Catalunya

April has become quite the travel month for us. We flew out Friday night to Barcelona and after a long adventure by bus, plane and train we finally arrived at our hotel around 12am.

We spent our first two days in Barcelona touring each of the different quarters. The main areas are Las Ramblas, Barri Gotic, La Ribera, Montjuic and L’Eixample.

Las Ramblas is an interesting part of town – it’s a tree lined pedestrian walkway loaded with shops, fresh food markets, and stalls - you can basically buy anything imaginable including birds, turtles or rabbits?? The strip is about a mile long strip and ends at the Mediterranean Sea.

As we strolled the distance we came across La Rambla fountain.

It tasted a little like lead to me, but apparently that’s the price you pay to become life-long citizens of Barcelona.

The Ramblas is also filled with street “performers.” Pretty weak if you ask me – they basically get dressed up in some crazy outfit and sit on a box and expect you to pay them for it?? Not impressed, but we did snap a pic so you could enjoy the same experience we had:

The Ramblas is capped off with a massive statue of Christopher Columbus pointing to the new world..

Next we went down to the sea to climb a scary looking tower take a cable car up to Montjuic (translated to Hill of the Jews). The view from the tower and the top of Mountjuic provided some amazing views of the entire city:

The tree lined street is Las Ramblas:

After an hour or so and a long hike around the mountain, we were ready for some food ! So we went to the Gothic quarter (Barri Gotic). This is the oldest part of the city and is made up of tiny side streets that zigzag throughout the entire quarter. We managed to find this tiny café in the bottom of some medieval building and grabbed some tapas and a burger to replenish our energy!

We continued to follow our walking tour throughout this labyrinth and happened upon the square where the Catholic Monarch received Columbus when he arrived home from the new world.

Standing in the square was a man that sang opera with his incredible voice echoing off the walls.

Throughout the quarter there were performers that actually had skills, from playing a range of instruments to more singing within the random side streets and their voices echoing down the lanes. It was a great soundtrack to one of our favorite areas of Barcelona.

Some other pictures of the area:

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention is that they LOVE to graffiti everything there. Every store, restaurant, etc has a metal door they open and close and I don’t think we saw one in Barcelona that wasn’t painted.

After enjoying some gelato and browsing paintings in an open air market, we visited this Cathedral where you can still see the marks in the stones from bombs during the Spanish Civil War.

Right next to the Gothic quarter is La Ribera – the Picasso museum is here along with plenty of trendy clothes shops and some good food! Here are some pics of the area.

The ticket window at the Opera House:

Eternal Flame of Catalonia, celebrating their own 9/11. 9/11/1714 which commemorates the royal sacking of Barcelona. Catalonia has its own language and generally did not want to become part of Spain – there are flyers and propaganda you come across that still point to the fact that people want to separate from Spain.

Barcelona is well known for its amazing architecture. I would say the most famous architect was a man named Antoni Gaudi. So, Sunday was our Gaudi day. His architecture is like nothing I have ever seen and some of it looks like it’s straight out of Candyland!

We walked all over the city exploring some of his work.

In front of the Familia Sagrada, Gaudi’s still unfinished work (he died before completion) we saw some human towers. As they approached the fourth level or so, all of the people started to shake like crazy so this little girl climbed up for about 2 seconds and immediately slid down before the entire structure collapsed – the entire crowd holds their breath as you watch, then erupt in applause and cheers as they complete the tower and get everyone down safely.

Park Guell, more of Gaudi’s works:

After two exhausting days of walking, at least 15 miles a day, our feet were tired so we headed to the water to enjoy some Cava Sangria’s and dinner at a street side cafe. At this point we finally relaxed and realized what a rough life we are living. What a great way to end the day.

Oh yes, here is a picture of some food, Paella – delicious!

On Monday we got up and ventured to Girona where we actually flew in, the city was very quaint, parts of it reminded me a little of Italy.

We ventured into the Call, the old Jewish area, before they decided to expel them from Spain in 1492:

Of course, it had been perfect weather for the entire weekend, so it started to rain on our last day. We got out of the rain and explored the Jewish museum which talked about life in the Call and made a quick stop at the Arab baths - which after seeing the Roman baths in Bath, was pretty unimpressive.

To finish off our trip, and stay out of the rain until we left for the airport, we ended with a good Spanish beer at an Irish Bar. The perfect transition to our trip this weekend to Dublin!

