Granada yada yada

Thankfully on the road with backs and car engines mended, we headed south along the coast for a couple of hours until we reached Alicante for lunch. This place was a nice spot, in that the beach was long and wide with beautiful water surrounded by a backdrop of mountains. Pity about the fact they built tonnes of ugly looking units along the entire coast in the 60s or something which were looking very tired. We had some lunch (salads for both of us! Smoked salmon for me, and Ryan's conveniently had bacon and duck in it). Then we continued on inland all the way to Granada.

Lunch in Alicante - our last glimpse of the sea for a week or so

We arrived in Granada late afternoon and drove in to the old city through the narrow streets and found a car park near our hotel. Our hotel was another awesome find - a suite actually, with mini kitchenette and couch right opposite the massive cathedral which the large windows opened out on to. Being the planner that I am, I found, booked and paid for this hotel several months in advance, for the grand total of A$56 a night. Once there we found out it was actually worth 168 Euros a night, so now I feel partially responsible for Spain's flailing economy.

The view from our hotel

After chilling in the hotel for a bit, we went out and wandered around. I had been here before in 2005 (a few months before I met Ryan!), although with a side of giardia at the time post-Morrocco travels, so I have been looking forward to coming back here with healthy insides ever since. The amazing thing about Granada is that in their tapas bars, they usually serve free tapas with any drink you order. And not just like a bowl of peanuts or chips or bread, we're talking jamon, smoked salmon, quail eggs and the like. Again, feeling partially responsible for Spain's flailing economy.

A 2-3 Euro glass of wine in Granada earns you some free tapas (jamon and "little egg")

So we went to various tapas bars that evening and ate and drank the night away without buying any food! Granada, I love you. The next morning we went and had the hotel breakfast (included in the A$56 a night price tag - full hot and cold buffet spread) and walked around the old town a bit. Ryan wanted a pair of brown shoes since he left his other pair behind in Provence, so we found a nice pair of Campers for 89 Euros (which I'm pretty sure is at least half their price in Sydney and if not just tell Ryan that it is). Being pretty hot by this stage and with all the shops shutting for the afternoon we stopped for a cerveza and sangria near our hotel. We love how the bars in Spain have little jets of water that spray out to cool you (the first time I saw that was in Vegas - it actually works really well and doesn't seem to use an immense amount of water).

Panoramic view of Granada from the Alhambra

So that late afternoon we had pre-booked some tickets to the Alhambra (something we didnt have to do last time I went). Being foolish fat tourists we decided to walk up to Alhambra, which was actually fine apart from the insane heat at that hour. Anyway we made it up there, and the Alhambra was even more impressive than I remembered when I had last visited (possibly due to being sans giardia). We also had to book in for a certain time slot to see the Alhambra's main attraction (also did not have to do that in 2005) so we had to queue up again to get into that part. It is stunning - how they built that back then I do not know. (And I literally don't - I don't tend to do a lot of background reading of these tourist attractions - I just briefly read what it is, when it was built, then I'm just happy to walk around and look at it and admire its beauty and amazingness.).

Alhambra

So we spent the early evening walking around the Alhambra which not only is amazing in itself but has fantastic views over the rest of Granada. We went back home to cool off for a little bit, then set out on a tapas bar tour. I'd found a website that recommended a few good different ones, so we immediately set off to a nearby one which was actually Japanese tapas. I had gone without any kind of Japanese food for 5 weeks now (highly unusual) and was having major withdrawals, so this seemed like a good option. It was pretty good... some sea bass sashimi and mixed sushi. Nothing amazing, but decent and satisfied my Japanese cravings for the next 5 weeks. (We did listen to the staff talking at one point and Ryan worked out that they were actually Chinese.... whatevs).

