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Published: February 10th 2010
Aleks' Postcard Shot!
Andorra La Vella, AndorraSo where was I?
It's hard to keep track with all this stuff. The more that I sit down and try to think through all the things that I've simply done autonomously doing day by day, the more overwhelming it is. Bloody HELL we've done a lot of stuff, and seen a lot of things and met some amazing people and taken some incredible photos. It was only after talking to Mama Wetzlich this morning that I realised the scope of what we've accomplished, and the fact that we're still together after three months of living on top of each other is nothing short of a miracle.
We drove and drove all the way from Sevilla to Evora, a 260 km stint. One thing that I must remind you is that the average speed you do in Europe is about 70km/h, simply due to bad roads, nearly CONSTANT roadworks, towns every four kilometres, and cows.
Yes, cows. I nearly collected one of these magnificent mooers somewhere near the border crossing on low beam at 8pm at night. It scared the shit outta me. Having had a friend badly hurt with a runabout cow on a road of similar
Almost There!
En Route To Evora, Portugal look and feel, I pulled over near a local house and went bustling in on their barbeque and trying to tell them in Spanish that there was someone's prized ruminant trying to turn itself into a smoking plate of ribs. The conversation went something like this... “Ah... perdonar senors y senores, ahh.. vaka? Um... moooo! Up (pointing) on road and I... (miming swerving car)...” and they suddenly got it and all bolted in different directions. I apologised for my bad Spanish and they all told me not to be silly. At least that's what I think they said.
We stayed outside Evora that night, which was our first intended destination in Portugal, and as we were going to bed I heard the sound of bells ringing. It seriously sounded like bicycle bells, and this didn't look like a nice part of town, so my imagination ran away with me and I started imagining a group of young kids on bikes with deadly weapons, ready to attack us. They seemed to only ring when I wasn't looking, so I walked over to the old abandoned graffiti-ed house to investigate. Nothing. I told myself to stop being stupid and went to
bed, slightly paranoid. Aleks woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that the bikes bells had just gone past, also making a strange baa-ing noise.
Stupid Fish.
The next morning after wrestling with a water hose, getting saturated and covered in grease, and spilling my muesli as well, we finally managed to get into the centre of Evora. It was a very cute little town, and housed not only an ancient Roman Temple of Diana, but an awesome cathedral where for €4.50, we could climb right up onto the roof itself and look out across the neighbouring countryside. Unfortunately at the time it was a fairly drizzly day, so the view was a little less spectacular than it could have been, but it was still amazing. The place also had some beautiful cloisters and a fairly ornate interior, but the rooftop was the highlight.
The main reason we had schlepped our asses all the way to Portugal, apart from the promise of Mateus Rose and Piri Piri (but not Port), was the Capella des Ossos. Capella des Ossos, for those of you who don't speak Portuguese (Hi Maria!), means “The Chapel Of
Bones”. Sounds ominous? Justified. This place is nothing less than a chapel completely made out of real human bones. Not just leg bones or arm bones, but skulls of all shapes and sizes (including baby skulls), hands, feet and full skeletons. It was €2 entry, and as soon as you walk in there you realise that it's actually a place of worship and not just a tourist destination, even though you wouldn't know it. It was absolutely spectacularly creepy, and there's not a word I can say to describe it. See photos.
We got out of Evora and had some lunch by the side of the road before driving to Estremoz, a beautiful little town that epitomises a small country town. Think little men standing around in groups arguing about something vehemently in Portuguese, wearing those little hats they wear. The average age in town is about 65, and so it's distinctly lacking the large groups of preened girls and polyester clad greaser boys which is nice, especially if you're the kind of tourist that's looking for that kind of thing rather than bars and beaches. We wandered aimlessly around for a while (as we're having a tendency to
The Cathedral
Evora, Portugal do more often these days) and took a look at the castle and the chapel, before slowly making our way back to the car.
On the way back I discovered an extraordinary thing: the town houses a scale model of of the solar system, where one point in the town has the Sun, then somewhere else in town has a scale mode of Mercury, and Mars and Earth and so on. It's great: I guess it's a bit of space age worldliness for a town that seems to be otherwise lost in time.
We got back on the road and drove to a place that the Lonely Planet said was a don't-miss, and just a hop step and a jump from Estremoz. Castelo de Vide turned out to be just another town, with just another castle, and was definitely NOT a hop step and a jump away at 80km. But it was still worth a couple of photos, being the castle weary happy snappers that we are. That was it for Portugal then. Yep, a fleeting visit, but it was always going to be. Portugal is the kind of place that we would definitely like to go back
and visit though, as the rolling countryside is something that we haven't seen since we were in England. It really was incredibly pretty, and we'd like to see more of it next time when it's not the middle of winter. There were castles dotted everywhere and more of the white pueblos blancos villages, intermingled with olive trees and farmland. It really has promise. Gets two thumbs up from both of us.
