Viva la France

Hey all,

Well it is a bit late but this is my blog post for my week in France. I caught the train from Barcelona to Nice in the South of France. My parents met me at the station and it was really nice to see them again.

I was misunderstood in thinking that my parents were staying in a house that was just out of Nice. In fact they were staying in a tiny little village 70Kms outside of Nice. The village was called Entrevoux, up more in the Provence region on France.

It was gorgeous, a fortified village set into a mountain, very medieval complete with drawbridge and moat to cross to enter the village. The houses were very sweet and there were lots of little cobbled streets and only a handful of shops. Our house was tall and skinny and four storeys high. We enjoyed a lot of time on the top balcony with views of the vally.

Most of our days were spend reading, some local sight seeing, enjoying the quiet and food and wine. The village is very pretty and many French tourists came to visit it. We felt a bit fraudulent saying bonjour to them, letting them think we were a local but the French are so lovely I do not know why everyone bitches about them. Every time I saw someone in the street or in a shop the would always say hello how are you? (in French of course) they were lovely maybe it is the country side. I am yet to hit Paris.

My parents friend Gary was also there, so he joined us. One day we went to Monte Carlo to observe the obscene wealth that is there, it is a lovely area and some of the buildings are lovely. There were some of the biggest yachts I have ever seen and pricey cars to boot.

We also went to visit some of the other little villages in the surrounding area, with the autum colours the French countryside is lovely. We went for a look around Nice as well which in my opinion was quite disappointing. A nice water front but the rest of it is a little ugly.

We took a great drive to a town called Grass, which is where there are perfumeries, it was not that nice and the perfumeries a little disappointing. I guess the day was a little tainted as two guys on a motorbike tried to get into our car while we were stopped a good thing the door was locked.

I have also been enjoying some lovely fresh French produce and we had some fantastic meals at a local restaurant which was run by a charming local guy Patrick and his wife. The food was amazing, I had a fantastic warm goats cheese salad and ohhhhhh the desserts. I am not looking forward to the food back in the UK, although if I stay here you may have to roll me back to the UK.

The last few days we had beautiful sunshine, I had a cold so look the time out to relax. On our last day my dad and I walked up to the Citadel on top of the village, where we had some specular views.

After a week it was time to move on so we caught the train to Geneva but that will be the next blog.

Barcelona

Hey all,

Well I had a bit of a whirlwind tour of Barcelona. I arrived in the afternoon, I did not have a lot of time to start taking tours etc, so I just took a walk down the Ramblas which is the main street.

















I occasionally wandered of f to some nearby plazas to have a look. My first impressions were that is is much more touristy city but also a bit more interesting than Madrid. There were coach tours everywhere, and the Ramblas was packed with tourist shops and human statues. It was still fun to walk down. Back at the hostel I met a lovely young Aussie girl who was on her way home so we went out for a lovely dinner topped off with Gelati....mmmm






The next day I look a bike tour around the city it was a little rainy but it was still warm. Our guide was really cool, a former American who has lived in Barca for 4 years and now lives the good life surfing and taking tours.












We visited the main sites the cathedral, the music hall, arc de triumph, some lovely parks, a bullfighting ring and Gaudi's la Familiar Segrada then down o the beach for a relaxing lunch.














The afternoon was spent with my favorite hobby; shopping. That night back at the hostel (which was really cool) we watch Barcelona F.C suffer defeat to the evils of Chelsea then topped the night off with some Sangria.







The next day I packed a lot in as it was my last day in town. First I had a two hour lunch at a bar in the market, marinated mushrooms, king prawns and marinated chickpea washed down with vino tinto and some cava (sparkling wine). After all that food, I managed to motivate myself to head back to La Familia Segrada to visit inside it. It is such a stunning building. Out of this world really and somewhat over the top and graceful at the same time. It will be interesting to see the cathedral when it is finished and Gaudi's vision complete. The Afternoon was spent wandering around the park Gaudi had designed it was lovely and the weather fine.

I tried to get some sleep that night as I was up early for the ran to nice but it was party night so it was a tired journey.

Madrid 14-16th Oct

Hey all,

Well I am back living the travelers life again. It was quite unusual at first felt a little bit lonesome leaving the UK but it didn't take me long to get settled into the lifestyle again. I arrived in the afternoon. After a shower and cat nap it was off to find some food.

I had decided that for Spain that I would stretch to being a pescatarian that's a veggie who eats fish. At even this has been somewhat hard going. So I walked around in search of this apparent great seafood restaurant, but never found it. Being a little tired and hungry I was wondering around in search of some food. Wanting to avoid the to touristy places I would a place where I ate some lovely grilled veggies with goats cheese topped of with a nice glass of red. Then stopped off for some dulce de leche ice cream on the way back to my hostel. Ah the traveling life is tough.