View of Granada from the Alhambra

So we continued on to a few other bars, all with free tapas. One of my favourites was actually a Moroccan type bar (being so close to that area) which had extremely tasty kebab type tapas. Later that night, and while we slept, our unit in Sydney was all packed up and put into storage :( A big thank you to Yols, Keely, Jade, Herschel, Bec and Bruce for helping out with various favours with that move, but most of all thank you to my Mum and Dad!!!!! <3 xoxo

8 Euros for a bottle of Smirnoff - another time I gasped at the cost of items in Espana

The next day we had a pretty relaxing day.... after breakfast we went for a wander and walked around various streets. Then we chilled in the hotel during siesta time  (when it really is quite hot) until it was time to go out and sample some more tapas bars. Our favourite was Coco's which we had found on our first night and which had  a lovely helpful manager/waiter who was happy to see us again. I dare say we will be back to Granada again some day.

Enjoying vino y tapas (gratis) in at Coco's in Granada

Back and crack

We left Mallorca by ferry at around 10am from Palma. Palma actually looked like a pretty cool city. I wish we had had more time there, but then again I wish we had more time on Mallorca full stop.  This ferry had massive recliner chairs for the "Neptune" class seats and were really comfortable. We were immediately filled with a terrible rage that we didn't have these seats to sleep in on the overnight ferry from Barcelona.

Anyways 9hrs later we rocked in to Valencia puerto and didn't even have any problems from the local policia. Post hotel check in we went out for a few drinks. Valencia was completely going off but we wanted to have a big night on Saturday so we had an early 9pm dinner. The place had wild boar on the menu so I immediately wanted that. PS. We saw "curry de pollo" on every other menu and figured we better try some as some kind of cultural experience. Well word to the wise, its awful. Also another dish to avoid, I forget the Spanish translation, but it was basically salted cod with peppers served cold. The rest of the tapas was awesome though.

Day 2 in Valencia started off with a coffee and boccidillo then a walk to the Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias to get our culture on. The buildings are really amazing to look at and I'm pretty sure most of the people there had no intention of going in. We purchased 2 tickets to the science center because the aquarium was unfortunately shut. After a few exhibits I was looking at some mirror and lights thing which I had to bend down to see and a nerve in my back immediately told me I shouldn't be doing that. I couldn't even tell Heidi properly what was going on because the pain was so much fun, but she soon guessed.

Me ruining the view at the arts and sciences city before the bad times.

I tried sitting down but that made it even worse. I cained the last of Heidi's handbag neurofen due to a hangover in Mallorca a few days earlier so we exited the museum and had to set out in the heat in search of pain killers. Getting a taxi was not an option because the  pain was almost nauseating and constant when I sat down but standing up it only hurt every time I took a breath.

After trying 4 or 5 different farmacias and them all being shut, we realised they take their siesta time very seriously and just walked back to the hotel where there were drugs awaiting in the luggage. I cained some and had a lie down while Heidi went and got the reception girls to call a doctor. They informed us that a house call is very expensive (80 euros) and we said call them anyway. About an hour later 2 guys rocked up in polo shirts and not speaking any Inglais except for the word "pain". Anyways one of them pushed my legs around and tapped my feet until it was established that I didn't have spinal damage.

About the time they were prepairing two lots of drugs and one of the guys was flicking a needle to get the air bubbles out my wife asks, "Ryan are you cool with this?". I currently had half my arse out of my pants and the other dude was swabbing it with alchohol, I wasn't really cool with it but was so over the pain I just replied yes its fine as I didn't want Heidi worrying more than she already was. Later Heidi found the bottles that they put in the bin and aparently it was just some Voltarin and another anti inflametory. They also gave us a perscription for more Voltarin. Thanks very much doctors Sarah and Chris for their long range diagnosis and information and everyone's favourite pharmacist Toni for advice on what drugs are safe to take.

By dinner time I could get up and walk around so we headed out and had some Valencian paella. Apparently Valencian paella comes with rabbit, chicken, snails and white beans. It was really gamey and quite different from the standard seafood paella.

