th, my bro decided to call and gave me a nice wakeup. If I were at home I would have told him to piss off and call back later, but it's always nice to hear from a family member when travelling. The next bit of excitement was discovering that the back right tyre had a slow puncture, and needed changing. I set to work and got my hands dirty, and before long had the sucker changed to an equally balding tire. Ahhh the ark... a splendid machine to be sure. The first item on the itinerary on this beautiful sunny
Rows Upon Rows Of Candles
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain day was a trip to the beach at La Barceloneta. We parked the car in the nearest underground car park next to a couple of ex-charity rally cars that had been sitting there collecting dust since 2007. I took some photos on Aleks' camera, but can't show you for reasons you'll soon discover. The beach was pretty crap, and it was a good six degrees out in the sunshine, and after ambling around we decided it was probably best to re-park the car a little closer to the other attractions that we wanted to see in town.
Charging a paltry €3 an hour, the Manhattan carpark near the famed Segrada Familia was the ideal spot to leave the camper, and after ditching it we walked a few blocks to find Barcelona's most famous building. Designed by Antoni Gaudi and commencing construction in the mid 19th century, the Segrada Familia looks from the outside like it may have been built as a sly nod to the occult, and all of Christendom simply never noticed. The iconography on the outside is hardly traditional; it's like one giant contemporary artwork dedicated to religion, and kind of creepy in parts. The building is
huge on a scale that makes the other churches I've ever seen look smaller than a bee's weiner. I know i'm prone to exaggeration but it really is monstrous. Look, here's a number for you... each of the 8 towers at either end of the church (a city block in ground coverage) are over 100M HIGH. Beat THAT, Notre Dame. There's going to be 18 towers in total, and it may not even be finished by it's expected date of 2020. We didn't go in as the bastards were charging €10.40 to see something that's not even finished being BUILT yet, but decided we'd use our home teleport machine in 2020 and see it when it's done instead.
In consideration of the fact that I'd never heard of this Gaudi guy (oh but Aleks has, of course) we decided to go off on a little walk down the main fashion house street of Barcelona, as The Bible said that there were a couple more buildings that he'd designed. These were called La Pedrera and Casa Batllo. There were two more, but they were hidden behind the second one. The general idea was that this guy was a complete lunatic,
and all his buildings have a trademark waviness to them. I guess you could probaly thank opium for that, and I don't know how the hell he convinced the Barcelona City Council to let him anywhere near a pencil and paper. Nonetheless, by that point, we had unanimously decided that Barca was single-handedly the most interesting city in the architecture stakes that we'd seen yet, Gaudi aside.
It was then that we decided it was time to visit another one of the highly visited places in Barcelona, Montjuic. Montjuic is a hill topped by Castell Montjuic, an ancient fortification used over many years as a viewpoint to the sea and surrounding area, a defensive structure, and the original colonisation point of the city. We drove up there after a bit of faffing around arguing with Sean (God rest his soul) and found a park almost all the way up after taking some photos. We wandered up to the Castell which was free entry, and took in the amazing views of the Med and the surrounding countryside. We sat on cannons, perched on ramparts, drank a beer and laughed and played, before returning to the car.
As Aleks went
Views Over The Valley
Monestir De Montserrat, Catalonia, Spain to open the door, she said, “Nemo, why is the car unlocked?” “I locked it!”... (silence)... “Oh shit... SHIT! Nemo”. She was pointing at an open, empty glovebox. A glovebox which had once contained both our iPods, Aleks' camera, two pairs of leather gloves, one of our mobile phones, our GPS and Aleks' Prada wallet in which was $100 worth of aussie cash amongst other things. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and then my eyes went down to the drivers side door lock. Smashed to bits.
