27 hours from now

And so our wonderful holiday has come to an end, packing all the dirty clothes, wearing our last clean clothes home, going to brunch before catching a cab to the airport with Bill and Leonie. We have had a great time and seen some wonderful sites, all the better because it has been shared with friends.

Here our our Best's from our experience ...

The best beds are in Norway.
The best trains are in Norway.
The best experience was our cruise in Norway.
The best beer is in Belgium
The best bar was in Belgium
The best Boutique hotel 'Main Street' was in Ypres, Belgium
The best hotel was in Bruges in Belgium, the Orangerie
The best tour was the battle field tour in France and Belgium
The best bread and croissants ... France of course
The best food and restaurants ... France.
The best fun we had was on our canal boat in France Canal du Midi
The best coffee in Barcelona Catalonia (Spain)
The best cathedral was in Barcelona.

I am sure I can add to this list as I reflect In the coming days.

27 hours from now we will be home if all our travels go well. I am sitting in Barcelona Airport and it is just like any other really, people shopping, spending their last Euros, drinking and eating overpriced food, carrying every kind of bag imaginable and wearing outfits from those fit for the ballet to clothes you would wear in the garden. I can see every colour of skin, hair , outfit, luggage and I am surrounded by several different languages.  All of these things add to the tapestry of a holiday, and as I soak them up I wonder if I will ever travel to Europe again.

Palm Sunday

We farewelled Di and Bruce as they are off to Salamanca to meet up with Bruce's son Jordan who lives here.

It is Palm Sunday, and in such a catholic country as Spain that means street parades and music and dance. The gothic cathedral is just around the corner and a large band set up on the steps and people came from everywhere carrying their palms, and formed small circles to dance to the music. It really made me feel I was somewhere else, as the cultural expressions of religion are so different to those at home.

We walked to the Petite Place another of Gaudis creations, stunning in its ornate style so totally different from everything around it.

We walked to the gardens on Montjuic and climbed the hillside to have lunch in a restaurant with a magic view over Barcelona. We rode the cable car back to the water front and strolled through the crowds, people on segways, motorised pushbikes, in rickshaws, past multi-million dollar yachts and bustling restaurants, around men selling sunglasses on sheets laid out in the street which are very quickly wrapped up as they run away at the approach of any police.  There were markets and music ... The town is vibrant and colourful and so alive.  We stopped for a drink in a restaurant to rest our tired limbs, wandered further to a little square and found a restaurant for dinner, and then home through alleyways of chocolate shops and sweet shops.

We must have walked at least 6 k today, and our feet are a little sore.  We have done quite a lot of walking here in Barcelona which is, of course, a fantastic way to see the city.

We loved Barcelona, it is clean, friendly, bustling and entertaining, and as long as you gaurd your personal property very carefully, you should have a great time here.

Hop On - Hop Off

What an easy way to see so much of a big strange city, and to get your bearings. But before we could get the bus I had an unhappy start to my day. I broke my glasses which I depend on completely, only to find the case containing my sunglasses and spare glasses has been stolen from my handbag ... It must have happened yesterday afternoon on our walk home.  Luckily a very helpful lady at the optometrist nearby found the cheapest frames she could to pop my lenses into and I am able to see.  I sure hope my travel insurance will come to the party for my sunglasses, they were good ones.

Once on the bus we drove along the marina and old port, the vast sandy beaches and then turned towards the highlight of the tour La Sagrada Familia, the great unfinished cathedral of  Gaudi. It has to be one of the wonders of the world, and I sure hope I am alive to see the finished result in all its glory, because the unfinished temple is extraordinary. If possible, the interior is more awe inspiring than the exterior, and you can see the magnificent interpretation of nature in stone and light.  We spent our time there wandering around with an audio guide and marvelling at the foresight and ingenuity of the design, and of the skills of all the sculptors and trades that have put this unique and beautiful building together.

The rest of the bus trip served to also reinforce what an insignificant cog in the human wheel we each are.  Streets after street, mile after mile was filled with shops and people, a moving tide of people in every direction calmly going about their shopping and sight seeing. It is so hard to describe the scene of so many people hour after hour street after street, especially to someone from our own country where we are privileged with so much space for our population.

We lunched in a cafe on La Rambla and were served the biggest  jugs of beer and sangria I have ever seen. Tapas and pasta and a stroll around the waterfront before ending our day back in the quiet sanctuary of our hotel room. Another tiring but amazing day.

