A much slower pace today.

We needed to get some clothing washed, so the morning was spent doing just that. Luckily there was a long enough break in the drizzly weather we’ve been having to dry some stuff, because there’s no clothes drier in our airbnb, which seems typical everywhere in Spain. There are numerous balconies, however and some drying racks.  We managed to figure out the cryptic washing machine, but only by using Google Lens to determine what model it was (no identifiable brand markings anywhere) and then downloading a pdf manual from the web.

It’s become apparent how critical it is to be connected to the web while travelling. We would be lost, literally, within minutes of home without gps navigation. Even with it, the narrow streets interfere with the signal a lot and you can’t always trust your mapping software. Not only that, but we need it to book accomodations, trains, tickets, even to read menus in a lot of restaurants.

Once we got the clothes hung and mostly dry we headed out to explore. We wound up back in the center of old Barcelona where we spent some time just sitting on the steps of a church people watching and enjoying the street musicians. We got a bit thirsty and made our way up to the rooftop bar of the Hotel Colom across the square, where the view did not disappoint. Of course, the beer was marked up about 300%, but it was worth it, I figure.

We continued wandering for a while and popping in and out of shops. Ice cream was eaten, Art was enjoyed.

It’s weird being here in weather cool enough that a jacket is required while watching news of the heat and wildfires back in Alberta. We thought we would be baking in the heat, but it has really not been that hot here in northern Spain

Eventually, our weary feet led us back to our temporary home away from home. We are resting up a bit before heading out for a late bite. Tomorrow we have  afternoon tickets for the Symphony at the Palau de la Música Catalana.

We got an early start this morning because our day tour of Barcelona departed at 8:30 am and we had a bit of a walk to get there. After a quick breakfast and (only) one coffee, we headed out. I really could’ve used more caffeine because we really saw a lot today.

Our tour started off with us walking through the oldest part of Barcelona. Now, when I say old, I mean OLD. We’re talking stuff from the 1st century. We saw Roman Aqueducts and what used to be the gates to the city, where there was an actual drawbridge controlling the entrance. The ebb and flow of power in the region shaped the architecture tremendously. The Visigoths invaded and built on top of the original walls, making them higher. Then the French took power and built in their style. Finally, Catalonia, the region we are in, gained independence again and actually dominated much of Europe for a while, but then the black plague wiped out 60% of the population. That’s mind blowing. I think I have most of that right. Honestly, I’m too tired to fact check it all right now.

We boarded a bus and made our way up to Montjuïc Hill, the scene of the 1992 Olympics. Great views from up there. Plus, more coffee and a washroom break.

From there, back on the bus and it was time to head for Sagrada Familia, the iconic, unfinished Catholic church that cannot be missed. Designed by architect Antoni Gaudí, it remains unfinished almost 100 years after his death, but they are still working on it. It is astounding. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Next, we were off to Park Guell, which was, as our tour guide said, an astounding failure as a housing project but an amazing architectural and landscaping feat. Gaudi’s flowing designs embedded with both elements of nature and religious symbolism are incredible.

Finally, we visited La Pedrera, a residential building designed by Gaudi that was basically chiseled out of limestone riight on the spot where it sits, much to the chagrin of the neighbors. Again, incredible.

We walked home from there stopping to grab a bite to eat. We’re beat, but happy to have learned so much about this amazing city today.

 

The day started with a leisurely breakfast at the airbnb with our new Mexican friends. They are moving on today, so it was a goodbye breakfast. Fernando gifted us with his hop on hop off bus ticket which was valid for a few more hours. We gratefully accepted and headed off to catch the bus.

There was some kind of labour dispute affecting the running off the buses, so it was quite a wait to get on. Luckily we wound up at the front of the line for an arriving bus and managed to secure seats in the upper open-air deck. The two hour tour took us through many of the same places we saw the previous day by bicycle. It was such a different experience to the bike. I much preferred the bike tour. Much more up close and personal. The weather started to deteriorate about half way through the ride and got quite windy and cool. We were glad we brought an extra layer.

After the bus tour, we headed “home” to have lunch and plan our remaining days in Spain. It was tough to decide where we would go, and for how long. There’s so much to see here. Eventually we arrived at a reasonable plan and got the train times figured out. After that, we had a traditional Spanish siesta. We awoke to discover that it had rained while we were zonked out.

