Europe 2015

Intrepid tour + our own thing through Barcelona, Italy and France

Day 4: Montserrat 

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Mel

After an early wake up again for both of us (jet lag fail) we were on our way to the local metro station before the sun came up. From there we swapped on to the rural railway line out towards Montserrat. 
Montserrat or “serrated mountain” is a big mountain about an hour out of Barcelona. The area houses a huge monastery, amazing views and the boys choir. We caught the train for an hour and then a cable car halfway up to the monastery. Just amazing views on the way up. 

   
    

 From there, we caught the funicular (small train on a cable system) further up and walked 15 mins to Sant Joan. B walked a bit further up towards Santa Cova but couldn’t go the whole way without some rock climbing gear. Eep.

  
 

Sant Joan

    
   
We then went to the church where we had already beaten the crowds and touched the blessed Black Madonna (photo below courtesy of Google because unlike all the Japanese tourists in front of us I followed the very clear no photo rule!) and joined the throngs of people to hear the boys choir sing.   

The choir is world renowned, they sounded amazing. The crowd was a bit too much for me as we were packed into the church with only two small exits….eeep

 

This was before it got really crowded, by the time we left the crowds were blocking every exit and you could barely squish through

 
So, an early escape was made giving us a clear run at the free lunch included in the all day tot Montserrat ticket. Some more amazing photos and then it was back down in the cable car and back on the train into Barcelona.

  
A day trip well worth the travel effort, even with some motion sickness on the way back. Now at 4:30pm it is siesta time before dinner. Gotta embrace the Spanish lifestyle. Percy and I certainly need a siesta after even more hills today…

Percy needs his daily siesta to keep up! After all, his legs are shorter than ours

Kilometres walked at 4:30pm: 9.6kms

Steps walked at 4:30pm: 13306

Tomorrow: more city exploring and a cabaret show at El Molina in the evening…in Spanish! B picked this as something he wanted to do, I think he is developing a taste for cabaret. I’m sure all the half naked ladies have nothing to do with it 🙂 dancing shoes ahoy!

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Day 3: Exploring Barcelona

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Mel

Well, after waking up at 3am (ahhh my comeuppance for going to bed at 7pm!) and not being able to get back to sleep, I read a book and let B sleep until 8:30am. Our hotel here (Hotel Catalona Sagrida Familia) includes complimentary continental brekkie and it was pretty tasty. Insanely huge selection as well. 

This hotel is the meeting point for our Intrepid Travel part of the trip (15 days Barceolona to Rome) so we are staying here for an extra 4 nights at the start, before commencing the tour. I have to say, it’s a lot nicer than that frigging terrible contiki hotel in London! It’s self rated itself as 4 stars but we reckon it’s more like 3 given limited noise insulation and the fact our double bed is two singles put next to each other. With single bedding on them. Hmmm.

With our little backpacks ready for the day, including all the essentials like the map, raincoat, water bottle and stuffed toy platypus we set off to explore. Our hotel is a 2 min walk from a metro station and we caught that 6 stops to Paral-lel station which is adjacent to Montjuic, a beautiful park/mountain with a castle on top that overlooks the whole city and the Mediterranean Sea. After much aimless wandering up ridiculously steep and long paths we found…the second cable car station! Because we had missed the first and instead walked halfway up the damn mountain. The views were worth it though:

view out to the mediterranean from montjuic

  
    
   
Percy also enjoyed his first ever cable car ride (B says he is looking the wrong way!)

  
A quick train trip one stop over then saw us wandering up Les Ramblas which is the main tourist strip. Lots of street performers, buskers, pickpockets…the usual stuff you expect in a tourist area! Lunch was delicious at Cafe De L’Opera….mmmm tapas with beer and cava sangria, followed by real churros. We then visited the erotic museum which was…uh…not erotic and mostly traumatising haha. 

