Costa Brava

We did a snorkelling and kayak tour north from Barcelona to the Costa Brava before flying out. One final dip in the Mediterranean. Here is a video. Sorry that I don't have the resources at my disposal to make it a snappier production. Only just realised that this was sitting as a draft and not published!! Travesty!

 

The only photo taken of us that actually worked out :P

In the cave!!

Not quite as clear as the Aegean, I don't think.

Girona and Figueres

Girona

Dali's museum

the roof of Dali's museum

Barcelona by bus

Just photos... tired.

Gaudi architecture - Casa Batillo?

On the bus

Parc Guell. Gaudi's final home

Roof mosaics in Parc Guell

Modernista buildings

Parc Guell

More Gaudi

Everything is decorative here! Even these lights over la Rambla are ornate and attached to mosaiced seats

The line behind us is for the tourist bus in
Placa del la Catalunya

WiFi Wonderland

We arrived in Las Vegas tonight!!
More about that later, but first... photos to round of our Spanish adventures.

That's our room! on the left corner in front!

First decent coffee since we left.

Gelatino!

The Basque Language

All the buildings are 5-8 stories high! Apartment living.

View from the room

Old Town

A normal day at the beach

Wave fail.

Hand stand! And new bathers :D

Basque, Catelan, Spanish...

Hola!
We are surviving in Barcelona. We haven't been relieved of all our prized posessions yet.

We have three days here. Yesterday we spent the day riding the hop'on hop off tourist bus around the city. We saw heaps of Gaudi' designed buildings, gates and Parc Guell, a huge public park with buildings, mosaics and hard landscaping all designed by him. So cool, and hopefully a closer look tomorrow.

San Sebastian was a little disappointing in the end. We didn't manage to get a surf. The banks were just nonexistent and the swell was all over the place. Scary to see where some people were surfing. It was not pretty and looked downright dangerous! After wandering around trying to get pinxtos in tiny, smoke filled, sweaty pubs til 11pm, we thought a home cooked meal in the hostel kitchen would be the go for Sunday night. But nothing opens on Sunday! Not a single deli or fruit and veg shop. So we got by with possibly the worst ham and cheese toasty ever made. I'm not proud of it.
Monday brought rain. We did a lot of walking and it is a beautiful city, hugging a river with a beach on either side. Unlike Barcelona though, once you've seen the old town and the "Jesus Statue" there wasn't a lot to do!

Today we took a tour out to Girona and to Figueres. It was a great day, made even more entertaining by the dude behind us on the bus who was from Ottowa. He spoke just like Johnny Depp in Willy Wonka and was the master of the obvious. He and his wife, Debbie *he used her name most sentences* provided me with some fascinating dialogue.

Girona is a medieval city with some beautiful buildings and Figueres is home of the Salvador Dali' museum. More an experience than a museum with paintings as well as sculpture, installations and jewellery. Visited by about 1million people a year it is the second busiest museum in Spain, even though Figueres is otherwise forgettable. A real eyeopener. We visited a cool little Museu del Cinema in Girona and Oo!! We also saw the Pyrenees!

Some zany punctuation today as the keyboard isn't producing the symbols shown on it.
Also no photos. "( We did try, believe me. The maccas across the road is meant to have free wifi, but we had to have some very average burgers to find out that its not working. They will follow soon.

The train trip out from San Seb was pretty nice. A good way to get a sense of the landscape. It played tricks on you with buildings closer than they appeared, dwarfed by the mounain range. We travelled through mists up into the hills before crossing the plain. I saw some tumbled down ruins as well as a fleet of solar panels and more wind turbines than I could count.

The language has been a huge barrier here, and after Greek, French, Basque, Catelan and Spanish, we are well and truly ready to head off to America-land for some 'English'! Not a great many people speak English here so we've been pretty self-reliant, saving our appalling Spanish for ordering food.

Alright. Enough for now. The next time you hear from us may just be from the hallowed walls of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Hola desde España!!

Hola amigos!