Best paella ever

My back was much better the next day and we went out for some breakfast churros as you do. Some old dudes were already caining some cervesas a few tables away so it made me feel less bad about having chocolate and fried dough in the morning. There were some markets on so we went there, grabbed a bottle of cava, a whole packet of jamon and some pan and headed to the park for a picnic. After we jumped on a metro and headed to the Neptuno station which was the closest to the beach. I had a swim while Heidi had a litre of sangria at a nearby bar.

They take their jamons very seriously in spain. I may start making my own mouldy hanging meat when back home.

Renaissance era castles and sponge bob square pants sand scupltures.

Dinner was at Banyan bar and we had some sea bass and a steak washed down with a bottle of cava. Medium-rare in spain is pretty much rare, compared to France which seems to be about medium.

The next day we checked out went down to the carpark and tried to start the car. It took a good 10 minutes before it started. The starter motor was going but the engine wouldn't fire. Not sure what this could be. I figured since Dacia was made or owned by Renault it would be at least decent, but knowing what I know now if someone handed me the keys to a brand now Dacia for free I would slap them in the face and throw the keys on the ground. Driving in and out of this garage was really fun because it had a car lift even though there was only about 5cm on either of the side mirrors to fit the car in. My pro tip for car lifts is if you get stuck in one, turn off the engine to avoid death.

Surprise paradise

Thursday July 19 we woke up fairly early (so I could shoot off some emails to try and co-ordinate the ridiculous fact that we are packing and moving our unit while we are away) followed by a dip in the water while it was peacefully quiet. We went for breakfast at the place we'd had dinner the night before, and even though it was 9am and he was only just opening and we were the only ones there, the manager/waiter/chef/all-round-nice-guy from Chile was happy to serve us. When we asked whether Mallorca always had such perfect weather, he told us that 2 weeks before a twister had ripped through the beach and took out all the beach umbrellas, in February it has snowed on the beach (for the first time in 50 years) and in winter they barricade up the beach bars because the water comes up so high due to storms. So the perfect weather we had seen in Mallorca is not all year round, apparently.

Vista from drive from Port Soller to Sant Elm

After checking out of the hotel, and stopping in at Soller town to go to the post office to post some documents back home re moving, we hit the road to nearby Deia, which was a stunningly beautiful drive high up in the hills with views over the deep blue water of Mallorca. I think I have not seen bluer water than here. Deia was a small and very picturesque town where we stopped for some lunch (tapas, pretty decent, and accompanied by a chicken salad this time!). Then onwards along a spectacular drive with amazing vistas which we weren't even expecting! So I kept making Ryan pull over so I could take some pics for my and your pleasure.

More vistas

Our next stop was Sant Elm, a small town on the south west tip of Mallorca which I had read had turquoise water. When we drove in that became immediately obvious! It was stunning - a beautiful little beach staring directly at a small island called Dragonera just off the mainland. We parked the car and checked into our little hotel, called Hostal Dragonera which I did not know much about but had read good things online. Lucky for us we got told we had the best room in the hotel when we checked in, and sure enough we had a corner balcony with 180 degree views of the water with a deck chair, umbrella and table (possibly bigger than the room itself!). Best 67 euros we have ever spent.

Our balcony - bliss!

 Without wasting time we put our swimmers on and went for a swim, just down from our hotel off the rocks where it was fairly quiet. Again, bluer water than I have ever seen before, and the salty Mediterranean means you can literally just happily float there with your eyes closed. We dried off in the comfort of our balcony, and caught up on email and blogs before heading out for some dinner. The town had one small main drag, and I had read some good things about one particular place which we went to for dinner. It was right on the water facing the setting sun. We shared some sardines for entree (which were so massive I thought it must have been at least 2 serves) and I had grilled squid for main while Ryan had braised rabbit and onions which was a tagine-like dish, accompanied by a bottle of white and impossibly beautiful view. The food was top notch - it really was.

