Monday July 2nd–Into Portugal

This morning we had no early start and a block out blind… this meant the best sleep in ever until just before 11am. We were due to meet the group at 12pm so we packed our bags and ducked out into the town to have some breakfast (because 11.30am is still a very reasonable breakfast time on a Monday). This ended up being in the form of ham on toast and coffee whilst sitting in the shade on the square – very nice. We popped into the meat filled market on the way back to grab some random fruit and then clambered on a private bus with the rest of our tour.

Our bus ride into Portugal took around four hours, including a lunch stop where we had big chunks of meat and chips – good hangover food! At around 3.30pm we arrived in Coimbra (clocks went an hour back!), settled into our hotel room and went out on an orientation walk. This town is basically a student haunt, with a big university sitting on a hill in the middle (it’s the oldest university in the country). It is not as pretty or as charming as Salamanca was (I loved that town) but it still has its own character. Our walk mainly involved climbing up big cobblestoned hills and shade hopping around the university grounds. We stopped for a drink on the way back and somehow it was already 7pm when we were back at the hotel.

    

After an hour relaxing (and/or blogging) we met some others downstairs and headed out to find dinner.  We ended up at a big grill restaurant with a waitress who spoke no English and a Portuguese menu. This resulted in a lot of pointing and sign language – eventually we ordered what we thought was just enough, to find we’d ordered four giant meals to share with a side of chips and salad on each of them. We didn’t finish it all but we gave it a good go, the grilled meat was very good and the chips were very moorish.

    

At 9.30pm we headed back to the hotel to meet the others and head to a Fado performance (the traditional music here). This involved three different parts with a operatic style singer, an accordion/piano player, a guy on a 12 stringed Portuguese guitar and a classical guitar player. They were all very talented, particularly the man on the Portuguese guitar (his fingers were blurred at one point he was playing so fast). We enjoyed just sitting and relaxing in the little chapel and watching them play for two hours. The space was small and it was quite intimate – they often stopped to chat to us and had us sing along twice.

Bed at around 1am.  

Sunday 1st July–Salamanca

This morning was hard. Andy having the air conditioning on all night meant I was rather freezing and didn’t sleep so well (I’m prepared for this on the entire tour) and the 6am start was less than welcome. After repacking and showering we headed downstairs to meet everybody at 7am, then we all trudged off to the metro to the train station. Breakfast at the train station meant coffee and churros – not the crazy big churros dipped in chocolate this time, instead just small ones which were a little underwhelming perhaps. Andy liked them.

Soon we were on the two and a half hour train to Salamanca. There was an attempt at sleeping (Andy’s new function on this trip = pillow) but everyone was very chatty so most of the hours passed talking. At just before 12pm we arrived. Again, our hotel room is quite nice, next to a pretty square. After a quick settling in period we headed to a small Tapas bar for a drink and a ‘snack’ (1pm is way too early for lunch here). Andy ended up ordering 7 different Tapas plates so it ended up being a little bit more than that… all were yummy, including one of rice fried in blood? Jaime only told us what that one was after we’d eaten it. I also had a drink that translates roughly to ‘summer wine’ – my new favourite.

    

We then began our hour or so orientation walk of the town. It is quite small, everything is within easy walking distance. Specific attractions included a seminary, cathedral, house covered in shells… but the best thing about the city is just being able to wander around and admire the pretty streets with flowers and beautifully intricate architecture. The weather is perfect today – mid 20s with a slight breeze.

After the orientation walk the group split up and Andy and I followed Jaime to a lunch spot (at the proper lunch time of 3pm). Andy and I shared a meal of seafood paella, suckling pig (the local speciality) and an eggy chocolately dessert thing. The paella was very seafoody (mussels, clams, prawns etc.) but the pig was amazing, with a crisp skin and juicy meat. Another glass of summer wine for me, beer for Jaime and Andy. The whole thing for all us, including six courses and four drinks came to just under $40. Cheap!