In a flash we were back over the border to Spain, and aiming for Caceres for no particular reason, other than it was on the way to Toledo, our final Spanish destination. Being so close to Madrid, I can almost hear you ask why we didn't bother. Well, after having being robbed in Barcelona we didn't really fancy going to another major Spanish city. The higher the population, the more people out of work, and the more likely someone is going to be targeting vans covered in octopus graffiti. That and the fact that Madrid held nothing particularly attractive for either of us. It's right in the middle of the country and at an altitude of 600m; it was going to be cold as well. As we drove
along we saw something that we haven't seen since Poland: stork's nests! The big leggy buggers were everywhere. I really don't understand how they can put themselves on top of power lines like that and not turn into roast chicken.
Castilla La Mancha, the region that was not only the stomping ground of Don Quixote but also houses the world famous Toledo, is generally quite a rolling grassy kind of place, and fairly featureless as it goes. There is also a region-wide road building scheme going on, and subsequently the traffic is slowed to a crawl in many spots and any chance the countryside had at being beautiful was trashed. Toledo appeared over a hill finally, and what a sight it was to behold. Like many of the places that we've seen so far in Southern France and also Spain, it was very yellow due to the sandstone used; that and it was about a 9/10 on first sighting, even from the car. The whole place is built up on a big hill, and there has been no shortage of spending on making it look like an architectural wonder.
Holy Toledo Batman!
And so your two intrepid
travellers drove in with their mouths open, and decided that the first thing to do would be look for somewhere to stay. It turns out that there was a camping just off the main road called El Greco. By just off the main road, I mean 12km, fifty wrong turns, getting stuck in the middle of town somehow, setting the GPS to “El Greco” and finding a DIFFERENT El Greco Motel, and then finally finding it by accident. It was laugh-a-minute stuff. As we drove into town we also noticed police choppers buzzing around all over the place, and after doing some shopping we had to wiggle our way back through a bunch of cop car roadblocks to the campsite. Something was definitely going on, but we're not sure what.
The campsite was quite standard, but the heated bathrooms were a real treat. The patch of dirt we stayed on cost us a hearty €27: nothing to be sneezed at, but for a night's accommodation it's pretty reasonable. There were cats EVERYWHERE, like at least 12-15 of them, and I couldn't go to the bathroom without accidentally stepping on one and getting hissed at. We did our washing, charged
all the batteries that needed charging, and generally did some catching up on bits and pieces in the fading sunlight of the afternoon of the 20th.
The 21st saw me wake up grumpy after a righteously crap sleep, but a good hot shower and getting on the road soon after sorted me out. We parked in the free parking near the bus station and proceeded to go wandering up the near-vertical streets to the main section of old town. The view from the streets around the area down over the plains was just beautiful, and after getting a few photos we succeeded in getting well and truly lost in the tight alleyways. This was just fine by us, as the more we got lost the more we realised what a beautiful place Toledo really was.
We eventually found a Cop and asked him where to go, and then beetled off to the Tourist Info to get our grubby hands on a map. I then walked across the square to the local Cathedral and went inside. The place was just another Cathedral and I wasn't allowed to take photos, so I felt a little ripped off after paying €7.
It did however have the most amazing 16th century high altar section I have seen in a while (Custodia de Arfe). The whole thing was made out of about 183kg of silver and 18kg of pure gold and was just massive, about 25m high. And I thought the Frenchies were the kings of opulence. Aleks meanwhile was walking around the little shops checking out the hand painted decorative tiles that seem to be the fashion in this part of the world, so she was well and truly content to wait for me.
One of the don't-miss sights to see in Toledo (apparently) is a painting in the Iglesia de Santo Tome by El Greco himself, “El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz” aka The Burial Of Count Orgaz. The painting was truly spectacular due to it's size (about 3 x 4m) and the realism with which it had been painted. The lighting and expressions on the faces of the people in the painting was just baffling. It was like a photo! The rest of the Iglesia was crap, to put it bluntly, and at €2.50 it was a rather steep entry price too. For us, it wasn't exactly getting our
The Chapel/Museum
Estremoz, Portugal money's worth, but we're glad we saw the painting. Leaving the Iglesia we made for the local Jewish quarter and visited the Monasterio de San Juan des Los Reyes, a Franciscan monastery founded by the famous Fernando and Isabel (I shouldn't have to tell you who they are by now - the Catholic Monarchs). The chains of the religious prisoners from the liberation back in 1492 still hang from the walls! The cloisters are also an amazing part to see: a mix of Mudejar and late Flemish Gothic architecture.