We've arrived in San Sebastian, or Donostia as it's known locally. There's a very strong Basque culture here, so everything is named and signed twice, with Spanish and the native Basque (which I think is called Euskada).

It's a lovely little town at a glance, rambling cobbled streets, soaring cathedrals and basillica, and a surf beach plonked right out the front. The surf looks a little more promising here, and less crowded than Biarritz. Actually a pretty modern town too, compared to what we were expecting.

The hostel is nice. It probably wouldn't pass a fire code inspection, but it's comfortable and very friendly, and seems fairly clean. There's HEAPS of Aussies here, as with most hostels around the world. Everyone running the hostel is Aussie, Kiwi or Americano, so there's no problem with English at all.

Last night we had a little BBQ with some people up "Jesus Hill", which may or may not be the correct name for the little hill with a big ass statue of Old Mate on top of it. In true Australian style they burnt the bajingo out of the snags, which was a nice home reminder.

In other great news, we found a bookshop with books in ENGLISH!!! We read our books from home in about a week, then bought up the 3 English books in Biarritz... they lasted 3 days. So we bought the biggest 3 books we could find from a bookshop here in San Seb, which should keep up going!!

Travel tip: DON'T bring the 2nd book in a trilogy with you overseas if you can't get a hold of the third one. It's killing me not being able to conclude the trilogy.

No photos yet. We just blasted around quickly this morning and last night, but we're still pretty knackered. Hannah and I have gotten a little bit sick (just head colds etc), and didn't have any sleep for the two weeks we were in France, so we're going to take the opportunity for a little siesta this afternoon, and then see how we go.

Hope you're all well! I'm starting to miss people quite a lot, so let us know how you're all going. I chatted to an English woman in France yesterday when we were having breakfast who reminded me of Mum, so I got a little home sick :P Travelling has been awesome so far, but it's always an amazing reminder of just how good it is at home.

I've started rambling, so I'll leave it there. Updates will come soon, once we have some nice pictures of San Sebastian.

Au revoir, Biarritz!!

Well, Happy Friday!
I'm sitting in the square outside the tourist bureau waiting for our bus to Spain and pirating internet from the pub across the road. Ah, sweet sweet WiFi.

A 'soaperie'!

We're both glad to be heading off today. Whilst Biarritz has been nice, 14 days has been more than plenty. Strangely cool here, too. Only about 21 today and the sky is less clear than a usual Winter's day in Perth! A shock to the system after Greece.

We're staying in what is hopefully a cool little hostel in San Sebastian and will be looking wide eyed at people as we try to forget our French and learn some Spanish/Basque/Catalan... Whatever they actually speak there! Hoping for some more promising waves and a change of menu.

Au revoir, Epicurie!!

Lots of little dos here! Some are cute....

Some, not so much..

Fete de Bayonne

Taking in the sights and sounds in Bayonne

The sun has just come out. :) Cheers!!

I have been enjoying le cedre (cider) here!

This post brought to you by Bistrot Barriot. Merci!

Le surf

Le surf has been petite. Petite petite. But that is what we're here for so I was out there again on Thursday. It was cold, gloomy and onshore. It even rained at one point. Slightly less crowded and there were a few waist high waves when the tide came rushing in and the people went rushing out. James wisely decided to stay dry and, armed with the camera, recorded some of the other things going on on this French Beach...

Lots of sandcastles

This one even has a Granny-flat

There is some terrific beach fashion to be spotted.

Lots of beach tennis, volleyball and skimboarding.

There are always lifeguards on patrol. When the tide comes in they tip their lookout tower over and carry it up the stairs to the road.

They have flags for everything here. Periodically they make PA announcements about something important. Occasionally they bother to do it in English but most of the time I can't tell whether they are saying "Swimmers between the blue flags only" or "Everyone out! There is a shark eating a whale."

There was even some surfing!! Actually, this is Biarritz, there were about 300 people surfing!

Some impressive tandem work!

The 8' South Point I rented.

Still busy even though the surface quality isn't great. That's Spain in the background!

Iconic View - clouds looming