Day 9 Monserrat Monastery on a Mountain Cliff; April 9, 2009

Today we woke up late so had to hurry to take the wrong metro line (frustrating, now we are really late) to Placa DÉspagna to catch the 11:00 train to Montserrat, about 50 miles NW of Barcelona. We kept waiting in lines to ask for help, and getting the wrong advice, and it took longer and longer!
Montserrat is an ancient monastery perched high on an asounding mountain. That's it in the first picture, way up high in the crook of the rocks. Montserrat was attacked by Napoleon and others, so it stands as kind of the spiritual center of patriotism fo Catalunya. (Kind of like Mont St. Michel is for France.)
Here´s a link to some pix, I hope it works:
http://images.google.es/images?q=montserrat&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:es-ES:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=es&tab=wi
We took the train for an hour to the base of the mountain, and had to stand the whole way. Then took a high-flying gondola 1000 feet in the air to the monastery up on the top of the mountain. WOW, what a ride!
Up on top, I was surprised to find it all commercialized, with tourists and even tour busses that had driven to the top! I guess I only expected a few monks in hoods wandering around. I should have known better; that if I knew about it, so did every tourist in Europe!
We wandered through the abbey. The basilica was quite ornate, but all the real treasures were stolen by Napoleon. It has a black carved Virgin Mary that we stood in line for half an hour to see. You were supposed to kiss it to get happiness or something, but I wouldn´t. Dad is not up for museums, so we didn´t take time to learn about the Benedictine monks that used to live there. OK by me . . .
I have been seeing lots of square red Templar crosses, both at Montserrat and in the Cathar region in southern France. I don´t know what the Knights Templar had to do with this area, probably nothing good. A knight from the Dordogne area, Simon de Beaufort, led the crusade called by the pope to wipe out the Cathar apostates in the Carcassone area.
On the train back we talked to a young couple from Romania, and then all the way home to a retired Dutch couple. It was quite enjoyable. Lots better than the ride out, because we had to stand the whole way because we were the last ones on the train because we barely made it!
This evening we wandered around in the Bari Gotic ((old medieval quarter.) I wished I had my shopping daughters with me, because they had really cool stuff in all the shops! Dad is of course, not interested and besides, we can´t afford to buy it anyway. But it was really cool! Wonderful jewelry, right in style, way better than Wal-Mart! I see the most beautiful clothes here, bright colored and ethnic, with lots of combinations of bright colors. I could redo my whole wardrobe. If I could shop anywhere, it wouldn´t be in Paris. It would be Barcelona! The little blue door is the kid's entrance to a toy store, which I always like.

We went back to La Boqueria market and bought another fruit salad. The fish smell made Dad really nauseated, so we skipped dinner and came home. I think I wore him out.
Tomorrow we leave Barcelona and drive to Arles. Actually, we are staying in Fontvielle, a little town out of Arles. That seems to work better, since we have a car. We don´t have to pay for parking, since it´s rural, and we get a nicer place for the price.
Did I tell you this place is cheap but safe? It´s only a half a block off Las Ramblas, and there is no parking, so we have the car in a pay lot, (picture at left) and I expect we will have to pay €100 to get it out tomorrow. That,s $131 for 3 days, and that is not a joke. AARGH!

