Happy Early Birthdays to David Blandford and Lucy Peacock!

Provence beckons! Traffic on the A9 is light as we head out to Orange, home of the family that includes St. Guilhem, the Dutch royal family, and William of Orange, the King of England. Orange is also home to the only Roman Amphitheatre in Europe with its stage wall intact.


Theatre Antique d’Orange, with its stage wall

From Orange, we drive the 8 kilometres to Chateauneuf-du-Pape, home of one of the world’s premier wines. Harvest is in full swing as we drive along the country roads, the air is pungent with the smell of grapes. As we get into town, we see that many of the caves are closed, and have signs directing enquiries to the vineyards themselves.

We climb up above the town to the remains of the palace that the popes built for themselves when the papacy was in Avignon. There is a wonderful view of the Rhone from up here.


From left: the remains of the Chateauneuf; Rose contemplates the view; the Rhone valley from the Chateauneuf

On the walk down into town, Rose spots a restaurant she has read about in her restaurant guide, La Mere Germaine, and we decide that it is just the place for lunch. We sit on a terrace, protected from the heat of the sun but with a view over the vineyards, and we have a truly wonderful meal. As is quickly becoming the norm, we order the “Menu”; our desserts are truly amazing!

Now it is time for some serious touring, as we head to Avignon itself, the famous bridge and the Palais des Papes.

The papacy resided in Avignon for close to 100 years in the 1300s; although the information given at the Palais des Papes itself treads lightly on the history, we come to understand that the Pope was forced to move here by the French-born King of Naples, “for his own protection”. The Avignon papacy of course ended with the schism that saw 2 cardinals both claiming to be Pope.


Le Palais des Papes

The palace built by the Popes whilst in Avignon is huge and hugely impressive. We are fascinated that the tour itself starts in the Treasury, where the Pope’s right-hand-man counted the money coming in from the sale of indulgences.

Following the Revolution, the Palais des Papes was for many years a military barracks, until Napoleon III visited and recognized its historic importance, and ordered the military to vacate. Much of the original décor was destroyed during this time, but we see glimpses of the former splendour, particularly in a tile floor that is original in the Pope’s study.

We spend a long time at the Palais, fascinated by the history and the building itself. When finally we leave, we head to the Pont Saint Benezet, the famous Pont d’Avignon where everybody dances. The first bridge over the Rhone south of Lyon, it was opened in 1185. Today the Rhone is calm, thanks to many dams that control its flow; it used to be anything but, and the bridge meant that Avignon became an important town for both trading and pilgrims heading to Santiago de Campostello.


Sur le pont d’Avignon, l'on y danse, tout en rond!

From Avignon we head back towards home, but we are not yet done for the day. As we cross back into Languedoc from Provence, we see signs for the Pont du Gard, and realize that it will take us only 6 kilometres out of our way to see this feat of Roman engineering. And so off we go.

The Pont du Gard is a 275 metre long, 3 tiered aqueduct that is part of a 50 kilometre long system of canals built under Agrippa in 19 BC to bring water to Nimes. Engineered to carry 20,000 cubic metres of water per day, it was known as an engineering masterpiece even during Roman times. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.


Le Pont du Gard

By the time we get home we are ready for bed. Supper, such as it is, consists of cheese and crackers – without question, French cheese and French crackers, with a nice bottle of red wine from the vineyard down the road from the house.

A horn blasts every morning in our little village, somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00. If we were at home, we would think we were near a construction site and the coffee truck had rolled up. This morning we investigate and find that it is a patisserie-on-wheels! Our little hamlet is not big enough for a shop, but we can still get fresh baguettes and pains-au-chocolat for our petit dejeuner.


Our wonderful front door

Today is market day in the closest “big” town, Clermont l’Herault, and we head in to spend the morning among the townsfolk, savouring the smells of the butchers, the cheesemongers, the epiceries. The only thing that isn’t on wheels in town today is a patisserie. We walk through the stalls of clothing and wonder who buys this stuff?


From left:Clermont l’Herault: the church; market day

We are heading to the car when we spot umbrellas on a terrace, above the river (although, it being fall in a dry climate, the river has no water running). It is Le Tournesol (the Sunflower), a restaurant we had been told was quite good, and so up we go for a delicious lunch. The menu is priced in that uniquely French way, where an entrée, main and dessert are barely more expensive than a main alone. So we go the whole way, and order some wine as well. The restaurant is full, and it seems that lunch is a family affair, as there are many children here today. We enjoy watching the 2 waiters playfully make faces at the kids as they race by with their loads; we nickname them Frick and Frack, and wonder how they avoid an upset, as they are always running into the backs of chairs, and even each other as they go in and out the single door to the kitchen. The food is heavenly, and we linger longer than we should, enjoying the sun and the coffees, turning into sunflowers ourselves.


Lunch at Le Tournesol

We head to Lodeve, the other “big” town in the area. As we pass the turning to St. Frechoux, we drop Greg at the chateau so he can take a nap. Rose and I continue on to town. Although only about 12 kilometres apart, the difference between Lodeve and Clermont l’Herault is striking. Clermont l’Herault is almost medieval in feeling, its streets winding up and around the church. Although the church in Lodeve is almost as old, dating back to the 12th century, it feels like it has been dropped into place, for everything else, including the beautiful Hotel de Ville that used to be the bishops palace, feels no newer than the French Revolution.


From left: Lodeve: the church; 2 views of l’Hotel de Ville

We walk around a bit, discovering the charms of this sleepy town on what feels like a midsummer’s afternoon. The museum beckons - there are posters all over town, and we respond to their siren call. The museum is inside a beautiful hotel particulier, and the special exhibit this year is of Van Dongen, a Dutch painter, a good friend of Picasso’s, of the late-19th to mid-20th centuries. The show is impressive, and definitive. Both Rose and I are quite taken with it, and given the size of Lodeve (about the same as Mitchell, Ontario) totally surprised by its quality.


Musee Fleury, Musee de Lodeve

We head home, happy, to find Greg busy making a light pasta and salad supper, which helps us assuage the guilt we felt after our big lunch.

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Charlie:

Rosemary arrived safe and sound today from the U.S. but was been delayed an hour due to equipment issues on her connecting flight from Paris. We greet her with European kisses for each cheek and bundle her bags into the car for our drive back to St. Fréchoux. Hope all is well with you back in Kalamazoo. Give a big hug to Foster for us; we hope he isn’t missing Midgie too much. And say hi to her for us too. We hope she is settling into school.

Groceries are needed and we do a pitstop with the somewhat jet-lagged Rose in tow, bleary-eyed and dealing with the French supermarket. We grab our supplies and head into the late September sun and a quiet evening over roast chicken, potatoes and some haricots verts. We have chardonnay already chilling for Rose and we toast her welcome to St. Fréchoux over several glasses of wine. How French!

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Eric:

We hope your Sydney spring continues to be springy and say hi to Graham for us. We trust he is keeping out of trouble but we somehow doubt it!
It is a rather sleepless night for both us last night and I finally fell asleep long after the very early grape pickers have set out for the day. We sleep till 9:30 and are greeted by a clear blue sky and glorious sunshine. Our plans today are to drive to Lodève and Lac Salagou which are really only a stone’s throw away from our little chateau.

