Cinque Terre (7/23-7/24)

Another long day on the road to get to the Cinque Terre: Arles -> Marseille -> Nice -> Monaco -> Ventimiglia -> Genoa -> Monterosso. Wrote those last two blog posts on the train, and remembered to take a few pictures.

Marseille

Wore my sweet new FC Barcelona jersey on the train - got taunted by some AC Milan fans.

I bunked down in Vernazza, which is a pretty cool place - the only natural harbor in the Cinque Terre.

The Cinque Terre is beautiful - I spent the next day hiking from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, then took the evening train into Florence. Cliffs, beaches, vinyards, etc - just look at the pictures already, and don't go to Italy without visiting the Cinque Terre!

Cinque Terre photo album

Provence (7/21-7/22)

July 21: Arles

Got into Avignon late on the 20th after another long travel day - been having trouble booking high-speed rail. Barcelona to Carbere to Perpignon to Narbonne to Nimes to Avignon. Nothing available (unsuprisingly), so moved on the Arles and found a nice place on Plaza Voltaire.

Anyway Arles is a nice little town with a whole mess of Roman ruins. Doesn't quite look like how Van Gogh saw it any more:

Swung through the Wednesday morning market:

Then went over to the Ancient history museum for an overview of the artifacts and structures as they were 2000 years ago. Then off to see the Theatre and the Amphitheatre:

Stopped by the Reattu museum (bought the museum pass), but was largely underwhelmed - I'm TRYING to appreciate the modern period, but the signal to noise ratio is not so great.

Bonus fact:
- Some girl soliciting donations for a charity repeatedly poked me with her pen when I politely declined to donate. Fortunately, she gave up about 2 seconds before I slapped her.

Arles photo album

July 22: Avignon

Woo - long day. Took the bus into Avignon in the morning and saw the Papal palace and the old medieval bridge.

Sur le Pont d'Avignon...

The terrace and the big halls in the Papal Palace are kinda cool, but the entrance few is a little steep when the interior's been repeatedly gutted and redone over the past 3-4 centuries (most recent practical usage - Napoleonic barracks). There's a few small murals left, but it's largely barren.

I wanted to go to Pont du Gard to see the aqueduct, but the bus schedule is erratic and would leave me there for 5 hours. So, I thought, "I can bike it! The guide says it's 13 miles away, no problem!". Tourism office informs me the practical (albiet interesting) route for cycling is more like 70 kms. So after ~3 hours walking briskly about town, I decided to use my remaining 5 hours of available time (until the bike shop closed) to bike out and back.

The way out was great - some scattered downpours of rain (of course - second day of rain on the whole trip and it's when I'm biking 70 kms), but made great time to the aqueduct. The way back was another story - first ~10 kms was up and down hills (emphasis on the up), and my legs started to give out (yeah, haven't been biking much lately). Ugh. It got to where I was unable to sustain climbs and was inching my way uphill in short bursts. Finally got the point where I had no energy, 20-25 kms to go in less than an hour, and a series of unsuccessful attempts to hitchhike.

But! Shortly thereafter I crested the last hill - long gentle downhill slope for over 10 kms. Salvation! I cruised down (thankfully I shelled out for a good bike) and my legs managed to recover enough to keep me over 30 kms/hr for the final stretch. Got the bike back to the shop with 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

Success!

Avignon photo album

Modernisme in Barcelona

Been away from the Internets for a while - I'm going to start catching up now. Doing most of the writing offline, but still takes some assembling.

July 19 was spent mostly in the Eixample, the modern 19th century boom expansion of Barcelona outside the old city walls. The highlight of which, is, of course the Moderisme architecture exemplified by Antoni Gaudi. (Paraphrasing from the guidebook - I knew little about Modernisme before arriving in Barcelona).

First stop - Casa Mila (aka La Pedrera / "The Quarry" for looking hewn out of a rock face)


The practicality of the ornamental structures is impressive - makes you want to be an architect.

Next - The Block of Discord (a few blocks south)

A line-up of contrasting facades

Had a nice sit-down lunch with an American couple from LA. The woman wants to introduce me to her niece in San Francisco.

Finally, the Sagrada Familia:

Can't add too much to the pictures - the building (still 20 years from completion) is immense, towering over the neighborhood, and crafted impeccably for 100+ years of construction.

