Not every day can be exciting. It took two weeks, the forces of nature and shopping bylaws to slow us down, but we finally did. We finally took a chill day on our holiday.
It took me 3 weeks last year! Stupid wind is slowing me down in 2019!!
The drive from Montpellier to Barcelona is pretty long so we decided to split it up with a stopover in the small French town of Perpignan. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that everything is closed on Sundays in this sleepy French town, so we got there and had nothing to do!!
Even finding an open restaurant was difficult!Even in touristy areas, no one was outside.As we drove through, it felt a bit like a science fiction movie. I kept expecting zombies to appear!
Ok, it wasn’t that bad… But the wind WAS crazy yesterday, and with most businesses closed for Sunday, everyone was staying inside. So, we spent the day napping and catching up on the news as well. It was probably a good idea. We’ve been running on all cylinders since we arrived in Europe.
Day 14 stepsDay 15 Steps
We did drive around a bit in the evening to find some food. We ended up settling for some fast food (a truely lazy day!), and on our drive we saw the effects of the crazy strong winds that ripped through the region all day.
We saw lots of branches laying across the roadPlenty of garbage bins and patio furniture also got tossed around in the windIt was like a prairie storm without the rain!
So that’s all I really have to say about day 14. Day 15 was much more exciting, so stay tuned for my post tomorrow!!
Air BNB has been a valuable tool for us this trip. France and Spain are a lot more expensive than Indonesia or Vietnam, which has meant that this holiday has cost quite a bit more. By using Air BNB, we’ve saved a lot.
Air BNB hosts often offer great insight into ways to save money and know all the best local hotspots as well. Our first host, in Madrid, recommended one of the best tapas bars we visited. It was a great introduction to Spain!
Our host in Toulouse was also a lifesaver and money saver. When we had some car trouble, it was our Air BNB host I contacted. If it hadn’t been for Anna’s advice, we likely would have paid double for the repairs needed.
Small mechanics like St. Simon Automobile don’t come up on the first few pages of Google
Air BNB also offers many different lodging options. You can book a room in someone’s home, or book an entire apartment. Sometimes you will have flatmates, and sometimes you’ll have total and complete privacy. I always try to find options that give us a private bathroom. I can handle sharing an apartment with another guest, but I prefer to have my own shower.
Sometimes you get lucky and get a room with a view!
You can also book activities through Air BNB. Our second night in Spain was spent on a Tapas Crawl I learned about while looking for accommodations in Madrid. A couple of locals host a culinary tour. They’re self proclaimed foodies (like me!), so they knew all the best spots!
Pork belly and cheese! Talk about a good start to the night!
I booked with them through Air bnb and we spent the evening going from bar to bar, trying some of Madrid’s best snacks and drinks. It was one of the best things we’ve done on this trip so far!
Our group at the Tapas Crawl. It was such a well planned tour!!
Of course, things don’t always turn out as planned. We’ve had a bit of bad luck on the site as well, both with rooms and with activities.
When you see a half eaten pig’s leg on the street on your way into your Air BNB … It might be a bad sign….
Some problems aren’t a big deal. In Toledo we had a very complicated check in and terrible lighting in our room. It was all especially irritating because the price was so much higher in Toledo than it had been in Segovia or Avila.
Toledo: Overcrowded, Overpriced
Our worst experience to date has been in Montpellier. Our host is actually out of town, so she has a friend cleaning up for her between guests. This friend didn’t do the best job, and when you add that to the black mould on our walls, and the fact that she forgot to leave us toilet paper or clean towels, we’ve been pretty annoyed.
Dirty fridgeMould is never fun
Worse yet was our problem with the bed. At one point last night, I rolled over and we heard something crack and fall. I moved a bit again and something else sounded like it was cracked too. We turned on the lights to investigate and discovered that this is an ongoing issue with the cheaply made bed frame. We’ll be dealing with the planks falling again tonight…
Paper towel has been stuffed into the ends, to try to keep the planks from falling out, but it doesn’t seem to help….
We haven’t had much luck in Montpellier with Air BNB actually. We also tried to book a vineyard tour, but the pick up location on the host’s page wasn’t correct, and he never told us. We arrived on time… He was somewhere else and left without us.
