Car, plane, plane, taxi, firetruck

The Albatross

Friday 30- Saturday 31 May

We headed off home today, an easy start from Olot down to Barcelona (back through the 4.5km tunnel) to drop the car off near the airport, and then a few hours to kill waiting for our flight. A couple of hours were spent in Dubai where we grabbed a shower then back on our way to Perth.

Finally we arrived and caught a cab to lovely Thommo way. We were a tad alarmed when we the saw flashing lights of fire trucks in our street, very close to our house. Fortunately it was our neighbors’ fuse box that was ablaze and not my bed, which I desperately needed.

A long sleep beckoned.

Volcanic eruptions

Tuna

Thursday 29 May 2014

As we are surrounded by volcanos, we thought we should walk up and around one. They haven’t erupted for over 11,000 years so we guessed it should be ok. After a lazy wake up (9am), I staggered out of bed and we were off about an hour later. Gosh, it is going to be difficult to wake up at normal time (5.37am) when we get back to Perth.

About 10 minutes out of town there are a number of volcanos you can wander to. We chose one that seemed like a reasonable walk (this was based on a rather simplistic and coloured map in the back of the local tourist information guide). It was a steep 30 minute walk to the top, and then down into the crater where there is a small church. We then did a loop around the back of the hill and back to the carpark, all up about 2 hours and a really pleasant walk. We met one other couple and that was it. It was lovely and quiet, with just the bird and a few disgruntled sounding cows.

We then did another walk a little bit further on to an old Romanesque church. This was about an hour along a single lane back country road. The church was pretty, but it sounded like they had a group in side playing cow bells, badly. Turning the corner, we realised it was the horses, they all had cow bells on. So every time they moved or ate anything the bell would make a noise. We aren’t sure why they had them on as they were behind an electric fence and there was no danger that they would escape to get run over.

We then headed back into town to find some lunch. We found a great little restaurant that did a fantastic menu of the day for our last proper eat-out meal.

We’ve had a lovely quiet day together.

Today is our last day of holidays, it is rather sad. Tomorrow we start the long, long journey back to home. We have had a great time and would love to keep travelling. However responsibilities, commitments and friends draw us back to Perth. There will definitely be more holidays.

The Madness of Dali

The Albatross

Wednesday 28 May 2014

Today we skipped off down the road to the town of Figueres, which is home to an old theatre, that Dali restored and made his art gallery. He was born nearby. The museum is fantastic and very Dali, the art is incredible, but the crowds are simply insane. Hoards were pushing and shoving (literally) and many people insisting on photographing every single piece of art. Why? You haven’t looked at a single picture, just photographed it, and I guarantee you’ll never look at it again; what’s more half of you are doing it on a shitty camera phone or worse an iPad (do you know how stupid you look). One retard was filming it.

I’m glad I saw it, but the experience was not a pleasant one. The museum needs to start a timed ticketing system to control the numbers, and they need to ban cameras and short pushy old women with bony elbows. I’d hate to see the place in peak season.

After a much needed quiet lunch to recover from the full body contact art, we wandered back through Olot to the tiny town of Santa Pau, which was very quiet and very beautiful.

Just as we were leaving it started rain which soon turned into a torrent. We chose to sit out the bulk of the storm in a car park as the roads were windy and narrow.

Eventually we made it back to pick up some groceries and chill out. I must say that I like the supermarkets, there is so much space devoted to pig in every conceivable form, and I really want a whole leg, but Australian customs might take it off me. You could get one that came with a couple of sausages, a lump of cheese and a footy for a bargain or the good stuff for a bit more. Awesome!

Olot of driving

Tuna

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Today was a transfer day. We were leaving the beautiful snow-capped mountains of the Pyrenees at Jaca, for the beautiful mountains of the Pyrenees at Olot. The scenery driving out of Jaca was spectacular. You climb quickly and get a decent view back over all the Pyrenees, the big hills in the back covered in snow. Unfortunately as The Albatross was driving and the roads were windy, he didn’t get to appreciate as much as I did. How stunning it was. There was a really long 4.5km tunnel that was cool.

When it got flat, I had a drive on the straight 120km/hr autovia. The scenery by this stage had turned to boring and flat.

So after a few hours of driving we got to Olot, a mid size town in the middle of volcanos. Very pretty, but the volcanos aren’t quite up to the speckiness of those in Chile. Also, they aren’t pointy, but flat, and they are no longer active, which is a bonus in some respects.

We checked into our apartment, which is lovely and spacious, has nice views of the mountains and ‘el gatos’ (cats) prowling around the front lawn. We needed some provisions for dinner and snacking, so we walked down to the big supermarket about 10 minutes away. Finding all that we needed, we then stood and waited awhile until the weather eased. It had started to rain, then it rained a bit harder, then it started to hail, then it started to hail harder and bigger! Give it 10 minutes and it eased a bit and we could make it back without getting too soaked. Should have taken our coats, or even driven!

There is a local volcano in the middle of town, so we thought we should walk up it. It was on 4pm and we needed to do some form of exercise today apart from bottom-sitting. The volcano isn’t that high, but a steep little walk. There is an old church at the top, surrounded by a fortified wall, and there were lovely views back over town. By this time we were a little over being slightly damp, so we meandered back through the city centre to Scratchy (the name The Albatross has given the car).

Time for a nice bottle of local vino, local cheese and paté.