Mondays are not the day to do things in France and especially the south of France: everything is shut tighter than a drum! Lodève is very quiet and we vow to come back later in the week. We buy some stamps (for John’s mom, who collects them) and a Herald Tribune, and drive to Lac Salagou for a quick look. It was so windy we didn’t get out of the car. This too will have to wait.

We head back to the chateau and make some lunch and decide to drive to St. Guilhem-le-Desert and are rewarded for the quiet Monday visitation. The sun is starting to fall to the west and over the mountains when we arrive after 2 p.m. The village is situated in the natural gorge of the high, rocky mountains, with tall, sheer cliffs surrounding it on either side. We drive up through town, park, and from this vantage point we see further up the Gellone valley and the via Tolosana, part of the famous and arduous pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella (or St. Jacques, as the signs here say) on the Atlantic coast of Spain, that winds it way through this area, heading to Toulouse on the way to Compostella.

We find that the town is yet another Unesco World Heritage site, and enjoy the advantages this brings, particularly evident by its neat and tidy streets and organized tourist information. We lock our car and stroll a very short distance into the main town square with a statue of Liberty and her flame gracing the small public fountain. The shops and cafés are doing a small but consistent business from the insignificant number of tourists here. Ahhh, the end of September in the south of France: glorious weather and not too many tourists.


From left: the main square; Lady Liberty; a quaint front entrance in St. Guilhem-le-Desert


From left: on the street; looking up the valley; the ruins of the castle on the mountain

Our strolling takes us down the main street and past small, upscale shops and galleries; all the restaurants, whether they are one star or four are all shut for Monday. We have saved our visit to the monastery for our return jaunt up the hill and we enter the gothic building late in the afternoon.

St. Guilhem had a knightly history, being one of Emperor Charlemagne’s hand-picked band of champions and, like his grandfather, fought bravely against the Saracens of Spain. Folklore has it that under the name “Guilhaume d’Orange” he became famous for his knightly prowess and chivalry and was immortalized in medieval ballads and verse commonly known as “chansons de geste”. St. Guilhem was a faithful and devout Christian and had resolved to end his days at the Monastery at Gellone. He richly endowed the abbey with many of his own possessions and was also in possession of a portion of the True Cross which was given to him by Charlemagne. He became a monk in 806 and died, revered as a saint, in 812. The abbey became a pilgrimage site and the monastery prospered and was rebuilt largely on the wealth and generosity of the splendid offerings made by the devout pilgrims who later came to see the remains of St. Guilhem and the relics of the True Cross. He gave his name to the abbey and to the small village that grew under his protection.

The church is true Gothic. Simple and austere. Some slim bands of sunlight from the small windows high above pierce the cool, musty darkness. We wander out to the cloisters which were destroyed by vandals and thieves at the beginning of the 19th century. What remained was removed and later reassembled in New York at the renowned Cloisters Museum. It isn’t difficult to see how this sunny courtyard, with its carp filled reflecting pool was a place of peace, solitude and respite.

The sun has just passed over the mountains and we make our way home, stopping for a late afternoon picture of an abandoned farmhouse, nestled unkempt and unloved on the edge of a bustling vine-yard.

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Calonge to St. Fréchoux: 267 kilometres

Letters from St. Fréchoux:

Dear Gary:

Bet you are sorry you closed the pool so early this year! We hear you are having a wonderful September. Say hi to Louise, Kim and Shannon for us.

St. Frechoux is as we remember it: quiet and peaceful and Monika and Dittmar’s house is a cosy and charming retreat from the hectic pace of our over-paced trip. We had a lovely and relaxed time with our neighbours David and Kathryn last week. We left them to 4 more days in the Costa Brava at an exclusive hotel and then a flight to London. We are so glad to be their friends. They have offered us their house in January for our (hopefully) soft landing in Toronto in December. They are truly generous and wonderful people. We wish them the very best of luck and love in the next part of their lives.

Our mobile magically rings this quiet Sunday morning in the vineyards and it is the rental agent in Paris who we have been trying to secure and apartment from. We finally have booked an apartment in Paris for our time there. Our best buds Bob and Bill will be in Paris roughly the same time and we have bent our already flexible schedule to spend at least 4 days with them. Bill and Bob hosted our stag the night before we got married last New Year's eve.

It is sunny and blue skied. Our petit chateau is full of sun in the mornings and the wild roses continue to bloom on the small, shaded terrace off the front door. We have unpacked some of Monika and Dittmar’s summer furniture and set ourselves up. There is a mighty wind blowing that chased us up the Spanish coast and into France yesterday and it lingers today. We listen to the gentle droning and humming of the grape picking machines doing their annual thing.

Monika tell us that the house is 208 years old and was once the summer-residence of the archbishops of Lodèeve. They built it in the vineyards close to a romantic river, the Lergue, which is easily seen from the balcony. The original massive cooking hearth remains as does the first stone sink and large water pumping apparatus. The kitchen is warm and welcoming, especially at night, where, I expect, we will congregate around the table with one too many glasses of the local wine.

Today we must get out and view the hamlet and its residents, saying hello to any and all who dare to poke their head out and say bonjour to the new strangers in town.

It is our last full day in our “home for a week”. Although the sky is cloudy when we wake, it clears while we are breakfasting on the terrace, and we have yet another perfect day. Not hard to take at all!


Our dining room, with our lunch of gazpacho

After an afternoon spent lazing around the pool, Greg and I head into town about 5, hoping the shops will have reopened after siesta. Trading hours here seem to be 9 to 1, and then 5 or 5:30 to 10 or 10:30. We are glad that we aren’t working retail in the Costa Brava.

We make our phone calls and continue our search for an apartment in Paris for when we arrive in a couple of weeks. Then we head back to the villa, for a glass of wine and a bit of pâté de foie gras that David has found at one of the local shops. The terrines that we had bought earlier in the week have been relegated to food for the beautiful cat that has adopted us. We don’t know where he’s from, but he looks sleek and healthy, a beautiful mix of Siamese body with tabby face and paws, and icy-blue eyes. He has been visiting since we arrived, and although he has yet to let us touch him, today he will lets Kathryn come almost close enough before he runs away.



We are going out for dinner tonight, the 1st time this week we have not cooked for ourselves and eaten at home. In our welcome kit was a list of recommended restaurants, and we have chosen one, Les Gavarres, that is up the hill and away from civilization. The small village where we are dining, Romanyà de la Selva, has records dating its founding to 1014.



Romanyà de la Selva

Dinner is wonderful! We start with a beautiful Catalonian wine. I have Hake, a fish specialty of the region, lightly poached; David and Greg have a sweet duck cooked in fruit and Kathryn orders poultry stewed in plums. Their choices turn out to be seasonally prescient, halfway through dinner a strong wind comes up, followed by a real fall rainstorm. (Although the rain is over by the time we leave the restaurant, the wind is fierce all night long.) David and Kathryn insist on buying, to thank us for the work we put into finding the villa. The work was nothing, and we have enjoyed the week with them so much that we feel guilty about accepting. Thank you, David and Kathryn, for a wonderful meal and a wonderful week!