We went to an aquarium instead and did a bit of sight seeing. There’ll be more on that in my next post….
So, Air BNB, like everything else, can be flawed. Good hosts are helpful, friendly, welcoming and valuable resources. Bad hosts can have you driving around Montpellier at 10:30, looking for bath towels and toilet paper.
Thank goodness for Geant Casino! Luckily enough … They happened to be trying out a 24 hour format for 3 days when we happened to need towels at 10:30 at night!
For my Day 13 Post, I’ll be writing about our experience with the massive protests happening across France right now! Stay tuned!
There are risks associated with renting a car. Even if you’re the best driver on the planet, you can’t always guarantee everyone else will be.
These tiny streets begin and end out of no where. Last night, we saw a cyclist nearly get hit by a big van that came barreling around the corner. She had to jump off her bike to avoid a collision.
Car accidents aren’t the only thing you need to worry about either. We’ve seen vandelism (particularly graffiti) all over Spain and France. Some of the graffiti is nice, I’ll admit, but a lot of it is amateur. Even in Sagrada Familia we saw that people had carved their names in the stairwell coming down from the tower. It’s a real problem.
This picture is stolen from the internet because I hadn’t thought to take any photos of this until now. It’s what many of the bridges in Madrid and Barcelona look like
Even vandalism isn’t the end of rental risks, unfortunately. Sometimes the renters can get confused by language differences, and their french-speaking wives don’t catch their mistakes in time.
Which one would you think is Gasoline?
That’s how we ended up with a tank full of diesel, and a vehicle that wouldn’t run properly. Luckily it was a simple fix (just had to drain the vehicle of the diesel), but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t stressed out.
If you’re paying close attention you will notice that Gazole is labeled as Diesel, but if you’re filling up at 10pm in a strange city at a 24 hour self-serve gas station, you might have the same problem we did.
In Dave’s defence, Gazole is a brand of DIESEL in Europe, which is very confusing for someone who doesn’t speak French, but knows that there it shares a lot of similarities with English.
Dave filling our tank with GAS this morning
So, if you find yourself in Toulouse, with a rental car, I’m here to warn you that you that the french word for gasoline is NOT Gazole. And … If you are unfortunate enough to end up with a tank full of diesel, contact St. Simon Automobile. They are not only crazy nice, but they didn’t rip us off and even went so far as to keep our costs as low as possible.
The man who runs St. Simon speaks good English too! And he was patient with my attempts with my very rusty French!He even had an employee help tow our car so that we didn’t have to fork over extra money for a tow truck. I wanted to hug him. Such a nice guy!!!He only charged us 70€ for something we were sure was going to cost 200-300€
It’s funny how things can turn out. We honestly had a bit of a crummy time in Toulouse. We found most people to be pretty rude and we ended up settling for dinner at McDonald’s because even at 7pm, no one was serving dinner yet.
Dave got the blue cheese burger. It cost 12€, and he wishes he’d ordered the 6€ Big Mac
Yet, our crappy car circumstances somehow changed our entire perspective on the city. Without the recommendation of this mechanic from our air BNB host, and without the kindness of this man, we would have left Toulouse with a sour taste. Sometimes difficult situations can really turn things around for the best, apparently!!
Our moods were lifted and we continued onto Montpellier today!
You can reach St. Simon here:
Saint Simon Automobile 8 Rue Antoine Bayes, 31100 Toulouse, France
Before we left for Europe, we got Dave’s international licence renewed so that we could rent a car in Madrid and Barcelona. It’s opened up a lot of possibilities for us, and even allowed us to hop up to the Pyrenees mountains to see Andorra and a bit of Southern France.
The border crossing into Andorra was the most lax I’ve ever seen. We weren’t even stopped; we just drove on through and waved at the border patrol
Andorra is a tiny country, situated between Spain and France. Every restaurant we visited had menues in Spanish, French, English and also the National language: Catalan (quite similar to Spanish).
In English, we say “gorgeous”. In French, it’s “magnifique”. Spanish: “espléndido”. Catalan: “esplèndid”
Although we weren’t there for long, we definitely spent as much time as possible outside, enjoying the scenery.
