Espana to Franca

Another day in the mid 30’s – thank goodness for air-conditioning in the car. We had an early start in order to pick up the car from the airport and after a rapid fire introduction to the workings of the Peugeot 308 we were on our way. For a short while we were uncertain about where we were on our way to (shades of the experience of leaving Manchester airport except this time our GPS was working but the layout of the roads was a bit confusing as it had been altered recently). After a scenic trip around somewhere near the airport we finally located a service station, filled the car, and headed out to the Monistrol de Montserrat (about a 45 minute drive out of the city).

We took the cable car up to the monastry which provided us with excellent views. The monastry itself was quite lovely and we got to hear the boys choir sing in the Bascilica for a few minutes at the end of the service. Again the crowds started to build as the day progressed and as we still had about 5 hours driving ahead of us we decided to get going. Our first wrong turnoff took us onto the motorway (which was okay except it was going in the wrong direction so we clocked up about 10 euros in tolls before we could get off it…..lol). Once we got into sync with “British Andrew” (we preferred this to the onboard version available on the Peugeot) it was smooth sailing for the next 400 km. The motorways are really good (once we got the hang of how to pay the tolls – and this changed from Spain to France) and David has now been nicknamed “Audi Boy” because of his tendency to imitate the most likely car to be seen in the fast lane. (I should point out he was law-abiding it is just that the speed limit is 130 km on the motorways). We arrived in Avignon and this presented more of a challenge in terms of finding where we were staying. (Andy – we managed to do your trick and find ourselves in a pedestrian only section which we had to reverse out of) but after winding our way through some one-way narrow streets we arrived at where we are staying. The hosts seem very nice and we have already had a short walk around Avignon to orient ourselves to the location. It is a walled town and the part within the walls seems relatively small - ?15 minute walk from one side to the other but will do some more exploring tomorrow of the wider area and have a fairly casual relaxed day. We plan to visit the Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) which is only a short walk from where we are.

We don’t have many photos for today except for Montserrat so will add the one we took in Paris because we liked the blending of cultures (a Scotsman playing bagpipes on the Boulevard Saint Michelle in Paris standing in front of the remains of a Roman wall).