Sunday 2/20/01

We spent our last day in Barcelona today, and really, we are missing a lot of sights. Barcelona well deserves several more days of sightseeing to do it justice. The Olympic sites, the Montjuic area, the ports, the shopping (!), the football (soccer to us) arena and museum, and I am only scratching the surface of what Barcelona has to offer the visitor. We came to the city for Gaudi and what we thought to be a quick overview of "just another city" and are extremely and pleasantly surprised. Add this city as another reason to return to Spain in a warmer season.

Today, coming up from the Plaza de Catalunya train station, we found a huge March, taking place down one of the boulevards and towards the cathedral. Placards and banners were being carried by thousands of people chanting various things. Since the route was in the direction we needed to go, we followed along hoping to make sense of what was happening. Everything was in Spanish (or mostly probably Catalan, the language of choice. There is a huge separatist movement in this area as well as in the Basque country) and we couldn't translate much. Water, hydro-something (as in perhaps power plant??), agriculture, delta, river were about the only words we could make sense of. You can draw your own conclusions as well as we did. We asked a passing woman (propaganda in hand) if she spoke English and she went off about something that sounded political to us: Catalan, Spain, No... and that was about all we got. And suddenly we were knee deep in Catalan flags (different from Spanish and don't you forget it!) and different worded banners. We walked with these thousands of people towards the Palau de Musica (our destination) thinking if we were politicians we would pay attention to what these people were saying! We went to the shop to purchase the tickets for our guided tour of the Palau de la Musica de Catalunya, the only way you can get into the place and found all English speaking tours to be full, so we opted for the 2:30 Catalan language tour. We bought a tour book in English and, having an hour and half to kill, decided to try our taste buds out on tapas, the internationally famous Spanish hors d'ouevres. Tapas are a variety of individually sold and served finger-foods. They include fried fishes (calamari, shrimps), jambon de jamon (a specially cured ham sliced very thinly) salads in infinite varieties and cold and hot tapas that we didn't have a clue what they were, served with delicious, sometimes spicy, sauces. Single serving costs anywhere from $1.70 to $4.00. I feared that to be quite steep and it had put me off trying them, but once we did, we found the servings to be large enough to content our bellies for about $10 for the two of us. Bellies content, it was time for the tour. But first we asked the ticket taker what the parade/march was about. "What March?" she asked (the music palace was one block off the March blvd and she was in a building...). What March!? Geez, was she deaf, dumb and blind?? She didn't have a clue and could care less. She said marches and parades were a dime a dozen in Barcelona. (We were still shocked; this was a massive demonstration about something!!) And then it was time for the Palau de la Musica. Lluis Montaner, an architectural contemporary of Gaudi was commissioned by a wealthy music group to build the palace. Stained glass, mosaics, woodcarvings, ceramic tiles, all work in a harmonious whole to create one of the loveliest buildings I have ever seen. It too, is on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list. To get on that distinguished list you gotta be good! Outside, the front is wedge-shaped with a beautiful sculpture of mythical figures placed on the front of the wedge and two stories up. The outside is also decorated with beautiful, colorful mosaic columns, two rows deep on the second floor balcony. Inside is a foyer with marble floors and two grand staircases leading up to the concert hall. The foyer is sumptuous and so elegantly done that you just know the concert hall will stop your heart. And it darn near does! It is an intimate music hall, U-shaped and seating only 2000 people on four levels. The stage, at the bottom of the U (only upside down as you enter) has eighteen Muses, nine on each side, each holding a different musical instrument. They are unique in that from the bust up they are three-dimensionally carved, yet their clothing is a part of the wall, each dress a tiled mosaic. They are lovely. Between the stage and audience is a giant marble arch, bracketing the hall. On the left a huge tree, representing music, is carved with figures at the base. On the right is a bust of Beethoven and above him representatives of Wagner's Valkyries (Scandinavian gods) riding four horses across the heavens. Each of the four levels of seats is decorated with floral motifs, while at the back and on the top floor are two winged horses flanking the entrance and "flying" across the ceiling. The showpiece of the hall though, is the exquisite stained glass skylight with an inverted dome that is reputed to be one of the most extraordinary works of stained glass in the secular world. I'll believe that! This is another of the several "must-see" sights in Barcelona. (Do try for the English tour though. We missed a lot of detail information but were helped by a French schoolteacher who taught Spanish and could speak English!!) Leaving the Palau we found Las Ramblas again and walked to its end so we could visit the Maritime Museum. Barcelona was big on shipbuilding in centuries past and the museum actually resides in a shipyard, o r at least the buildings in the shipyard. This site is waiting to get onto the list for the World Heritage Site. I don't think we have been anywhere that has as many UNESCO sites in one place as does Barcelona. This museum documents the whole history of shipping in the Catalan-Mediterranean area for 2000 years. Real boats compete with finely detailed models to teach the viewer the full history of sailing. A reproduction of a full size 17th century galleon built in these shipyards, with rowing benches and oars and all is there for you to explore. Supposedly the stink from slaves rowing those ships could be smelt two miles away! We spent over two hours in the museum. I lost Bruce (thought he'd ditched me!) and spent my last half hour looking for him. He was blissfully listening to the displays (we had the free audio tour) assuming I would show up sometime! (What a role-reversal - I am usually stuck in the museum with Bruce chomping at the bit to get going!) Having enjoyed the lunch tapas so much, we decided to do it again before we went home (and we didn't have any food at home - see, I knew we would starve if we didn't have backup food!!!). So we interneted and found a tapas bar to enjoy once more before we went home (and we still were not sure what we were eating!!).