We freshened up and hit the streets in a direction we hadn’t been before and had a late dinner (paella and pizza). There was a great deal of activity on the streets and many people were visibly well into their drink. We behaved ourselves tonight because we have an early morning tomorrow. We’re on a full day tour. I think we will have done more than enough touring after tomorrow and will look for some music to take in.

It took me a while to get to sleep last night. Barcelona is like a stubborn two year old that refuses to go to bed. We’re on a fairly busy corner and things don’t start winding down until 2am.

When we got up this morning, we started the day with coffee and breakfast with a couple of people – a brother and sister from Mexico who were traveling together. It was nice to spend a little time getting to know them and comparing notes not only on what we were experiencing in Spain, but what life was like for each of us back home.

After breakfast, I booked a couple of touristy activities for us; the first being a 3 hour bike tour of Barcelona which we did this afternoon and another full day tour on Friday which will give us a good overview of the most popular attractions here. We spent some time wandering slowly toward the meeting spot for our bike tour and enjoying the impressive architecture that is everywhere in this city.

The bike tour was great. Over the course of the three hours, we  were able to hit  a bunch of very cool modernist art installations and architectural wonders. We also visited some Roman ruins, a couple of beautiful parks, some churches, including the still under construction Sagrada Familia. Just the outside, though. We will see the inside on Friday. Finally, we ended up at the beach and then worked our way back to the bike shop in old Barcelona.

After the tour, we went for dinner at a restaurant  called Colom,  recommended by our tour guide, Leonardo. We knew it had to be good by the lineup outside, and it really was. We shared an amazing paella and a bottle of Spanish red. Probably the best meal we have had yet in Spain.

Tomorrow, we have nothing on the books, so we will probably spend some time planning our next travel destinations. We still have four full days to explore Barcelona, though.

This morning we somewhat reluctantly cleared out of our beautiful Malaga condo and made for the train station to catch the noon train to Madrid, where we would then switch trains to Barcelona.

The train was an experience! Arriving at the station with enough time to wander a bit, we found ourselves at the McDonald’s restaurant on the second floor. It was unlike any McDonalds you will find in North America. First off, they had beer.  But not only that, they had coffee and ice cream. Together.  I’ve discovered the perfect breakfast food.

We made our way down to the main level and went through security. It was pretty relaxed compared to airport security. You had to put your bag on a conveyor belt and you got checked with a metal detector, but that was it. Once we found our platform and then our train, we boarded.

The first class car was pretty nice. There were two seats on one side together and one opposite. The seats were not particularly comfortable, but they did recline somewhat and there was lots of legroom. The train was scheduled to leave at 12 noon and it did. It was kind of surreal because it was so quiet.

Soon, we were accelerating and leaving the city behind, heading into the countryside. Before long we were whipping along at 300km/h, and it really didn’t feel like we were going that fast. That is, until we were in close quarters with the landscape or meeting another train travelling in the opposite direction. Then it became apparent we were really hauling ass.

The countryside was generally pretty arid looking with groves of what looked like olive trees being the primary vegetation. In the distance,  dry looking brown mountains. Occasionally, we would pass a small village or some ruins or make a quick stop in a sizeable town, but by and large it was a lot of dry looking countryside whipping by at incredible speed. I was spending quite a bit of time struggling with the onboard wifi trying to get some work done. I probably missed a fair amount of the scenic highlights. Carla was tring to point stuff out to me, but by the time I looked over, it was 10 miles behind us.

The first leg of our journey was over before we knew it and I scrambled to get my stuff together before we hopped off the train. As we were hoofing it from the train to the terminal building, I had a moment of panic where I thought I had left my phone on the train because it wasn’t in my front left pocket where I always kept it. I ran back in the direction we came from but I quickly realized that all of the trains looked the same and I couldn’t identify which one I had just gotten off of, much less which car,  I borrowed Carla’s phone from her and tried using the find my phone app, but the data connection was too dodgy to be of any help. I was beginning to panic a little. Then, I thought I should maybe look in my backpack, and there it was. tremendous relief. We would really be operating at a disadvantage without my phone.