We connect with our friend Rosemary in the US who will be joining us for 10 days during the next part of our trip. France will welcome us on Saturday the 25th of September, and we will be ensconced in the vineyards of St. Fréchoux for two weeks. Fall feels somehow to be too quickly in the air and we wonder if it is because of the cool and wet summer that most of Europe has experienced this year. We secretly pray to the gods of summer to ward off the demons of fall, to continue their warm carefree romp through Europe until at least November 2 when we fly to South America. But we shall see.

Our days continue easy, quiet, and sunnier than earlier in the week. We have cooked in every evening this week and it has felt fantastic for us to prepare and serve food and drink to friends and family after not having had such a privilege since we spent our week with our friend, Neil, in London 5 weeks ago. We have discovered that we tend to cook familiar, everyday comfort food that can be prepared en masse or individually. David and Kathryn are kitchen connoisseurs themselves, and with all this pent up cooking anxiety released, we have eaten very well this week in Calonge.

After 3 days of doing nothing, today is the day to venture farther afield, to Tossa de Mar, with a beautiful wide sandy beach and a castle on the headland that was built between 1300 and 1500. The Michelin map puts a green line beside the road, meaning that there will be some very nice scenery on the way there. We decide it looks like the perfect place to go for lunch.


The Costa Brava

The road turns out to be as windy as the road along the coast in Amalfi. Thankfully, it is wider, and so the turns are not quite as hairpin, and the big buses, full of tourists, don’t cut you off at the corners as they come along. Still, it takes the better part of an hour to go the 20 or so kilometres.


Tossa de Mar

We find that the beach comes to the street, and the other side is lined with cafés, a perfect place to sit and people watch as we eat. And we do enjoy the parade, the 4 of us giggling and gossiping and inventing life histories of the people going past. John and I are reminded of our time sitting in the beach bar at the Solaris naturist camp in Porec, Croatia, giggling and gossiping and inventing life histories of the people going past.


“Do you believe what she was wearing?” John and Kathryn peoplewatch.

Our days are filled with doing nothing. It is unusually overcast today but that doesn’t stop us from diving into our books or reading the papers. Our usual perch is the tiled balcony that lies through the French doors just off the living room. Breakfasts of fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal and toast are enjoyed here in the typical sunny morning light and usually one of us lazes the day away seated here with a book and our new friend, a local stray cat, who is content with whatever we feed him/her, enjoying the snoozing shade. The pool is about 10 big steps down the hill and we divide our time between the shimmering blue waters and the patio.

This patio also serves as our sunset spot for cocktails before dinner. These nights we start to feel the ever so slight fall chill in the air and sometimes we don sweaters and long pants to warm us before the second glass of wine does.

Our neighbours are an international lot. A French family is across and just down a bit; a Belgium couple beside us; and a British couple across the road and above who appear to have high powered jobs: they both spend time on their balcony, negotiating on their mobile phones.

We are an easy group to get along with. Everyone assumes unasked rolls and everything gets done. No fuss, no bother. Great vacation buddies, our Kathryn and David.

A beautiful day, perfect blue sky! We all sit by the pool, looking down the hill at the Mediterranean but not moving. Finally, late in the afternoon, David and I head into town to try to find some food for dinner, but we are too late. On Sunday, the stores open for the morning, but do not reopen after siesta.

Up the hill, we find that previous tenants left some pasta. We bought the right ingredients for a napoli sauce and salad yesterday, so we are set. And of course, we have enough wine!

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Valencia to Calonge: 457 kilometres

The roundabout outside our hotel takes us right to the highway. Valencia was a sleep over stop for us, breaking our 1000 kilometre trip from Granada to Colonge. We are already on the outskirts of Valencia and in no time at all we are continuing our trek towards Calonge and our rental for the next week. Terraced Valencia orange groves abound as the road takes us north. So green compared to the south. Our weather remains consistent: sunny and warm.

David and Kathryn, our former next door neighbours from Toronto, are waiting for us at our predetermined rendezvous point. We have called our welcoming agent, Desiree, and she leads us up into the mountains and our home for the next 7 days. We arrive to a beautiful Spanish castle with lots of living space both outdoors and in. And of course, a swimming pool.


From left: Our house; David in the pool; everyone relaxing

We put away our groceries, open a bottle of wine and settle in. We are looking forward to catching up and everyone smiles in expectation, looking forward to a relaxed and laid back week in the Costa Brava.

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Granada to Valencia: 567 kilometres

The Costa Brava is north of Barcelona on the Mediterranean, and today we begin 2 days of driving, stopping in Valencia for the night which is about the half-way point.

From Granada we climb into the Sierra Nevada, and cross from Andalucia into Murcia. Although the landscape changes from mountains to flat, dry, plains, olive trees continues to stretch to the horizon.

When we cross into Valencia, however, the change is dramatic and fast. We move into lush green valleys, full of orange trees, and coastal cities that are full of high-rise apartment towers for the visitors who flock to the beaches of the Spanish coast. We stop in such a town, Benidorm, for lunch, and are glad that we are not spending any more time here.

We get to Valencia and find our hotel, open only 1 month and stuck far out of the city in a brand-new neighbourhood, where the oldest building appears to be about 1 week older than our hotel. We opt for pizza in the lobby and an early night.

The Alhambra palace/fortress stretches along the top of the hill known as La Sabika and its fabled red towers and walls are seen from almost every vantage point in the city of Granada. It is the biggest tourist draw in Spain with up to 8,300 tickets available and an average of 6,000 visitors walking through each day. This huge Unesco World Heritage site is our aspiration on this clear and sunny day.

John, as always, has the presence of mind to read the guidebook before we head to a site, and he quickly realizes that it is better to book our tickets for the Alhambra in advance. Otherwise our only option will be to line-up for unreserved tickets. It turns out that September is one of the busiest months for visiting the Alhambra, the intense heat of summer having turned into the slightly less intense heat of autumn, and the guidebook says that if you want in during the popular months and don’t have a reservation, you better be in line before 7 a.m., and be ready to stand in line for hours with no guarantee of a ticket.

Luckily our hotel (thanks again, Ibis!) organizes the whole thing for us. While we have a set time of 12:00 noon for our entrance to the Palacio Nazaries; we must collect our tickets at least an hour before our scheduled and unalterable entrance time into the Palacio. Once into the grounds, we have the whole day at our leisure to discover the rest of the Alhambra including the Alcazaba (Citadel) and the Generalife gardens. We take the number 21 bus from outside our hotel, along with some chatty English tourists, and then walk past the Basilica and its much calmer wall of flowers where I snap the few photos that are displayed in yesterday’s posting. We wander the Calle Reyes Católicos to the Plaza Nueva. The chatty English couple keep chatting away and polite as we are, we are now late. We hail a taxi to take us up the hill to the Alhambra.

