We dragged our asses out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7am to make sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to make the train from Barcelona to Tarragona this morning. Good thing we did.

We had a bit of a screw up with getting to the station. It seems I no longer know how Uber works because for the second time I managed to input our destination incorrectly in the app. Luckily, the taxi driver picked up on my screw-up and asked us where we were REALLY going.

Like Malaga,  the Barcelona -Sants station is massive. We’d been there before, because we came in at this station, but of course, we were still a bit confused by the layout. At least this time we knew that we had to use a machine to take a number to see a ticket agent. We had tickets, but in Spain, for many (most) trains, you ALSO need to make a reservation. Catch-22: If you are travelling with a eurail pass, you must make the reservation in person at a station. WTAF.

Anyway, we had already planned out all our rail trips for the remainder of our Spain experience, so we decided to book ALL of our reservations at once before getting on our train this morning. That way, we wouldn’t have to arrive an hour or more in advance of the departure time for any subsequent trips.

With the purchase of the eurail pass, I downloaded a handy-dandy rail planner app which allowed us to make all of these plans, knowing the departure and arrival times for all trains, when we had to switch trains etc etc. So we got our number, and I pulled out my phone to prepare for our turn at the wicket… only 8 people ahead of us and almost an hour before our train was to depart. No sweat.

I launched the rail planner app and…… all of our planned trips were GONE. Naturally this made me say some words that even the Spanish-speaking-only folks surrounding us would understand. How in the F$%#K could this happen? I’ve launched this app dozens of times and everything was always right there where it should be.  Unable to think of anything else to do, I resorted to my extensive IT training and experience and restarted my phone. Success! Everything was back.  Holy crap. What a relief. It took about 30 minutes for the agent to make all of our reservations and print them once we reached the wicket, leaving us just enough time to make itto platform 11 for our train.

Unlike our previous train travel day, this was no high-speed high class train. More like a city bus on rails. This was the one train where no reservation was required and seating was a free-for all. I could tell by the body language of the people on the platform as the arrival time of our train drew near that this was going to be a free for all. I was 100% right. When the train rolled in I told Carla that I would run interference and to just get behind me. We didn’t get seats together, but we got seats and were on the way to Tarragona.

The train probably maxed out at 100km/h, but it was only an hour and a quarter to Tarragona. We followed the coast and passed through a few one-horse towns along the way, with a few people getting off and on. As we rolled into Tarragona, we saw the beautiful combination of beaches, seaside Roman ruins, buildings rising up into the hills, and sunshine.

Once off the train, we punched in the coordinates for our airbnb flat. A 20 minute walk. We decided to go for it, even though we knew it would be all uphill. As we walked, we realized what a relief it was to be out of the insane rush of Barcelona. This place had a very chill vibe. THIS was the Spain that I imagined when we booked the trip.

We arrived at our place and our host was waiting outside for us. Although we were almost 2 hours early for check-in, he told us it would just be 10 minutes for our place to be ready, helped us up the 3 flights of stairs (19th century building with no elevator) and let us put our stuff inside. Key in hand, we set out to explore and find a cold beer to quench the thirst we built ascending the hill. We are right next to the Cathedral and can hear the bells chime every quarter hour. The flat itself is small, but very well equipped, comfortable, cool, quiet. Everything Barcelona wasn’t.

After a quick look around, we went back to unpack and relax which turned into an hour long siesta. After that we headed back out and found Roman ruins everywhere within walking distance, a very cool modern “Rambla” with many shops. We had dinner at a seaside restaurant , walked down the Rambla to the end, then started back stopping along the way at a grocery store for surprisingly inexpensive necessities (like beer for about 65 cents a bottle).

We’re back at the flat, showered and relaxing now. Feeling happy.

 

We are starting to be able to find our way around in Barcelona, so it is time to move on.  Now that we’ve been here for six days or so, we have a pretty good feel for the city.

Unlike Malaga, Barcelona is not “polished”. There’s a lot more graffiti, more visibly homeless people, fewer “obvious” tourists like us, greater cultural diversity. There is also much more in the way of amazing art and architecture than we saw in Malaga.

It’s interesting to note that this area (Catalonia), of which Barcelona is the capital, brings in the majority of the tax revenue to the country. At one time, it was an autonomous region with its own language, customs, traditions and government. There is a political movement to separate from Spain and return to that autonomous state. It make me think, of course, of the Quebec separatism movement and, to a lesser extent, the “Wexit” movement in western Canada.

It is very expensive to live in Barcelona. Only the extremely wealthy own anything we Canadians would call a ‘house’. This is probably the most pricey place we will stay airbnb-wise on this trip, with six nights coming in at a relatively bargain-basement cost of about $1450.00 CDN.

It’s a much different way of life. Few people own a car. Parking is practically impossible, and where it is possible, outrageously expensive. Make a wrong turn, and you will face a 200 euro fine for driving on a  street that requires a special permit.  You can find a market within walking distance of where you live. The public transportation system is highly efficient and modern. Bikes, scooters, skateboards and feet are how people get around here. Also, you see far fewer overweight people here.

