Thursday 15 October - Barcelona

[Photos: Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo]

 

Up slowly – these late nights are taking a toll, but it isn't really worrying us. Spaniards keep such odd hours by our standards, that late starting and late finishing work in well sometimes. Sandy & Lynette were meeting her cousin later in the day, so we headed our separate ways in the morning.

 

We took off for Sagrada Familia, which was some fair way away. Stopped fairly early on for a caffeine injection for Karen. I made the excellent choice of a hot chocolate and croissant (2€ the lot). The hot chocolates here are thick and creamy, almost like a chocolate custard. They are meant for dipping your croissant or churro in, and are delicious.

 

We got to Sagrada Familia around 10:30, and had about 20 minutes queuing to get in. Not too bad really, but it must be impossible in summer. The weather was a bit chilly with Karen having her warm fleece on for the first time in daytime. We started our visit in the crypt, though the brochure suggests starting inside. We felt the crypt start made the rest of the visit far better as it is a comprehensive museum, full of models, explanations and workshops, which all help to make more of the cathedral itself when you get there. Next, we went round to the entrance into the cathedral.

 

It was started in 1912 by another architect, but the job was handed to Gaudi in 1913, and he more or less completely redid it, working on it full time until he was run down by a tram in 1926. Work ceased for some time, but there are now over 300 workers back on it, with plans to finish the interior by 2010 and the exterior by 2030. To us there looks to be a huge amount of work inside, far more than a year's worth. They have got all 8 major towers up, and the main body of the church built (none of the latter was there in 1982 as far as we remember). As you would expect, much is covered or hidden by scaffold and protective fabric mesh but they have been generous about letting visitors get in and around the building.

 

Again we loved the walking as the streets are just lovely, despite the odd sewage whiff, presumably from open vents. Casa Batllo was a bit of a fright – 16.50€. Again I went through on the theory that I had come this far and it would be mad not to despite the excessive charge. It was worth it, and I have a good collection of photos to prove it. The house was rebuilt from an ordinary building for one family, and it has been restored to something like it was. Really very beautiful, all on a marine theme.

 

We tried to have a look in the entrance to Casa Calvet, but got shooed out by an angry security man. A place as nice as that should be public! We managed to stumble across the market building – a lovely iron structure with stained glass highlights. As always, the market was full of colour, noise, smells and interest. Karen knew she would have some work in, so we had another bocadillo and back to our room. Lynette's cousin Jo had arrived, so we chatted with the three of them for a bit in the hotel before settling down for an evening's work – to 2am again.

Wednesday 14 October - Trip to Barcelona

[Photos: Full up!, Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, a random building, Casa Mila]

 

Up a bit slowly, the late nights on the book are taking their toll. Set the GPS for Figueres, as we were going to try to replace the one chipped saucer in the espresso set from there. Didn't take too long to get there, but for some reason the shop was shut, so we had to give it away. Given the time, we changed the GPS to allow toll roads, so we were able to blast our way south at a constant 120kmh on the cruise control. It is an incredibly efficient way of getting from place to place. Until we got near Barcelona, it was a cheap way too. Only 7€ to the outskirts of Barcelona, but another 2.50€ for the last few kilometres.

 

Found our way to the Catalonia Aragon Hotel where Sandy & Lynette were booked. Parking in Barcelona is around 20€/24 hours, and the hotel had it for 22, and the room wasn't too excessive, so for the sake of convenience we booked in too. By 2:30pm we were back outside in a small square near the hotel for lunchtime pastries. Prices in Spain are cheaper than France.

 

Karen & I had worked out that we needed to see Parc Guell today in order to have enough time for other Gaudi works on Thursday, so we all headed that way via Sagrada Familia to check opening times and queues. Quite a decent walk – over an hour and uphill. We do remember how far it was last time here, as we got lost and it seemed to take forever. Signposting of such places is a bit on the weak side, though the street names are well marked. The joy of having a map! Weather was mild without being hot, which meant the walk up to the park was not too bad.

 

A nice surprise, Parc Guell was free (gratuit) for once. We were not as thrilled with it as last time for some reason, maybe we had built it up in our minds. We remembered it remarkably well – the sloped stone columns at the top, the gatekeeper's lodge, the mosaics. Took a load of photos. Enjoyed the curved mosaic seats, the fan-palm gates and the entrance steps in particular. It was nice to get some better photos than the slides of 1982, which are a bit dull and becoming blotchy compared with modern digital versions. The big terrace with the curvy seats was packed with people quietly enjoying themselves and taking time out. I presume the locals enjoy the park as much as the tourists. We didn't go and see the Gaudi museum – really annoying as you can buy a (relatively) cheap double ticket for the Museum and Sagrada Familia, but only at Sagrada Familia.