The Alhambra is a curious thing: originally a fortress from the 9th century, it was turned into a fortress/palace in the 13th century by the Nasrid emirs, who built the huge and beautiful Palacio Nazaries, with its many courtyards, and a small medina (town). After the Christian conquests, the mosque was replaced with a church, and Carlos I had an extension built. Later, Carlos V destroyed part of the Palacio Nazaries to build his huge Renaissance palace, although he never finished it. The site was pretty much left to thieves and vagabonds until the American writer Washington Irving romanticized the city and the fortress in his Tales of the Alhambra, renewing interest in the site and its preservation. Our chatty English couple from the bus this morning told us that when they first visited Granada 40 or so years ago, there was no gate and there were no guards – you could simply walk right in, and then do (or take) anything you felt like. It is a very different world now.

Audio guides are really indispensable at extensive sites such as this and we rent two, which also enables us to split up if there is a need. We brave the hordes of tourist groups and begin our tour.


From left: Jardines San Francisco; inside the Palacio Nazaries; Beautiful Ceramic tiles




Upper from left: The Palacio Nazaries; Arches in the Palacio de los Leones
Lower from left: Patio de los Leones; Palacio del Partal


From left: (first two) Palacio de Carlos V; view from the entrance to the AlcazabaWe spend just over four hours within the site and then wander into the Generalife (the Architect’s Garden) for a stroll in the lush green, somewhat formal gardens. Water, its flow, sounds and reflective quality was and still is an important tool in the architecture of the Alhambra and its use is evident here in the gardens as well. Around every corner there is a beautiful water feature of some sort.


From left: views of the Generalife gardens

Originally our day was to start with a bus tour of the city, but this has been pushed back to the end of the day. We board at the bottom of La Sabika and begin our bus tour. It is a very uninspiring narrative but good to sit down for an hour or so and be driven around for a change. We end our tour at Granada’s huge Gothic/Renaissance Cathedral, only to find it closed until early evening. After a very brief moment of consideration (too brief perhaps!) we say ‘next time’ and find a sunny patio for a quick bite and a couple of beers.

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Sevilla to Granada: 263 kilometres

They are burning the fields throughout southern Spain today and the horizon is dotted with plumes of white and brown smoke that trails up and tracks across the sky, dragged by the high blowing winds. We worry about the controlled burning, hoping that they are in fact in control. Our terrain is carpeted with miles and miles of olive groves; some are planted and climbing up the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Faraway dots of green on vast white fields and mountains are all we can see on the horizon. The heat makes the vistas shimmer. It is very different from the last couple of drives that we have been doing.

Two hours into our drive we start to see the Sierra Nevada, and find ourselves in the same bumper to bumper that greeted us in Madrid: summer is the time to do major road construction! It wouldn’t be any different at home, we decide. Granada at first glance is an ugly city and is one of the major tourist attractions in Spain, with the Alhambra being the main drawing card. Our Ibis hotel is about a ten-minute bus ride outside of the Centro and again we are glad for the clean, neat rooms and helpful staff. Unpacking is quick and we cross the street to the local mall to do some basic catch up shopping. 4 o’clock has us completely involved in siesta and around 8 p.m. we grab the local bus and ride into town to have some dinner.

We jump off the bus and are immediately enveloped in a throng of people. September the 15th marks the Granada Basilica’s annual flower celebration, raising money for the restoration of the Basilica; because it is one of the more popular churches of the city, it is very busy. The line-up to deliver your own personal bouquet and best wishes to the Basilica is literally around the block and we are amazed at the beauty of the wall of flowers that is beginning to take shape. We also understand that this is the time of year when the parishioners parade Our Lady, adorned with flowers, through the street, although this does not happen tonight.

Everyone is out enjoying the warm (28 degrees or so), early fall evening. We see young and old, the old in their finery, the young with their jeans and mobile phones, waiting in line to deliver their gift. Afterwards, everyone lingers, chats and catches up on gossip, about boyfriends and girlfriends both old and new, and what Mrs. So-and-so is doing tonight. It is how we hoped to travel in these lands, being part of a special moment, blending in with the local crowd and feeling their joy.


The wall of flowers the next morning

We enjoy the luxury of a 4 star hotel for a change. Purists would have our heads on a platter as we consider by-passing Sevilla altogether for the privilege of just vegging and enjoying some TV and the swimming pool. But that will come next week in the Costa Brava.

Showered and dressed, the day-pack is packed and we head into Sevilla for the day. We discover a beautiful, lush city full of fan palms, cafés and tons of monuments only a 10 minute bus ride from our ‘suburban’ hotel. We arrive at the Plaza Nueva with our walking shoes on and we start to walk.

Our walk begins with the Ayuntamiento, the city hall that is richly canopied and sheltered from the blazing heat, which also provides some shelter for the many caleches that ply their trade from city hall.


The Ayuntamiento with its shelter from the sun

We walk around the Plaza de San Francisco and head towards what we think is the entrance to the Cathedral only to find ourselves at the exit of the Cathedral. We must walk around to the other side of the building and enter the immense edifice that, like many churches in Spain, started out initially as a Mosque and then, when it was knocked down in 1401, its decaying state an embarrassment to the church, the officials decided to start all over again with a new and bigger building. We learn that this is one of the largest churches in the world. It is indeed a very big and confusing architectural morsel for us to digest.


The Cathedral

We walk into the main sanctuary and find a huge gothic building into which, in the middle of the main nave, a baroque folly has been added to the already overwrought gothic coolness. We unknowingly split up and focus on the intricate and many details of the cathedral.


The inside of the Cathedral

We find each other again at the tomb of Christopher Columbus which is a folly unto itself. We find young priests and nuns kissing the monument and genuflecting. We are not sure why.


The tomb of Christopher Columbus

We move through the sanctuary and continue our self-guided tour, which takes us to the Giralda or tower. We have seen many towers in our trip and most of them will give you a stair count and a time-in-line estimate, but there is no line and the Lonely Planet tells us that it is an easy climb. It has ramps up the 32 stories! The ramps were added in the 19th century so that the nobility could ride their horses up to the top without walking. I would hate to have to cleanup after them.


From left: the Giralda; a plaza seen from the Giralda; at the top left you can see the wall of the Alcázar and behind it, the green of its gardens

We are ‘churched out’ and walk literally south across the Plaza del Triunfo where lies our next major site, the Alcázar. Although the name means that once there was a fort on this site, today there is only a sumptuous palace. We are not prepared for it. It goes on and on, most of following the Islamic model of home, where life centred on an interior courtyard. Only this palace has interior courtyard after interior courtyard. Just when you think you must be close to being through, you walk through a door and are into another complex of rooms and courtyards. We walk through them in awe. And then we go out into the gardens, lush and beautiful and huge!


Entry to the Alcázar



4 of the courtyards inside the Alcázar


The Alcázar’s Gardens

We stop for a coffee and then walk through the town, back to our hotel. We pass the former factory, now part of the university and looking more like a palace than a factory, where Bizet’s Carmen rolled tobacco. We cross to the Plaza de Espana, built for a 1929 exposition, a fantasy of tiles and a jumble of styles. And then through the mess of the streets, where a subway system is being built to help this city of 750,000 deal with its congestion, and finally we get back to our hotel.


