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We drove into our campsite about 30km North of Barcelona on Tuesday the 16th June in the arvo. We went directly poolside, then bulked up on a “home” cooked meal and had a good sleep, in preparation for our “perfect” day planned in Barcelona on Wednesday.
Wednesday morning we woke at 6am to leave by 7.30am to ride about 1km from the campsite to the train station for a nice air-conditioned ride into Barcelona. We arrived in Placa de Catalunya (main centre of Barcelona) and headed straight for our first perfect stop.....freshly brewed coffee! After sussing out the tourist office, we had our plan mapped out for the day. We headed down Las Rambla (the main outdoor shopping road - like London’s Oxford Street I guess!) and into the delectable fresh food market. Seriously Brisbane needs one of these, it was amazing, hundreds of types of fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood.... and the list goes on. A few delicacies included skinned sheep heads (see pic below) and LIVE seafood on ice. Yes thats right LIVE, no worrying about the freshness of this seafood, there are literally lobsters, crabs etc (all with their claws bound) still scurrying on the ice, all be it
rather slowly!
From there we headed off to our bus tour for the day. Down to the end of Las Rambla and onto the tourist bus. First stop off the bus was the Gothic Catherdral and the little old town surrounding the cathedral. It was full of quaint little boutiques mixed in with thousands of tourist shops run by overbearing foreigners (not the most enticing when you want to buy authentic goodies from the country you’re in). It was then off to La Sagrada Familia, one of Gaudi’s most famous and yet to be completed works. For those of you who don’t know Barcelona is Gaudi central. The city is literally covered in his artwork and architecture which is modernista style with mosaics everywhere! La Sagrada Familia is a church Gaudi began work on around 1880 and it is due to be completed in 2010, talk about a long time coming. Anyway it was definitely amazing and the detail in this building is insane, guess that’s why its taken over 100 years so far. From La Sagrada Familia we continued to marvel at more of Gaudi’s buildings from our bus tour and stopped at another of his works
at the Gruell park, perched high on the mountain side. As the tourist guides explain this place really is like something you would see in a Dr Seuss book, he was one weird dude thats for sure. Curvy railings, spiral columns, wonky stairs, strange abstract statues, a mosaic lizard statue welcoming you at the entrance.......definately a site to see, if you’re in Barcelona make sure you check it out for yourself!
So after a busy morning of site seeing it was time for lunch, all be it around 2.30pm by this stage! We read the guide book on where to go for lunch and ended up at the next stop on the bus, which was meant to be an amazing little area with great atmosphere within Barcelona. What a great place to stop for lunch hey...NOT! Turns out that during siesta time in this little area literally everything closes and even food was hard to come by. So getting hungrier and fading by the minute in the 30 degree heat we jumped back on the bus back into the heart of the city to get some much needed lunch. (Note to self: in future on “perfect days” of
sightseeing, get lunch earlier!!) By around 4pm we made it to a lovely little rustic stlye tapas bar. It was a charming uncovered brick style building on the inside but with modern settings for eating. Thankfully the food came fast and after sharing 5 or so tapas, bread and icy cold beer we were starting to feel human again.
Our next destination was middle earth. I know Vince has been dying to see what its like to be a hobbit since becoming a Lord of the Rings fan all those years ago and now he was finally on his way! Yes, yes it wasn’t really middle earth, but it was a bar off Las Rambla that is literally in a little dungeon and fully decked out like you are on the set of Lord of the Rings. Talking trees (well trees with faces anyway!), waterfall like fountains, fairy type creatures and twinkling little lights everywhere that give the place that eery kind of atmosphere. Definately a great bar to check out.