Sardines for entree

The next morning we got up for breakfast (which was included!) at our wonderful hotel. I assumed it would be a coffee and croissant or the like, but no, it was a full buffet spread with seats right on the water. The water can be a little chilly in the mornings so we decided to wait until afternoon, and got in the car and drove to Palma. We did a dry run of getting our tickets for the ferry to Valencia the next day (following the stress of doing the same in Barcelona) then parked and walked around the central part of Palma, which is actually very pretty. Wide boulevards filled with big trees and little narrow cobble-stoned streets with lots of shops.

Panooramic view from our balcony at sunset

Then we headed to Magaluf - a nearby haven for young British folk who want to party all  night. I was really curious as to how horrendous this place was, so we stopped in for a bit of a gawk. Magaluf was pretty much how I expected - plenty of high rise hotels/apartments surrounded by even more British pubs and other bars selling pints, English meals, take away cocktails etc. The beach was actually quite beautiful - massive stretch of yellow sand (although no beach here will ever beat Australia's sand) with blue water - so I can understand the initial attraction of Magaluf. Being about 1pm we expected the place to be pretty quiet with everyone resting their sore heads (which maybe it was quiet) but there was a decent number of people walking around - namely groups of English blokes with their shirts off and groups of English chicks wearing bikinis and shorts. I think we may have been one of the 5 or so married couples in that town. We strolled along the beach - there was some fancy hotel with a cool swish looking bar out front and a standing wave pool which you could surf on. For a minute the inner Geordie Shore in me came out and I told Ryan  "Man this is awesome!". But then we kept walking and realised, well, perhaps it wasn't. I have been in similar kind of places before - some party Greek islands, Phuket etc. but I have not seen such a little British establishment set up like this before. It's pretty funny when places are advertising baked beans as one of their star meals on their black boards outside.

One of my grilled squid dishes

For a cultural experience, we stopped in at Pirates Bar down one end of the beach. It was very chilled with a great water view, and it was a nice change for English waitresses to come up to us saying "You right? You want any drinks or food, yeah?". I asked Ryan what if I had answered with "Hablas espanol?" but it turned out they did speak a bit of Spanish, so all credit to these chicks. So we ordered some beer/sangria and burgers, which were cooked on a BBQ and were actually really quite good. Funnily enough, it was some of the best service we've had in Europe. So enough of Magaluf, back to our little piece of paradise. After I declined Ryan's suggestion of getting a takeaway frozen cocktail that I could hang around my neck for the way home, we drove back to Sant Elm. We chilled in the air-con for a bit, before going for a swim again. It really was paradise.

Ryan's lamb and truffle dish complete with quail egg

We dried out on our lovely balcony and read our books/kindles, followed by some more blog writing, then headed out to dinner again. We chose another restaurant just near the one we went to previous. On the water again, this place had amazing food also. We shared clams for entree, and (being obsessed with calamari) I had grilled squid again, and Ryan had lamb with truffle. I must say, I haven't seen Ryan be so excited about food in a while as he was in Sant Elm. The food was really amazing. In fact, Sant Elm was so enjoyable that it was a real shame we couldn't stay longer. I didn't expect much from Mallorca, for some reason, but it has blown me away with its beauty. I think we'll be back :)

Another panoramic view from our balcony

The spanish inquisition

The overnight ferry to Mallorca had one redeeming quality, 5.90 euro jugs of sangria. Everything else was awful. An overnight ferry is like an overnight plane ride if you cannot sleep. Unfortunately the cabins were booked out.  It would have been nicer to have a bed to lie on, especially on the back of the Barcelona weekend. Anyway we cat napped on the bus like seats in the "Pullman's Class" area and woke up feeling horrible.

When the boat docked at 7am we went down to the cargo hold to get the car and drove out of the ship. The local policia signaled with their hands for us and the guy in front of us to pull over. The guy in front of us had a black BMW, was from Romania and looked like a drug dealer. The policia, after searching the BMW's boot, asked for our passports and probably said a few other things we didn't understand.

