Hola from Barcelona! Hope this finds you well.
Since our last installment about a week ago we've been in four different countries: from Italy, into France, then Monaco (it may only be 1.95 square kms but it's still a country!) and now Spain...
Getting back into France was really nice actually, with its cheap and plentiful camping grounds, and well sign-posted and well maintained free highways (no problem keeping away from the toll-roads now we are an experienced and well-travelled European driving/navigating team...a far cry from the timid twosome who first set foot on French highways 2 ½ months ago!). It was also refreshing to be able to construct sentences a little longer than 'Due cappuccinos, per favore' (about the most we could manage in Italian).
We stayed in the pretty little seaside town of Menton, just inside the French/Italian border and then worked our way along la Cote d'Azur (French Riviera), mixing with the wealthy and well-to-do in Monaco, Nice, Cannes and Saint Tropez. Ok, well not exactly 'mixing with' but you know what I mean.
Anyway, Monaco was as you'd imagine a tiny rich country to be - posh-looking, flashy casino, expensive restaurants, nice coastline. We walked around for a couple of hours, Cam insisted on taking photos of cars (boring), and then lay on the beach in the sun and watched rich people.
We also lay on the beach in Cannes (about the only thing we could afford to do! A sun lounger at the Carlton Hotel beach cost 21 euros but the sandy public beach was nice enough for us!) We treated ourselves to an over-priced newspaper and gossip magazine from the beach-side vendors and spent a good few hours getting back in touch with the world - while I sneakily kept an eye out for any celebrities who might be passing by. No such luck.
No celebs in St Tropez either, yet another resorty pricey town - apparently it was just a sleepy little fishing village until Brigitte Bardot decided she liked it and bought a villa there. We stumbled upon some kind of anniversary sailing regatta thing which meant there were lots of important people walking around in their sailing clothes. I looked in the shops while Cam amused himself with more photos of cars and a few of boats, just for good measure.
Nice was nice (sorry, had to be said), it's a reasonable sized city with a port full of flash boats (yes, they kept Cam entertained), a pleasant beachfront promenade, and an old city full of bustling markets and little winding streets with interesting shops and galleries (which kept me entertained.) Not expensive like the rest of la Cote d'Azur either.
So that was our return to France, all of a sudden we realised we only have 3 weeks left of this adventure - 3 WEEKS! Sadly, the ferry is booked to return to England on November 7 - so we motored it towards Spain and it seems pretty cool so far, based on Barcelona. We had high expectations for the city as it's been hyped up a lot as Europe's number 1 city and things like that, and after 2 days here we can definitely see the attraction. It's a lively vibrant attractive city with heaps to do, we'd love to stay longer if we had more time up our sleeves (a good excuse to come back anyway!). The Gaudi architecture is amazing, we went to La Sagrada Familia yesterday, which is a massive church designed by Gaudi which they started building 120 years ago and still haven't finished (not sure why, probably lack of money?). It has incredible sculpturing, 8 massive towers (there are still 10 to build!) and just looks fantastic, even half-finished with cranes and scaffolding everywhere.
This seems to be rather long so I'll leave it there, we are off to Valencia next (I think!)
p.s. By the way, Spanish-speaking people, how do you say 'gracias'? Today I'm sure a lady said 'Grathias' to me, is that how we should pronounce it? (like 'Bathalona' I guess). Any tips appreciated, at the moment we are just mumbling 'gracias', trying not to say Italian 'grazie' and hoping no one notices!
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