The rest of the time there was spent walking through the wonderful streets, and marvelling at the fact that there aren't many places where you can pass five completely different religious buildings in one block. Synagogues, convents, churches, mosques and others all stand within spitting distance of each other: the model of religious tolerance I have to say. There's places we've been so far where that would have never been acceptable! We were done with Toledo after five hours and at half past three we jumped in the van and turned on the afterburners. It was time to get some heavy kilometre-work done, and I was sitting right on the
speed limit wherever possible. The countryside on the way to France changed so dramatically: canyons around Madrid, desert and industrial sprawl near Lleida, and dry scrub near Zaragoza.
The next day saw us make a major decision at the intersection of the C-14 and the N-145 at La Seu d'Urgell, a place with a very French name but still in Spain. The decision was thus: do we go to Andorra, or do we keep rolling on towards the French border? We really couldn't make up our minds, and I wasn't sure whether we were going to get stuck in snow or not. It was already rather cold in Toledo, and Andorra ain't exactly a low-altitude area. The mountains there are somewhere between 2200 and 2900m and this makes up 90% of the 25 x 20km countryside. We luckily happened across some very helpful ladies in a Tourist Information office just near the intersection who told us that though there was a lot of snow around in the high spots, there hadn't been snow for a week and the roads were as dry as a nun's undies. You little ripper! Decision made, Andorra here we come!
We jumped on
Great Shot!
Estremoz, Portugal the road and headed for Andorra La Vella, the eponymous main drag town either side of the second of only three highways in the whole country. From what everyone says (including LP) we needed to avoid the main street as it's nothing but a fuming, shop-lined traffic jam. We took the other road around it, and soon were hiking the van up some mega steep roads. It was literally a 20 minute drive and we were ¾ of the way across the country. It probably would have been 15 minutes if we hadn't been stuck behind a truck. It's just like one giant ski-town, but the ironic thing was that even though it was covered in snow, it was about 14 degrees in the sun.
We wound our way up the twisty turny mountain highway, marvelling at the dust on the road. The ski lifts were still going and there were people skiing everywhere, but the snow didn't look too nice to us. They'd obviously had a LOT of snow before it dried up; we have a photo of a 6ft road sign with only the top foot sticking out of a snowdrift, in which you could actually see
Castello de Vide
Near Estremoz, Portugal layers of snow similar to rock sediment. It was just incredible. To see the bright white Andorran countryside in the blazing sun and blue skies was just fabulous, and it afforded us some snowy alpine views that we really didn't get to see too much of when we were in Les Gets due to the crap rainy weather. It gave us a far better idea of what it all really looks like, and we took heaps of photos. Highest point on the highway? 2408m at the Esso Service station. That, my friends, is an incredible place to fuel up your car. Cheap fuel too: €1.01 as opposed to the €1.20-1.30 we'd been paying.
We navigated back down the other side of the road summit and skipped the expensive tunnel over to France, instead opting for the beautiful but treacherous looking road down. It was a 10% gradient going down a SUPER-windy road for 13.5km. The problem, folks, is that on these types of roads you will almost certainly get stuck between dickhead Mercedes drivers and the odd bus or truck. For us, we got stuck between two buses, three trucks, thirty normal cars and about 1000 dickhead Merc drivers.
Across Toledo
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain One guy thought it was a smart idea to overtake three cars and a truck at 80km/h around a hairpin blind corner. What type of car was he driving? I'll give you two guesses, but you'll only need one. He barely missed an oncoming Fiat that he would have destroyed had he hit it. Anyway, the trip over that 13.5km took us about three quarters of an hour, it was that tight.
That night we stopped at Macca's and did some net stuff and blog updating, before Aleks took the wheel. She got us all the way to Beziers, near Montpellier in France, and we stopped at the exact same truck stop that we'd stopped at before on our previous journey to Nimes. I suppose there's only so many truck stops on the motorways in Southern France, and I reckon we've stopped at most of them.
The morning of the 23rd of January Aleks drove us to Provence, where we had a ham and salad baguette with aioli for lunch. I would like to point out that we'd been waiting to find aioli through our entire trip, and so this was a big deal for us. I took
Another Glance Over The Town
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain over the driving and we ended up at St Tropez in the fading afternoon light. St Tropez is, of course, a beautiful place. But once again it's just not the right time of year for it. We drove around a little bit and got a feel for the place, but barely stopped at all. There wasn't much at all in terms of tick-the-box things to see, but in the time we were there I managed to see a Ferrari California, two BMW X6's, and a Merc ML63 AMG-spec. For those of you who have no idea, that's about $AU750,000 worth of cars in a 400m stretch of road. That night we bedded down in a truck stop near Cannes which was excellent, it had a little LeClerc supermarket, WiFi and a lounge area too, so we got some more net work done and an early night.