After them looking at our passports in confusion and running our car number plates came back and said something about us not having stamps. I think he asked how long we're here for and I said about 3 weeks. This caused some confusion and they took our passports again and looked through them. We were waiting around for about 20 minutes, I was thinking at first they were going to make us go to some kind of border control area to get a Spanish stamp, but after some back and forth and a lot of hand movements we worked out that they just didn't see our Paris stamps which we showed them. I think this took about 2 years off Heidi's life but I of course was completely relaxed. Anyway it was completely unexpected to get this kind of going over.

Given the green light by the local polisia and breathing a sigh of relief, we headed into Palma for a 2euro cafe and tomato toast and then continued onto our hotel in port of Soller. Soller port is a sleepy beach town and we dropped the car off and had a look around. Since it was 11am by this time, it was obviously sangria and cervesa time. All of the cafes/bars have exactly the same view of the beach with aqua water so you can't really go wrong unless you order some tapas, which at the first bar was tinned mushrooms with garlic. For dinner we had some 9 euro plate of tapas which I'm pretty sure was all frozen and reheated, but for 9 euro what are you going to do?

The port of Soller, (yes the famous Soller sauce is made here).

All of the bars here had the same dumb old view.

The next day we got up and went for a swim in the lovely water, then jumped in the car and went to Fornalutz, a nearby town, which is very picturesque. It provided Heidi with a lot of opportunities to capture some of her favourite scenes, an alleyway with nice architecture and a really old church.

We then drove into the township of Soller, winding through the orange and lemon groves and had some lunch and an icecream. When we got back to Soller port I decided to shave my head. This was not ideal as Heidi didn't like it much and insisted I wear a hat when we went out. I thought it was awesome because not brushing my hair and applying sunscreen is a lot easier for holidays. Anyway I think she relaxed a bit after a cava sangria. (This is the first time I've heard/seen this but instead of a red sangria you get a white one and they use cava instead of vino tinto).

All full of sangria we rented a paddle boat which is powered by you cycling the peddles. We peddled out past the bay and around to the cliffs. The water out here was a fair bit deeper, but you could still see the bottom and it was really blue. There were a lot of people on the rocks and some of the lads were jumping off the cliffs. We were pretty tired by this time, because we're horrible fatties from all the food we've been scoffing so we peddled back into shore before the full 1hr we'd paid for was up.

View from the little peddle boat.

Yes I shined my head in the shino-ballo

For dinner we were kind of jack of tinned/frozen food and decided to head to a bar on the beach which I think is recommended by trip advisor. This was a great move as we finally able to have some delicious freshly cooked tapas and the staff were very friendly.

Adios Dan y Barca

Sunday morning we got out of bed early - around 11am, as Dan had checked out of his abode and was knocking on our door. Feeling rather fresh, the three amigos set back out into the streets of Barcelona, and in search for some breakfast came across a tapas bar that served pintxos -  tapas served on bread secured with a toothpick, all displayed out the front of the bar. You just bring a plate, take what you want, and when you're done they count your toothpicks and give you la cuenta!

Dan's got a mouth full and Ryan cannot take his eyes off the meat cone

Just around the corner from there, we stumbled upon a jamon shop full of all different forms of Ryan's favourite meat. Much to his and Dan's delight they were serving cones jam(on)-packed with little off-cuts which we bought and snacked on as we wound our way through the Gothic quarter down to Barcelonetta beach again (Dan was going back to London that evening so needed to maximise beach time). Being a weekend it was pretty crowded, but we found a spot at the cafe where we had hung the day before. The boys went for a dip in the sea and then afterwards we indulged in many glasses of cava as we watched the beautiful people walk by on what was a perfect day.

The lady at the table next to us offered to take this photo after Dan spilled cava on her. Yay Dan.

Cutting it perhaps a little fine, we then got a cab back to our hotel so Dan could get his bag and high-tail it to the airport for his flight back to cold old London. Meanwhile Ryan and I headed to an area (El Raval) near our hotel we hadn't been before and wandered around before stopping for some tapas for dinner followed by some cava and some pretty yummy buffalo wings at Marmalade, a nearby cocktail bar. That night we were in bed by 11pm. Unheard of in Espana.

