Gaudi ... Gaudi .... and more Gaudi .... !
Barcelona….BARCELONA…..BARCELONA! (and Carcassonne and Gorges du Tarn)
The vibrant, exciting and clean city of Barcelona was a fun place to visit. Our apartment (Ramblas 4) was twenty seconds from La Rambla, the main street which is always abuzz with vendors selling anything from postcards to pet hamsters, buskers including many entertaining human statues and at one end a group of artists plying their trade. Natalie had a cartoon image done (it took about one minute) which is very funny. We visited many Gaudi sites: La Padrera, Sacreda Familia and Gruel Park. One of the commentaries quoted his university professor as saying ‘I don’t know if we are graduating a genius or a madman!’ Look at the photos and judge for yourselves.
We also visited the Cathredral and the Gothic Quarter where we came across the fascinating museum “History of the City” which displayed the archaeological findings of the Roman City under the streets of Barcelona. We took the cable car to Montjuic to take in the views and have a look at the Olympic Stadium from 1992. We also spent hours wandering the tiny streets and discovering all sorts of interesting shops, squares and cafes. The Metro was efficient and made travel a breeze. Best of all everything was clean. Not one sighting of offending doggie doo (unlike London and Paris where negotiating a path through the *** is like making one’s way through a minefield).
Since Carcassonne was only two and a half hours drive away we decided that, on leaving Barcelona, we would take the scenic route and stop at one of the Costa Brava beaches for our lunch. Well obviously the whole of Spain had the same idea that Wednesday and we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. We opted for the motorway and ended up eating our lunch in a poorly equipped rest area, vowing to visit the beach once we were in Provence.
Our stay in Carcassonne was in another welcoming B&B in a village close by the fortified city. We visited a fascinating underground cave complete with stalactites, stalagmites, underground lakes and a huge chandelier shaped crystal before looking at Carcassonne. This city is amazing to see from the exterior but we found inside to be jam packed with tourists and quite commercialized. We did come across an interesting museum depicting school at the turn of the century-Dominic said it looked pretty much like his school so nothing much changed in fifty years!
Next stop was Gorges du Tarn on the way to which we crossed the spectacular Viaduc de Millau ( Rosie you would have been impressed: a must see for all engineers!) and this is where we decided to get active. Visiting cathedrals and museums was off the agenda and instead we plunged (literally) into white water kayaking and mountain walking. When we enquired about the kayaking we were told that we could do a stretch of the river that was absolute beginner level, another stretch which was very calm but very picturesque or alternatively a stretch which included some rapids. When asked how difficult that section was we were assured that it was “facile”( French for easy). Natalie liked the look of the photos of the rapids and they seemed fairly tame and considering my white water rafting experience we decided to take that option. Well…. it was a windy day and initially we had to negotiate our craft into a one metre wide slide in the middle of a weir (two to three metres high) which spanned the width of the river. The river was probably seventy metres wide at that point. Every time I got near the slide the wind blew us off course and I had to madly paddle to get us back upstream to avoid falling over the weir. We did this about four times before finally achieving success. The adrenalin was pumping, my arms were aching and Natalie was very frightened and close to tears. Dominic was watching from the bank below the weir and was starting to become a bit concerned. The slide was fun though and we were thoroughly drenched before we even started the two hour paddle downstream. Next…. The rapids weren’t exactly a piece of cake and required some technique and lots of effort in the paddling. We struck a rock on one and overturned. Natalie was under the boat and lost her paddle (kindly retrieved by another kayaker on the river) but her mother managed to keep hold of her and the boat and guided both safely to shore. Sometime later we came to a halt on a rock in the middle of a rapid and Natalie had to get out to dislodge us. I paddled to shore but she was stuck in the middle of the river on a rock! The river was mostly shallow but was deep at that particular point (naturally) so I waded out as far as I could and went downstream a bit and told her to jump, float towards me and grab my outstretched hand. She managed admirably and we have both survived to tell the tale. From this point on Natalie could not wait to see the bridge which signalled the end of the course. I will have to admit that my weary body was also very relieved to see the approaching pylons of the bridge. We both wished we had opted for the picturesque stretch of water which incidentally is where Dominic went on a motorized boat!
After a good night’s sleep, the next day we opted for higher ground and did a nine kilometre (five and a half hours) walk around the ridges of the gorge. At times it seemed no less dangerous than the white water as we followed some very narrow paths with huge drops to the side of us. However the views were spectacular and we even got to see some vultures soaring very close overhead. Natalie has become a great little walker over the course of this holiday!
We are now in our gite in sunny Provence and ready to settle for a while.