We parked in Cannes the next morning and Aleks was sad that she couldn't see the place with her Uncle Norbert. For those who don't know, Norbert is Aleks' Aunt Ola's best friend, and before he died recently he lived in an apartment somewhere in Cannes. I know that it would have been
The 15th Century Facade
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain a totally different experience if he had been around, and I certainly would have liked to have met him. But unfortunately we were forced to check the place out ourselves. It was a fairly basic sort of visit: we weren't planning to stay long on the Cote d'Azur, and so the Cannes part started with a trip to the beach. We stood on the rocks and marvelled at the blueness of the Med, and lapped up the warm morning sunshine. We then went wandering around some markets where we had a couple of espressos and bought ourselves five CD's for €5! Bonus! We haven't had any music on hand since our iPods were stolen in Barcelona, so it's been crappy radio. But now we have soul, blues, and funk to light our way. Thank God for Curtis Mayfield. We also walked around the Marina and marvelled at the millions of dollars worth of “White Boats” just sitting around. They really were spectacular, one of the most amazing collections of maritime hotness I've seen in a long time. After that, and walking along the Cannes Film Festival's red carpet, we decided it was time to go to Nice.
Nice (pronounced
Wow, That's Impressive
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain “Neese”, bogans) was kinda like a bigger version of the other two, but totally different at the same time. It was here that we were supposed to meet up with our friend Leszek and his parter Zbysiek, but they had been detained in Paris and it wasn't to be. Oh well, and we were so desperate for a shower too. After finding some parking we wandered slowly down through the streets toward the water, and upon arrival we were graced with an amazing scene. A guy was playing sax to an enamoured crowd, there were young folks practising their inline skating moves on the super-wide pavement, and the restaurants lined along the waterfront were filled with the rich and the (non)famous. Seriously, if you ever want to see an excess of fur, makeup, brylcreem, Ray Ban sunglasses and Louis Vuitton handbags, the Cote d'Azur is the place to go. It just stank of rich, and the restaurants were packed to bursting. I had to laugh, and then switched to drooling as more Ferraris, Porsches and Aston Martins rolled past.
We bought ourselves a lovely roll each, filled with all sorts of delicious cheeses and meats, and as we ate
we walked down to the port again to get our second fill of white boats, and weren't disappointed. We then spent a couple of hours simply wandering the streets and basking in the hazy sunshine, before finally getting in our cheap-arse camper and taking up residence for the night in a high-altitude truck stop near Beausoleil, overlooking none other than the Monte Carlo Casino itself! We had some super richo chicken soup for dinner, and revelled in being poor skiving backpackers.
The 25th saw us do three countries in a day again - France, then Monaco, then finally Italy. We started off the day waltzing into Monte Carlo, and parked the car in one of the most amazing carparks I've ever been in. We pulled our ticket out of the boom gate and then went down (underground) TEN whole levels before we found a park right next to a Porsche 911 Turbo ($250K). I parked very carefully, needless to say. The going rate in the carpark in Monte Carlo was great for the first hour (free) but then €2.50 every hour after that. It was going to have to be a quick visit. The first thing on the itinerary
I've Never Seen So Much Gold
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain was obviously the Casino, and we got the mandatory photos out the front. For some reason I was thinking that this was the casino that James Bond visited in the new Casino Royale movie, and was stumped when it looked nothing like it. I later discovered that the new one centres around the MONTENEGRO Casino. Stupid fish, again.
After that, we wandered slowly through the town (and half the state I reckon, as it's only about 200m long) down towards the marina. We were going to go up and see Prince Rainier and Princess Grace Kelly's graves in the cathedral, but realised that it was going to be another 2 hours on our time frame and some very steep walks. Well, steep if we could even find out how to get up to the castle. Seriously, the place is like a rabbit warren: because it's in such a small space everything is pretty much built on top of each other. It 's the only place I've ever been that has 400 elevators, travelators, escalators and other ators (not alligators) for public use in such a small space! It called to mind an M. C. Escher painting of castle turrets
with stairways leading all over the place in a very confusing way, and after three attempts to work it out, we decided to go.
Why, you ask? Because it was time to go to Italy! ITALY! Eeek! We were so excited! Aleks was practically salivating at the thought of hooking into a big fat margherita pizza, and I already had a napkin on and my fork and spoon ready for some epic Italian pasta. We jumped on the road along the coastline and got the usual photos of the border just as it started pissing down with rain. The wind was howling too, and made for a slightly unpleasant first impression, however the Mediterranean still looked as beautiful as she always has even under a grey sky. It was a very tight road all 254km to Genoa, where we turned off after deciding to skip it and make a beeline for Verona. About 50km in we were accosted by our old friend snow, and seeing it piled up everywhere and falling gently, I pulled over at a truckstop at about 9pm and left the iffy driving till the next morning. Strange things happen to Australians on dark snowy roads,
Beautiful Courtyard
Toledo, Castilla La Mancha, Spain my friends.
And that's where I'll leave you groovers. Next stop, the home of Romeo & Juliet!
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