Days 35 & 36
Trip Start
Dec 24, 2011
1
33
55
Trip End
Feb 27, 2012
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Up early today. We have a quick drive to Perpignan. Bags are packed we are ready to go and just waiting for Isabelle to hand the keys back. We have had wonderful time in Carcasonne. Isabelle is on time, it's now 9:00am. We have a quick conversation about our stay, answer her questions about the apartment and hand back the keys.
We have a train to catch at Perpignan that teaves at 12:23pm. It is about 120 odd kilometres, still need to fill up and find the drop off point. Things go well. We find a fuel station not far from the on ramp and fill up. A budget station as there are no plastic gloves or paper towel supplied for the gasoil pumps. Smelly hands!! The little opel has been pretty good on the gas. Highway travelling it consumed on average 4.4 ltrs per 100kms. Average speed at about 105kph. 35 ltrs fill the tank and luck would have it, the fuel nozzle handle isn't drenched in diesel. No smelly hands. That completed we need to hit the road pronto as our organisation time to catch the train is quickly being used. We like to have about a half hour wait to get things organised tickets, bags, platforms, etc. There isn't much traffic in the highway and we quickly reach 130 kph. The opel is a bit thirsty today to start with registering 5.8ltrs per k. There is a cross wind that fills the wind sock and has it horizontal. It doesn't have a big effect on steering but consumption I am worried about as the car needs to be full on return. That's not going to happen this time as we don't have time to cruise at Perpignan to find a station. The wind generators are everywhere with most of them turning. We see the Pyrenees off in the short distance and they are snow capped. The winter has been very kind to us, butl may cause the locals some grief next summer as there will be less snow to melt for their water usage. The K's tick away as do the minutes. TravellIng has been smooth with litle adjustment to the cruise control required. We hop off the A61 in a big sweeping right curve and merge with the A9. Perpignan is not far, in fact it is too close as what turned out to be the last fuei station has has just wizzed by. We are now into morning traffic looking for the railway station. The GPS keeps losing its signal which is frustrating but nothing that a few deep breaths can't handle.
We follow the instructions, as usual I have missed the turn. Navigating the skinny one way streets is difficult at best but this mob have thrown in road works and have blocked off some roads. With little info from the car mob- europcar, we reach the point from the GPS, and no businesses just a car park for the station. We drive in to gather our composure as we are constantly aware of the time we don't have. Carmen looks for the paper work, which we should have done back at the apartment, and is having difficulty finding the stuff. Meanwhile I engage Google maps for assistance. It reports that Europcar is on the other side of the station. Carmen located the documents, after frantically going through all the usual places we put things.
Back in the car. Pay the parking toll, which I nearly miss, and head off down the road, under the rail line, turn left and proceed as g'maps shows. We get to the end of the station, and still cannot find the place. I park in the taxi stand to have a good look around. Can not see a damn thing! Carmen suggests to park in the underground parking, so we don't get fined, now that would be icing on the cake, so find the correct gear after several attempts and head for the entrance. Pulling up next to the ticket machine, there is a green and yellow sticker that looks familiar. It is about 30mm by 120mm. That's it. Their total signage for Europcar. Man, you could have just got out of the car and done a number on the ticket machine. Level one. It should be here. Round we go once, twice and a third time and nothing. The thoughts of, 'Am I on Candid Camera have past and are quickly being replaced with annoyance. Park the car, get out and start walking. Nothing. Up to the train station, in the head- tick tock, tick tock, Ask the train information people for information about the car people and she points to the escalator. and there again is that little sticker. We finally find the place. A little concrete and glass cubical with this bloke sitting inside.
Carmen lets some french steam off, we give him the papers and he wants the keys. We still need to collect our bags, but we don't know where the car is! He finally gets up off his chair and comes round from behind his desk and we three, go on a car hunt. He is madly using the key lock to try and sight the flashing lights but no response from the car. On the other side of the car park. the opel sits, lights now flashing. We have made some head way. He gets in the car to check the mileage and fuel- here comes another bill, as I empty the car of our belongings. He does the paper work, gets in the car and drives away. That's it! This has been one heck of a morning.
Bach up stairs to the train station. Find the facilities, then the train info. That completed, we sit and have about a 40 minute wait till the train pulls in at 12;23pm. The train is listed but no platform yet. We calmly wait and settle from the car fiasco and munch on some biscuits for lunch. The train is posted for platform 'F' and it pulls in. We get on. sort out the luggage storage and find our seats. Going backwards again! Not this time!
