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!