The whole city is surrounded in mountains
Today’s drive to Toulouse was especially spectacular. We enjoyed a fantastic lunch at a creperie run by a French Andorran, and walked through the town. The statues, I’ll admit, were a bit disconcerting..
From far, they looked like real people. We kept thinking people were just standing there watching usThe town was completely empty too… So the statues were extra creepy
Andorra may not have had a lot going on as far as tourism and history are concerned, but it sure had some views! And surprisingly…. It also has some of the best shopping in Europe!
I even got my favorite rum in the world for only 10€! They don’t even sell this stuff in Canada…. I’ve only ever seen it in Cuba!Shopping is excellent in Andorra. They have great trade deals so many Europeans go there for the weekend to shop
I know I’m still a day behind with my writing. We don’t have cell service outside of Spain, so I have been limited with when I can write. I already have today’s post planned though…. It will be about an unfortunate adventure we hadn’t exactly planned for….
Our ninth day on holiday was spent appreciating the work of Anthony Gaudi; a Spanish architect.
You’re probably familiar with his unfinished masterpiece: Sagrada Familia
We also went down to Gaudi’s park, which I’ll be writing more about later on, but for now, I wanted to mention one very specific aspect of our time in the area: gift shops.
Every country has them and they vary in every way. In Laos, there were a lot of weaving shops. In India, pashminas are sold everywhere. In Cuba, wooden figurines are popular (although we learned that this is not at all a traditional Cuban art form). Similarly, in Cambodia, wooden figurines are also very popular. Unfortunately, they’re mostly made from illegally logged wood.
My favourite souvenir shops are Fairtrade run, where the artisans who produce the items are paid a fair wage. From an ethical standpoint, they are where I prefer to spend my money, but also, you can find much more unique items at places like this.
The souvenir shops around the Gaudi museum were some of the more interesting ones I’ve seen. Most of the items found there followed the same artistic style as Gaudi (specifically his broken tile style), and it was all very…..colourful.
Even one of Gaudi’s houses was turned into a gift shop. I’m not sure if he’d approve. He was pretty serious about his work.
Souvenirs are a massive industry. Personally, we always try to bring back useful (scarves or clothes) or consumable souvenirs (chocolate or food from the area). If we brought back a keychain or magnet from everywhere we visited …. It might get to be a bit much!
I’ll be back soon with a post about Andorra; a tiny country located between Spain and France!
Food is such an important part of the way Dave and I travel. One of the only activities we booked ahead of time for Spain was a Tapas Crawl (where you go from bar to bar and sample different snacks). It was spectacular and taught us about all the different Tapas we like.
One of my favourite Tapas dishes yet. It had cheese, jam and bread. It was delicious!!!!
Last night, we tried another common Spanish way of eating: Pinchos
Excellent variety!
The idea is that bars put out a variety of food with tooth pics in it. There are usually 2 kinds of toothpicks. One is for cheaper Pinchos (usually 1€) and the other are for higher priced ones (1-1.80€).
Shrimp was a more expensive item, whereas tuna or eggs were cheaper
You get full before too long, and you get to try a variety of different foods, which suited me just fine!!!
Croquettes are basically stuffed with ham, mushrooms, cream and butter. They taste like cheese sticks, but I was shocked to learn that they have 0 cheese in them
Our first stop was the best of the 3. They had a bunch of dishes with quail eggs, which I really enjoyed. As long as the bar is busy, everything moves out quickly and fresh stuff is brought out often.
They brought out these bad boys fresh and hot. Delicious!!Not a meal for people who don’t do bread haha!Quail eggs and sausage! Yum!
I am loving Spain! I feel like this is where I belong:
– They love snacking
– They eat and sleep late
– They love eggs. Served all day, everywhere
– Cheap and delicious coffee
– Dogs everywhere! Big dogs. Big mutts! They’re well behaved and trained.
I don’t know if I’m going to leave. I might just stay here…. ?
Spanish omelettes are one of my favourite foods here so far!
If you want to try this style of food in Barcelona, I highly recommend hitting up Blai Street or Carrer de Blai. There are more than a dozen restaurants and bars serving food in this style!