 

From Parc Guell it was all downhill (literally) to Casa Mila (La Pedrera) in town – one of Gaudi's most famous buildings. We all loved the feel of Barcelona. The streets are so generous, as are the footpaths. All the intersections have the corner buildings chamfered, so the crossings are full of light, and there is room for footpath cafes. The buildings appear to have been built within a few decades as the styles are consistent. They are all heavily decorated, 6-7 stories high, have many balconies, which are protected with profuse and beautiful ironwork.

 

We had timed our arrival to Casa Mila perfectly – it was lit in evening sun and looked just splendid. We headed across the street to get a good look, and then back again to see about going through it. Last time, I don't remember it being open at all, except for the entry area. This time they had redone one of the apartments as it would have been when it was built, plus the roof was open, plus some of the attic space had been turned into a mini-museum. The price was fairly steep, so only I went through.

 

It was worth the price for me. The apartment was very good, the roof excellent and the attic area fascinating. I especially liked the incredible fine brick ribs that the Catalan craftsmen use, and the explanations of Gaudi's catenary curves worked out using string and lead shot weights, then turned upside-down for perfect load-bearing structures.

 

Finally back to our hotel, tired and footsore after a lot of walking. We weren't up to going out again for dinner, so justy had a bocadillo on the way back. Karen has some more revisions come in, so had to work until 2am again. Never write a non-fiction book. It is far too much work! The hotel had free internet – a real godsend, as I had some fixes for my work to sort out and send back. Absurd as it sounds, I can work on a computer in Motueka faster than on our silly little Aspire One netbook. However, it has done the job required of it perfectly – I'm sure we will take one away with us again.

Tuesday 13 October - Laroque

[Photo: Sunset at Laroque]

 

A bit of a quiet day today. Spent a chunk of the morning tidying and cleaning the house, doing the washing and other mundane things. Karen yet again did more work on the book, this time checking out an email from the publisher who is going through the book now. This took until 2pm, when I took over the computer and updated the diary/blog with about five days worth.

 

We seem to have accumulated a whole load of food and drink, so didn’t buy any more, and concentrated on eating and drinking our way through as much as we could.

 

Lorcan and Valerie turned up late as expected, and we had a good talk before retiring. They have not yet managed to make any bookings for their trip to New Zealand – I wonder what the chances are of them getting down under.

Monday 12 October - Carcassonne

[Photos: Carcassonne]

 

Our revisit of Carcassonne was a great success, after a gap of over 27 years. The day didn't augur well, with a strong wind (we presume it is the tramontane) from the northwest, and drizzly grey skies. We chose to set the GPS to allow toll roads to speed up the 1.5-2 hour trip. Good choice. It was very gusty, hard work driving, and would have been far worse on the narrower and more heavily-trafficked normal highway. The toll road has a speed limit of 130kmh, but I kept below that as the wind was fierce. The toll at 10€ was rather more than we expected.

 

Arrived about 10:30, parked and headed into the old city through the Narbonne (NE) gate. Unfortunately the way we came in, we couldn't see the old city until we were right on it, whereas arriving from the railway station all this years ago we could see the amazing profile of all the towers as we approached. The temperature was down at 18, the wind still strong, and as we had left Laroque with clear skies, we had no warm gear with us. Thankfully our Goretex shells were in the boot, so at least we had some protection from the wind.

 

Carcassonne was just great. Our memories of it from last time were pretty hazy, mainly prompted by the four slides we took back then. How photography has changed. This time I took about 100 photos, almost all of which were better than the Kodachrome 64/Pentax ME Super SLR efforts of 1982, yet that was a pretty flash combination. Not only better, but our Panasonic TZ camera is way smaller, no doubt cheaper in real terms, and basically free to run. We paid to go through the main chateau, which was excellent and had a lot of panels explaining what we saw. By the time we had finished, it was quite late for lunch.

 

We stopped off at a café and had a very tasty ham and cheese roll. Being France, it wasn't mild or Colby, but a nice gruyere. We found our way to the cathedral where we had an amazing experience. The church itself is a stunning gothic creation, with a great forest of columns at the front, and lovely gothic rib vaulting above. The stained glass windows were some of the best we have seen, and I was able to photograph them pretty well. So the setting was special to begin with, but as we were looking about, a 5-voice Russian male choir started singing. They were superb, with a falsetto countertenor and an extraordinarily deep bass. The combination of the setting, the excellent acoustics and the beautiful singing made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It would be enough to make anyone take up religion. We so enjoyed it, we bought the CD.

 

We found our way back through the streets via a number of excellent artists' shops, then finished our visit with a trip around part of the main ramparts. We seem to remember from last time walking pretty much around the whole walled city, but this time only about half the ramparts were available to visit.

 

The bastide or old town outside the walls looked to have a few interesting places to see, but on going down to see it we found it looking very tired, and the places impossible to find. However the views back to the old city across the Aude river were excellent.