Something else I noticed about this city; there are many dogs here and they are, for the most part very street-wise. It’s pretty common to see dogs off-leash but walking right alongside their owners, paying attention to the traffic around them and very comfortable with it all. So cool to see that. I had to include some photos.

Today was Sunday, and many shops were closed. The frantic pace of Friday and Saturday was replaced by a much more leisurely tempo on the streets. Of course, you still had to take care not to get mowed down by a speeding scooter or cyclist.

We purchased tickets for a noon concert at Palau de la Música Catalana. The concert featured choral works by Brahms and Mendelssohn for the first half, then some contemporary works by Catalan composers were being premiered. All works were fantastic and hearing them in such a stunningly beautiful venue was an experience we’ll never forget.

After the concert we wandered aimlessly for a while, at least as much as it can feel aimless in Barcelona, then headed back to our place to relax, have a beer and figure out some next steps. We are tentatively going to reconnect with Dan and Fran, who have been on their own cycling journey for the past 5 days. Follow them here: https://danandfran.yukonfilms.com.

Tomorrow, if all goes to plan we will be in Tarragona, Spain shortly after noon. The adventure continues!

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.

 

 

 

 

Today we got out on the bikes again. Dan and Fran wanted to do a ride North out of Malaga and into the hills. We got kind of a late start and the heat of the day was already upon us. About 15 or so km into the ride and while climbing up the steep winding roads,  Carla and I were about ready to puke.We are most definitely not in the same league as Dan and Fran, who just ran the Boston Marathon. I was on the ebike again, and though I could probably have left everyone in the dust by using the motor, I was riding with no or minimal assist because I was carrying Carla’s water, so I didn’t want to get too far ahead. We decided to let Dan and Fran continue on without us and we back-tracked. The return trip was a lot more fun and a lot faster.

After getting back down off the hills, we rode to the ocean and found a palm tree to sit under, eating some snacks we had in our packs and drinking a now semi-warm beer. It was fun watching the families enjoying the beach on a Sunday afternoon.  We spent a few hours exploring the oceanside, sometimes riding the back alleys, and taking in the sights and sounds.

Both of us now have sore butts from riding over the portions of the trail yesterday that were cobblestone, and just  generally not being used to riding any distance. We were glad to get off the bikes at the end of the day.

We discussed our next moves and we will part with Dan and Fran on Tuesday, possibly to re-connect in another town later. They are set up to bike town to town with everything in their bike panniers. We’re not set up for that luggage-wise and we also want to see more of the country than is possible on a bicycle. Tenatatively, we are looking at going up the east coast of Spain using the rail system. We will definitely want to make it to Barcelona, but there are many other coastal places to visit. The options are endless.

Weird and difficult dreams last night had me feeling disoriented in the morning. Must have been that pizza the night before.After a couple of coffees, the world started to make sense, though.

Our plans for the day were to pick up the bikes we reserved and ride down the coast a bit. The forecast was looking kind of rainy, so we didn’t get a very early start.

Once we got the bikes sorted out, we started threading our way through the busy morning traffic toward the ocean.. The waterfront was packed with people. There were vendors and street performers everywhere. A magnificent tall ship in the harbour stood in contrast to the kajillion dollar yachts still parked there from the day before.

As we threaded our way through the crowds of people, we started picking up the smell of wood smoke and food cooking. What we were smelling was Espetos – grilled sardines skewered on pieces of cane being roasted over open flame. We passed by numerous seaside restaurants where large raised metal fire pits in the shape of boats were smouldering away with a variety of bluefish, whitefish, calamari and octopus being cooked. It was sensory overload. The colours, the sounds, the smells. All the more enhanced by the fact that we were moving through it on our bikes.

As we got further and further away from Malaga and passed through a couple of smaller towns, the restaurants thinned out and gave way to housing and industrial areas. It started to rain to rain, so we took shelter in a tunnel. Just by coincidence, it was the Túnel del Paseo de los Canadienses. A tunnel so named for the assistance given by Canadians to the Spanish in 1937 (in particular Norman Bethune) who answered the call for medical assistance in the fight against fascism in Spain.

After riding a bit further, we decided to turn back and weave our way home. We stopped along the way to eat at one of the seaside restaurants. We downed a couple of beers, had some sardines, prawns and red snapper. It was an expensive meal, but delicious. Unforgettable, really.

We got back home with the bikes and had to go up the very tiny elevator with them one at a time to our eighth floor pad.Well, almost all of us got up the elevator. My bike was an ebike (I’m not a strong cyclist like the others), and being a bit larger it wouldn’t fit in the elevator. So, what I saved in energy using an ebike, I expended getting it up eight flights of stairs. Serves me right.

We finished off the day by attending a football match. The local team has been having a bad season and were ranked 19th in their division. Consequently, the stands were about 40% empty. THey did manage to pull off a win, much to the crowd’s delight. It was a fun experience. After match beers and tapas capped it all off.

More biking tomorrow, I hear… and now, to bed,