    

After lunch Andy and I wandered around the town for a bit – we climbed the seminary dome and admired the view and went and checked out the cathedral. Then it was time for a traditional Spanish siesta… at 6pm we were in bed. It took a lot of effort to get of bed again at 7pm but we wanted to get to the square early to find a table to watch the final of the Euro Cup. We arrived at Plaza Mayor around 7.30pm to find pretty much all the tables had been reserved or were already full, clearly this was going to get busy. We eventually scrounged ourselves a table with an angled but sufficient view of a TV screen and settled in with a bottle of local wine and some Tapas to pass the time before the match.  

      

At 8.30pm I went to meet the others, bringing them all back to our tiny table (pulling chairs from anywhere we could find them). Some had bought t-shirts, flags and a coloured stick for drawing flags on bodies and faces – I got a flag on both cheeks. And then the match started – within the first 15 minutes Spain scored a goal and it was all uphill from there. This match was a lot more exciting than the last one we watched, Spain scored four goals, Italy scored none and every time the ball went in the square went crazy. At the right climatic time the lights in the square went on, including a big display of red and yellow lights on the main building (more cheering here).

    

And then Spain won and everything went nuts. The square turned into a blur of red and yellow, with horns and yelling and cheering. A whole mob of people started running around the outside of the square and as we had consumed quite a lot of wine at this time, a lot of us jumped in and ran with them. We spent the next two hours diving into the square amongst the crazy fans and popping up for air back at our table. At one point I stole a Spanish shirt for another guy in our tour group. I also had lots of photos taken with crazy randoms. We couldn’t stop grinning about the chances of us being here for this – honestly one of the most memorable moments of my life (do check out the photos at the link on the right)

At around 1.30am we headed back to bed, looking forward to a much needed sleep in the next day!

Saturday 30th June–Madrid and the new tour!

Last night was a relatively good night sleep in our 12 person dorms – all the roommates seemed to get the coming in quietly without a light thing, which always helps. We had my latest sleep in of the trip yet, until 9.30am!

After successfully managing to manoeuvre my way around the mini push button showers with no clothes racks we grabbed a quick breakfast downstairs and then headed back to Plaza Mayor to start yet another Sandeman’s walking tour. These walks are really great but don’t make the most exciting of blogs. We walked past a lot of buildings (the opera house, the royal palace…) and were given lots of historical info about civil war and the Spanish Inquisition as well as lots of facts about playwrights and political upheaval. We also stopped at a really nice place for lunch, with a random assortment of little bread rolls and beer. Our Irish guide was pretty good, although he was hard to understand at times. We really enjoyed the walk – they are quickly becoming the staple thing to do in a big city.

   

After the tour we headed to the church dome entrance that the guide had pointed out to us, which was attached to a little museum. Clearly not many tourists know about this because it was completely empty and tourist free, which we loved. It was nice and peaceful up the top with a good view of Madrid… it is funny how quickly it tapers off into dry countryside.

    

After some more relaxing on the grass we did a little bit more shopping- more shoes for Andy and another dress for me! Then back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to our new hotel – this involved about 20 minutes of walking and metro, nothing too hard. The new hotel is a bit out of the way of anything so we enjoyed just relaxing in our room for an hour before our group meeting (after sorting out an initial hiccup where they’d put me in a room with another girl and not Andy).

Our group – there are only 9 of us and those three people less make this group seem rather small! There are three Americans and the rest of us are Aussies, nothing like diversity! I am quite possibility the youngest in the group, although there are two other younger females. We had a good chat to the group leader Jaime who sorted out our room situation… he is from Madrid himself and initially we thought him to be quite sombre, although turns out he is actually very knowledge and hilarious.

    

After all the obligatory rule reading we headed around the corner for dinner. This included eight big plates of tapas, including chorizo sausages, green capsicums, vegies, octopus, mini squid, hake, croquettes, potatoes. One of my favourites was actually the mini squid which is very unlike me… this is why I made sure I tried everything. The group already seems to gel really well – there was a lot of chatting and laughing and I look forward to spending the next two weeks with these people.

When dinner was over three people headed into town to check out the big gay parade that was happening, others went to bed. Andy and I walked down to where we thought the river was and instead walked into this big art area with bars and exhibition halls and a giant… roller skate derby? I think that’s what it was, there were people with roller skates everywhere. Andy and I had a good time sidling up to crowds and pretending we were locals. We were also glad that when they locked the entrance we had come in by we knew what the signs saying ‘Salida’ meant.