 

Going back home, we were going to go back to the ordinary roads, but in the end decided the shorter time was worth the money. Much easier travelling with the wind behind us, and also I remembered to fire up the cruise control. It seems very odd whipping along at 130kmh. We had to stop off at Argeles to pick up a replacement ink cartridge for our hosts as we had used theirs to print the book out. Unfortunately this meant a long slow drag through Perpignan. Just as important, my undies had disintegrated and needed replacement!

 

Fired up the barbecue for dinner, though not without incident. It was pitch dark, and Sandy hadn't noticed the BBQ brush inside the back of it. After a bit there was a yell from downstairs – the pile of leaves under the BBQ had caught on fire. The hose nearby did the trick, and it turned out that the plastic brush had melted and dripped, burning, down below the BBQ! Not to worry. A bit of a burnoff and it was all tidied up. The Catalan sausage we had bought for dinner was superb, with eggplant, onion, pepper and courgettes on the side.

Sunday 11 October - Collioure, Port-Vendres, Banyuls sur Mer

[Photos: Catalan kayaks, Banyuls-sur-Mer Vendage Festival]

 

Another day on the road today, and the weather has turned sunny again after three days of mixed skies. So good to have the book more or less out of the way.

 

Today brought a vendage festival at Banyuls sur Mer, celebrating the vintage, and it was also the market day in Collioure which is where we headed initially. It wasn’t as busy as our last visit. Two weeks later may have made a difference, also last time they had some sort of sale day with half-price stands outside many shops. There were a number of places closed up for holidays, and even some closed until summer 2010.

 

Bought a few things at the market, though our anis rings from last time were not there. Had a coffee, then watched a large group of jet-skiers heading out to sea on monster jet-skis. With today’s wind, the sea was pretty choppy, and they were leaving the water with every wave. Down to the beach, where a few hardy souls were starting to gather to enjoy the sun, though the wind was still quite strong. We went out to the point to look back at Collioure, then back through the town. We stopped at an artist’s shop, full of very attractive acrylics of Collioure, some in shades of grey, but most in reds and ranges. Slightly cubist, and Karen and I were very much taken by them and bought ourselves a smallish print http://galeriedumortier.skyrock.com/. Off to the car and away to Port-Vendres.

 

Once there, the two women held the rest of us up by shopping, but I suppose it is a natural instinct that can’t be controlled. Evolution has only come so far. We managed to find an anis ring and some of the Catalan deep-fried, sugar-coated, lemon-flavoured crunchy pastries that we had bought in Arles-sur-Tech, which we ate beside the water. It was a lovely spot.

 

Off to Banyuls for the vendage festival. The roads were clogged heading on, with every parking spot, and lots of spots that weren’t really parking spots, full up. The beach was a riot of people. Absolutely full up, with several thousand people sitting at long tables eating meals. We passed through town, found a space and parked the 207, before heading back to the beach. It was amazing. Chokka full of people, and a haze of smoke and heat from barbecues over everything. Obviously many family groups, with the tables covered in food and wine. The navy was there supporting the festival too. Having eaten we weren’t tempted to join in, but did manage a gelato, mine having scoops of Cointreau and blackcurrant.

 

For a change, the weather was still fine when we got back, so we were able to spend some useful time around the pool.

Saturday 10 October - The Book Nears the End

[Photos: Last major run on the book, Entree ]

 

We had intended to take Sandy and Lynette to the market at Prades, then to Villefranche, but I was still stuffed from yesterday, and we still had some book revisions to finish off to send to Hannah. Also, the weather had packed in again after a reasonable day yesterday.

 

Sandy and Lynette went for a walk up into town, while Karen and I finished off the index. Neither of us had any realisation of the work involved in doing a non-fiction book. There is so much to do – even something seemingly simple like an index just takes forever by the time you italicise the photo references, check duplications, sort out what should and shouldn't be included, and that is even with using Word's clever indexing functions to do the bulk of the work.

 

The book took Karen all day, right through to 7:30pm. What a relief to get it sorted, though there are still bits and pieces to check. We thought we'd treat ourselves to a decent dinner, so headed the 1 kilometre to Sorede where we had mentally tagged a few restaurants for future reference when Karen had her tooth sorted a week back. It was an inspired choice. We had a superb 3-course 16€ menu. For the first course I had moules mariniere with a ridiculous 45 mussels and the others had a perfect roquefort salad. The waiter was a hoot. Great flourishes and load voilas every time he served us. Interesting that the voila was almost said boila with a Spanish-style b pronunciation on the v.

 

Mains were a Catalan grill for me, with saucisson, blood pudding, pork and more, while the others had chicken, and tuna steak. I had a floating pudding (ile flottante) which was a soft meringue in a cream-based sauce. All up a delicious and enjoyable meal. We might be forced to come back for another round.