Working in China can mean a lot of great things. The number 1 perk of living abroad is the amount of traveling Dave and I can do. With 3 months off annually, we’ve seen at least 4 countries per year for the last 5 years. It’s been a pretty amazing ride.
Last spring festival was spent in Indonesia. One of the most incredible trips of my life!
Of course, living in China also has its downsides. I work every day of the week to keep up with my insane courseload. I work on average 60-70 hours per week, often finishing my grading at midnight. I also work most weekends, preparing for Monday’s classes. Please believe me when I say I work very, very hard for these holidays!
My stack of grading right before the holiday. It took me 3 days but I was suppose to have it done in 2…
Of course, living in China also means constantly being surrounded by people. Even China’s small cities have 2 million people, and Suzhou has 8 million. By the time our holidays arrive, I’m so tired of crowds that I just want to get away from every human other than Dave.
I don’t mind this guy…. But I need a break from everyone else haha!!
So far, Spain has been an amazing break from the hoards of people we’re used to. Even in Madrid, we were able to choose activities that kept us away from the masses.
In China I would have waited ages and still never have gotten this shot without people in it
But today, in Toledo, we were reminded why we have been choosing quieter activities for the last week. Toledo was a nuthouse!
It was like this everywhere we turned
Toledo is less than an hour from Madrid, so it’s an easy getaway from the capital. The town is cute but MUCH more geared towards tourists than either Avila or Segovia. Both of the smaller towns seemed to have a local life of their own, whereas Toledo seems to just exist for tourism.
Everywhere you go in Toledo, these swords are being sold. They range from 6€ to 400€, depending on the size and details…. At one point, I waited nearly 10 minutes to pay for 4 post cards, as the sales person tried convincing a young guy to drop nearly $500 Canadian on a decorative toy….
We tried to enjoy ourselves in spite of the masses, but when we walked into the Cathedral to hear a Chinese kid scream “whaaaaa!!!!”, I knew our day was circling the drain.
I should add that the child was not shouting in awe. He was just shouting. Kids in China are basically allowed to be as loud as they want to be… That doesn’t change when they are visiting holy places or are in areas where screaming is clearly not appropriate
By 1pm we started getting grumpy with each other, so we decided to hop in the car and get out of the city.
Toledo has a great free parking area just outside of the walls. They’ve built a lot of escalators too so that tourists don’t need to climb all the way back up. On the left, the escalators are going down, and out of the city. On the right, tourists are heading into Toledo. I’m glad we left when we did
We didn’t see anything too spectacular, but we enjoyed the ride, the quiet and the fresh air. Today, it was warm enough to have the windows rolled down!
Our destination today was Toledo. It’s a beautiful and historical city, but as always, my daily posts aren’t about our major stops; they’re about the small things that otherwise might not make it into my blog.
Another fact about my daily posts: (almost) all my pictures come from my cell phone and are unfiltered
One of the best parts of taking a roadtrip is the ability to stop and smell the roses if you so wish. Today, during the 2 hour drive from Avila to Toledo, we were presented with one of these opportunities, when a massive Castle appeared on a hilltop ahead.
I never actually got a shot of the castle from the highway, so I had to steal this one from the internet
We did a quick uturn and drove into a tiny town called Escalona, where the castle (or what’s left of it) is located. We were sad to learn we couldn’t go in, but we took some pictures from the outside anyway.
It’s pretty spectacular from the exterior anyway!
The castle was built nearly 1000 years ago, as a Moorish defense system. It was meant to protect Toledo from sieges. Of course, it changed hands throughout history and had undergone several restorations. Still, this castle isn’t exactly tourist-friendly.
Pieces of the building look like they’ve crumbled quite recentlyStill, lots of it is still in great shape! It’s a shame that even just part of it isn’t open to the public anymoreA lot of the castle is overgrown by plants and grass. We saw several large birds’ nests on top of the towers too. It’s being reclaimed by nature
My favourite shot of the stop was of Dave. He climbed up to an area that wasn’t sectioned off, and the castle looked so large and grand behind him…. It’s to good of a picture not to share!!
Tomorrow we have a full day in Toledo!! Stay tuned for post #7!
