Paris and Barcelona

After our second day in Paris we have decided it has a charm all of its own. The people have been very friendly and helpful (a lady who saw us looking at the map as we were heading to the train station offered to drive us in her car when she found out where we were going!!). People possibly don't consider the walking option as much as we do because we had three people offer us help with directions (we must have looked more confused than we really were - although that was not true at every stage of the process .... lol) as when we said we were going to the train they pointed toward the metro and we said "Gare Austerlitz" and they gasped and made comments like "no, no, too far....crazy to walk". They were all very helpful though and did their best to compensate for our (and by this I mean David's) limited french. The estimates for walking time changed from about a 25 minute walk given by the hotel manager to about an hour with the last person who stopped (it actually took us about 40 minutes with a couple of lost turns and walking around the block but we got there with time to spare and felt quite virtuous for having been independent with a very limited map!)

The train trip from Paris to Barcelona was relatively uneventful. The train didn't go crazy on the amount of space in the compartment but having said that neither did the hotel we stayed at the night before. Today's accommodation is very spacious in comparison and has a lovely view of the Marina at Barcelona (hence the name Marina View).

On our last day in Paris we braved the metro system and found our way out to Palace of Versailles (along with hordes of others) and were entertained by an accordian player who got on a few stops from the end and played for tips. I was most amused by the number of people on cellphones who couldn't conduct their business on the train and looked as if they were annoyed that he had stepped into their office. The Palace was very ostentatious and its hard to comprehend the amount of money that must have gone into having it built and furnished, not to mention the egos that must have gone with the place! We eventually overdosed on the crowds and headed back into Paris for a little bit of casual shopping, and a visit to the Pantheon. That was really interesting and the crypt of the Pantheon holds the bodies/ashes of "great men (and women)" across time including Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Marie and Pierre Curie, Rosseau, St Genieve (memory failing now.....)

Today (Saturday 28th) we walked about a kilometre from Franco Station in Barcelona to our B&B and it was already about 25 degrees by 8.30 am. It continued to climb into about the mid-30's somewhere and made our visit to the Sagrada Familia even more pleasant for the respite from the heat. We had to stand in a queue to get in to the Sagrada but it was worth it as it was a "weird but really nice" space inside the church. Its still in the process of construction so you walked around scaffolding and tilers, etc but what has been completed so far is great. I confess to not knowing that much about Gaudi but learnt today about his love for nature and its architecture and how he combined it into his designs. The inside of the cathedral is supposed to make you feel like you are in a forest with the pillars being the tree trunks and the ceiling the branches spreading out into foliage providing those underneath with shelter from the sun and rain. Not all the stained glass windows have been completed yet but those that have throw the most beautiful light into the inner space and their is an overall sense of light and airiness. We also walked past a couple of other Gaudi inspired creations but as the queues were long we satisfied ourselves from just looking around outside and watching what was happening (which is probably a good thing as we had been warned about pickpockets being active in Las Ramblas). Being a Saturday some of the shops were closed which made parts of the town look deserted with their rolled down doors/grills covering the shops and most of them had graffiti on them. That is much more obvious here than in either London or Paris. Also the smell of drains was not entirely pleasant at times (think Nepal Debbie!) and the heat doesn't help that situation much.

As a pedestrian in the city it is amazing how much further you have to walk than other places as they set the pedestrian crossings slightly down from the corner. This means you have to walk around the corner, cross the street, and then walk around the corner again to get back in a straight line. Makes walking a lot longer than the map would lead you to believe! Also the traffic is a bit more of a hazard as they travel quite fast and I am not entirely sure that they stopped for all green walk lights (or maybe it is a case of green-go, amber-go, red-slow down and be prepared to stop).

Tomorrow we head out to the airport to pick up the Peugeot and will then face the challenge of European driving. We hope to go to the Monastery at Monserrat but this will depend on how long the process of getting underway takes as the drive to Avignon is still several hours on its own.