La Rambla

Not too far from our hotel, down a myriad of shop filled alleyways, is the famous street La Rambla. It is a wide tree lined street for walking in the centre with a narrow lane on eir side for traffic. It is filled with flowers and souvenirs stalls and cafes and buskers and thousands of people. It leads to the marina at one end which is the way we walked. Markets and shops and Orange tree filled squares and churches and monuments until finally the grand monument at the end towering over everything. Christopher Columbus adorns the top, and various figures and objects are depicts telling the story of Spain's maritime history.

The sun was shining on us warmly which we so enjoyed after the past week of cold weather, and we stopped for breakfast outside a little cafe at a table in the filtered sunlight under an orange tree before going to the Maritime Museum.  We thought we would see the rich history of the Spanish Galleon, but no, maybe that is eleswhere, it was more a storytelling place of Spain's relationship with the sea over the ages, and with only replicas there to tell the story, but it was interesting and we enjoyed it.

As we wandered back along La Rambla in the afternoon we spied a market but the press of people there was too much for us, we'll have to go back when we are fresh and it is not so busy.

Barcelona

Our luck with Le Boat didn't improve overnight as when we woke we discovered two of the large reclining cushions from the top deck had been blown overboard with the strong wind.  Bill went searching and found them about 100m away in the water on the opposite side of the canal. He fished them out and returned them, crazy to think they hadn't been tied down. Of course the forecast for the next 10 days along the canal is for fantastic, sunny, warm, calm weather. .... Oh well, you can't win them all.

So on this lovely sunny day we caught the train to Spain. A beautiful, clean, quiet fast train. We reached 299km per hour and arrived just 2 hours later in Barcelona.  The trip was scenic with snow covered mountains on one side and lakes, wetlands and then the sea on the other. Barcelona is huge. The entire 15 minutes from the train station by taxi was through the city, shops, shops, shops, businesses, traffic, pedestrians... So busy.  But also appears a clean city, and we have only seen one beggar in our walk around the streets near the hotel, which is not what we were expecting. The narrow alley ways, a gothic cathedral at one end of our laneway, beautiful restaurants and an antique market at the end of the street made for great first impressions.

We were all pretty tired so we decided to have room service and an early night. Food was not so good so I think we will make the effort to stay up late tomorrow and go out for dinner, no restaurant opens before 8pm, and those of you who know Max know that is his bedtime ;)

Homps at last

Our destination on our canal voyage is the small town of Homps. We went under our last small, nerve-wracking bridge and our last lock and were blown here by 34kph winds. It certainly made steering a challenge for Bill, but we are safely tied up in the Le Boat yard in the middle of town and about to go to the pub for lunch and a drink.

So the end of this part of our trip, from Castelnaudary to Homps along the canal, a taxi to Narbonne and then we hop onto a train to Barcelona. But another night of frivolity has seen us each write a verse ... I know it is bad, but it gave us a laugh...

Canal du Midi

As we sailed along the Canal du Midi

We all felt a little bit weirdy,

We took on the first lock

And all got a shock

We Made It!

And it wasn't that easy.

We cruised to our first bridge,

My bowels were a squidge,

Once through....

I regained composure,

And looked forward to my next Adventure.

True to form, Di cooked up a storm

Cacciatore, schnitzel and gravy,

Great for our men from the Navy,

And brought happiness to all until morn.

We manned the ropes,

Threw them, looped them, held them tight.

As the water drained out

We were locked in for the night.

But each evening we moored,

Ate, drank and thanked the lord. 

Three tarts from Le Bugue,

Thought the adventure was huge.

The weather was shit,

But we did not quit.

We just got stuck into the booze.

Bill skippered Le Boat from beginning to end,

On his skills (or lack of) the crew did depend.

Our destination Homps,

Was reached before stumps

And so my friends, this is ... 

The End

Blocked in France

We woke to another problem this morning, a boat alarm sounded when we started the engine, we waited until 9.00 to ring the office and a short while later a rather handsome young mechanic turned up. It turns out that the constant holding in the lock yesterday evening saw us suck some objects into the engine pipes and we have a blockage. He tried to fix it but needed an impellar. He returned with another mechanic, fixed one problem and found another. So here we sit, it seems we may not get away for an hour or two yet and it is already 10.30am.

While we were waiting Di and Leonie rode into Trebes, a village about 3k away and bought some fresh baguettes and quiche.

We motored off at 1230 but had to stop in Trebes a few Km downstream to replace an engine pipe. Another hour and half lost.  All this wouldn't have mattered if we had not been on a short time schedule and so we now have no time to visit the little villages along the way. I am pretty annoyed about that.

Our bad-lock-day continued with another unattended lock and fairly uncaring man who eventally turned up and took all the time he liked to let us through. We eventually tied  for the night in La Redorte, wet, cold and unimpressed.  Our night did not improve things with the strong winds constantly bumping us against the dock.

Today, 13 locks and 22km