We arrived in Avila today and saw the most beautiful Cathedral yet. I’ll be dedicated an entire post to Segovia, Avila and Toledo later on, but for now, I’ll send a spoiler photo I took with my phone.
This photo has not been edited or filtered…
The people in Spain have been great. Our Air BNB host in Madrid was beyond helpful. The owner of our hotel in Segovia was so friendly, I don’t think he ever stopped smiling. But today, when we arrived in Avila, I had my first crummy experience with a local.
This cat we saw in Segovia looks the way I felt today. I woke up this morning with an email from my school telling me they were withholding about $2000 Canadian in pay from me. No reason given. They just aren’t paying me until after the holiday…..
When we arrived, we weren’t sure where to park (the area isn’t exactly ideal for parkades), so I ran inside to ask where to leave the car. The owner proceeded to yell at me because we were A.) Early and B.) Too daft to speak Spanish.
Meanwhile, my only concern was that our sweet little rental car was safe so we could start exploring Avila!
My Spanish comprehension is pretty good, but I can speak about 10 words total, so this was all very frustrating for me. I could understand her easily enough… But I couldn’t explain that she needn’t worry and that we didn’t need to check in. Just find parking.
The streets here aren’t exactly built for parking…. Parking spots are expensive and coveted. We paid 20 euros to park our car the first night. Our hotel, by comparison, cost only 30.…..
Language troubles are hardly new for me. I deal with them on a day to day basis living in China, but to understand without being able to respond was very frustrating!
All I wanted was to drop off my bags so I could go and see the city walls! But of course, I couldn’t communicate that with the owner of this hotel, because she came into the situation assuming I was demanding my room early …
Eventually we were able to work everything out, and when she realized I wasn’t just some jerk foreigner demanding early check in, she warmed up very quickly. We’re basically pals now.
We did make it to the wall!! We also enjoyed a very sunny day!
Language is so integral to the human experience. It’s what many psychologists say defines consciousness (you can’t think without language….try!). Without language, we wouldn’t be nearly as special among all the species on earth… I just wish there was a way to upload all new languages into my brain! It would make traveling so much easier!
The Wall at night! I’ll write more about Avila soon!
Tomorrow we head to Toledo! Stay tuned for more travel updates!
Today we began our roadtrip with a trip to Segovia. I’ve always wanted to see Roman aquaducts and the ones in Segovia are beautifully intact, so we made them part of our road trip. I’ll be writing more about it soon, but for today’s post, I wanted to focus on one very specific part of our day.
I promise I’ll write about the castle soon!!
I wanted photos of the aquaducts from every imaginable angle, so we did a bit of walking around. On our way back to the busy center, we stumbled upon something Dave had read about in the news a few weeks back:
Yes, this is a sculpture of the devil taking a selfie….
Now, personally, I “get” what the artist was trying to say here. Religion has been trivialized…selfies and vanity are how the devil shows himself…obesity is a real issue in the modern world. It isn’t often I understand art, but I think I get this one!!!
I especially get the irony that people are more interested in pictures of themselves at these incredible aquaducts than they are of the aquaducts themselves…
Anyway, Dave and I found it ridiculous, so we decided to get a photo or two with it, and then a crowd formed….
I forgot to get a picture, but the cell phone screen in the statue showed a selfie of the devil in front of the aquaducts. It was pretty well done!!
Now, back story on this sculpture: it’s new, and many Segovian locals hate it! They hate it so much, in fact, that The Guardian wrote an article about it! The whole purpose of this sculpture is to bring tourists up to that area is Segovia, and I think it serves its purpose well. Still, we had several Spanish people approach us in our short time with that statue. No one was mean or angry, but they definitely wanted their displeasure about the statue to be known. A few locals looked quite amused with it. Either way, it drew a crowd!
I don’t know if these people were local to Segovia or Spain in general, but they seemed to be amused at least! I didn’t get pictures of the other groups who seemed far less amused with the sculpture their town paid to have made!
That’s my strange story for the day… I guess Asia isn’t the only place where strange happens!
If you want to read more about this sculpture, its purpose, and the locals reactions to it, you can read the article The Guardian wrote on the topic by clicking here:
