Blogs from Spain, Europe - page 26

We’ve seen quite a few people around town wearing white uniforms with cute red scarves around their necks. The Google machine tells us that this is the dress code for the annual festival of the Running of the Bulls at Pamplona, which looks to be less than a hundred kilometres south of here, and it seems that the festival is on right now. There are still four days to go, so we’re not quite sure whether the people we’ve seen have done their runs yet. If they have, the lack of blood stains suggests that they’ve either managed to get hold of some excellent bleach, or they’ve completed their runs successfully, even the toddlers. Further reading suggests we can stop worrying about the toddlers; it seems that almost everyone in Pamplona (and here too apparently) wears ... read more

Today is the last day of our trip, we fly back tomorrow morning. After last night’s wonderful experience with Gaudi’s Park Guell, we were really looking forward to seeing Gaudi’s masterpiece church this afternoon, but first we have a brief excursion just outside of Barcelona to Catalonia to visit Montserrat. Monserrat, the ”Serrated Mountain” is the name of a series of 3 peaks of the Catalan mountain range. It’s highest peak is about 4000 ft. The rock formations are beautiful, and there are three ways to get to the top. There is a cable car, a cog railway, and a couple of roads. Since we have a bus, we naturally took the road. Once at the top, there is a funicular that takes you to the actual peak, but there isn’t really anything at the peak, ... read more

We hope that zombiness isn’t a permanent state, but it’s hard to be sure as we awake from our travel induced comas in the late afternoon. As we head off to stock up on some supplies from the supermarket, I remark to Issy that it feels like we’re in Europe. Hang on, that comment was a left over from Quebec. We are in Europe, which doesn’t do too much to ease any lingering concerns we might have about zombiness being permanent. Travel is great, well except for the part where you actually have to travel. Arriving at and exploring destinations really is great, but with airports the way they are at the moment, hopelessly understaffed, and the staff that are there hopelessly undertrained, the actual bit where you have to: (1) get there three or four ... read more

We land in Lisbon feeling like zombies. We manage to lose Issy’s boarding pass for the next leg not once but twice, but no problem we’re told both times; just go the kiosk and print it again. I wonder what exactly will happen when two pretend Issy’s try to get on the flight. This airport’s just like all its post COVID cousins - queues and more queues, all of them moving at glacial pace. … and officials yelling angrily at everyone; do they really think that passengers are deliberately not understanding the overly complex procedures for getting anywhere at the moment, at least that’s how they feel to us. We land in Bilbao. We’ve spent several frustrating hours over the past few days trying to fill in what we were told was a mandatory health form ... read more

Haro is considered by some sources to be the wine capital of the Rioja wine area so I pick this as our next stop and a place for a day of wine tasting. I hadn't realised, but Haro is also famous for having a wine "battle" where everyone drenches themselves in wine. We've just missed this by only a week. The Rioja is also a longish drive from Barcelona so we have full day in the car heading westwards up the Ebro valley. Driving in Spain is relatively easy as most of the roads are good and surprisingly quiet. I picked up the tip of traveling mainly on “A” roads signed as AutoVia which are free and almost as good as the toll motorways. We are used to Australian style wine tasting and we know that ... read more