After escaping from the art exhibition I grabbed a mango popsicle from a mini supermarket and we strolled along the river, looking at all the people with their dogs and the arty bridges. Then back to the hotel to sleep. Tomorrow we leave Madrid – I really have enjoyed my time here. We haven’t done anything very touristy, mostly just relaxed in parks and shopped – but at this point in my holiday that was just perfect. I still like Barcelona better (much to Andy’s disappointment) but I could happily come back here one day to relax some more!

(N.B. If people want to read Andy’s blog, which will now be covering exactly the same as me, they can go to trimaway.blogspot.com – a different perspective perhaps, plus some extra photos … although a lot of my photos now will be copied from his camera!!)

Friday 29th June–Off to Madrid

This morning I wasn’t as refreshed as I had hoped, waking up with bright red eyes with lovely big bags under them. Not exactly the way I wanted to look when meeting up with Andy after four weeks, sigh. Up anyway and time to get moving! Check out was relatively easy, excepting a short moment where one of the other girls locked herself in the bathroom with my makeup bag and then couldn’t open the door when I asked (it got stuck). Julie got up to say goodbye, this was always going to be sad – she has been the perfect travel companion (as expected) and continues to be an amazing friend. We both made a ‘5 year rule’ (which involves making sure we see each other again before the five years are up) and I hope very much we can stick with it!

Then I was on my own again. I managed to find the train station with little difficulty and (with some help from the info desk lady) found my way to the platform with 40 minutes to spare. Soon I was on the train in my allocated seat – already I can see that this train is fancy and that my three hours on it will not be a chore at all. I watched in bemusement as the train attendants brought me hot towels, newspapers, headphones and then a full breakfast of eggs, bacon, tomato, croissants, bread, jam, fruit and orange juice! I knew I had paid a lot of money for the seat but I had not expected this!

I settled in quite happily, watching the sunny countryside roll by, enjoying my reclining seat with a pillow and reflecting on Spain so far. As I’ve said, Julie and I both loved Barcelona – it has the perfect mix of culture, gothic architecture, weird colourful Gaudi architecture, a waterfront, trees everywhere and parks to relax in…plus everything in the central area was in walking distance. I could have easily stayed there longer. As I sat on the train I really wasn’t sure what to expect of Madrid at all – I know Andy likes it but I imagined it would just be another big city. I was mostly just looking forward to seeing Andy though and was happy to see what the new city would bring.

After arriving at the train station I managed to find my way to the hostel with no difficulty – it was only one metro stop away, nice and easy! I found Andy in the dorm and we had a lovely awkward reunion as the cleaning lady mopped around us. The hostel itself has the most amazing common room, with a stained glass roof and tiled walls. The facilities themselves are rather dodgy – you have to sit on the toilet on a angle cause your knees won’t fit in the room, there is nowhere to hang your clothes in the shower and the dorms are rather cramped… still, I guess the common room and location makes up for it.

The first thing Andy and I did in Madrid was… put washing on! This was amazing, I was so deliriously excited at the possibility of having fresh clothes again. As the clothes were in the dryer we walked down to Plaza Mayor to have Andy’s favourite food in the world (or so it seems), Spanish calamari sandwiches and beer. For someone who doesn’t enjoy fish I have to admit the sandwich was nice and the square itself is beautiful – clearly we were going to be spending some more time there.

    

A quick stop back to the hostel to pick some clothes and then back to Central Madrid. We wandered around for a while before settling on a patch of grass in the shade outside the royal palace. We stayed here for at least half an hour just chatting and relaxing, before getting up again and going to do some shopping. Andy got his bag and glasses fixed and I finally bought my first dress of the holiday.

Soon, more relaxing was in order so we took the metro to Madrid’s giant El Retiro park. This park is very big, very green and very pretty and we hopped from multiple park benches, including sitting next to the big lake and watching everybody row boats around it. After spending about an hour here we headed back for a little bit more shopping, including the purchase of some very delicious frozen yoghurt, some shoes for Andy and some other little necessities for me. Whilst we were out and about we did stumble upon a big concert for ‘Mr Gay Pride’, including a song called ‘Sex Dance’ with choreography that was basically just that.