2/27/01, Monday

We packed up then Bruce went to get some cash to bail us out of the campground and ran into difficulty. The ATM machine went through all the correct motions right up to not giving him the cash! He tried again and the machine still wouldn't give any cash to him. By this time he was concerned that he had surpassed our daily cash limit, so found another ATM, and sure enough, it would only give him about $75.00 US equivalent, not even enough to get ourselves out of 6 days of camping hock. He returned home, gave the campground all our money (less than the bill, and they accepted it) and our new mission was to find the mother bank of the ATM and see what happened. We did, they heard our story, checked their computer and tried to assure us our account was not debited, did a cash transaction with us and were totally reassuring and cooperative. Only trouble was, we weren't convinced. But, we had cash and could travel on. We opted to call our bank that evening, explain what happened and try to make sure we weren't to be debited the $200 we never got. Back on the road, we followed the coastal route north of Barcelona, traversing the Costa Brava, or Wild Coast. It was beautiful. It got its name because of the steep cliffs and rocky shores dotted with tiny coves of sandy beaches and that backdrop of different shades of blue sea. The day was clear enough that across the bay we could see Marseilles in France, growing up the hillside and looking very tiny. Our destination was supposed to be Figueres, home of the Salvatore Dali museum, but we were so enjoying our scenic coastal tour we decided to follow it up all the way to L'Escala then cut inland to Figueres. It was 5 pm by the time we reached L'Escala so we stopped for the night at Camp Cala Montgo. A very nice campground with much better amenities than El Masnou (our Barcelona stop), we shared the place with only three other campers (It is still off season). Our purpose for choosing L'Escala was for the Greek and Roman city ruins of Empuries, but it was too late in the day to visit so we cooked a dinner of BBQ chicken breasts and a simple tossed salad and called it a day. We tried calling our bank and family but were unable to get through on either count and decided to try again the next day.

