menorca

To catch the last of the summer, we went to Minorca island in Spain, the smaller quieter sibling to the more well known Balearic islands Ibiza and Majorca.

Old town of Ciutadella

The weather was lovely, high twenties and sunny. Downside was (can't see it from this shot but) it was actually freakin crowded on the beach.

Some pasty white chump.

The port of Ciutadella.

Now we're back in London, and it's getting noticeably cold and dark earlier already :(

Short break in Alicante

It's been awhile since we last blogged.. and what have we been up to this last two months? Well concentrating on the tedium of having to earn a living mostly. We also found a nice one-bedder in West Hampstead but the lease doesn't begin til mid November. So in the meantime we're staying with our friends Wen and Margot near SoHo. Living strolling distance to Oxford st, West End and Regent Park is simply quite fantastic!

So yes, we did manage to find a bit of work, but that has finished now (we both had two month contracts.) And before launching into another round of job-hunting, we took a 4-day break to Alicante, Spain. 



Alicante is about the cheapest destination you could fly to from London (£100 return) that has a beach and isn't cold in November. We also scored with the hotel, getting three nights for a grand total of 69Euros! Yay for off-season travelling!!



Here is like the Gold Coast of Spain with stretches of lovely sandy beaches and multitudes of hotels and resorts.  There is also an old Roman fort on top of the hill with great view of the harbour.





You could tell by the decent sized airport and the number of hotels around that this place gets crazy busy during summer. But in November, despite still being still sunny and warm, the place was almost TOO quiet and peaceful! Our hotel was right by the beach not too far from town. In the morning, there was people exercising on the beach; by 3pm only a few persistent pensioners are still on the beach - with leathery tans, tilting their deckchairs towards the sun like sunflowers to catch the thinning rays. By late afternoon the beach promenade resembled a ghost town and pretty much all restaurants were closed. Our only two choices of places to dine at night were to eat at our hotel, or a 15 minute walk to McDonald's.

Although there isn't much sights around town, I highly recommend off-season Alicante for a peaceful break by the beach. Bring plenty of books.

montserrat

On our last day in Barcelona, we jumped on a train to Montserrat - mountains with cool rock formations an hour away from Barcelona. At first we were a little discouraged by being stuck for an hour in a tunnelled tourist queue to the cable car.

we finally emerged to a mountainous vista.

We were to ride the cable car to avoid a painful walk up the mountain. Unfortunately the wait was long because there are only 2 cars crawling along the cables.

But we made it eventually!


We were to walk for an hour and half to reach Sant Jeroni, the highest peak of Montserrat.

The walk was very pleasant, providing many views of rock formations and the surrounding region. You can hear plenty of people calling out around the place, enjoying the echoes of their annoying yells. 

Maybe they were calling for help! Oh well!

The walk was getting to grace though. We had about 2 hours to do, and hiking along bumpy and sometimes muddy paths in half broken sandals was making her a bit crazy.

Nevertheless, we continued the excellent hike.

Until finally we reached the summit! Right on time for a raincloud coming over of course. We didn't get wet - we just couldn't see very much! It was eerie in the mist- very atmospheric.

There were lots of mini off track peaks that Joe liked to explore but Grace didn't. 

The view from the top was suitably grey. It was still extremely windy, and you could watch the clouds moving over the summit. Sometimes the sun would suddenly appear, and moments later the view would present itself as the break in the clouds move past you. 

The aforementioned break in the clouds - just as we were going downhill we had to race back up to take a photo!

Its nice to see the higher cloud layers as the lower ones move past you!

Hmm you still can't see alot!

Time to descend!

Returning along the path presented some nice views of the monastery of Montserrat.

We were a bit worried getting the cable car back to the train station, as after waiting in line for 40 minutes, we only managed to make the cable car that we had to catch before the last train to Barcelona leaves. It was a nervous wait but everything turned out to be just fine! 

And that concluded the Spain leg of our trip - next stop, south of France!

hola barcelona!

Ahh Barcelona! We stayed for four nights at a lovely student style residence with fast internet, shared kitchen, and a Metro station nearby. It was actually good to be away from the touristy areas in Barcelona, although we were right in the middle of the uh, funeralry district...

On the plus side there was an  interesting (and free!) museum just down the road - Museu de Carrosses Fúnebres has the biggest collection of 19th & 20th century hearses in Europe. On display were opulent and splendidly ornate carriages and hearses. The museum was, fittingly, a bit creepy.. it is located at the basement of the municiple funeral services and we were the only people in the museum. (The staff actually only open the museum on request)

This white funerary carriage was apparently used for children and virgins.

Onto the main attraction in Barcelona... the Sagrada Familia! Approaching this thing was like.. WOWWW! Antoni Gaudi started building it in 1882, but to date it is not finished! It is a gigantic glorious cathedral, although in this photo it kinda looks like a satanic temple dripping with molten lava, rising from the gates of hell!

 The elaborate details of the Nativity facade... up to 100 types of plants and animals were carved into the facade.

And some splendidly gory scenes in the facade... here, soldier killing babies...

The interior 

We saw more of  Antoni Gaudi's works.. this is the Casa Batlló.

and La Pedrera - an apartment block with cool sculptures at the top

beautiful impressionist ceilings inside La Pedrera. 

I loved the surreal and organic styles of Gaudi's works. Joe's not too crazy about it - he likes his buildings square and functional. I think perhaps he'd prefer a communist apartment block?

After La Pedrera we fell right into a rip-off tourist trap! It was pouring down rain that day and we just headed for the first cafe we saw. The cafe hid their menuboard away from the entrance where you order. We ordered a sandwich, a bit of bread with some topping on it and two coffees...

which came to a ridiculous 22.50 Euros. (A meal like this should cost less than 10 Euros normally) They charged a ridiculous 8.50 for the bit of bread with toppings they call 'pizza'... and casually slapped on 1 euro per item extra for "service charge". The cafe had no shortage of victims pouring in to shelter from the rain. We talked to fellow victims also angered by their bill. We got off relatively lightly though.. thank goodness we didn't order beer.. they were 15 Euros a pop! Be warned! Do not go to La Baguetina Catalana - I found out later that this cafe is actually a franchaise... we see them popup fairly frequently near touristy places, the menu always out of sight. Ripping off tourists is easy as taking candy from babies, it seems.

Other interesting buildings of Barcelona... here's a building similar to London's Gerkin in shape, but much more colourful. 

The view from the Palau Nacional on the hill of Montjuic ("Jewish Mountain")

 We love photographing stone walls and the vegetations that grow on them.

And sculptures with nice butt

A statue of Christopher Columbus - America is that way, no?

We saw a protest... I think it was against narco-violence in Mexico? This was near La Rambla, the main, touristy boulevard in Barcelona, or pickpocket central. We were too worried about pickpockets to take many photos there.

On to Park Guell, also a Gaudi's work. It was a glorious sunny day after two days of rain, and the park was packed with tourists.

There are some charming gingerbread-like houses.

Beautiful stone columns and ceilings.

Some dudes playing guitar, quite well too.

Great views from the park.

View of the gloomy Castell de Montjuic. This castle was once used as a prison and torture centre during the Spanish Civil War.

Yeehar! Barcelona was fun and we didn't get pickpocketed!