     

By now it was around 9pm (still light of course) so we headed back to the hostel to freshen up before heading back to Plaza Mayor for dinner. I know that on the square they overcharge, but our little table with a white tablecloth right on the edge of the square as the sun set was just perfect. We ordered three tapas, asparagus, beef and pork and well as a main meal of inverted chorizo – all very yummy. We sat here for a couple of hours, drinking rose and being serenaded by an accordion player who we generously tipped. After a quick walk around the square and  looking into a random telescope (with a random dot that was meant to be Saturn) we headed back to the hostel, hitting the beds at around 1am.

Thursday 28th June–Barcelona

Last night was surprisingly good in our cramped little room. We had air conditioning and all the people who came to bed after us crept around in dark so that we didn’t even realise they were there. Perfection! Julie and I got up at the average 7.45am in a bid to get to the main tourist attraction here, the Sagrada Familia, without stupid amounts of tourists.

The walk down to the church took us around 20 minutes, down a tree filled street in an already balmy 27 degrees (at 8.30am). Our prebought tickets got us straight in. If you haven’t seen pictures of this church before I can certainly tell you that it is very unique, very Gaudi, weirdly gothic. All of the architecture is inspired by trees, oceans, nature and light – which means loads of stained glass windows and no straight lines. Very pretty. I think. It’s certainly one of the more memorable churches I have been to – when you see so many in Europe the unique ones quickly become your favourites.

    

We also had the option of paying three Euros to go up 50m in a lift to the top, which we took. This was actually rather unexciting, the view wasn’t anything special and we were right in the middle of a construction site (the church is still unfinished). After looking at the view we had to go down a narrow spiral staircase, getting stuck behind anybody who wanted to take a picture. Yay.

After spending sufficient amount of time at the church we caught the Metro back to our hostel area to search for two of Gaudi’s most famous houses. The first we quickly found but it wasn’t that special – we headed on to the second, Case Batlo, which is the most famous house here in Barcelona. We payed a rather large amount of money to go in and see some of Gaudi’s interior architecture. This house was bizarre, so many different themes on each level and the same Gaudi principles of playing with light and using no straight lines. We did get an included audio tour but both Julie and I abandoned it after it waxed lyrical about molluscs and dragon scales for just a little too long. 

   

From here we walked down Passagia de Gracia (the shopping strip on which we were staying), back down to Las Ramblas, where delicious icecream was purchased. We then wandered around the Gothic Quarter a little bit more, saw the big Catedral (another church) and eventually found ourselves a random little cafe for lunch. Nothing too special about this place – we ordered Chorizo sandwiches and homemade lemonade for a very small price.

By now it was around 1pm and we agreed to head back to the hostel for a bit, for boring things like blogging, packing, leg shaving and general avoidance of heat. At around 2.30pm we ventured back out again to the Palace of Catalan Music. This was a ticket I had prebooked and in hindsight this was a really random purchase – the Palace is essentially a big music hall. I must have read on the internet somewhere that it was one of the highlights although it is really out of the way and obscure here. Anyway, we had a ticket so off we went! This concert hall wasn’t designed by Gaudi but by somebody similar – it was full of sculptures and stained glass windows and was generally very pretty. We were sad to hear they had a flamenco show there on Saturday nights, to see a concert there would have been something!

    

After the Palace tour we headed over to the area where the Magic Fountain show is at night… we’d decided to go see it, except problematically we were five hours early! We spent some time walking around the big park here, with another view over the city and lots of outdoor escalators (we love these things!) We didn’t feel like  going into the big Catalan art museum so instead we sheltered from the heat in the big shopping mall across the street. Neither of us really felt like we had enough energy for shopping, so we sat with a drink for a while before finding somewhere for dinner.