View from Parc Guell showing the sheer enormity of La Sagrada Familia (and they are building it higher)

The next morning we had to check out of our hotel, although since we were catching the overnight ferry to Mallorca, we went and dumped our bags off in the car we'd parked a couple of suburbs away and got some average breakfast nearby. A running joke we've had on this trip is about the service - we call a lot of European waiters and waitresses honey badgers, because they just don't give a shit. You will be served when they are good and ready.

Gaudi's Parc Guell

Anyway honey badgers aside, we then went and got the metro and walked up some steep hills/stairs up to Gaudi's massive Parc Guell. Crawling with people, the views up the top over all of Barcelona are mind-blowing. Not to mention there are a number of buildings designed by Gaudi. Although overcast it was pretty hot by the stage so we headed back to the centre of town near Passeig de Gracia, and saw another famous Gaudi building, Casa Batlo. This happened to be right next door to the Barclays head office which had about 20 people who had stationed themselves outside (protesting about some corrupt share deal which the bank is involved in) blowing whistles and horns and generally creating havoc, which was actually pretty interesting to see it all in action having read about it on the other side of the world.

Panoramic view from Parc Guell

I had read about a pretty cool tapas bar in the area called Tapas 24, and sure enough once we found it there was a line out the door. Apart from Tickets obviously, none of the tapas in Barcelona had really blown me away, so I voted that we stick it out in the line for at least a bit. It paid off and we were seated within 20 or so minutes. This place, being written up in Time Out, obviously had a lot of tourists, but the staff were really friendly and helpful and the food top notch, the highlight for me being the toasted ham/cheese sandwich (although this was iberico jamon, buffalo mozzarella topped with black truffle!) and for Ryan the McFoie burger - a mini burger served with quite a large size of foie gras. Win!

The "Bikini" - iberico jamon, buffalo mozzarella and black truffle. Best toasted sandwich ever.

After lunch we wandered the streets, all through the Gothic quarter which is definitely my favourite part, down to the beach again, and then went and got our car to be at the port in plenty of time to get on the overnight ferry. Lucky we did because  the location of the ticket office was as clear as mud, so after asking numbers of people and driving into areas we weren't meant to, we eventually got our tickets and found the right spot. For some reason, only Ryan was allowed to be in the car to drive it on the ferry - I had to go on a bus to drive the 20 metres from the wharf onto the ferry. When I said to Ryan, "But where will I meet you?" he said "On the bow of the top deck". Then I said "Where's the bow?".

It turned out when I walked onto the boat I found Ryan in the bar.

Best Tickets in town

After a late Friday night/early Saturday morning in Barcelona town with our mate Dan, we all had a big fat sleep-in but met back up with Dan for some coffee and greasy breakfast at some non-descript cafe on La Rambla and people-watched for a while.  We then hopped on the Metro over to La Sagrada Familia, an amazing basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi, which is incomplete as he got hit by a tram halfway through. Dang. In brighter news, it was much more breath-taking than I had remembered when I visited here in 2005 - the sheer enormity and detail of the design and wall carvings is unbelievable. As you can see from the number of cranes they are still working on it they plan to eventually finish it how Gaudi had intended.

The amazing La Sagrada Familia

After stopping nearby for some lunch (tapas accompanied with cerveza and sangria - what else?) the sun had come back out so we hopped back on the metro to Barcelonetta to check out the beach, which Dan was desperate for having moved to London at the start of the year. None of us had brought our swimmers with us that day so the boys stopped in at a surf shop and picked up some boardies/togs. So we headed down to the very crowded but inviting beach, and I admired the view with a glass of cava while the boys had a swim.

Barcelona's beach

We were careful not to let time get away from us as we had a special dinner booked that evening at Tickets, a tapas bar headed by Ferran Adria who ran El Bulli and is possibly the greatest chef in the world. I had booked a table for 2 exactly 60 days before (that is when the online booking form opens, and it books out within about an hour, so if you haven't planned this a couple of months before, forget it).

