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our Citroen C2
the easiest car to parallel park ever...about as long as it is wide (that's it hiding behind Matt)We rented a Citroen C2, which is roughly the size of a shopping cart, but which pleasantly surprised us with it's awesome gas mileage (roughly 65 miles to a gallon) and was plenty spacious for the two of us. We took off from Alicante and headed north through Valencia along the Mediterranean until we finally reached Barcelona-it was a much longer drive than expected because after testing out our first toll road we decided that $8 for every 5 miles of road couldn't possibly be worth the time it saved us, and so we stuck with the national highways. We spent two nights in Barcelona at our first youth hostel of our entire trip-The Garden House. We spent our full day in the city touring the usual sights...Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, the beach, La Rambla, etc.
After Barcelona we headed up to the northern coast of Spain, with a quick stop off at Pamplona to see where the famous running of the bulls takes place each July. Sadly, we were a few months too early, and so Matt had to reenact it on his own without any bulls. Our first stop on the northern coast was San Sebastian. Taking some of our
friend Isak's recommendations, who lived there for 6 months, we hiked out around the headland, saw the beach and the old quarter, and had our first pinxos (like tapas except they don't come free with your drink and most are little toppings on slices of baguettes).
From San Sebastian we took a day trip to France, to the adorable beachside town of St Jean de Luz, where Megan ate her first French- French baguette. We also saw Biarritz, which is a famous French surfing town. Both places were exaclty as we had pictured France-complete with little children named Batiste babbling in French.
From San Sebastian we took the coastal route to Santander with many stop offs at lovely bays-if anyone is looking for a good summer surf trip, we actually saw better waves along the northern coast of Spain and France than we did in either Indo or the Philippines. In Santander we had our first Couch Surfing experience. Couch Surfing is an idea that has become really popular in the past few years in which people create a profile online and offer their couches/guest rooms to people travelling. It is a great way to stay for free as well
bike backpackers
Maybe we'll try this way our next trip! How do they get on and off...we couldn't figure it out for the life of us?! as to meet locals and find out about some of the less touristy spots in the places you are visiting (for more info...visit: www.couchsurfing.com). We stayed with Alvaro Ramos, brother of Sergio Ramos (not the famous Spanish defender), who is a Med student in Santander. His friend Jon came over to the apartment and the two of them cooked us a traditional Spanish Tortilla. We spent the evening feasting on the best tortilla we had our entire trip and learning about Spanish music, festivities and pastimes. Both Alvaro and Jon were incredibely hospitable and it was a really great first couch surfing experience. They even sent us on our way with our own Spanish music cd they had burned for us.
We woke up early the next day to wind our way up into the Picos de Europa to the tiny town of Poncebos. From there we hiked for a few hours along the Ruta de Cares admist the gorgeous peaks and babbling brooks. We had a small incident while eating lunch in which a herd of mountain goats attempted to steal our meat and cheese, but we succeeded in escaping with almost all of our provisions intact.
After our
La Rambla
main street in Barcelona...and tourist headquarters hike we continued our drive westward towards Santiago de Compostela. Our eyes started to get heavy about an hour out of Santiago, so we stopped in a little town called Ponferrada at a rural hostel run by a friendly old Spanish guy. He had a thick rural accent and our attempts at comunicating was more guesswork than actual communication.
In Santiago de Compostela, which is famous as the end of the Camino de Santiago (a couple month walk through the north of Spain that was originally a pilgramage to Santiago's cathedral), we had our second couch surfing experience. This time we stayed with an incredibely friendly Columbian couple, Jamie and Diana, who had just moved to Santiago a month before for work. They opened their home to us and despite some heavy downpours showed us around the city sights, including the famous cathedral. We went to their favorite restaurant for lunch and had a gigantic multi-course meal that kept us full for hours. We introduced them to one of our Spanish vices, Churros con Chocolate, and as it turns out it has become one of Jaime's new passions in life. After our second couch surfing experience, we still had yet
Barcelona beach
a bit seedy (and cold) to say the least to sleep on a couch as both hosts offered us our own bedrooms! Sadly, we left Jaime and Diana's after only one night, but we had a packed itinerary and had to keep moving despite having made a couple great new friends.
Next stop on the trip was Portugal. We weren't exactly sure when we reached the country, because the only announcement was a simple roadside sign that said "Portugal 1km" and nothing else. Then, all of a sudden, the roadsigns and radio switched into Portuguese, which sounds like a funny version of Spanish. We were amazed at how different the country felt from Spain despite being so close. We spent our one night in the country in the city of Porto, home of the famous Port Wine. We didn't know what to do in Porto, so we tried the wine, and walked a bit along the restored riverfront. It was lovely...both the wine and the river.
The next day we drove down the coast, stopping off in Aveiro to try the Ovos Moles (sweet egg yolks) which we both thought were disgusting. The town was adorable though and easily covered by foot in about five minutes. So, we headed
hanging the laundry out to dry
we discovered that no one in Europe owns a dryer-we'll be more thankful for ours from now on. out to the beach and Matt daringly took his first dip in the other side of the Atlantic, which was "frigid!" We then cut inland from the coast, and crossed back over in to Spain for our next stop, Salamanca. Megan had spent 3 weeks here about ten years before.
Immediately upon reentering Spain, it felt like coming home. We understood the language and the roads felt familiar. Plus, Salamanca was very close to the border and an easy city to navigate, making our arrival almost seamless. We met up with some family friends, Kim and Smoky (and Smoky's dad-Thomas), in Salamanca and they showed us around the city they know very well. They treated us to another fine Spanish-style lunch and then later on some tapeando (tapa hopping). We visited several bars and luckily enough got to see one of the best football matches La Liga had to offer this season. Barcelona beat Getafe in the final minutes of the game and people were going crazy. It added an authentic touch to the evening.
After two days in Salamanca, we revised our plans slightly, and decided to include Madrid as a day trip on our way to Toledo. In
row boats in Barcelona park
A popular pastime-it didn't seem as romantic as you would picture it. Madrid, we took in some of the typical sights, walked through the Latin quarter and spent a few hours in the Museo del Prado. From Madrid, it was a short hour hop down to Toledo. Toledo is the only city in Spain with a completely intact Medieval wall surrounding the old quarter of the city. We strolled through the narrow streets, snapped some photos and ate some dinner.
We decided we were tired of being on the road, sleeping in hostels, and so we hopped back in the car and endured the long trip back to Alicante so that we could sleep in Bristol's comfortable bed and eat her delicious food. Bristol was in Germany for a conference, but we got to see her roomates and enjoy the only few days of warm weather we had during our entire time in Europe. We spent our last two days at the beach-doing precisely what we had done the previous six months of our travels!
Friday night we flew back to London to stay another couple days with our good friend Jamie. We went with him and his girlfriend to the local pub for the Tottenham v. Man U game and had
La Sagrada Familia
Goudi's most famous design. some good 'ole English fun. We woke up bright and early (5am) Sunday morning to catch a few buses and metros to Heathrow airport to begin our attempt at flying home. We were flying home on our friend's buddy passes as we had when we first left to go to Bangkok, and just as it did on the way to Thailand, our flights home were just as trouble free. Before we knew it, we were sitting in business class fully reclined and sipping champagne, watching the poor chumps in economy find their seats.
See ya stateside!
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