Found a nice Enlish-language bookstore in the neighborhood - traded "The Name of the Rose" (finished just in time for ancient Roman country) for "Cryptonomicon" (not terribly relevant, but I've been meaning to read it)

Full album

Barcelona

Phew - okay; last post of the "evening"; it's 2:00 am and I need some sleep.

Barcelona (on the Ramblas) has been perhaps the most crowded place I have been yet in Europe (aside from particular attractions and events).

Just masses of people everywhere.

Getting a hotel (arriving on a Saturday in July) was a little hectic - I called about a dozen places before finding anything. Definitely pushing my bookings a few days further out from now on; it's the low season in most of Spain and Portugal so I may have been lulled into a false sense of security. It's a tiiiiiny room, but the price was nice.

Walked down the Ramblas on the 17th, and grabbed some tapas for a late lunch. Catalonian tapas bars are nice and easy; take what you want and keep the toothpicks for the tab. Climbed up to Montjuic on the 18th to see the fort, the Olympic stadium, and the Catalan art museum, then came back down to the Barri Gotic to see the Cathedral and the Picasso museum.

Cathedral geese grant indulgences for bread

Barcelona pictures

I've been making an effort to caption the pictures a little better. I'm also trying to take more interesting pictures (not just monuments); that's a work in progress.

Granada

July 16th:

Long day trip to Granada today. It's a 3 hour train ride, plus my ~30 minute walk to the train station, so up at 5:30 to catch to 7:00 train, and not back until nearly midnight. Whew. I am a master train sleeper now.

The highlight of Granada is clearly the Alhambra:

Nice if a little underwhelming - my expectations may have been a a bit high.

but I found myself with some extra time after running through the place (5:00 train was completely booked), so I wandered back through the town looking at various smaller sights. Some un-photographed highlights:

• Exchanging commiserating looks about loud ATVs with an old man on a bench across a small plaza
• Found an Irish pub with an Irish bartender who apparently spends his evening sleeping with American girls (being the only Irish bartender in a small Spanish city). An old gay Welshman bought me a beer.

Granada photos

Sevilla

4 days since the last post...triple feature tonight: Sevilla, Granada, and Barcelona.

July 15th:
Sevilla is an alright city; a little more rural than other places. For example, the public transportation is somewhat lacking; I ended up repeatedly walking the 2-3 kms to the rail station because the metro/bus coverage was lacking. I think (for future reference) one might be better served in the more rural areas of Andalucia.

Anyway, I spent the most of the day touring the Cathedral and the Real Alcazar:

More pictures

The evening was spent at a bullfight; I've decided to move that to a separate post because (a) you might find the material disturbing (I do myself, frankly) and (b) I have to edit some video.

Arriving in Seville

I was tempted to stay in Salema an additional day (didn't get any kayaking done), but decided I'd given the area a fair shake and moved on (1 more day elsewhere!).

(If anyone's curious, my naked people beach tally for the Algarve was 5 naked old men, 3 naked old ladies, and 1 topless young woman of aesthetic proportions. For those swinging from the other side of the plate, no dudes under 50 with their kit off. Yes, all naked people were apparently German)

So I spent most of the day riding buses back into to Spain and Seville.

Waiting for the bus. Check the hot new sunglasses...yeah...

Got into Seville around 6/7, so after checking in to my hotel (and soaking up a bit of A/C - no more ocean breezes :( ), I went out to catch a flamenco show at Auditori Alvarez Quintero:

Small intimate theater in an old manor house - quite enjoyable. Then off for tapas at El Rincón del Pulpo Gallego, a Galician bar nearby my hotel.


So far, I've largely been a terrible diner thus far on the trip - if I don't have a recommendation, I tend to wander around like an idiot, unable to translate menus and make a decision (doesn't help that I've been in Portugal and understand basically no Portuguese).


But this bar worked out quite well, even with me being the only person with any English in the whole place. I pulled a recommendation out of some guide, and ordered the chorizo criollo, mejillones al vapor, rollinoes(?) de la casa, and the pulpo - with a glass of sidra on the side - all of which was excellent (and reasonably priced).


Tomorrow I'm planning to tool around Seville, and then off to Granada and the Alhambra on Friday for a looooong day trip (it's ~3 hours away, but I don't want to have to deal with switching hotels), then likely off to Barcelona on Saturday.


More pictures from today