As the train starts, there are only 4 people in the carriage with one stop before ours where we need to change trains, so we swap seats. A large window seat with the seats facing the way the train goes. Its is a TVG for about 20 minutes which passes very quickly. Hardly enough time to take the cameras out and take some more pics of the snow topped mountains. We cross the border in a tunnel and the french phone connection is haulted. Typical! The country side is green, cultivated and the houses show typical Spanish style. As the train pulls in, I ready the bags again for the swap over. There are numerous employees on the platform to ask about the train, is this etc. Here is carriage such and such. There is only one class on this train and luggage storage is at a premium. I can accommodate the little bags only in the places that are left and the big bags I stuff behind some seats. As usual we are riding backwards. When the train starts rolling, we swap seats again as do some of the other passengers and settle in for the 2.5hr trip. The train is only an everyday train. Nothing special and is an extension of the TVG. The small roof mountefd monitor displays the date, temp - 17deg and we are travelling at 140 kph. Not bad for a local train.
We hit the outskirts of Barcelona. Small pliots of dirt are under cultivation. As we get closer, anything that you can turn over as been dug over for planting. These plots are about the same size as our average sized backyard nowadays. The only part that is not turned is where the one room concrete dwelling is placed. We are starting to see the signs of true poverty. The train slips past apartment building after apartment building. You could fit the population of a small country town into one building. It is nothing but apartments for the the last half of the train ride at 120kph.
The ground shows that they have had some considerable rain. It is still cloudy but no rain. The train pulls in and we have many things to arrange before we meet a friend of Carmen's.We only have tonight and tomorrow till our next car experience- Barcelona to Madrid- 620km for the day. With no GPS and some help from the locals we find our hotel. It again is a small room, but clean, serviced and with an elevator. For two nights, it will be fine. With this sorted we are off to find the car place to make sure the car has been booked for Monday morning and to try and change the drop off location. It's late now, about 4pm and we drop into Maccas for some wifi to check on some arrangements. This takes longer than it should and we are now off to figure out the metro, something that Carmen is very reluctant to do, to be on time for for our meeting. It's not too difficult to sort out and we are soon on the train. It is very clean. No graffitti. Not crowded and has video surveillance. Carmen is still apprehensive but suffers the journey in quiet. By the time we have exhausted our multi-ride ticket, the metro has been a good way to cover a lot of ground in a short time. We alight from the train, again asking an employee how to use one ticket for one machine to exit the station, accomplish that and wait at the base of Columbus' Column and wait for Yolanda to appear.
Yolanda is running a little late because the bus she was on was not able to travel completely down la rambla due to a demonstration about Spanair that the government just stopped from operating, leaving lots of passengers in the lurch. I'm standing at the base of Columbus' statue wondering if I will recognise her - it has been a number of years since I have seen her - but, no worries, she waves madly from across the road and I know it's her. We have a great evening catching up on what she is doing and how she ended up in Barcelona - we wander up la rambla, through the vella ciutat and the barrio gotico, we visit Santa Maria de la Mar - all lit up, full of people doing the same thing we were - no camera, so it's on the list for tomorrow - we don't quite manage to get into Barcelona cathedral - in fact, we arrived just as they were closing up for the night - once more, on the list for tomorrow - we wander through the plaza reial and the plaza de la republica - up and down narrow, little streets, jostling shoulders with every other wanderer - we cross la rambla and enter la boqueria - the fresh food market, apparently well known and photographed often - talk, and more talk - ending up for dinner in El Taller de Tapas - great environment and great food, and with Yolanda's company - it couldn't have been better - we dined on tapas - chorizo cooked in cider, bunuelos de bacalao, tortilla (the Spanish kind, not the Mexican one), grilled fresh asparagus with EVOO, patatas bravas with aioli and spicy paprika sauce, and foccacia style bread rubbed with fresh tomato - just heaven. Peter also ordered Galician scallops with crispy Spanish Jabugo ham, which he thoroughly enjoyed, and then, he polished off what we couldn't. No dessert for me, but the other two had crema catalana (a sort if creme brulee, but it's more of a custard with the brulee'd topping) and a dish I don't remember the name of, which was an assortment of dried fruit and nuts served with a sweet dessert wine - a bit like the vin santo I had in Italy, replacing the biscuits with the fruit and nuts. We sampled a Catalan wine, a white from Penedes - just wonderful. Another final wander along la rambla to walk Yolanda to her bus station and for us to catch our metro. We had a fabulous introduction to a small part of Barcelona, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time catching up with Yolanda - thank you so much. This was a big effort on Yolanda's part because she actually lives about an hour out of Barcelona, in a town near Montserrat (I don't remember its name either) and she travelled by car, bus and metro to meet us. Survived the metro ride and the short walk through Sants railway station to arrive back at the hotel, where we were asleep before our heads hit the pillows.