Ryan and Dan - happy diners at Tickets

This place is amazingly good value considering the standard of food, and the place is set up like a theatre with a ringmaster type character as the door person. Surprisingly, this door person was very friendly and helpful so after Ryan and I got there slightly early, we thought it was worth a shot to ask if our friend could squeeze on to the table as well, and they agreed! Dan was the luckiest man in town that night.

Mini airbags stuffed with manchego cheese

So we ordered probably two thirds of the tapas on the menu which was a huge amount of food, but every dish was worth it! Some of the highlights were the dishes pictured here, as well as Ferran Adria's famous Olives (looks and tastes like an olive, but isn't - it just explodes in your mouth!), razor clams in escabeche sauce, saffron pearls and soy sauce chards, iberian ham, and rabbit taco in salmorejo sauce. Then for dessert we had catalan cream rolls, warm lava cake with raspberry sorbet, and one of the highlights, the Animated Forest.

Fried egg with truffled duck fat and potato cream - we immediately ordered another round

Avocado cannelloni with crab and romesco sauce 

The Animated Forest

This dessert was called "Jose Luis - 'Que vienen las suecas' " 

This was by far and away the best value meal of my life, but I think it may also be the best meal of my life non-stop (although Ryan is calling a draw with Momofoku). Un-be-liev-able.

So after this life-changing dinner, we went for a nightcap at a bar nearby that majored in gin (with about 20 different varieties). We then got a cap to the beach area to see where all the beautiful people hang out at night, and all the clubs had massive lines out the front so that was a no-go. And since most bars in Spain close at 3am (it's only the clubs which kick on into the wee hours) we were back home again at about 4am. Zzzzzzzzzz.

No habla mucho espanol

We woke up for our last morning at Aix en Provence, said a very sad goodbye to Kirsty, May, Sarah, Chris and Johannes and departed for Spain.

We wouldn't have even known we were going over a country border except the French road authorities were desperate to extract one last "peage" out of us. That and all the Spanish speed limits were 10-20kph less on similar roads. Felt like I was going backwards having to do 120kph again.

Cadaques was our first port of call on the Costa Bravas. The drive is really amazing, there's this winding road that brings you over the ranges. Apparently Salvador Dali spent a lot of time there and he has a house there with an egg on it (but enough of history and geography I'm sure you can all wiki travel it if you're interested).

After checking into our hotel, we went and had some sangria by the water. After this we pushed on for some tapas at another place. The tapas here we've come to learn though can mean anything from "that barley touched the sides" to "could feed a family of 4". This place had the latter, which was little mussels and potato tortilla. We were happy to  have only ordered 2 plates.

View from the first bar in Spain, I think I'll like it here.

Local supermercat vino, bring your own jerry can.
It also had  little plastic cups so you could try before you buy

Also at the local supermercat, full jamon pig legs with the mould left on. So delicious.

The next day before heading off we tried to go to Mr Dali's egg house but were saddened to find you needed a reservation to get in. Anyway it wasn't all for naught they gave us a pamphlet and we were able to admire his artwork in that.

Back through the road with ridiculously majestic views but travelling at about 30kph because the roads are about as wide as Sydney's inner west, but with 50m drop offs and tour busses and concrete mixers coming at you in the opposite direction, we headed Barcelona via Girona.

Roadside view on the way to Cadaques

Girona was a nice city, had some great tapas for lunch and we even managed to get a new Spanish SIM card with datas. Those 3 Spanish lessons I did really paid off. Not. There should be some kind of international sign language for everything like getting the bill. Maybe I'd make sign language mandatory in schools if I was King of Earth.

Girona waterfront property

So we pushed onto Barcelona with our fresh datas and Google maps Navigation telling us in man and woman voices where to go. (Sometimes it gives directions half in man voice then half in womans. Also the woman's voice is still awful here while the man voice sounds like a pleasant English chap).