   
   
Another quick train trip brought us to Basilica de la Sagrada Familia which is 133 years old and is one of Gaudi’s most famous projects, although it is still being built so was not complete in his time. The name basically means “church of the family” or “church of the holy family” but I think it should stand for “bloody great church with ridiculous fruit stacks on top”. Seriously. At the top of the spires on one side there were weird fruit statues. We opted not to go in as it was 20€ each and as B said…a church is a church! Even if it does have fruit statues. 

 

the fruit stacks are on top of the pointy bits to the left of the pic

 
Kilometres walked today: 15.1km

Steps taken: 22106

Tomorrow: Montserrat for a day trip hopefully! Very excited.

Mel 

P.S. These posts will get shorter once we lose wifi, pinky promise. 

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Day 1+2: travelling to Barcelona!

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Mel

Ahhh so much airporting in the last two days! Just under 30hrs and 3 flights later we have made it to Barcelona. I got lots of very pretty “airplane window” token photos: 
 

flying into sydney from canberra


 

a very hazy looking shot of Dubai

 

Barcelona! Near the ocean

   

The flights were mostly uneventful except for my feet swelling up like balloons (never happened before) and lots of limping around the plane and the Emirates business lounge in Dubai as a result. On both of the long haul flights we had an empty seat in our row which was great, gave us that little extra bit of space to spread out in. We both managed some sleep on the 14.5hr flight, although I got more than B…mostly due to using travacalm to zombify myself. Drooly Mel is so attractive. Percy also had a great time flying Emirates (Qantas codeshare) for the first time. 

  
We finally landed in Barcelona at 2pm local time (we are now 9 hours behind Canberra and 6 hours behind Perth) and managed to locate our hotel for the next 5 nights without too much drama. Well, aside from getting absolutely and totally drenched in the rain. I left little puddles as I wandered through the lobby…splashy-splashy…

   
With my poor swollen foot (left one has gone down mostly in the above pic but right one still very sore, swollen and puffed up) combined with B’s overwhelming urge to stay in his PJs and watch Spanish TV, we opted for room service and an early night. Well, sort of early as he is now watching Big Bang Theory in Spanish and getting quite engrossed. I’m not at that level of translation ability, I’m more on the Dora level of being able to say “HOLA!!” and smile maniacally while hoping they speak some English. Bad tourist. 

Mel xx

P.S. This hotel has leather pillowcases. It’s freaking me out a little. How are you meant to sleep on a leather (well, I actually assume it’s pleather) pillowcase? 

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Two months until Europe! 

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Mel

Woohoo, exactly two months until we leave for Europe! 
Exciting things that have been happening in the lead up…hmmm…well, we solved our backpack versus suitcase issue by buying a backpack and suitcase combined. A backcase? A suitpack? Anyway, we bought two of these cool Osprey 80L “Sojourn” bags. We also both have small daypacks for carry on and day to day adventuring. 

Suitcase + backpack = something something

 
I am going to cover mine in purple tags so it is easy to tell which is which. B’s can just stay plain and boring, exactly the way he likes it 🙂 

Another exciting thing that happened was our house purchase, which was settled in June. Because everyone knows it’s a great idea to buy a house and go on a big overseas trip in the same 6 month period – right? RIGHT? We are currently in the process of arranging house sitters for while we are away and that’s working out pretty well, it will be nice to have the house lived in here in Canberra while we are overseas. 

Our house is a very nice house

 
So what are the big things left to do before we leave?

  • Sort out CommBank travel money cards. Oh and money. Need some of that too I suppose 
  • Wait for intrepid travel to send through our tour documents for the 15 day tour we have arranged through Spain, France and Italy 
  • Do some test run attempts at packing (I’m testing out travel clothes at the moment to try and decide what to take, argh so many clothes so little space)

B has also been learning Spanish, for his own interest mostly…but it will still come in handy in Spain! 

 

Spanish lessons!

 
He’s actually learning it properly in a class whereas my focus in relation to languages has just been to learn how to say “I don’t speak English” in various languages to ward off the street sellers who hassle tourists. 
 

Mel the llama says: No hablo inglés!