Sunday morning sleep in - breakfast at the train station - metro to Sagrada Familia - only 5 stops away. Out of the station, hop on the line for the tickets - it's 10 am - hear the ticket seller say that the earliest lift available up one of the towers is 11.30 - decide to skip that and buy cathedral visits only. Wow, and double wow and we haven't even got into the church, yet. Silly me, I thought this facade was mind blowing - inside defies description - you don't know what to look at first, or where to look first - complete and utter sensory overload - trying to take it all in, and process all that you see. We seem to walk all over, and more than once, twice, sometimes three or four times, seeing different things from different angles - it's one of those places that is impossible to describe with words or pictures, and accurately, or completely, convey the sense of it all. I watched a tour of blind and partially sighted people, and thought how sad it was that there were people in the world who could not experience places like la Sagrada Familia, like I can. It made me feel enormously grateful for this opportunity that Peter and I are enjoying now. However, the Sagrada Familia doesn't feel like a church to me - and the story of Jesus throwing the money lenders out of the church springs unbidden to mind. It is very much a carnavale atmosphere despite all the signs about silence and respecting it as a place for prayer. Finally, we dragged ourselves away, with hundreds of photos, none that will do this wonderful building justice, but nevertheless, it's all we have. Come and experience it for yourself, it's the only way.
Back to la rambla on the metro, and lunch in a cafe-bar - tapas of Spanish ham, manchego cheese (sheep's milk), tortilla (the potato kind) and chorizo de pamplona (a kind of salami - red in colour due to the smoky paprika used in its making), with bread and coke, of course. First bathroom I've seen that has graffiti all over it! This place was in a corner of the plaza reial, where there was a kind of collectors market (coins, stamps, old books, coasters, etc.) and a boot sale, whede these sellers laid their 'junque' on bed sheets on the ground. Finally found the cathedral, my map from the tourist office - which is actually a brochure for a hop on hop off bus - isn't very detailed. Paid the entry fee and went in - look here, look there - photo after photo - information over load - Peter climbs to the roof for a rooftop view of Barcelona - I sit quietly (it's possible in this church) and look carefully around me, trying to absorb it all - carefully reading the inadequate guide provided with the entry fee so as not to miss anything. This cathedral is dedicated to the exaltation of the holy cross and St Eulalia, who was martyred at 13, so in the church garden, in the centre of the cloister, there are 13 noisy, demanding, lively geese, in memory of her age. There's also a statue of St George slaying the dragon as the centrepiece of a fountain - St George (Sant Jordi in Catalan) is the patron saint of Barcelona - he and that dragon are everywhere. We stumbled across a heavily candled chapel in the cloister, dedicated to St Rita (the patron sainto of lost causes) - so, for Joey (colleague) and his family, we lit a candle and added to the front of Saint Rita's chapel. Leaving this church in search of the other - Santa Maria de la Mar - we arrive to find it closed - another walk around some corners to see what we could see, before heading back at 5pm. In we go - the church is not as well lit this afternoon, but we explore it anyway before heading out to the Barcelona beaches as Peter wants to see the 'real' Mediterranean, not the water in Barcelona harbour. An hour and a half later, we reach Columbus statue, having walked out to the beach of San Sebastian, along the board walk, around the point, been disappointed with the view of the sunset, back along the port side of the walk, and along the front of the port, where there is a large celebration for Chinese New Year, with food stalls, business promotional stalls and live entertainment. By now, my feet and I are not on speaking terms. Peter has decided that he wants paella for dinner, so we head to a restaurant we saw earlier in the day for his chicken paella, and my grilled vegetables, and the inevitable glass, or two, of wine - Vina Sol this time, also Catalan. Because we speak to each other in English and I speak to the waiter in Spanish, he compliments me on my Spanish - I speak Spanish really well (for a tourist from Australia). I smile and thank him. Metro ride to the hotel, the last of our ten trip ticket (only 9,25euros) and crawl into bed for tomorrow's early start and drive to Madrid. Thank you Barcelona for a wonderful taste of Catalan living - we may just return for seconds.
Comments
Fantastic travelog. Love the haste, hussel, bussel and the thrust of getting around.You know you have had a great day when you fall into bed asleep.
Greeting to Spain and the wandering Wobats,
I just want you to know I am now in the USA and have worked out where you'll be staying and making sure you'll see all of the family in this area; so don't worry just arrive and relax. All pretty much the same on Miguel's condition. See you on the 14th...Could you let me know by e-mail what time, airline and flight number you'll be on. I'll pick you up at the airport.
I still remember the very first spanish omelette I ever ate - cooked by CARMEN! LOVED Barcelona - and would give my eye teeth to go back for the dedication of La Sagrada Familia - Carmen is right - words and photos cannot describe this amazing building!