Dinner for me was a rather yummy mushroom and asparagus risotto, whilst Julie had a ‘big sausage of the country’. We of course grabbed some Spanish wine as well and settled in for a couple of hours, eating, drinking and playing two person Euchre (another good game to add to my card playing repertoire). At 9pm we headed up to the fountains… as it got steadily darker all the lights came on. The best way to describe the show is a LOT of lights and a LOT of water. As the water shot up into the air they played dramatic classical music, plus the ET and Titanic theme songs thrown in. There were crazy amount of people here, clearly this is the spot where the entire tourist population of Barcelona goes at night.

    

We didn’t stay until it was really dark (having watched the same show on repeat for about an hour). Instead we went back to the hostel to finish packing and to prepare ourselves for the next travelling day. It was a relatively early night at 11pm.

Wednesday 27th June–Off to Spain

It seems like the nights at the hostel got progressively worse – last night involved a bunch of Aussies coming in at 2.30am to discuss whether they should set up a drinking party in the room and a whole bunch of drunken guys with loud music serenading us outside our window at 5am. As such, little sleep was had and Julie and I felt less than stellar getting up just before 7am to catch our next flight.

The metro to the airport was uneventful and we arrived just before check in opened. A little more waiting in line and we were soon waiting in line for security – dumb blonde moment here, I’d accidentally packed my sunscreen, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner in my hand luggage (despite knowing I can’t take liquids on the plane). Oh well, the man was friendly about it… but bin time for all of those items. 

Our time in Paris has been interesting – again, marred by rain. I like the city very much however and there is so much more that I haven’t seen yet… all the more reason to come back one day! A part of me feels like I haven’t had a very authentic French experience but then I’m not sure what I was expecting in a big city like this. It makes me want to go the French country side a lot. That being said, I think we had our fair share of baguettes and pastries and I am looking forward to something a little different in Spain for a while.

The gate was pleasant enough to wait in and then on to our flight! Again, this was uneventful, mostly filled with sleeping. Soon we were on the train to central Barcelona, with hyped up vigilance against the dreaded pick pockets here. We found our hostel with no difficulty – the location of this place is great, right on the central shopping strip and close to the metro. The common rooms here have a lots of character although our 6 bed dorm is rather small and squishy (with two powerpoints and one shower to share between all of us).

By now it was around 2pm and we decided to head to Park Guell, a Gaudi designed park overlooking the city (there is a looot of Gaudi architecture here). The new environment took a bit of getting used to – after three weeks in Central Europe an hour and a half flight suddenly takes us to this place full of palm trees, sun, the ocean, sand, new architecture… we love it here already. We strolled around the park (hopping between shady spots, oh how the tides turned) and eventually settled down at a cafe with a litre of cold Sangria and a view of the whole city. What had defined our time here so far has been a distinct lack of rushing around – we sat here for a least an hour just enjoying the surroundings and chatting.

    

After that we headed down to La Ramblas – a really long street covered in trees, artists, icecream bars and the inevitable souvenir shops. During our walk down the street there was a quick stop over to restock all the liquids the airport had taken from me, and then down to the waterfront. We strolled along here for a bit (lots of strolling today) and then walked around the ‘local’ area to find somewhere for dinner. We settled for a tapas bar in a small square – dinner consisted of salted asparagus, sizzling chorizos braised in cider (so good!), chicken kebabs and over roasted lamb. For dessert I ordered a traditional Catalan crispy pancake, which was basically a pappadam type thing covered in sugar and a licorice tasting liquer. And of course there was Spanish wine.

  

There was only one way we could spend the night after this… Spain was playing Portugal in the semifinals of the Euro Cup (which we have been following on various TV screens in various cities over the past few weeks) so of course we had to watch the game. We found what we thought was a local bar, ordered another bottle of Spanish wine and settled in for the match. Turns out we were surrounded by Canadians, French people and Germans but there were enough locals to keep the Spanish spirit high! The game itself was rather uneventful (0-0) which meant penalty shoot outs which were very intense! Spain ended up winning, which means that I will be in the country when they play in the Grand Final on Sunday night. Fun times!

After that back to the hostel to creep back in the room without lights – after a long day bed was amazing!

