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Barcelona & Costa Brava - Spain
Sam's & Libby's Highlights & Impressions
•Going on the open top bus around Barcelona seeing the sights & architecture
•Visiting the amazing market in 'La Rambles'
•Going to the Barcelona Olympic (1992) Stadium and the Olympic Sports Museum
•Researching on the interactive computers 'Kiwi' athletes achievements over the history of the Olympics
•Meeting some 'travelling kiwi's' in the Barcelona camp ground
•Buying new bikes!
Hi All from Barcelona & Costa Brava in Spain
A week of challenges and contrasts. We left Southern France and headed for the Pyrenees' andAndorra - the steep mountains and chalets in the north of Andorra were impressive as we headed to our campsite...... it all changed as we drove into the congested valley capital of La Vella and "the campsite with the nice small restaurant, shop and pool" turned out to be quite the opposite up a grotty alleyway and past the 'empty' pool! An immediate U-turn into 5 o'clock traffic we headed for the the Spanish border - that was our trip to Andorra!
The kids have been playing a game on bridges and tunnels where they hold their breath as we cross over or through - the Prynees' challenged them as we took tunnels that were 5 km long and viaducts spanning the valleys - it was very quiet at times!!!!
We eventually stumbled onto a campsite with a vista onto mountains and ski fields. An overnight stop and the next day we drove 2 hours to Barcelona. Found our camp ground where 'tom tom' told us it would be just past the airport and handy to Barcelona city but that's where the positives almost stop ... the pool was still closed despite the soaring summer temperatures, the 'beach' was sandy however the water was full of weed and very smelly and did not entice any of us as we sweltered - we survived our stay on cold showers & beer. The airport let us know it was nearby with a constant stream of jets taking off overhead from 7am thru to 11pm and then with all quiet, tractors groomed the beach at about 3am ... but as we said it was just a place to sleep and handy to the city.
Notably popular with many older generation German & Dutch campers, the campground did introduce us to a couple of kiwi camper expeditions, firstly in the form of Sue, Greg and their daughter Megan, and subsequently Sally & Pete in their Hymer 'lego' bus, with a few good nights spent as kiwi's do, sharing info and humour and in our case our kids sharing their bikes - and in Pete's case sharing his back tyre and inner tube with Sam's antics as he spilled off in typical 'sam-like' destructive fashion.
In Barcelona we took our first open top bus ride in our travelling history - it proved a good way to get around the vast city and get our bearings - we earmarked places to return to in the following days.Over the next 2 days we explored an extensive and extremely colourful open market at La Rambles with women lopping up tuna heads and delicious fruit stalls and drinks - this is one of the best markets we've ever seen in our travels! Sargrada Familia and Antonio Gaudi's other architectural & art works, the harbour and marina, La Rambles and the '92 Olympic Stadium and Sports Museum which proved enormously popular with the kids.
Barcelona has provided us with some memorable city driving expeditions ... the 1st a supposedly simple drive to the supermarket on our arrival ... yeah right! ... 1 ½ hours later having stupidly ignored the 7km routing advice of Tomtom for a supermarket that we could see across the motorway ... we eventually arrived but were blocked by a 2.5m height barrier... a slight problem as we are at approx 3 meters...... a little bit of cross country driving had us in the carpark, hot, bothered and hungry ... sure you can picture the scene!
Yesterday on leaving Barcelona we went on a mission in search of buying bikes!! So we departed Barcelona and headed for Decathlon (a known harbour sports shop) - address seemingly lost we dangerously followed our noses - oh dear through the middle of central Barcelona, on and off the motorways and through bustling traffic - quite thankfully it was Saturday, another hour and a half and we arrive at our destination - in a seemingly right frame of mind to buy bikes ... yeah right!! ... mid day with bike rack and bikes loaded we head to Costa Brava - the beach and a pool ... yehaaa! 9 o'clock at night in circa 30 deg heat we bike to the beach on our first family bike outing for our first swim in the Mediterranean.
Costa Brava has given us the opportunity to have a relaxing day - biked to the market -(a chic market - loads of clothes) update the blog and for the kids to play with the locals and ride their new bikes - the bikes give them and us a new found freedom and will be a great addition to our adventure.
Tomorrow we move on again ... it'll take a few days to reach our next destination Cinque Terre in Italy and then a few more to get to Rome via Pisa. We are hatching a plan to meet up with the Barcelona Kiwi's somewhere in Italy for the World Cup soccer game NZ v Italy on 2oth (21st?) June.
Thanks again for all your return messages which are always appreciated by us all ...
Till our next blog ... it's again Adios (over & out) from this Family on OE!
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