Tuesday, February 27, 2001

Got up, had coffee and cereal for breakfast, packed up and drove to Empuries on the other side of town. For some reason that took some doing, we couldn't find the roads the map told us were there. After circling the outer area of L'Escala twice, we were finally directed in by a Spanish family who, I guess, saw that we were having problems. As soon as we reached the site, they turned around, waved and continued on to their destination (where ever that was.) Probably the most fascinating things about Empuries are it's name which literally means "market," and that it thrived as a successful community for 1000 years before it completely disappeared, probably around 300 AD, not be re-discovered until the 1900s. One thousand years that city existed - twice as long as has the U.S., AND almost 2000 years ago it ceased to exist! The ruins themselves were not anything to get excited about; we liked Italica, north of Seville, much better. They were pretty extensive though and were right on the coast with gorgeous views. Satisfied, we jumped into Queenie to get to Figueres, about 30 km away. It was close to noon when we got there. We found the museum, which had a pretty cool exterior with a faceted glass dome on the roof and big eggs decorating the front. The problem we encountered was in parking. Queenie cannot fit in covered parking, they limit the heights to 2 meters and Queenie needs 2.5 to clear. There was no parking on the streets of Figueres themselves, we tried and failed to park with the big tourist buses. Nothing was working out for us. We circled the city over and over in an outward spiraling path searching for a parking place before we gave up and bid Dali a dissatisfied farewell. Another reason for that sequel trip. Having enjoyed the previous day's coastal trip so much we decided to continue the scenic route to Portbou, a town I think I stayed at on my previous trip as a kid. That proved to be strenuous. The road was very winding and along steep cliffs with beautiful views but steep ascents and descents. Somewhat similar to the Northern California Hwy 1 coastal road around Fort Ross (only worse). We finally dropped into Portbou, and I do think that is where I stayed for almost a week, but everything had shrunk!!! The beach was positively tiny and I could not really remember the town. All that driving and planning for this disappointing memory. And then to top off the experience, learning there was no open camping, we had to drive out. We could return the way we came, or continue north and end up in France, a whopping 3 km away. We opted for the France solution and suddenly found ourselves in a different country with all the mind adjustments that requires. We were quickly discombobulated. We had not expected to leave Spain for another day, we had phone calls to make and phone cards to make those calls with. We had no French francs and after four months of living in Spain had lost our feel for France. The only good thing about this unexpected transition was we were back to that great French food!!! We figured we would stop at a supermarket to use its ATM and buy some cassoulet de duck and fresh croissants. Not happening. We had to track down a bank in another town which caused us some stress but we did finally find everything we needed and eventually made our way through the city of Narbonne on the road to Carcassonne. We are spending the night in a campground owned by a Dutch family (I won't talk about how they are everywhere!) and tomorrow we hope to get a French phone card so we can make necessary phone calls and also visit Carcassonne. We are only in the very southern end of France and we have discovered that winter has not yet released its hold on the land. The days have been overcast and rainy more often than clear, and very cool. Outside I must wear my vest, medium-weight waterproof coat, long sleeve tops and long pants, tennis shoes and socks and possibly gloves. Not nearly as nice as the Costa Blanca, but at least it isn't snowing!

Wednesday, February 28, 2001- Carcassonne.

Way back in August when we were visiting Rothenburg on Germany's Romantic Road, we were told to go to Carcassonne, France's medieval city. If we liked Rothenburg we would be really impressed with Carcassonne. Six months later we finally got our opportunity. Carcassonne is a medieval walled city (the French call it La Cite), sitting atop a small bluff about 50 miles inland from Narbonne. Once upon a time it was a frontier town between the fluid border of Spain and France. It was built to withstand sieges and has 50-some odd towers interspersed around its walls. There are two sets of walls parallel to each other and drawbridges and other modes of defense to make the city a textbook example of siege warfare. Inside, the streets are narrow and winding with small blocks of buildings crammed into the walled space. From a distance it has a fairytale quality to it that is very appealing. It is a standout sight (and made the UNESCO world heritage list). If Cinderella should have lived in Rothenburg, Sleeping Beauty should have lived in Carcassonne. In fact, supposedly Walt Disney modeled the sets for his Sleeping Beauty animated feature from Carcassonne. Kevin Kostner picked Carcassonne for his Robin Hood movie. I can't remember it well enough, but I suspect the exterior shots of "Nottingham" were Carcassonne and possibly the sheriff's castle is the Chateau le Comte (Count's Castle) within La Cite. Comparing the two cities, we feel it is a draw...both have excellent characteristics but they are different from each other. (We aren't gonna explain Rothenburg here, go check the August entries). The beauty of the walled city of Carcassonne, with over fifty turreted towers, sitting unobstructed on a hill, is breathtaking. It looks French. It is made of stone and thusly is one color, giving it a very classy look. The romantic, colorful atmosphere of life within city walls goes to Rothenburg. Both are magnificent and should be seen and cherished for their own strengths. We had lunch at a quaint restaurant in La Cite, French onion soup, cassoulet de duck and pig and French bread pudding all for 68FF each (just shy of $10). Since winter is still upon us and we were frozen (and wet, it was raining too), we order hot drinks on the menu, Grog (perhaps a hot toddy??) and mulled wine. Just what the doctor ordered; our fingers even got to thaw out! After lunch we bailed out of Carcassonne and made our way west to Sete, on the coast and about 30 km south of Montpellier. Actually we camped in Balaruc-les-Bain a tiny resort very nearby. We are on the lookout for oysters once again since this is another area known for them. We are still working on accustoming ourselves to France although the transition is getting easier. Last night I was washing dishes and another couple came in speaking French. My immediate thought was "Oh, we have some French campers!" Then I realized, well of course we do, we're in France!!

