Hello, Dali. Spending our last day in Spain at the Dali Museum in Figueres was the perfect way to end our Spanish adventure. So crazy talented, this one. I loved it all, and was especially loving his rock works from 1978. I also couldn't get enough of "Gala naked watching the sea..."
Far away and close-up!I am very proud of Heather and myself. We were awesome road trippers. Heather was an excellent navigator, and I was (mostly) confident behind the wheel - parking is not my forte. Rock solid tunes, cheese and baguette, a trip to remember. Clocked a solid 1645km on the road trip portion of our journey over five days - Barcelona to Santiago to Compostela. Stops included a night in Torla, at the base of the Pyrenees mountains - where the town, pop. 7, knew we had arrived as I had driven the too-narrow single climbing street in search of our hostel, only to have to back up because two cars needed to leave. This involved two Spanish men taking their turn at the wheel, as clearly, doing such a reverse on such tight and descending roads is not in my comfort zone, and these people had places to go. I was a stress case, and Heather, though supportive (thanks dear), had a good chuckle. I was able to smile once the whole ordeal was through. Getting there was our first stretch of driving, just over 300km, which involved leaving Barcelona (we successully got out of the bustling city) and winding mountain roads, in the dark. We came across a rare species, the geep shoat (shoat, as the locals call it), standing in the middle of the pitch black road. We had a good chuckle about that. And we had this middle-of-nowhere hostel to ourselves. It was so cosy and cabin-like, and provided us with a solid rest, before our three consecutive nights of sleeping in the car. The next day, en route to San Sebastian, we picnic-ed in Pamplona. Unfortunately, no bull sightings.
I could live in San Sebastian. It's the perfect combination of mountains and seaside, sun and surf. Big enough, but not too large. A diverse population of young and old, everyone happy to be out and about. Ahh.
We spent some time in Bilbao after San Sebastian. Perhaps it's all relative, but this wasn't so much our scene. Look at the circumstances though - we had just left San Sebastian, and we were going on our third day of sleeping in the car. The Guggenheim was a DEFINITE highlight though. There was a Frank Lloyd Weber exhibition, in addition to the other fabulous displays (favourites include Bird Effort - Pollock, Stables - Franz Marc, Newspaper and Fruit Dish and Houses in Paris - both Gris, and Landscape with Rolling Hills - Kandinsky), and the architecture and building itself. Such sensual curves - modelled after Frank Gehry's subconscious fascination with fish. The titanium (scales?) on the building's exterior was created just so, such that light reflects it a certain way. No detail goes unnoticed eh? "The Matter of Time" exhibit is such a psychological trip...messing with your perception and balance as you wander the curves and toruses and spheres and ellipses and spirals...the physics just boggles my mind.
Our biggest driving stretch was Bilbao to Carballo, about 700km or so. We did this starting around 4:30 one afternoon, driving well into the night. We couldn't resist stopping in a tiny town to dramatically run into the Bay of Biscay. Refreshing. The next morning we drove about another hour, to Fisterra, Costa de la Muerte, the coast of death and the end of the world. We hiked to the peak, with lighter and clothing in tow, with plans to perform the ceremonial burning and cleansing of the soul. It was really more a metaphorical cleansing of the soul for us in the end, as our concern for safety and the environment took over. Views and feelings that go on forever...and of course a stop to run into the Atlantic ocean was a must as well.
