Advertisement
Published: April 4th 2010
Monument in Bordeaux
Loved the sky in this shotHi from lovely Barcelona, Spain where we have been since yesterday evening. We spent a couple of days in Bordeaux which didn´t turn out to be one of our favourite destinations. We had thought we were going somewhere special but to be honest, the whole city looked like it could do with a good bath with its´buildings covered in pollution. France is very dog friendly, but the friendship gets pushed when dogs rule the city as it does there. Dogs are allowed everywhere, including on public transport and in restaurants and their droppings are all over the place. You have to look down as you walk because you are constantly dodging the stuff. There were also lots of smokers there and as you are dodging the doggy droppings you are also weaving in between the smokers trying to avoid breathing in their poison. Not very pleasant and to be honest you just get sick of it. If you are trying to get on a train there is someone who who just has to jump off the train, light up and take a few puffs in your face as you wait to board before jumping back on as the train leaves, usually
Water feature in Bordeaux
Shame there was not water though blowing out the last ñpuff as they enter the train again. Other than that, we tried to make the most of our stay there since it took a big effort to get there in the first place. There were also lots of beggars, but these ones were very assertive - they just came up to you and asked for money which got no response from us.
(Ashley, this enter is just for you) We did have one quite nice day out though, as we took a tram, which was a great service to the other side of the city and walked out way back. We walked along the river which was a nice set up with new shops running all the way down and children´s playgrounds dotted along the way. One great find was the Lindt factory shop which we just had to walk into. The prices were great and we could have spent a lot of money there if not for the luggage restrictions. We did however buy ourselves a nice spot of morning tea along with a big easter egg to munch on for Easter breakfast. I didn´t think it would last the distance, with my lack of
self control and Ron's love of chocolate, but save it we did. And it was well worth it - yum! Hate to tell you folks, but it only cost about $A4.00 for a nice big egg. Oh well.
We spent Good Friday in Bordeaux and thought that this being a mainly Christian country that nothing would be open, so forward planning would be required if we wanted to eat more than just breakfast. We went to our new favourite shop, Carrefours Supermarket to see what we could whip up with the equipment available to us being a kettle and the plates and cutlery we took with us for the trip. As we had no refrigerator, this further narrowed down our choices. In the end we came up with a gourmet meal of soup in a cup and flavoured cous cous, with a tomato which we could chop up and mix through. The meal turned out to be a new winner as our favourite shop came through for us once again. The soup was the nicest cuppa soup I have ever had (not that I have had many) and the cous cous worked out just fine 'cooked' in a bowl with
boiling water thrown in, not to mention the tomato to add the fresh food component. We need not have bothered though, because everything was open in town, everything. We decided to proceed with our pauper´s dinner because it saved having to pack it up and take it to our next destination if nothing else.
The next day we walked through the main drag of shops which was a mix of fine shops with nicely dressed ladies doing their shopping, to the other end of the market when we got to the seedy end which is another reason we didn´t feel right there. Unfortunately the seedy side seemed to take over a lot of the city and spoilt the feel of the whole place. It was not all bad news though, the transport system was brilliant and there were pockets of interesting places to see and we did find a beautiful chocolatier shop which we decided to go into and buy our Easter eggs for each other (other than the Lindt breakfast food of course).