Thursday, March 01, 2001

Woke up this morning to sunny skies, a very pleasant change from the last four days. Today we decided to make our destination Nimes and then Pont du Gard. It was a beautiful travel day. We made our way past Montpellier, site of the first European medical school, opened in the early 12th century and continued to Nimes. It is from Nimes that the word denim is derived. De Nimes...Denim. I think it was the color that originated at Nimes. Nimes was also a very wealthy Roman city in the 1st Century. Caesar Augustus laid a lot of favors on Nimes - let it be fortified (always a biggie - I guess rulers didn't like fortified cities unless they were assured of loyalty), the city had a coliseum, baths, theaters, temples, yada, yada, yada. What it has in this modern era are a couple of the best-preserved original Roman structures still surviving. The amphitheater (coliseum) and a temple both survived because in some manner or another they were constantly used for 2000 years. The amphitheater is used today for bullfights and corridas (festivals) and is a two story structure that reminds me of the Roman coliseum The temple was dedicated to worship of the Roman Emperors and is classic styled with Corinthian columns and cornices, etc. intact and in wonderful condition. Remnants of the city walls are visible in areas. Nimes looked to be a nice city, attractive, prosperous and not so big as to be overwhelming. The real reason we considered going to Nimes was that seventeen kilometers away is a wonder of antiquity I had heard of for years, but only learned of its location since we began this trip. Do you remember studying all about the Romans? How they conquered most of the known world and were great lawgivers. How they were awesome engineers who built roads and aqueducts and buildings that could last for centuries. The Pont du Gard is a Roman aqueduct spanning the river Gard that has survived since it was built between AD 40 and 60. It was part of a water-supply system that was 31 miles long and created to supply the city of Nimes with water. I can remember photos of this aqueduct in my schoolbooks, but I never knew where it was. Sometime near the beginning of our trip we learned the location and it has been on our itinerary ever since. The aqueduct was so well built that it fulfilled its function until the 9th century, long after the Roman civilization collapsed. That means it kept on tickin' without any maintenance for about 500 years before lime deposits finally ended its usefulness. Yea, those Romans could build things! It is three stories of arches that rise 160 feet from the valley floor and 900 feet across, with the water flowing in a channel on the top row. The lowest level was a roadway The engineers were so precise in the cutting of the gigantic blocks of stone they didn't even need any mortar to keep the stones in place. It is a tremendous engineering feat and an awesome looking sight! We are camped at La Sousta, a five-minute walk to the bridge. (Location, location, location!) I rode over on my bike (Bruce's spokes are broken, he had to stay home.) to check it out. Tonight I will drag Bruce with me to take photos of it illuminated. We will really explore the aqueduct tomorrow.

Friday, March 02, 2001

The aqueduct wasn't illuminated. I supposed that is left for the tourist season and we are a little early. We are so early that yesterday was the first day this campground had opened this year. Since we left Barcelona, we have visited three campgrounds and shared them with no more than four other campers each night. The ones we spoke with had also left the Costa Blanca and were heading home! This campground and the Pont du Gard grounds still have snow in patches! (Don't you know THAT stopped us for a moment!) I should have taken the camera with me yesterday on my scouting trip of the aqueduct, today it is raining and cold and now we will have to go out in it. Yuck! We did it. Umbrella in hand, we walked in the rain all of the 500 meters to the Pont du Gard. It wasn't too bad, wet yes, but not particularly cold. Boy that thing is big. You don't expect it to be so massive and photos can't convey the size so it is a surprise when you actually see it. We walked across the lowest level, the old road, to the other side and climbed up the hillside to the level of the upper layer for a great photo shot. Then we re-crossed the bridge and hiked up the other side to get photos of the aqueduct itself. It is a deep gutter about 4 feet deep and 3 feet wide covered with a stone lid, I would guess to protect the water. Behind the aqueduct was a rock tunnel carved out of the hillside by Roman engineers. This was also a part of that 31-mile watercourse that ended at Nimes. Up until five years ago, you would walk along the very top of this aqueduct across that stone lid. Imagine being 160 feet up with no guardrails for 900 feet. Makes me faint to think of it! Thoroughly drenched after an hour of traipsing around the Pont, we returned to a heated Queenie, undressed out of our wet clothes and spent the rest of the day playing cards (I am finally ahead at 109 to 103!!!), napping and hoped the rain would stop so we can pack tomorrow and head for Lyons. We want to see Avignon, Orange, and Arles but think we will wait for our return trip in hopes the weather will be a little friendlier.