Friday 9 October - Figueres & Dali

[Photos: Figueres ramblas, Dali Museum, Port Lligat, Interesting balconies ]

We were all looking forward to seeing what Mr Dali had to offer us. I am a great fan of his surrealism, right back to university days when I had "The Dream" on my wall. It's a reasonable run from Laroque to Figueres where the main Dali museum is. The border is a joke – we have found out that it runs through the main street of Le Perthus and crosses it part-way down. As a result, on one side of just half of the street, there are the cheap booze barns we saw in La Jonquera in Spain.

We did make a stop in La Jonquera to pick up some nibbles that we haven't found in France, before continuing on to Figueres. The border crossing is very clear in the surrounding countryside, perhaps because of the difference between France and Spain, also the crossing of the Pyrenees. Whatever the reason, the Spanish side has a certain scruffiness to it that we last saw in Italy. Maybe there is less money about to pay for streetworks, but the difference is very clear. Here in Laroque, the amount of money the local authority has to spend is obvious. The streets have lots of street furniture, there are little bollards and railings everywhere, the pavements are paved with tiles and exposed aggregate. In Italy and Spain, it is more like New Zealand. No doubt the fact that half the ratepayers only spend a few weeks a year here, not using services for the rest of the year, makes a huge difference.

Figueres was quite a big town, about the size of Nelson. We found ourselves a carpark easily, got a map from the information centre, and settle d down with a Spanish breakfast deal to consider our plans. For 3€ we got a café au lait, a croissant and fresh orange juice. This all bodes well for our travels in Spain, as that is clearly better value than anything we have seen in France. The centre of Figueres consists of a lovely ramblas with big trees and an open area in the centre, full of men chatting away at 11 in the morning. We enjoyed ourselves looking in a few shops – lots of lovely things to buy including lots of attractive ceramics.

Passed a toy museum on the way to the Dali, with displays of full size and Vitra miniatures of famous Bauhaus chairs which I very much enjoyed.

The Dali Museum houses half of Dali's own collected works. You may or may not like his work, but whether you do or not, there is no denying his genius. The thing that struck us all most was his versatility. Some of his early works, before he chose surrealism, were clearly very good. Later on he experimented with all manner of different styles, and all of them very well executed. The museum is a fascinating building in itself. The outside on two faces has goosebumps, which on closer inspection turn out to be ceramic three-cornered breads, and it is topped with giant white eggs. Inside there are off sculptures, including an old American car with a massive (2 metre tall) bronze hood ornament. The trail through the museum goes up and down through dozens of rooms, with each dedicated to a different phase of his career. His main love, Gala, appears in many works, even in stereo 3D at times. We all were most impressed with a series of paintings done showing human figures composed of rocks. Very clever. There were not many of his really odd surrealist works.

We were tempted to buy one of his weird long-and-spindly-legged elephants, but prices were a bit steep, and they would be tricky to keep in one piece on the way home, so flagged it away. In the museum shop, you could buy a nice brass chair a mere 12,000€ or door handles for 1200€ apiece. Didn't see many being bought!

By the time we had gone right round the 22 rooms, we were seriously hungry, so sat down in the ramblas for an excellent lunch of risotto, rabbit, lamb and patates variously. It went down very well. We then jumped back in the car to go to Port Lligat where Dali spent most of his last years in a series of fishermen's cottage he had connected. In books here at Laroque, it looked a fascinating home, complete as he left it. It turned out to be quite a long way, more than we expected, but it was a lovely place when we got there. Unfortunately, it turned out that they only let a small group through every 10 minutes, and the last tickets for the day had already been sold. Very disappointing, as nothing we had seen had indicated that this was the case. Not to worry, it was an interesting drive.

We had expected that we would be able to head up the coast to get back to France, but the GPS was having none of it, and sent us back to Figueres. We took the opportunity to visit a shop we had wanted to go back to after the Dali Museum, but which had closed for the siesta. They take the siesta even more seriously in Spain than France. In the latter it means most places are closed from 12:30 to 2:00pm. In Spain it is more like 12:30 to 4:00pm. It is a real hassle for tourists, as it leaves a big chunk of the day with most places closed. Good for museums that generally stay open, but a hassle for everything else, specially as tourists on the move have nowhere to stop and have a snooze.

We bought a nice espresso set (you can never have too many) we had seen earlier, at a price well under half that of some other sets in Port Lligat town that we had visited, then back in the car for the trip home to Laroque. All up it had been a long day, and I was well bushed from all the driving by the time we made it home. We had been hoping to be able to spend a bit of time n the sun, but it refused to come out properly despite us opening the pool cover to encourage it. Notwithstanding the long day, Karen and I stayed up to 2am working on the book (Karen's 3^rd post-1am night in a row) – proofreading the whole thing, writing up required fixes, and then working through the full index.