The Plaza de Espana

After naps, we take the bus back into town to a vegetarian restaurant that Greg has read about; we have both been feeling like we need a change from the Spanish focus on meat. We find it, after much circling around, on a tiny dead-end street that isn’t on our map. We have an excellent meal, absolutely delicious and even better for being virtuous, Because the restaurant is so tiny (I would say it is a hole-in-the-wall, except that of course we are sitting outside in the tiny plaza at the end of the street), tables are shared, and we end up sharing ours with 2 other travelers, Jorg and Thorsten, from Berlin, with whom we have an enjoyable conversation, comparing notes about our travels, and enjoying the great food and the Spanish wine.

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Cordoba to Sevilla: 138 kilometres

Today we have an easy drive. We sleep in, and head out just before noon. Shortly after 1 we are driving down Avenida Kansas City, the main entry into Sevilla. Greg spots the rooftop sign of the Novotel where we are staying, and we check in.

We spend the afternoon lazily, indulging in the hotel’s rooftop pool, the heat of this mid-September day hotter than we’ve ever seen at home.

The laziness carries over into the evening. We debate taking the bus into the centro, and decide to find something within walking distance. We walk for 20 minutes, and settle on ….Pizza Hut. Funny that the only other time we’ve eaten at Pizza Hut on this trip was in Delhi, the only place we’ve been that was hotter than Sevilla.

For anyone who doesn’t work in a store or a restaurant, Sunday seems to be a complete day of rest in Catholic Spain, with not much going on (other than eating out or shopping, with the major stores open all day long). In other words, it is a perfect day to tour the Mezquita, one of the world’s largest cathedrals.

Our morning starts very leisurely but early in the day it is already hot, and it is the same kind of heat that we experienced in India, HOT, dry and dusty.

Before we head to the Mezquita, however, we are off to the bullfighting museum, which we find, searching through the narrow and confusing streets, barely seconds before they close the doors. I go under protest; Greg wants to see it. Thankfully, we are not here during bullfighting season. The biggest part of the museum turns out to be devoted to Manolete, a famous bullfighter who was killed by a bull; but of course, the bull died anyway: shouldn’t he, as victor, been able to live a long life? Along with Manolete’s costumes, the killer bull’s moth-eaten skin is displayed. I can’t tell you how appalling I find this. Although we are enjoying Spain and find the Spaniards wonderful, this is one aspect of the culture I do not comprehend.

We find our way back through the narrow meandering streets to the Mezquita. To do this, we walk through the Juderia, which was the Jewish quarter before the Reyes Catolicos expelled the Jews in 1492. Everywhere are signs proclaiming the 800th anniversary of Moses Maimonides’ (one of the most important Jewish philosophers) birth.

The Mezquita is surrounded by huge, red walls, which we have walked by many times since our arrival yesterday, and so we have no idea what is inside. We walk through the gate and discover that part of the interior is a beautiful courtyard, with its beautiful campanile, which was originally built as a minaret. Not surprising, given that the building was built as a mosque.


From left: main entry to the Mezquita; the Mezquita from inside the walls; courtyard of the Mezquita

We enter the building, still not sure what to expect. The beautiful double arches immediately catch our eyes. As beautiful as any mosque we’ve seen, made amazing by the Catholic church which has been inserted into the middle of the building.

In particular, we love the double-arches that support the roof. They are quite beautiful.



From mosque to church...


In Shanliurfa we saw a campanile that is now a minaret; here in the Mezquita, the campanile used to be a minaret

Walking around we spotted a restaurant that looks wonderful. Hoping not to have a repeat of last night’s disaster (in either way), we walk up the hill from our hotel at about 9. We are seated and the waitress, who cannot speak English, somehow makes it easy to understand what is on the menu. We order, and have a truly wonderful meal, with a lovely bottle of rioja. When the bill arrives, we are shocked at how reasonable it is. This is probably one of the reasons that Spain is the most visited country in the world. Go to La gusa to see today’s menu and some photos.

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Madrid to Córdoba: 396 kilometres

It is nearly 11 when we check out of our hotel and find the M506 that will direct us to the A4 south to Córdoba. We have to re-check our maps and routing because Madrid has changed all of the local road and highway numbering in the very recent past. We have already made some wrong choices when it comes to the expressways here.

The sun is burning its way through a hazy sky and already it is hot. We have repacked our bags and moved our last bit of clean clothes into the overnight bags before we repack the car. We anticipate doing a big laundry at the house we have rented next week in the Costa Brava with our former neighbours David and Kathryn from Toronto. Everything is going to get washed.

The flat plain stretches out again as we leave Madrid. Once more the temperature continues to climb as we head south and soon is at 34 degrees. An hour or so into the trip we cross a huge craggy gorge and head down into gentle rolling hills and valleys covered in acre upon acre of olive trees. Who knew we were so high up! We have moved from grapes to olives and even the farm houses are different – whitewashed and huge; they stand out on the dusty brown hills.

We soon pass the Hotel Dulcinea on the highway followed quickly by the Restaurant Sancho Panza a little further down the road. We are both laughing at the obvious tourist grab when we see a huge sign telling us that we are heading into the “Tourist Trail of Don Quijote. Keep Left” (in Spanish, of course). The stark mix of the old white windmills and the huge 21st century high tech windmills now planted on many of the hills is somewhat disconcerting. I wonder how the Don would have faired fighting one of those.

We are in Gaucho country and we see people riding horses everywhere, their flat, wide brimmed sombreros and elegant straw hats protecting them from the scorching sun. Families in horse-drawn caleches are out for a Saturday saunter. Or perhaps this is how they get around. A gaggle of boys, the youngest may 6 or 7, ride by on their dusty steeds. Every few miles (and this has been the case since we left Barcelona too) we come up against ‘El Toro’, a huge, and I mean huge, 3 or 4 storey black cut-out of a bull, majestically holding it’s head up and arching his back, ready for battle. The first couple of times I saw one, I jumped. They rise up unexpectedly from around a narrow curve or you can spot them miles away, across the dusty brown plains. I have dubbed this unknown bull ‘El Toro’ and now, every time we see one standing proudly in a field, we yell out “El Toro”, in the same way the Japanese say “Godzilla!!”


El Toro!; El TORO!!!

There is no “El Toro” beer or “El Toro” wine associated with this big bull billboard but we assume that this is the Spaniards’ not so subtle way of telling you that you are in bullfighting country. In fact I watched a little of the “Friday night fights” while we were in Madrid. It is a sport deep in tradition and ceremony and not for the faint of heart.

We make great time and arrive into Córdoba around 3 pm, in the middle of siesta, and spend an hour or so trying to find our hotel, driving down poorly marked streets that are barely wide enough for our not-very-big car. And it is very hot in Córdoba. We finally find the Hotel Maestre and like many of the houses and hotels in Córdoba, it is situated around a beautiful ‘patio’ with a lovely seating area and blue tiled fountain. We have a small apartment suite here and we join the siesta and wait for the hot afternoon to change into a not so hot evening.

John and I have a big fight and eat perhaps one of the worst dinners we have had on our entire trip. The lesson is: don’t bring negative vibes into any restaurant you are going into.