A picnic in the Pyrenees

The Albatross

Monday 26 May 2014

As we’re reaching the end of our travels, we thought we’d slow down and have some chill time, so were doing more apartments and staying in more rural places. Today was chilled indeed. After a very leisurely breakfast and a trip to the supermarket down the road for provisions (yummy quail legs for dinner tonight), we drove up the steep hill behind our hotel and visited Fuerte Rapitán, a late 19th Century fort. You can’t go inside, but the exterior is very impressive, with a big moat that is really heavily fortified.

Next was a quick wander into town to have a look at the Cathedral and more importantly an amazing collection of fresco’s saved from small neighbouring town churches, some dating back to 1080 AD. I’m not huge on religious art, but it was interesting watching the evolution of the frescos through seven centuries. It’s really very impressive.

Next was our main excursion of the day, a late picnic in the Pyrenees, so a 15 minute drive to a nearby town, and then another 15 minutes up to within 20 km of the French border. It was stunning scenery and we found the little park we’d identified by google maps the day before. I’d forgotten the bottle opener, but fortunately there were some poms in a camper van nearby who initially thought I was a bandit, but eventually realised I wasn’t brandishing the bottle of rose in anger. Good cheeses, cold roast lamb, duck rillettes, peppers and great bread were heartily consumed whilst the odd avalanche echoed around the valley. The weather was cool, but not too bad. This made us very happy. It was a cracking day indeed.

Running with the bulls in Pamplona

Tuna

Sunday 25 May 2014

It was a gentle start to today, which was a day of driving to somewhere else. First stop was a very bad very expensive coffee and a walk around San Sebastian. It is a pretty place, but very quiet on a wet Sunday morning, really nice for it. So much of what we have read says San Sebastian is ‘a place you’ll fall in love with and won’t want to leave’. It is very different to the smaller cities we’ve been through further south. Their old city, well, just doesn’t look that old when compared to Segovia, Cordoba or Granada. But it is very different, more influenced I think by the French and English. For ‘a place to fall in love with’, I’d recommend Segovia.

Next stop was lunch, so we drove a bit further down a road and got to Pamplona.

It is an excellent place. Again, it is Sunday so most things are closed and there weren’t too many people out. We managed to park right under the bull ring, an impressive structure. Unfortunately it was closed so we went in search of a decent coffee. We found a nice little bar/tapas/restaurant place that made a fantastic coffee followed by sensational pintxos (tapas) and a white wine. They have won prizes for their pintxos they are that good.

We thought it only fair to share, so we wandered elsewhere for lunch. It was also only 12.30pm so way too early to be sitting down to lunch. We had a lovely stroll through the pretty streets of central Pamplona. The bars were full of locals sitting down (actually they stand up) for a beer and pintxos before lunch.

We walked down one pedestrian mall and found lots of shops selling ‘running with the bulls’ stuff and eventually worked out we were on the route (it’s very short). So rather than ‘running with the bulls’ (which only happens in early July) we meandered around. Finally found a place that did a fantastic Menu of the Day. We had a simple tagliatelle with mushroom and bacon, followed by whole little calamari with peppers and scallops of thin pork with a mushroom and pepper filling, follow by a delicious crème caramel. Awesome! Oh yeah, the set price menu also came with half a bottle of wine each. By this time it was just after 2pm and the place was gearing up for the lunch crowd with started hurtling through the door at 2pm on the dot. The place was heaving. Good choice, excellent food.

A further easy drive down the road we got to our destination of Jaca, a small town in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

There isn’t much in Jaca, and we’ve found out all the supermarkets are closed on Sundays. But it is quiet, we have lovely one bedroom apartment (at bargain basement price of €50/night) overlooking the foothills of the Pyrenees watching a lightning storm roll through.

All is good.

Um, err , oh shit, oh no Yoko

The Albatross

Saturday 24 May 2014

We are staying in this amazing apartment on the steep side of a hill overlooking the Bay of Biscay for a tuppence a night. The down side is that the access is a 5km drive down a one way road that is legally two way and all the locals think they are rally drivers, it’s also part of the pilgrims trail so there are tired, over it idiots, and folks churning up hills in granny gear on bikes. It’s worth it.

Today’s excursion was to the Guggenheim museum 90km down the road in Bilbao. Ummmm. I really loved the building, it is absolutely worth the trip alone.

The ground floor had some cool massive steel sculptures which really were great at changing perspective as you walked around and through them. But the second floor was closed. The third floor was Yoko Ono, and it was rubbish.

The floor of Yoko was seriously pants, to such a point that we enjoyed it. There was one interactive exhibit where you could hop into a bag and thrash around be part of the art. We embraced this whole heartedly, but when we emerged from the sack the room was empty and the guard looked embarrassed. Next was a screening of her performances on stage. It’s rude to laugh. I’m very, very rude. Cats fighting sound better.

I could rant about this for hours and hours, there is no point. It was shite. I actually admire the fact that people ever thought she was important and she is still living off it.

We stopped in town for a beer and a few pinchos (or pintxos depending on the language). These are the tapas of the area, but they are little works of art on their own, and extremely tasty.

Back home to our lovely apartment for a late lunch of excellent smallgoods, cheese, peppers and cava whilst watching the ships sail past, dinner was a leg of lamb and vegies (yay vegies). Life’s OK.