Wales - land of Wrestling Fans

We had an extension on the car; this really was our final weekend. Guess we can start with the new wheels:



Picked this up off ebay from a retired bike cop. One week down – besides getting lost a couple times on back roads, it wasn’t too bad. We live just under 5 miles from work, so it’s a good ride.

Back to the weekend, we visited the land of Greame’s. The Welsh were an interesting people; it’s hard to pinpoint the accents – somewhere between Austrian/German and British. There were a lot of French around too..

We headed out straight after work on Friday and stayed in Newport, outside of the capital Cardiff Friday night. Saturday morning we had an appointment for a tour at the only Welsh Whisky distillery. Prince Charles is a big fan and has visited a couple of times. The distillery was located in the Brecon Beacon’s national park – in the middle of nowhere.

Opened in 2004, only the second distillery in 160+ years. Here’s some pics:

One of the two remaining bottles from the last Welsh Distillery. Prince Charles is rumored to own the other one.. although he won't admit it:

The staff was pretty entertaining. There was some weight-lifting junky that was running the place and we got into a conversation about football, American-football, rugby and oddly, Professional Wrestling – WWF or WWE (whatever it is now). This guy was a huge fan, telling us about how he holds Wrestlemania parties and stays up all night with his buddies eating pizza, drinking beer, and watching Wrestling! Ahhh, the Welsh. Not the best first impression..

Next, we randomly decided to take a side trip on our way to the coast. Stopped at the Aberdulais Falls for a quick education on the history of the Welsh Tin industry. This was the heart of the prosperity of Wales until America took over the business creating an influx of Welsh Immigrants..

Here are some pics of the ruins of this small Tin Industrial town – currently powered completely by the electricity generated from its water wheel. The unneeded power is pumped into the national grid:

Smoke stack remaining from the ruins of the old Tin factories:

They love the ruins over here... the different buildings that made up this Tin town:

The falls.. The National Heritage Society places a strong emphasis on renewable energy and it's pretty impressive that this site is entirely powered by water and then some:

Sidetracked, we headed back to our original destination, the coast! We arrived in Mumbles and snapped some pics:

The train that circles the bay:

Then we started out further up the coast in search of the elusive ‘Three Cliffs Bay’:

Three Cliffs:

Finally, we made our way to the small coastal town of Rhossili. Possibly the sweetest ocean front property in the world:

And we capped the day off sitting atop the cliffs in Rhossili, watching the sunset:

Yes, we were here, these are our photographs. Unbelievable:

There were some hang gliders and para-gliders hovering above us for a few hours as we sat and waited for the sun to go down:

It’s hard to top that, and unfortunately, Cardiff didn’t. On our way to the capital we stopped at the Welsh National Museum and visited a cheesy re-creation of a Welsh town:

Lots of baby lambs out and about:

Toll house of the 1700-1800's to raise funds to improve the notorious roads of Wales. They charged depending on the animal that was pulling your carriage:

And, of course, Ye Olde Cocke Fighting ring. They built an entire building just for this. Standing in the center of this place you can imagine the energy and entertainment this brought in those times:

On the outskirts of this “open-air museum” there was a small castle with beautiful gardens and cascading ponds:

Just a quaint little castle.. built by a rich lawyer at the time that never even bothered to live there after building it!!

After that random stop, we headed into the capital and explored what it had to offer. There’s a massive castle in the center of the city, surprisingly called, Cardiff Castle; without much else to do in town, we took the tour.

Here’s some pics of Cardiff and our castle tour:

The rugby cathedral of Wales. If you remember, we were in Ireland and watched the championship game of Ireland vs Wales a couple weeks ago. This came up a few times while we were in Wales - ahh the sad faces of the people we spoke to as Wales lost to Ireland in the last 2 minutes:

Cardiff Castle, right in the center of the capital:

Click the picture, Ashley is looking down on us from the 2nd story window. We took a couple more with her at the top, but she was just a speck..

Some controversial architecture at the Castle. The rare colorful decorations that adorn the outside of this clock tower:

Ashley posing with the coolest symbol for a country, a red dragon on the castle grounds:

Lastly, Ashley wants everyone to see the Welsh Cakes – although Sally’s recipe is better. Mmmm, welsh cakes:

Wales had the most beautiful coast of any we’ve seen, so it was a great way to spend our last weekend with the car. But there’s plenty more adventure to come – we’ll be going to Scotland in May and have already booked flights to Barcelona; Dublin, Pisa (Florence and Tuscany); Amsterdam; and Krakow, Poland.

A full schedule and plenty more blog entries to come….