Madrid to Toledo: 66 kilometres

Holy Toledo! We now understand where this exclamation comes from. Toledo is crammed with churches and cathedrals and former mosques and former synagogues. It is the centre of the Catholic Church in Spain, and was Spain’s capital until Carlos I abandoned his half-built Alcazar Palace (which he completed anyway) for Madrid. El Greco also made it his home and there are many pieces of his work scattered around the city for us to see. We arrive by 10:00 a.m., find some parking and take the escalators opened by King Juan Carlos up, up, up to the top of the town. We grab a not too helpful map from the very helpful tourist board and start to discover the old town of Toledo.

We walk past one church with its doors wide open, and walk in. Not very interesting (maybe that’s why there is no admission charge or “voluntary donation” demanded of us). We walk out the front door into an inner courtyard, and keep moving forward, through more inner courtyards. We have found our way into the university, but we can’t find our way out… until at last, feeling like we’ve walked from one side of Toledo to the other, and down the hill and back up the other side, we find an exit onto a street. We walk down the street, into a nice plaza which isn’t marked on our map.


From left: lost in the University; lost outside the University

Finally, we find the tourist route, and begin our tour of Toledo in earnest. First stop is City Hall, the Ayuntamiento, quite an attractive building with a somewhat Germanic feeling. It must date from the Hapsburg period.


The Ayuntamiento

From here, we are a short walk to the Catedral, home to the Inquisition, famous for not hiring El Greco to paint its murals. In the Catedral we read of the sign that celebrates the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabel. Bankrupt and unable to repay the loans from the Jews that had financed their retaking of Spain from the Muslims, they chose to expel the Jews in order to escape their debts.

Unlike most of the throng making its way through the Catedral, we pay the 5.50 Euro entrance fee to get into the Sacristia, where we are overwhelmed with the art: it is full of El Greco’s, a Titian, a Bassano, even a Van Dyck.


The Catedral

Out of the Catedral we walk to the Alcazar. It was virtually destroyed during the Civil War, but Franco, whose forces were holed up inside it, had it rebuilt.


The Alcazar

We walk through the city, getting lost and finding ourselves. Finally, just as we decide it is time to return to Madrid, we stumble upon Santo Tomé, home to El Greco’s masterpiece El Entierro del Conde de Orgaz, which tells the story of the burial of the Count of Orgaz, when Saints Augustine and Stephen descended from heaven to attend the funeral. Interestingly, El Greco painted himself and his son into the picture, although the funeral happened about 300 years before the painting was done. We spend a good hour in the church, looking at and thinking about the painting.


From left: on the streets of Toledo; the rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain! and where’s that bloody plain? in Spain, in Spain!

Happy Birthday to our niece Naomi George!

I was merciless yesterday as we did our walking tour of Madrid: although the guidebook told us that the walking tour would take at least 2 days, we got it done in 1 (and were our feet complaining loudly last night? You bet they were!) The reason (don’t tell Greg): this way we get to spend the entire day today in the Prado.

Conveniently, Madrid’s commuter trains all head to Atocha, the main train station that is a stone’s throw away from the Prado, and so we take the train in this morning. We realize after we pull out of the station that it was these suburban trains that were bombed 6 months ago, a bombing that in all probability changed the outcome of the Spanish general election. All of a sudden, we realize that there we have seen signs everywhere in Spain that say “no war”.

The Prado has 3 entrances, and we are able to breeze right in, no line-ups for the walk through the metal detectors and x-ray machines; too bad airports aren’t this fast!


From left: the Velazquez Entrance to the Prado; one of the Velazquez galleries on the 1st floor; in the gardens outside

The Prado collection is focused on art collected when Spain’s power was at its zenith. We have entered at the south end, so we work our way through the ground floor collection of art from 1100 to 1600. All amazing, we are particularly fascinated by the El Grecos and the Hieronymus Boschs, especially his masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights. (Greg tells me that we need to focus our attention, because we will not be able to see every room. I nod sweetly, thinking to myself that I am going to see every room if it kills me.)

Up we go to the 1st floor, the more modern art, collected from 1600 to 1800. Amazed as we were by the breadth of the El Greco collection, the Velazquez and Goya collections are overwhelming. We are totally immersed into the painting of Las Meninas (or La Familia de Felipe IV), the story as clearly told as is possible, and we wonder how Velazquez could predict the future so clearly, that this little Infanta would have such a significant role in history, far greater than her parents. (To read about the picture and see it more clearly than below, go to: Las Meninas.)


2 Velazquez, 1 subject: from left: Las Meninas; La Infanta Dona Margarita de Austria (sorry for the focus: no tripod or flash allowed)

We still haven’t mentioned the Rubens, many painted with the assistance of the young Van Dyck. Or the Goyas, more even than there are by Velazquez. We cannot imagine another artist, except possibly Picasso, than Goya, whose style varies so dramatically, from his formal court portraits, through his designs for the royal tapestries, to his Black Paintings, so dark and modern, painted for his own eyes only, many done as murals for his own home.

Barely able to stand, we climb the stairs to the 2nd floor, thankfully only a small portion of which is open to the public. It is mainly full of Goya’s tapestry designs, called “cartoons” but beautiful oil canvases, full of life and, perhaps because they were never intended for public display, full of joie de vivre.

It is almost 6 hours later when we leave the Prado, and we haven’t sat for more than a minute or 2. We walk to the nearest Metro, take the train to Chueca, buy Greg a new pair of walking shoes (his 1st new pair since we started our adventure last January) which we name his Prados, and join the locals for a beer in the Plaza, standing, nowhere to sit. We don’t stay long.

We take the metro home, and barely make the 10 minute walk back to our hotel before we collapse. They serve us food and liquid, and we revive enough to make it to the room.

Oh, for a million days like this!

Happy Birthday to John’s brother Eric!

Madrid is not one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Much of its historical and cultural history has been torn down to make way for the new. Indeed, it seems to be a city on the verge of the next century, good and bad. The traffic and the congestion will get even a seasoned traveller down but what it lacks in beauty, it makes up in feeling. There is a real charge about Madrid; a cosmopolitan urban pulse that dominates its cafés, bars, and its street life. We are starting to find out that Spain “lives” and its people are alive and breathing in life to its fullest. The Lonely Planet has an ‘essential Madrid’ walking tour and map that takes you to all the major monuments and museums and the shopping districts of the city. This is our plan of attack as we lace up our walking shoes and head out. We start our walk at the Plaza de Espana. Our first visit, strangely enough, is to an Egyptian temple, the Templo de Debod. But we begin to feel the pulse of Madrid as we walk our first kilometre up the Gran Via.

Over the next 2 hours we wind our way around the city stopping for pictures, admiring the visitas or to just rest our feet. The sun comes and goes and when it comes it is very warm.