We had a tight connection and boarded the next train to Barcelona shortly before it departed. This leg of the journey was definitely more mountainous. We watched the temperature drop to 18 degrees ( about 10 degrees cooler than it was in Malaga) as we crested the highest point. My ears were popping as we ascended and again as we started heading down. We passed through quite a few tunnels along the way. As we neared Barcelona, the vegetation got greener and we noticed that it was still quite cool, meaning about 2o degrees (I know.. brrr… ha  ha).

We rolled into Barcelona right on schedule and then hopped into a cab. It immediately became apparent that Barcelona is quite different from Malaga. It is much more “city like”… at least what we have seen so far. We checked into our airbnb, which is a 4 bedroom apartment that is shared with other guests. It’s on a fairly busy but narrow street with a restaurant downstairs. The place is clean, and nicely appointed, but not overly spacious. We’ll make it work for the next six nights.

We rested for a while, then set out to walk the streets and find a place to eat. Our first impression is that it is a much different vibe here. It’s definitely not as polished as Malaga, not as tourist oriented by a long shot. We’ve been warned by multiple people that we should be on the lookout for thieves and scam artists and consequently we’re on high alert.

Tomorrow we will set out to do more exploring….

 

 

 

I’m drinking tequila as I make this entry. It was a bit of a day.

I awoke early – around 5am local time, so sometime during the second period of the deciding game for the Oilers. Checking my phone, I saw that it was 4-2 in favour of Vegas. Not that I really care, but Carla does, so that had the potential to affect my whole day.

We came to the decision that we were going to go somewhere else by rail tomorrow, but that’s as far as we got. I thought I had better start figuring something out. This is not how I normally roll, but this vacation, we decided, was about getting out of our comfort zone. I can assure you that we achieved that goal today.

Beginning around 7am I started looking at the rail map of Spain. Where to go? Malaga, where we’ve been spending the last week is on the coast and we really like being near the ocean, so I figured we could head up the east coast to Barcelona and then decide from there.

OK. First destination decided. Now to figure out how to get there. Rail seems to be the way to travel in Europe from everything I have read. The train systems are super fast, comfortable, and they take you right into the center of the city vs. airports which are often quite some distance from the action.Forget about driving, I read, because the traffic and parking situations in the cities are a nightmare.

I quickly discovered that there was a lot to learn about travelling by rail. Not knowing what our plans were going to be, I thought it best that we opt for something that would give us maximum flexibility.

I tried booking rail passes through Spain’s “native”  Renfe system. I had read that the website was somewhat problematic and might have trouble with “outside” credit cards. The advantage to using their system is that seat reservations are included and everything can be done online. Great!

But no.. the website wasn’t just problematic. It was total (pardon my french) dogshit. I ended up using another site (raileurope) to purchase a one country Eurail pass which would allow us to travel on eight separate days. We had to decide if we would go first class or second class. I read that for the most part europeans travel second class unless they are going on the company dime, but we thought “screw it, we’re on holidays” and booked a  first class pass.

Then, we had to figure out where we were going to stay in Barcelona. We found an airbnb place in the city center near the water.

In order to travel on one of these high speed trains, you need to make seat reservations. To my dismay, we couldn’t do this online. We had to go to the station.

We set out on foot for the train station, which is some distance away from our airbnb. Today was the hottest day since we got here (28) and we were sweating buckets by the time we rolled up on the train station.  This place was like an airport. A big airport. There were many full on retail stores and even a great big supermarket on the second level. We stood in line for quite a while before we were able to talk to an agent, but managed to get our seat reservations done. I’m hoping we won’t have to do this in person every time we travel and that today it was necessary due to the tight timeline.

After leaving there, we were both feeling pretty sunfried and frazzled, and that was compounded by a sketchy data connection that had us walking in the wrong direction for many blocks while thinking we were on course. We finally made it to the bike shop to pick up our rented bikes for the last day we would have them, but by then we only had about 2 hours left to ride. We headed down along the harbours and the beaches for a while. It was really windy today and not quite as crowded as previous days. Getting on the bikes was good because we cooled down and had some fun.

We returned the bikes and walked back to the condo, The elevator is out of service today, so it was 8 flights – 144 stairs back up to where the cold beer was.