You can see in the photos exactly what happened. It's amazing what a hammer and a screwdriver will do when used well. They even managed to ruin the sheet metal underneath the door handle. Poor old Aleks had a minor freak out, and understandably so, but I calmed her down and tried to remain positive. To look on the bright side, all our important information such as our keycards and our personal documentation were safe with us in our backpacks. You have to be thankful for small mercies I suppose. I called 112, not knowing the local number for the police, and talked to a helpful operator. I also
Inside The Barri Gotic
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain called Wicked Campers (the rental company) and our travel insurance to get it all sorted out. The police called me back rather quickly; even though the lady who called me spoke no English at all we managed to communicate, and a squad car turned up fast. The guys were really helpful and spoke quite a good amount of English. It's a little hard trying to keep a clear head and keep it all together, AND speak Spanish, when you want to beat the shit out of the next Spaniard you see.
The funny thing in all this is that when we arrived at the first photo view, a small white Ford Courier van pulled up quite close behind our camper with three young blokes hanging around it and the camper. When we arrived back they walked away, but they were parked so close I couldn't back out, but they made light of it and kindly moved it. As we drove further up the hill they followed us a little way, and then drove off. Just after we got back to the van, nearly an hour later, the same three guys drove past with their eyes glued straight ahead. Why
the hell would the same van still be driving around? It was just a little too convenient for me, so I made a mental note of their license plate number just to be safe. I bet my left testicle that they did it, the bastards, and if they did, karma will sort them out. B1853 SY. I will never forget that number plate 😊
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we followed the squad car to the local Comisario (Police Station) and I wrote a written statement and an inventory of goods stolen, while Aleks waited nervously with the now permanently unlocked van in the carpark outside. They told me that Montjuic is a really bad spot for break ins, which makes me wonder why they don't have CCTV working there full time to try and arrest it's development a bit. Overall, the statement writing and formal interview with another officer took about an hour in total, and after a while we took all our paperwork and chuffed off to the nearest truck stop, a little frazzled but okay.
So that was our introduction to Spain. Nice, and not so nice at the same time. We were
in contact with Julie from Wicked Campers again and she was really helpful; thank our lucky stars we have someone so great to deal with in the UK. She put her contact in Barcelona, Mick, in touch with us that night: a brilliant Australian bloke who was totally sympathetic as it had happened to him before as well in a different circumstance. He told us he'd set us up with a smashing new camper if we could meet him in town the next morning at 10am.
The morning of the 7th saw us doing just that, albeit after a fair bit of getting lost without our GPS: the Southeast Barca suburbs are like a rabbit warren. We were a bit down in the dumps, but determined that this minor infarction wasn't going to ruin the rest of our time in Spain. Easier said than done, maybe, but we steeled ourselves nonetheless. Being lost made us a little late, but Mick couldn't have cared less, and we turned up to find him standing in front of what could possibly be the most awesome camper we could have asked for, and waaaaaay better than the Ark (but we miss you, Noah).
The new beast is blue, with two giant octopuses spraypainted on it, and has a tagline on the back that says “Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Beer Holder”. How completely appropriate... of course Aleks fell in love straight away as it combined three of her favourite things: beer, the colour blue, and octopuses! We haven't named it yet though... and are still at a loss as to what to call it. There, illegally parked near the Ferry Wharf, as the stupid drizzling rain fell steadily, we changed all our stuff over to the new camper, marvelling at how clean and new it was, like it had just been fitted out. Mick was a complete champion, a consummate professional and a great friendly face to see in amongst the shitfight. He really made our day. After taking us to a petrol station and giving us ten euro to bring our fuel up to the same as the old camper, he wished us well and went back to work. We however, wanted to get out of Barcelona ASAP, and set the new GPS to Tarragona.
They say all's well that ends well, and I have to agree. Sure
The Placa Del Rei
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain it will take a lot of stuffing around getting the insurance company to give us some money, but for now the new camper is consolation enough for that. It drives like a dream, and even though it's slightly thirstier on the fuel front, the wider tires, great suspension and longer bed length certainly make up for it.
We're gonna be just fine. See you next blog.
- Fishy
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Chandra Paramita
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Spaiiiin :)
Hi there, keep writing, I'll be wait another blog from you.. :)))