From left: The Plaza de Espana with the stature of Cervantes and at his feet, Don Quijote and Sancho Panza; The Banca de Espana; the Palacio de Communicaciones

We decide to take an extended break at this point in the walk and indulge ourselves in the masterpieces of the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. This incredible private collection is housed in the Palacio de Vilahermosa, which was completely gutted and restored to house the collection. It is one of the most varied and complete collections of European art anywhere and, along with the Prado, is a “must see” in Madrid. John is thrilled by the collection of Canalettos, one of the largest he has seen in 1 place.

The indulgence last over 2 hours and we emerge tired but happy about 5:30 and cross the square for one of those little North American extravagances I talked about in Nice, called Starbucks. We both enjoy the familiar surroundings over iced lattés. Although it is 6 p.m., it is still very early by Madrid standards so we decide to continue our walking tour.


From left: the Puerta de Alcala; the Puerta del Sol, the center of the city


The beautiful Plaza Mayor

We continue on past churches and Plazas. The sky suddenly turns black on us and we run for some cover from an unexpected downpour. This seems to be a good opportunity to do what all Spaniards do at this time of day, take sustenance to tide us over till our 10 pm dinner. We have a couple of beers and some small raciones in a very local taberna while the rain cools the plaza, before the last of the setting sun begins to peek out.

Our walking tour finally brings us to the Palacio Real, the residence of Spain’s Royal Family (although apparently they aren’t in residence much these days) and there is an official function happening this evening, evidenced by all the heavily guarded gates and entrances.


From left: the Palace; even bigger than Buckingham Palace!; John at the opera, at the end of a long day

We make our way back to the metro station and take the train back to Mostoles and have full raciones for our meal tonight and welcome the hotel’s extra pillows and crisp sheets.

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Barcelona to Madrid: 658 kilometres

Madrid is an interesting curiosity: rising out of a dry, brown plateau, the city welcomes its driving visitors first with urban sprawl, punctuated with ugly low-rise apartments on congested and confusing ring roads and highways. The second thing we notice is the horizon studded with enormous cranes, many and numerous, hovering over vast building sites. There is definitely an economic boom in Madrid. First impressions aside, we aren’t entirely sure of what to expect from Spain’s capital city. But more on that later.

Our journey from Barcelona today takes us through some wild and rugged terrain, vast plateaus of brown, olive green, and burnt umber, tinged with the occasional thin strip of lush forest green. We climb over the Sistema Iberico mountain chain and down onto the plain. “The rain in Spain” doesn’t seem to have fallen on this plain in the recent past. The temperature continues to rise as we approach the city, topping 32 degrees Celsius. Traffic grinds us to a halt as we navigate around the city to our hotel. (Our living arrangements in Barcelona were far below expectations and we have decided to stay in the Ibis chain of hotels for the duration of our driving trip in Spain. They run a clean and efficient shop and offer a cheap and welcome no frills alternative to where we have been staying. Air conditioning is guaranteed, and in the heat of Spain’s fall, very welcome.)

Our hotel is outside of Madrid’s city center but it is quickly and easily accessed by either metro or train and we don’t want to have to deal with parking in the center of town. (In addition to the unpleasantness of the hotel, the price rose unexpectedly with the discovery that parking in any lot near our hotel was about $60 per 24 hour period.) We unpack, and walk the short walk into the heart of Mostoles, the suburb we are staying in. It is decidedly not glamorous, but exudes vitality and life. Every 2 blocks there is another plaza with a beautiful fountain, and the streets are full of people enjoying them.

We wind up back at the hotel and have an early night of it, thankful for the extra pillows and crisp sheets. We will save Madrid for tomorrow morning, refreshed, wide-eyed and ready.

Despite the miles we have walked, we feel like Barcelona is just beyond reach. We decide to take a bus tour of the city to see the places we haven’t seen. 5 hours later, all spent on the 2nd level of a double-decker bus, we think we have this city figured out. It is a beautiful, gentle city. Every intersection is a diamond shaped plaza, as the buildings on each corner are 5 sided, missing their 4th corner but giving the city the most wonderful feeling. We discover that many of these plazas are full of outdoor cafés, and we are enchanted.


From left: typical Barcelona apartment block; Gaudi’s La Pedrera


2 views of Gaudi’s Casa Batllo


From left: Casa de les Punxes (House of the Spires); sculpture by Roy Lichtenstein

Dinner tonight is at a wonderful wine bar we find without expecting it. We are again amazed at the quality:price equation here in Spain. We have a wonderful bottle of vino tinto, a Rioja, for 10 Euros, the price of a litre of vino della casa in Italy. Sitting directly across from us are two guys from Colorado, Steve and John, who just finished a 10 day cruise from Venice to Barcelona; coincidently, we had met some guys from the same cruise as it departed from Venice when we were there. We start comparing notes about our various experiences, before heading off for a beer before we say goodnight.

We sleep late, as apparently everyone does here in Barcelona, at least on Sunday. We head to the big wide boulevards to find a cup of coffee and a brioche. We thought the price of dinner last night, amazingly reasonable, was an anomaly: we confirm this morning that eating out in Spain is more reasonable than anywhere we’ve been in Western Europe.

After cafés con leche and xuxus, we head to La Rambla, the long avenue that makes its way from the Placa de Catalunya to the harbour. Down we walk, moving with the crowds, first through the bird market, then through the living statues, then the flower market. A perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon, until we come across a newsstand where we learn, days after the event began, of the atrocity in Beslan. We read in shock and sorrow the story, not wanting to believe.


From left: Placa de Catalunya; La Rambla

We finally pull ourselves away from the news, and continue our walk. The street takes us past some wonderful buildings, but most of the crowd seems oblivious to them, focussing on the sea of humanity that surrounds them. We arrive at the harbour, with its huge statue of Columbus. Long neglected, but rediscovered as the city prepared for the 1992 Olympics, it reminds us of Montreal’s Vieux Port or Chicago’s Navy Pier.


From left: Columbus “discovers” America; the harbour

From the harbour, we head into the Barri Gotic, Barcelona’s medieval city. We are expecting something much bigger than it is: Barcelona was not a big city during the Middle Ages. We wander with the crowds, heading up to the Placa de Sant Jaume (Santiago in Spanish and St. James in English) and the Cathedral to find it clothed in renovation finery, hiding it’s splendid façade. We also discover that Sant Jordi (St. George) is Catalunya’s patron saint, and he is visible killing his dragon in a number of locations in the Barri. We’re a bit surprised to see him, we’ve now seen him in almost every country we’ve visited in Western Europe, and he is a hero in each of them.


From left: the Barri Gotic; Sant Jordi get his dragon

Our feet are tired and we ramble back to the hotel for naps. The hotel has proven disappointing, and when we get back we advise them we are going to leave on Monday, and not Tuesday as arranged. They tell us they will not refund our final night’s payment, and we tell them that we are leaving nonetheless.

We walk over to La Rambla de Catalunya, the continuation of La Rambla in l‘Eixample on the other side of the Placa de Catalunya, and sit outside in a tapas restaurant on the boulevard for an early dinner. The place is full, despite the hour. We chat with our waitress, an Italian from Rome who tells us that “Barcelona is easy to live in, Rome isn’t.” And then we head home to bed, despite the early hour, as apparently everyone does here in Barcelona, at least on Sunday.