By now it was getting onto the early evening, so we jumped back on the bus to tour around the beachfront of Barcelona. Past the Casino, Olympic
Village area (well what was the village for the 1992 games obviously they are lived in apartments now) and along the beach. We hopped off at the waterfront (Port Barceloneta) and soaked in the last of the afternoon sun, watching beach goers frolic and restaurants start to liven up. We walked for miles, literally we were walking forever to find the “perfect” place for our “perfect” day. Unfortunately for us, the place we should have stopped at was right at the beginning of our walk. So we bit the bullet and walked all the way back there. What a mistake! Dinner consisted of overpriced paella and very slack staff. And we can definitely say that 16 euro paella is overpriced when we have had 3 euro paella that is delectable! By 10pm we were ready to leave as we were tired, not enjoying dinner at all and our bus to take us back to the station was due at 10.14pm. The “perfect” day unfortunately ended not so perfect, the staff took at least 10 minutes to get the bill, which by this time Vince was up at the bar trying to pay, and then their machine wouldn’t work saying “connection
failure” which to them meant there was something wrong with our card. Trying to explain to these guys that it is not our card it was their machine was like talking to a brick wall, they had no idea. So getting more and more stressed worrying that we would miss the bus (which would mean a 45 minute long walk to the station), tensions started to rise. After a few heated words another guy came to help and finally got the damn machine to process our card, but not before Vince had explicitly told them how sh!t their food and service was. We got out of there as fast as possible only to see a bus coming up the street about 100 metres away. Running like mad men we got to the bus stop and thankfully it was the right bus - lucky our perfect day didn’t get totally ruined! So back to the station and again literally just making the train by like 1 minute we were off home getting into beddie byes by midnight - whoooo what a long day, around 18 hours i believe?
So from this we have re-assessed our perfect days once again! Yep
trip re-assessment # 3302. We have decided that it was far too long and we really should head home late afternoon and either eat at a restaurant nearby to our campsite or just graze in the afternoon and have a light dinner at home.
Come Thursday we headed off to our mega campsite 20km north of Tarragona. We were in campers heaven when we arrived at this place. It was seriously a resort, with a beautiful pool including pool bar, tonnes of bars and restaurants on site, stunning beach just 100m walk away (yes thats right the glistening blue Mediterranean right on our door step), supermarket, tennis courts, Roman style amphitheatre with live shows everynight, mini golf, Jacuzzi, travel agent, gym...see what i mean it was heaven! So what was wrong with this place i hear you ask. Really not much at all, only that there were loads of tiny tots running around. Damn squealing, noisy kids ruining the serenity, sorry Mum but this has put us off kids for a least another 10 years. Needless to say our days consisted of loads of sun, pool, drinks, beach, food, pool, drinks,food and a show at the amphitheatre to finish
off. The performances included an authentic flamenco show, acrobatic body balance show (and we think the girl in this was definitely made of rubber!), The Lion King and a Brazilian dancing show. Not a bad place for just over 30 euros a night hey!?
After 5 days of lazing about we thought we had best head out for another day sight seeing. So on Wednesday 24th June we went outside the campsite to catch the bus for the 1 hour ride to Tarragona. We waited for 10 minutes, no bus, hmm we thought maybe it’s running late, another 10 minutes, hmmm maybe it was early, another 10 minutes, God damn bus must have been early so lets wait for the next one. Half an hour later and we’d be there for an hour still no bus. So we waited 10 more minutes in case the next one was late but........... nothing. So we went back over to the campsite only for them to inform us that it was a public holiday and there were no buses running - aagghhh how frustrating, that’s the Williams’ luck so Vince keeps telling me. So we made sure the buses were running on
Thursday and this time made the bus and arrived in Tarragona.
As per our usual plan of attack first off was the tourist office as Vince and I were keen on finding out what traditional cultural festivities/sights were around. The lovely tourist office lady informed us that had we been here yesterday we would’ve been able to participate in a huge festival. This is an awesome festival that marks the start of Summer, with street parties, fireworks and the human castle (see pic of statue version below)! The human castle was one of the things we really wanted to see in Spain and we missed it by one day thanks to no buses on the public holiday, Williams’ luck......need i say more.