Come Saturday and we were well and truly ready to leave and head off for Barcelona. We had a good breakfast at the hotel then killed
off some time before making the short trip just down the road to the train station. This was going to be another long day of travelling which just had to get a little bit longer. We knew we had to catch three trains to get here with one stop of an hour and another stop of nine minutes. We just hoped that the trains ran on time so we didn´t have to panic about the nine minutes we had to alight, find our bearings and work out which platform we needed next. The first two trains were fine, then we got to the third station to find we had a short delay, which was no problem. We were standing on the platform all happy about our international train trip as the previous trains have been lovely, as have the intercity ones. Then along came our train - a crappy old red rattler of a machine. Our hearts sank as reality hit - we have to sit on THAT for the next four hours or so? So, we get on and check out the grotty eighties decor and the interesting assortment of people who were sharing the trip with us, including
the annoying kids playing their electronic games right next to us, with their loud parents who we listened to all the way, and the bare footed earth child who got on with his huge stringed instrument, a long decorative stick and a metal tipped arrow holding his messy bun on top of his head. He did look funny. Ron muttered under his breath "now all we need are the chickens and we'll really feel like we are travelling cattle class". And we were off to Barcelona, until we got to this side of the French/Spanish border when were delayed by a passport check by the police. That all done and our train left again, very slowly until we got to the other side of the border where we were stopped again, by the police for a passport check. OK, went through all that again but this time they kept the train there for well over an hour with annoying kids getting more bored and parents getting louder. At least the love child was quiet. Funny though, two sets of police checked out our train and not one questioned this guy with a 'weapon' in his head. . We finally set
Barcelona
Spring time off again and arrived late in Barcelona, but at least we were here at last. As we walked through the station there was a guy putting people´s bags through an xray machine. Don´t know what he was looking for - not arrows obviously, just dangerous weapons! Hmmm. We still had to catch two metro trains to get to our hotel and after a short scare due to the hotel entrance being blocked off and moved to another street (we thought it was closed for the night), we settled in for the night.
We have now spent our first day in Spain and we loved it. Barcelona has a lovely feel to it. The streets are clean and best of all, you are not allowed to smoke in the train stations - sweet! Unfortunately, you can smoke in restaurants though, so boo to that Spain. There are lots of dogs but they must have laws about cleaning up cause we didn´t have to play dodge the turds. We walked down into the city this morning (after the choccie breakfast of course) and spent up at some little stalls before checking out the local cathedral. I know, enough of the churches
but this one is something else. It´s hideous! It has been in the making for many many years and is still not finished. Apparently it will take another thirty years to complete. It has bunches of grapes, corn cobs and other assorted foods sitting up on spires and things that look like lollipops sticking out the top on taller spires. We were going to have a look inside to see how bad it got in there but the queues were so long that we decided the outside was enough for us.
We had a great lunch of Paella, sitting outside to avoid the smokers but boy was it good. This was the real deal. After that we wobbled over the road to walk through a park which turned out to be a real gem. The park had the most magnificent water feature that I have seen so far. You can check it out in today´s photos, but it is huge, with large pools and fountains coming out from everywhere. It didn´t have an explanation as to what its´significance is, but it deserves more recognition. A lovely stroll through the rest of the part and we headed down to the
Olympic Port to get another tick on Ron´s list. He originally said that he would love to swim in the Meditteranean Sea, and went equipped for the task, but with the wind blowing, it was just too cold. He did however strip down to bare feet and paddled in the sea, thus ticking the box. This area was beautiful with the palm trees, which we think were planted as part of the Olympics, as well as a fair ground and restaurants along the beach. Instead of buskers, there were sand sculpters who created works and took money. They were great and a lot of fun so we gave them a donation.
We continued with our walk until we found a band playing live music which we stopped and listened to until Ron pointed out the colour of the sky - very dark and ominous clouds coming over and the locals were starting to looked worried, so that worried us! We thought we should head off to the Metro to make the way back to the hotel, which coincidentally was the same idea everyone got at the same time. And just as well, because the heavens were about to open.
We made it just in time because when we got to our second stop you could see the water running down the stairs over the underground station. By the time we reached our destination the rain had resolved and it was just light showers again till we arrived home. Tomorrow we will spend some more time walking around town and Tuesday we will take the hop on, hop off bus which will give us a guided tour of the city. We will then leave for our next destination, Ireland. I don´t think we will have great access to the internet there, so don´t hold out for more blogs for a little while. Until then, Hola from Spain!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.44s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0505s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Aunty Shirley
non-member comment
Bordeaux
Hi Sue and Ron, read your Bordeaux and Barcelona blog with interest once again the photos are beautiful. Sorry you had to dodge the doggy droppings. Yes, the smokers are a pain. We had a lovely busy Easter with Stef. Lots of love Aunty and Unc. Don XXX