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St. Jean de la blaquiere to Barcelona: 353 kilometers

Spain welcomes us in the early afternoon as we drive south and cross the border, past the Costa Brava and into Barcelona. We are staying in l‘Eixample, the area of Barcelona renowned for the Modernistas and the Gaudi buildings Casa Batllo and La Pedrera. It is a lovely and very fashionable area. We navigate the difficult and intimidating lanes of the Gran Via and the Diagonal and find our hotel. Many of the buildings are beautiful six or seven story tenements built in the 19th and early 20th centuries with shuttered windows and filigree balconies that hark to the Beaux Arts period. We schlep our bags up one flight and do a quick orientation and then walk the couple of blocks to the other (or should I say, main) Gaudi masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia, for a mid-afternoon tour of the incomplete church.

Our first views are of the church are of the famous spires topped with multicoloured Murano glass tiles in their fantastical round shapes, one of the signature designs of Gaudi. But we approach from the new Passion Façade, not the older, more familiar, Nativity Façade. Construction cranes are also part of the vista and we quickly realize as we approach that the church is a construction site both outside and in. As was the way with all great cathedrals of Europe, it is still an unfinished marvel, started in 1882 and with no completion date in sight.


There are currently 8 spires completed; there will be 18 in total


Murano glass makes the spires dance with colour and light


Detail from the Passion Façade

Tickets and audio guides purchased, we brave the throngs and start our tour. Our first views of the great interior space are of the tree-like, extraordinarily-angled, beautiful columns soaring to the still non-existent roof. Gaudi envisioned a forest here and indeed it feels like one; he also calculated the load each column would bear, and chose different stone for each column, depending on its load.

We move along the well-planned route and watch the stone cutters and craftsmen doing their intricate jobs, the labourers hoisting each section into place. It is a monumental space and fantastically conceived. We mention to each other how nice it would be to come back and see the finished product but realize that this will not happen in our lifetimes.


Inside La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia keeps us enthralled for a number of hours before naps and a late dinner. Although it is after 10 when we are seated in the restaurant, we are still early arrivals; by 11, the place is almost full. The city is buzzing with activity and it is a wonderful city to walk and enjoy. Wide green avenues with cafés and restaurants invite you to eat or enjoy a coffee. Cascading fountains are flowing and everywhere people are out with their children and dogs, friends and lovers. We love Barcelona already.

Congratulations to Dan and Bonna on their wedding day, September 6th.

We set out around 11 this morning to run some errands in the closest “big” town of Clermont l’Herault about a 10 minute drive away.

The market is on today and there is a gentle and pleasant ambience about the town and its people. An organ grinder plays at one end of the square while a jazz singer serenades at the other. People are coming and going in the dappled mid-day sunlight, baguettes in hand. No rushing or pushing; a calm but purposeful attitude prevails on this market day.

Also on our itinerary today is a drive to see Monika and Ditmar’s house that we have rented in the very, very small hamlet of St Frechoux for two weeks upon our return at the end of September. We have instructions from various emails from Monika and we head out. We cross the autoroute and double back along the side road, following the signs for St Frechoux. Vast fields of grapevine stretch out to gently rolling mountains. We pass some out buildings down by a gentle bend in the river and another sign post for St Frechoux but no town on the horizon. We continue the drive to the next roundabout and see a sign for St. Frechoux heading back in the direction we just came from. So we turn around and follow the side road back along to where we have just driven and of course the directional sign for St. Frechoux had been turned the wrong way and indeed those few buildings by the gentle bend in the river, all 11 of them, are St Frechoux. We park on the side of the field and find our small house with the white shutters. It is quintessentially French; a small outside patio that greets you first, wooden shutters on squeaky hinges, low-beamed ceilings and well loved and lived in furniture. It is very charming.

We find the keys and open the door, finding the fuse box to turn the electricity on. We throw open some shutters and get our bearings. I open a window on the second floor and am greeted by an elderly woman across the road standing on her balcony and sternly staring me down. Strangers, it seems are an unusual occurrence in St Frechoux. I say “Bonjour” and explain to her who we are and that we have rented the house from Monika and Ditmar and she immediately changes her demeanour and wishes us “une bonne vacance” but reminds us before she turns and leaves that “this is a very quiet place”.

Monika tells us later that this is Mme Gaujoux, the monarch of St Frechoux, and she lives with her four grown children who are viticulteurs. Monika tells us that Mme Gaujoux would be more than happy to show us the chapel and probably happier to keep tabs on the comings and goings of the new strangers in town.

We finish our brief tour; making mental notes about what we’ll need and what we’ll buy, drop some of the wine that we purchased and head back to the guest house and the pool.

We expect to have a lovely and very quiet time in the hamlet of St Frechoux.


Our little house in St Frechoux

Hot and sunny weather greets us today as we get the scoop on the surrounding area over breakfast from our host Yann. We are in the region of Languedoc Roussillon and it seems to be the hot spot for real estate and tourists. In our small village of St. Jean de la blaquiere, we count 3 pools at least. St. Jean is the quintessential French hamlet, a very small square surrounded by small, pretty stone houses, one very narrow street and a church. No grocery store or pharmacy but three pools! Real estate is being snapped up in Montpellier and many of the small towns surrounding seem to have British or Belgian owners. We actually hear English spoken in the supermarche in the nearby town. This is grape growing country and we are surrounded by vineyards and the thick, purple-blue bunches of grapes are just asking to be picked. Indeed, we have already heard the “grape trucks” pass up our lane into the fields and vineyards beyond.

The afternoon is entirely by the pool. A couple of good books, the new Lonely Planet guide to Spain (and one for France for our return in three weeks), the Herald Tribune crossword puzzle and we are set. The tinny bell of the church in St. Jean de la blaquiere is the only reminder of the wasting of time. A gentle and soothing pealing of the hours as they pass from three to four to five o’clock and beyond.

Tonight we sit in the gathering darkness, punctuated only by the rising moon over the mountains across our valley. We play satellite bingo, a game where you sit in a deck chair and with a glass of wine or a beer, stare up into the sky and try and spot the fast moving satellites as they cross the night sky. Points are awarded for every confirmed sighting and shooting stars (harder to confirm) are the ultimate prize. At this time of year we usually have a game going perched on the upper decks of John’s cousin Jim and Joanne’s cottage in the Madawaska Highlands near Calabogie, Ontario or on the dock, in fleeces and PJs, on the Big Island at Bluesea Lake in Maniwaki, Quebec, sharing our annual Labour Day last hurrah weekend with our friends Bob, Brian and Bill.

We try to explain Labour Day to our fellow guests, Gerard and Craig, Gilles and Jean- Michel, comparing it to France’s May 1 holiday which to me signals the beginning of a summer of vacations, beaches and fun. Labour Day is the end of summer, back to work and school. The fun and sun are done for another 8 months. I am feeling somewhat nostalgic this weekend. Labour Day somehow signals the beginning of the end of our journey; the end of following summer, of getting back to work and reality (although this is not really for another 4 months). We think about our friends and family, old and new, back home and scattered abroad and what they are doing this Labour Day weekend.

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