The next day I went to the Prado museum. It was full of very classic paintings and was quite interesting but there are only so many paintings of Jesus and Mary that one can handle. What was interesting is amongst all the fine renaissance paintings there is a series from Goya's black period with some rather disturbed but really fascinating paintings.

Afterwards I subjected myself to another museum the Thyssian which was less interesting and I think the prado had worn me out.

















Afterwards I did some walking tours that I had in a tourist map which took me from the plaza major through several small typically Spanish streets and squares past some lovely buildings to the La Almunda Cathedral. Then from the Palace Real though lovely gardens and more plazas to the Puerta del sol, which is pretty much the heart of the city.

















That evening some of the guys from the hostel went in search of a flamenco bar, but it was closed so our evening involved drinking at other bars through the town. One of the guys Paul from the UK was studying the prado collection for 3 weeks as an art project drawing and studying the paintings in hope of winning a scholarship. Mum you should try and do something like that.














The next day I went to the Rena Sophia museum which is the modern art museum which has a great collection of Picasso's, Miro'sa nd Dali's etc. The highlight being Guernica, a Picasso picture which formally hung at the UN as it is a depiction of the Spanish civil war. It was so big and quite marvelous, what I liked the best was the pre-study drawings and photos taken during it's paintings and it was interesting to see its change throughout the various stages.

In the afternoon I managed to squeeze in a spot of shopping.

















In the evening I met up with Barbera a girl I met though a gumtree language swap thing. She is from Madrid and lives in Maidstone. However she was in Madrid for an exam and family visit. We met her friend who works as a guard at the Congress building. He let us in and gave us a free tour it is such an amazing building really beautiful with lovely paintings, murals and stained glass windows and chandeliers. The parliament sitting building is lovely, and has bullet holes left from tne attempted millitary coup in 1983. Considering the building is only open to the public one day a year I felt very privileged.

















Afterwards we went for a tapas dinner. Which was nice, however they were speaking rather fast and sometimes it was hard to understand. It is good to be speaking Spanish again. Then after I was tired so off to bed to catch the train the next morning.

I owe you all a blog post from Amsterdam

Well, Danny and I met on Friday night after work and took our flights to Amsterdam, we got a great package deal from London which included return flights and two nights in the holiday inn. Now I know holiday inn is a little sad but it was 4 star and close to town and a breakfast to die for all these cooked delights, pancakes, warm crossaints, cereal, fruit, yogurt, cheese and sliced meats we ate ourselves a bit stupid and didn’t ever need lunch.

On the plane we tried to learn some Dutch with the help of a local businessman. We arrived late and tired and crashed out in the hotel room. The next morning we headed into the centre of town on a tram (oh the days I forgot how cool trams are and here they are even better than Melbourne, bigger and faster). We booked ourselves a bike tour and then went for a walk. On our walk me managed to wander into the red light district.

Now in Amsterdam first thing that comes to mind is the coffee shops and red lights district and yeah while it is somewhat strange to see girls just standing in little windows, in their underwear or a bikini. It is not so out there as some people make out. I mean the girls work their own hours and it is safe for them which is better than in other countries where eastern europeans are forced into being prostitutes etc. However Danny did find his absolute favourite shop there.

I digress….We joined our bike tour which was really fun. When in Amsterdam! The amount of bikes here are crazy everyone rides them and all those old school big handlebar bikes. We rode around various parts of town, through a nice park, and along various canals. Danny and I tried out some of our Dutch but every attempt was greeted and returned with perfect English.

That night we got some cheap food and then sampled some of the legal produce that there was to offer, well again when in Amsterdam….. Late on wandering through the red light district again we found it a lot seedier mainly because of the groups of drunk and/or stoned British stag parties leering and chatting up the women.

The next day we were up early we were up early to the Heineken factory although most of the information about the beer was on boring information signs there were lots of interactive things about Heineken that were a lot of fun (I’m sure you all saw our fantastic Dutch karaoke) and also 3 free beers which is fun at about 10am.

After that we headed to the Van Gough museum, which was under renovation but had some lovely paintings. Afterwards we went to the Anne Frank house, I felt a little guilty for not having read the book but it was very fascinating and quite moving.

So we really enjoyed Amsterdam, the food was not that fantastic and despite it’s reputation it sometimes gets for being about drugs and sex, it is a beautiful city with a great relaxed vibe, lovely buildings and is really quite pretty and the people very friendly even more so when they found out you were Australian.