Anyway on the up side we bought city sight seeing cards which gives you shopping, restaurant, transport discounts and basically got us into all the sights free (as you pay 14 euros for the card), however....with this card came a 2 hour guided tour of Tarragona. As no other tourists were there for 11am Vince and I got our own private tour complete with our charming guide, a Tarragonian local named Paco. Paco really knew his
history inside and out and he literally took us back to ancient times as we pounded the pavement in true Roman style. From the scale model of what Roman Tarraco (as it was called then) looked like, to 8 metre high city walls, through to the very well preserved circus where Roman chariot races took place and finally to the Roman amphitheatre where many gladiators fought we got to see it all and got the best guide we could’ve asked for. Paco informed us of the Roman behaviours and lifestyles, including the fact that they drank wine as they believed it made them clever and funny and they frowned upon beer as it was only for barbarians (hahah sounds about right these days to doesn’t it - that’s us Aussies and Poms beer drinking barbarians).
After our fantastic tour we headed to lunch at one of the main squares in Tarragona. Every single restaurant was in pure Spanish, no English to be found. So randomly we chose a place to eat as we had no idea which one was best. We managed to establish that you could get bread, 3 courses, a bottle of wine and 2 bottles of
water for 10 euro each - sounds too good to be true hey? We were a bit sceptical at the time too, thinking either something was lost in translation or the food is terrible! So we chose our courses (again having no idea, just picking at random) and hoped for the best. The food came out and luckily for us was delightful, fresh and just the type of food we like. It seemed our luck was changing, great tour and now a great big lunch for only 10 euros each.
After lunch we wandered the gorgeous streets of the old town ( I really do love these little tiny winding streets in the old towns of these cities!). But i would have to say that Tarragona has the best old town i’ve seen so far, lovely shops and clean streets that just ooze culture and heritage. We then explored the Musea de Archaeological for some more in depth learning and viewing of Roman sculptures, Roman everyday objects (e.g. coins, kitchen equipment, beauty items etc) and mosaics. After soaking ourselves to the bones with Roman culture it was time to soak ourselves in some beautiful sun down at the Tarragona
beach. Once again the beautiful Mediterranean was shining in all its glory and we enjoyed a nice little dip, sun baking and a spot of people watching (or as Vince calls it “white pointer” watching).
It was nearing the end of our day and having learnt from Barcelona we didn’t want to push our luck much longer. We stopped at a little Tapas bar on the waterfront and grabbed a few items to graze on before heading off to do some window shopping on the way back to the bus station. Tarragona has lovely boutiques and all the main stream shops too (H&M, Zara etc) everything a girl could hope for. I will definitely have to come back to Spain one day just to do some shopping......girls anyone keen to come with me? He he!
We made it back to the bus and home at the very reasonable hour of 9.15pm, just in time for a shower and then down to the amphitheatre for the 10pm Lion King show. What can i say this really was a perfect day in Europe. Loads of culture, history, great food, gorgeous shops an amazing beach and back home with a little energy
Coca cake!
Weird looking stuff but very tastyto spare. Seems after lots of trial and error we have finally got the balance right.
The next 4 days included more lazing about at the pool/beach and another trip back to Barcelona. Back in Barcelona we explored in detail some of the things we missed previously. This included more of Gaudi’s work and just generally soaking up the Barcelonian culture and people watching.
The last 10 days overall have been amazing. We have re-charged our batteries, got our sight seeing days well balanced (finally!!) and most importantly darkened our tans one or two shades! We are now on our way to Madrid to hopefully do much of the same for the next 7 days. Weather forecast is 0% chance of rain and temps around 37/38 degrees, ouch thats hot! With that type of heat its lucky we’ve got our sight seeing days down pat with rest days in between! And the rest will be most important as after this it is non stop party in San Sebastian, Pamplona , Beni Cassim and the Greek Islands, bring on the hangovers ewww!
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simon
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back from bali
hey guys, just back from 3 weeks in bali, a great time had by all, looks like you are giving it your best shot as well! back to work on the 23rd july so if we can arrange a skype session b4 then that would be great!