 

People keep asking what are highlights that I’m really looking forward to? Hmmm that’s a toughie, I am pretty excited to be spending my 30th birthday on a river cruise through Paris followed by a show at the Moulin Rouge! Then again, Pompeii will also be amazing. Oh, and Cinque Terre….that’s going to be a real highlight!

Cinque Terre – ah so pretty!

Two months and counting!

Mel xx

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2015 Adventures!!

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Mel

Woohoo 2015 adventures ahoy!

So this year I get to have two grand overseas trips. One was planned at the end of last year and is a 4.5 week jaunt through Barcelona, Rome, Naples and Paris in October/November. The second has been a little unexpected (read: last minute) and will hopefully see me adventuring to the USA for 10 days in late June.

So first, let’s talk about Europe. We jet off on October 12th to Barcelona and after a few days lounging in the sun we will join up with our intrepid tour. This will see us traveling for 15 days from Barcelona through a variety of locations across to Rome. After fare-welling our tour and a few extra days in Rome, we will head to Naples which puts us nice and close to both Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. A few nights later it will be up to Paris for 5 nights, including attending the Moulin Rouge to celebrate my 30th birthday! Entering the age of denial in style.

zmsc_2015

Intrepid tours are a company I am not familiar with but B has done a very extended one before and had a lot of positive things to say. Their online reviews are positive and the idea of a small tour appealed to me although I am not sure how I will cope with the reliance on public transport to get from one city to the next, as opposed to say…an air conditioned coach. We have chosen one of the more relaxed tours (no camping etc) although they did have all sorts of trips for all sorts of interests and budgets.

The USA trip is a little more haphazard as it will be planned and booked very last minute. B is likely to be heading away for work over there for a few months so I get to go visit…hooray! The visit has been timed around my work commitments which is why it will be about a month into his work trip rather than closer to the end. At the moment it is actually still not fully confirmed as I can’t book my flights until he has the work go-ahead but it is looking likely. He will be based in the Washington area so there will be lots of exploring of Washington as well as 5 nights in New York! EEEEEE! Do you guys realise what is in Washington? Do you? DO YOU? Let me show you….

Not to mention…NEW YORK!! Very exciting. Probably our last year of travel adventures for a while (although South America and Antarctica/The Arctic are still high on the want list) so time to make the most of it. Did I mention that there will be bears in the US? Baby bears? Baby pandas? Did you see that?

Since Europe is mostly booked and paid for and the USA is still a “wait and see” operation….

The big discussion in our house is around luggage choices at the moment. 

Neither of us are super happy with our suitcases but I am not prepared to fully commit to a backpack and B is not prepared to let me just have a suitcase on the intrepid tour as we are relying on trains to get around a fair bit. Stubborn man. So at the moment we are both spending a lot of time reading and researching. This is my front runner – the 80L Osprey Sojourn convertible wheeled bag although there are a lot of other similar things that cost less (but seem to break easy). He is a mad Osprey lover whereas I am new to their products….so we shall see.

Mel Update: No USA trip ended up happening…but Europe looms! 

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Planning a future holiday…

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Mel

Well….since I am moving from WA to Canberra at the end of this school year, awesome holidays are temporarily on hold! At least until we both build up some more annual leave. Options that are currently being tossed around for mid to late next year are:

– Japan

– New Zealand

– Canada because I have never been and some of the scenery….woah

– Western Europe (I would love to go back to Paris and Rome and B has never been)

– Somewhere completely new! Peru? We would both like to go to Peru. I am open to suggestions on new and amazing places to visit overseas though! Fill me with your wonderful knowledge…

In the mean time I will just have to settle for a week away somewhere in Australia in the January 2015 holiday break. Considering a trip to Tasmania! Have never been and it looks beautiful 🙂 what do you think Anna? Would Percy enjoy Tassie?

To keep my love for wonderful holidays burning here are some recent photos of the beautiful snow (and delicious food halfway up a mountain) in Thredbo:

Taken from Thredbo Village, July 19th 2014

Taken from Thredbo Village, July 19th 2014

Amazing lunch at Kareela Hutte on the mountain July 17th, 2014

Amazing lunch at Kareela Hutte on the mountain July 17th, 2014

 

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