Saturday, March 3, 2001

If we weren't so annoyed we would be amused. Knowing we had to make the trek north to deal with Queenie paperwork, we thought we would take in some French sights we had missed previously. Provence and the Rhone Valley in particular. We knew the weather would be iffy so we decided we would stop when the weather held and travel on when it fell apart. It seems just the opposite is occurring. We arrived at Pont du Gard on a clear day but our next day, sightseeing day, was wet. The next day stopped raining and it was a travel day. Once we arrived at our destination, it began raining again. This weather doesn't make us want to get out and see things. We are already about half way to our destination and days ahead of our schedule. We left Pont du Gard and began driving northeast towards the Rhone Valley. The terrain was hilly with small woods broken up by vineyards and numerous villages. We were remembering how we much we enjoyed the look of the old French villages from our last visit. They have their own style of rock walls covered with an often chipping off, stucco-type covering and all the buildings are the same color - sand. They either cluster around each other or seem to spread out along a road one building deep. On this day, our path took us past many medieval towns - identifiable by the hilltop location, chateau and village surrounded by a wall. As the towns grew they spread beyond the city walls and down the slopes of the hill but you could still see the original hill town. That got me to thinking about hill towns. It seems that Italy is the country famous for them, but in almost every country we have spent any time in: England, Germany, France, Spain, we have found hill towns. All of them have been centuries old, confined within city walls and charming beyond belief with a fairytale quality that lasts from country to country. If Italy is the country famous for hill towns, I can't wait to see what they have to offer! We broke out of the hills into the Rhone Valley and tasted a different flavor from anywhere we have been in France yet. The valley is wide, several miles in parts, with low-lying mountains acting as its borders. The Rhone is a large river, the first one we have seen in months (Spain doesn't seem too partial to large rivers). Once upon a time it was largely uncontrolled and caused lots of navigational problems but dams and locks have since tamed it. It was here along the Rhone that we really saw the hill towns. And we have come into another large and famous wine region. The vineyards stretch all along the land, only this time they have their winter look. No greenery. and trimmed back to the stock, they are a much less impressive sight than in their autumnal glory. We followed the Rhone river north to Lyon, another of those historical towns that began as a Roman trading center and just grew and grew. We reached Lyon around 4:30pm and were beat. Driving all day takes it out of us and we don't like doing it. Usually we don't have to but we are still in the camping off-season and have to plan our destinations rather than stop when we see something of interest. You can't begin to appreciate how many campgrounds there are in Europe until you use them, but probably 85% of them are closed from mid Oct to mid March. That means our off-season is almost at an end, but in the meantime we are still consulting camping books to find the open ones. We set up camp and used our recently acquired French phone card to call home, only to discover it was no good. The telephone told us the credit had expired. Well, that impossible, we hadn't even used it yet! We tried calling Telecom, the French telephone company, but of course, they use voice mail and do we speak (or understand) French? Mais Non! Satisfaction not guaranteed! After ten months of living in various countries other than our own, the one thing that remains a major mystery to us is how to intelligently work the telephone systems. We had luck in Ireland and Spain, finding an affordable means of calling the U.S. but the rest of the countries have just slam-dunked us! Thank god for internet or we would be at a complete loss for (fairly) instant communication. Defeated, I returned to Queenie and Bruce made his way to a wine shop for two bottles so we could drown our exhaustion in wine. It worked. Shared with a steak, courgettes and Greek salad dinner, we felt a little more human. Then it was off to bed and a good night's sleep.