After dropping our bags off and parking in the cheapest car park miles from our hotel it gave us an opportunity to walk off some tapas. This was great because we went back through the Gothic quarter on our way to our hotel just off La Rumbla near the Opera Theatre. The Gothic quarter has some really fantastic old buildings and we were able to admire the church from a square while caining some tapas and Cava. FYI dear reader, Cava freakin rocks, its like blanc de blanc champagne but costs between 10-20 euro for a bottle when you're out.

A few cavas and impressively architectured buildings later we went to a square called placa reial at a bar called Colon. We had a drink there and watched the local buskers while we waited for Dan Smith to arrive. Heidi really liked watching these guys with their shirts off doing flips and standing on each others shoulders and heads, I had no idea she loved acrobatics so much. So much in fact that even though the guy was coming around at the end of the performance with a hat to all the tables, she was the first one up and dashed there to give him 2 of the euros.


After Dan arrived we buggered off because at that square they dont tell you how much drinks are until after youve sat down and ordered. They weren't too obscene but we didnt want to be slugged with a massive bill. We went to a bar called ginger near by and had some tapas there and a couple of cocktails. It was great. I think we went to a lot of other bars but my head hurt so much in the morning I can't remember their names.

Getting our culture on

In Ryan's excitement to finish his last blog post whilst in the pool, he actually forgot to mention some of Monday's activities. After our trip to Avignon it was stinking hot and so when we got home we hopped in the pool. As it was nearly my birthday Australia-time we thought it an opportune time to crack the 40 Euro bottle which we had picked up in Vertes, Champagne the week before, and accompanied this with some brie and duck (canard) pate. I have had worse afternoons.

Beer, champagne, brie and canard pate pool-side in Aix

Kirsty and the gang had another opera performance that night so Ryan and I headed into town for some dinner and found Le Riad, a Moroccan restaurant recommended to us. So some mixed entrees and deliciously tender lamb tagine all accompanied with some rose was enjoyed by all. Have we mentioned - everyone in Aix drinks rose like it's water. I prefer the rose here more than at home too - it's a much paler pink colour. Very refreshing and goes down a little too easily.

Aix cathedral by night

Ryan and I headed back home after dinner, and following some blogging we went to bed at around 1am, and early night for us in Aix, while the musos continued to party on. The next morning I woke up, and it was my birthday! Ryan and I headed into town while the musos slept in. After un cafe we found another market, this one much bigger than the previous day, and to Ryan's delight there was a chicken man roasting poulets with all their juicy goodness dripping down onto potatoes below. We continued to wander around town, which was turning out to be a very hot day, so we moseyed around with a couple of stops in cafes/bars for coffee and/or beer, followed by some pasta for lunch, and people-watched.

Ryan's pasta with ridiculous foie gras portion

That evening Kirsty was playing in a quartet in a nearby town that was part of the Aix-en-Provence festival, so Ryan and I went along to that which we both enjoyed, then high-tailed it back to the house because they were throwing a party! About 50 or so people from the orchestra and opera cast were at our house having a good old time while Chris cooked some delicious meat on the BBQ (his chicken is the best I have had in my life. Fact.)

Partying on with some of our new muso and actor friends

So after partying on into the wee hours as they do, we woke up pretty late the next day and Ryan cooked us all up a big fry-up brunch and had a pretty lazy afternoon pool-side while the musos got ready for another opera performance that night. As my birthday present Kirsty got us 2 tickets to that night's performance! So after a quick dinner in town, we headed to the theatre to watch Written on Skin, a modern opera written by George Benjamin. Being my first opera, it was the best I have ever seen, but seriously both Ryan and I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially
knowing half the musicians and having previously met the stars of the opera!

A couple of smooth musicians

After the performance we met the gang and went to a bar and partied on with the orchestra and singers and actors into the wee hours, yet again. We had a completely amazing time in Aix with Kirsty and made lots of new friends - thanks to Kirsty, Chris, May, Johannes, Sarah, Borag, Eoin, Puig, Christian and many others for such a fun 5 days!