Sleeping in a car went something like this: night one - just outside San Sebastian. We found a small port village, and checked it out. We had pulled over at one point to check our map. The police did not like this, so we decided to leave that area. We ended up finding a parking lot just off of the highway. It was a nervous first night in the car, and both of us had nightmares. The second night we found an industrial area outside of Bilbao. There were other cars around, and it was a success. The third night we opted to check out another industrial area, just outside of Carballo. We had parked and were in our pjs, just shutting our eyes, when a car flashed it's headlights, signalling us to get out. I didn't even get a chance to put my shoes back on...we just beelined it out of there. Eesh! We drove around, so exhausted, trying to find an alternative. We settled on something obvious - a spot in a Carrefour/gas station lot. We figured we would look less troublesome since we weren't trying to hide. So we finally got to sleep by about 1am. Around 6am, we get a wake-up call, via headlights from a police car behind us. Correction, Heather gets a wake-up call and desparately tries to get me to come to. The next thing we know the cop is shining a flashlight into the car. Shoot. Heather frantically grabs our map and her translation dictionary, and opens the door with a heart-breaking "no comprende!". Of course, nothing has been said yet, and the officer smiles and says "Buenos dias?" Heather explains in purposely-broken Spanish complete with actions, just to ham it up as she had actually studied the language in Uni, that we had been driving for a very long time and were too tired to continue and had to pull over to sleep. He is very friendly and understanding, and points us to a place less than 100m from us, that it is legal for us to park. *PHEW!* So we relocate and get some more sleep.
Giving the car up in Santiago to Compostela was bittersweet. It provided such freedom, our own timeline for travel, our living space in the back seat, but all the one-way streets in our final city were enough to drive us bonkers, so it was a fond farewell in the end. With only a few minor directional hiccups (thank goodness for multiples goes around the roundabouts), it was a definite success. And Heather and I haven't killed each other!
Before our 3 helpings of paella, we had some time in Bristol and Bath in England (both of which I could easily live in as well). We arrived on virtually no sleep, as we hopped on an overnight bus out of Radom, right after work, on the Friday of our holidays. It took us to Wroclaw to fly to Bristol. Our ambitious sight-seeing plan got wiped and we ended up spending our first day at a pub, sampling the many wonderful local ciders. And eating pie and mash. Our second day was more productive, as we made our way to Bath, and got a tour of the surrounding area and Stonehenge. We made a stop in Lacock, and saw Harry Potter's house, and walked the streets of (Colin Firth's) Pride and Prejudice, and The Other Boleyn Girl. We saw Peter Gabriel's house on the way too.
Then we flew to Girona. (M-m-m-my Girona!) We stayed half a day wandering, then headed to Barcelona. Ah sunshine. Thank you Spain. Such a treat. We spent what felt like the better part of that day plotting how to get to oranges down from the trees...how juicy and perfect they looked. We jumped. We threw sticks. Heather climbed on my back. We looked for a ladder. Fail.
Barcelona's fabulous. It's vibrant, the market on La Rambla is awesome, there's water and palms. We weren't feeling the club-style nightlife however. Of course we ended up befriending some Scots and Irish and went out with them one night, but we stuck to the pub scene. Heather chopped her hair, we shopped unnecessarily, we ate, it was a good time.
Five flights later, I ended my winter break in Munich, to visit Kathleen (high school friend)! Of course the one time I miss one of my train connections is when I am meeting up with someone and the battery in my cell-phone has died. It all worked out though. I stayed with Kathleen in Bad Worishofen the first night, where she is the au-pere to a delightful family of four kids, who own an inn. We went out for dinner and caught up, and every so often would catch ourselves and say, "Oh my goodness. We're hanging out in Germany!" For lunch the next day, her host grandmother made kasespatzle...it was sooooooooooo good. Then Kath and I headed to Munich for a night out. We checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner, grabbed some beer, hung out, then headed out to a club. It was a wonderful night for sure. Saturday we wandered, and enjoyed the city, until we had to part ways. I took an overnight train from Munich to Vienna, Vienna to Warsaw, and arrived back in Radom, just this morning. Felt like I was away for a long time. Very nice. Oh. And I read two books.
The Spanish are a lovely people - so friendly and happy and laid back. The German train system can't be beat. When I missed my second connection, I had to train further then backtrack. The conductor was so nice and told the train I had to catch that there was a mix-up (I had been travelling for about 24 hours at this point, on little sleep, and thought I only had one transfer, not two) and not to charge me another ticket. Polish rail, on the other hand (see stories in previous posts), will do ANYTHING to get more money from you.
Happy Valentine's day to all. Love. xo
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