Tuesday 26th June–Giverny & Versailles

Last night was another night of minimal sleep due to main light being turned on multiple times and people drinking below our window until 4am. Oh well, up nice and early anyway… so much so that the hostel breakfast hadn’t opened yet and we needed to grab chocolate croissants on the way to the metro (this was tough). We walked through the rain to our meeting point with minimal dramas and soon had cups of steaming hot coffee to warm us up.

Today we had booked a full day tour of Giverny and Versailles, our one time in one of the big touristy bus full of people of all ages. They are not ideal but they suited our purpose for today… the reclining seats and comfy chairs meant lots of sleep on the bus happened between stops and we didn’t have to worry about getting to and from places at all.

The trip started with an hour and a bit bus ride in which we all slept, even through the heavily french accented lady’s commentary about Monet’s house and gardens (she was a bit tough to listen to and I failed at my multiple attempts). The view outside the window was minimal due to the bad weather again – to give you an idea, we could only see half of the Eiffel tower due to fog. As such we were in a bit low spirits but soon we were at our first stop.

Monet’s garden and house at Giverny lifted my spirits a lot. I am such a flower person are there are 100,000 of them there! So many pretty colours and different flower types (I can only imagine what it would look like with shining sun). It was also amazing to see the place where Monet spent half his life and the gardens that inspired his most famous works. It took us about an hour to wander around the garden and through the small house… this really gave us a taste of French Provincial life. It was nice to get away from the city and the huge crowds if only for a little bit – there were many comments about how easy it would be to live there.

    

We had a whole two hours at Giverny so ended up spending the rest of it in a little cafe eating Blackberry pie inside. The rain had pretty much stopped by now… it was still overcast but we will take what we can get! Most of us were back at the bus in time, excepting two people who we waited for for half an hour and then left without them! No idea what ended up happening there.

From Giverny it was a quick 15 minute drive to our lunch spot, an old water mill. Lunch was the typical mass produced tourist meal… there was a pate that no one really ate, chicken and potato as a main and an apple pie for dessert. Nothing amazing but edible none the less. There were also two bottles of wine on the table which hardly anyone was drinking – Julie and I drank what we could (how can you leave free wine?) but gave up after about three glasses each! This led to some rather amusing mid day conversations whilst waiting for the bus to leave again.

    

Next, another one hour trip with more sleep. At around 3pm we arrived at Versailles. My first impressions were how big the palace was and how many people there were. The place was absolutely crawling with tourists and even our ‘reserved entry’ took about 15 minutes to get organised. Eventually we got in and managed to side with the less accented younger guide who turned out to be very interesting. She took us through 17 out of the 2000 rooms in the palace. Most of the furniture had been previously sold so it was mostly empty rooms, excepting a few beds. Despite this the rooms are certainly impressive, covered with gold and art. Our guide gave us some good insight into the French court and some royal history… it was also very impressive to be standing in the Hall of Mirrors where the peace declaration at the end of WWI was signed.

One thing I have to note is that the amount of tourists did take away from the experience a little – some doorways we were literally packed liked sardines with people pushing at every side. As a result, we spent more time in the less impressive rooms, purely because we couldn’t handle being in the really pretty ones. After about an hour we were free and out in the open again, giving us about half and hour in the gardens. We wandered around the back of the palace, thinking we could see sufficient amounts from there….and then we saw a map. The gardens are HUGE. I understand why people recommend a full day trip here because it would take hours upon hours to get around the gardens properly. Added to the next time list!

Eventually it was time to go home – after another 40 minute bus drive we arrived back in Paris at 6pm. This was dinner time for Julie and I so we headed to Montmarte to stroll around its cobbled streets and find somewhere to eat. We eventually settled for a place filled with locals, drank Bordeaux wine and ate Beef Burgandy (I could attempt to spell the French version of this but I would fail). There was also lots of people watching – it amused us how many locals were walking around with handfuls of baguettes. I ordered a creme caramel for dessert, which was actually a little burnt and rather disappointing – first dessert I haven’t finished here!

Then back to the hotel to pack properly for our flight tomorrow. I enjoyed putting my jeans and jumpers right down the bottom… I certainly won’t be needing them in Spain anymore! Bring on the sun!