Day 8 Exploring Barcelona; April 8, 2009

Larry and I rambled down to the harbor at the bottom of Las Ramblas. That's a tree-lined pedestrian street filled with people and flower shops and street entertainers making like costumed statues, and cafes and you can even buy birds or fish. It´s maybe the best thing about Barcelona. At any rate, it´s very cool.
We bought tix for the hop on-hop off tourist bus, plugged in our earphones, dialed into channel 3, and sat back to listen to a pretty decent commentary (in British English) of what we were passing. You can´t see if you sit below, so we went up top of the double decker bus, where the wind was whipping, but at least we did not get rained on today!
We went all the way around the Blue loop, and got off back at the harbor, planning to take the gondola ride above the harbor up to the top of MontJuic. After some searching, we found the right place, and the sign said ¨Closed because of high winds.¨ No doubt!
So we went up inside the tall pillar monument to Christopher Columbus. Wait in line, take a 4 foot square elevator to the top, squeeze past people to take pix all the way around, and squeeze back into the elevator to come down. The view, however, was absolutely fabulous from the top of the monument. The whole pillar is about 100 feet tall, but only about 12 feet in diameter, so I guess I shouldn´t have expected any more room!
Then we got back on the tourist bus, hooked up our turquoise headphones, and started around the loop again. I wanted to visit several buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi, who worked 100 years ago and started the Barcelona version of Art Nouveau. Here they call it ¨Modernista.¨ Dad calls it "gaudy," and that's actually where that word came from. It certainly is different from anything we've ever seen before!
First was Casa Mila, an apartment building designed by Gaudi, which used curves instead of straight lines. He was revolting against the industrial revolution which hit Spain the last half of the 19th century. Larry didn´t like it at all. I thought it was marvelous for the early 1900´s when women still wore long skirts and leg-of-mutton sleeves. It had several circular atrium openings to let light and air into the center of the building, and all the rooms had curved walls and ergonomic door handles. It really was amazing for its´ time period, and it definitely broke the mold for architecture of its´ day.
Of course we had to stand in line to get in, and we had to pay. Larry keeps wanting to wait outside, and have me go in by myself, but then who would I share it with?
Back on the bus, then off to seeLa Sagrada Familia, which is a cathedral álso designed by Gaudi, and still unfinished. It´s actually really strange outside, and really cool inside, where it's still a construction zone. There are stacks of lumber and you can hear workmen and there is plastic hanging from scaffolding. You can only walk around part of the edge. Eventually it will have at least 12 towers, which look like huge cigars with holes punched in them. The sculpture is very Art Nouveau, and Larry thought it ¨just plain weird,¨ but at least it was interesting to see a huge cathedral being built.
Dad was not going to bring a coat, but before we left I checked the weather in southern France, and it was 1 degree C, so fortunately he brought one. He blamed me for not bringing an umbrella. I told him don´t bring an umbrella, bring a coat with a hood. So yesterday I bought him an umbrella for 3€ from a guy on the street. Today we froze our tush (combined, plural the same as the singular) off on the top of the open air bus. So I saw a pair of knitted men´s gloves on the floor, and picked them up. I asked the guy whose seat they were under if they belonged to him, but he said no, so Heavenly Father sent Dad a pair of gloves just when he needed them!
We wanted to ride the bus around to this place that has architecture from everywhere in Spain, and find a restaurant there for supper. (Spell check does not work on this computer because it thinks in Catalan.) Took us forever to get there on the tour bus, then when we got off, we found you not only have to pay AGAIN to get in, but all the restaurants are closed, and there is no one around! So that was a bomb. We waited again for the tour bus, and just came back to the Christopher Columbus monument and walked up Las Ramblas toward our hotel.
We´d seen a spot the day before that was an all-you can eat salad buffet and no smoking for 9€, so we went back to that. It was GREAT! and it was only a few doors from our hotel. It looks tiny from the front, but once you get inside, it opens up in the back and the walls are all lined in wood and very cool.
I had to wait and hour and a half+ for this computer to get available AAGH! but it´s in the hall outside our room and Dad is asleep. I can hear him from here because he does not have his C-pap on because he is waiting for me to come to bed.
Tomorrow there are several wanderings I want to do here in town. We also want to take a drive up to Montserrat, which is an ancient abbey on top of a mountain and the spiritual hub of the Catalan people.

Day 7 Caught in a Blizzard in the Pyrenees; April 7, 2009

Hallelujah, an English keyboard!
Tonight Dad and I are in a cheap but safe hotel in the bowels of Barcelona, Spain. It´s a great location, only a block off Las Ramblas, the main tourist drag thru the old section of Barcelona and near 2 Metro stops. There are lots of little Tapas bars around to eat and a fresh fruit and vegetable market a block away. The room is only 9´X 9´X 9´feet tall but it has a private bath and it´s only 60€ a night, which is great for the most expensive city in Spain, and right downtown.
All the buildings seem to be 6 stories high, which is about as high as I think you used to could go, because you did not have reinforced steel beams in the old days.
Barcelona is noted for pickpockets and thieves, but any robber would have to go through the desk downstairs and come up 2 stories, so I feel safe where we are.
The car, however, is another matter. It´s parked in a pay lot half a block away. I hope it is all right. We brought the GPS in with us, of course, and left nothing visible! Guess what, the worse news is that it will cost us 30 € per DAY for parking (about $40 a day) and the car will be there at least 2 days! Oh my heck, everything I saved on this hotel (found it on Lonely Planet guidebook) I am spending in parking!
Today it rained all day, except when it snowed. (Notice the weather in the pix.) We drove 9 hours to get here, through the rain and snow, because we wanted to take the scenic route OVER the Pyrenees instead of the fast way. (The craggy mountains in the picture are heading up into the Pyrenees from the French side.) The fast way would have been 3 easy hours on the autobahn and just zip over to the Mediterranean coast and then down to Barcelona.
We, on the other hand, wanted to see Andorra. We saw it, and we never will see it again.
It´s basically only got one town, and the whole country is built in a narrow pass through the Pyrenees. The entire country is nothing but clinging to the side of steep gorges. In the one town, Andorra-la-Velle, there are lots of rich-looking apartments like a ski town and several stores selling ski stuff, all crammed into the sides of the gorge. You´d think it would be picturesque, but someone made a design decision that says all buildings need to look like they are made of slate or dark rock, and the roofs are black. Therefore, the whole place is dismal and looks like a Harry Potter ski resort! There are several ski resorts in Andorra, but we could not see where it could open up wide enough to ski. It´s all straight up and down.
The reason we kept seeing cars coming down with skis on them is because IT´S APRIL AND SKIING IS STILL OPEN. The snow was blowing and Larry held on tight as he drove around snow-covered switchbacks. Some peoples' cars would not pull the grade, so they were walking down on the narrow 2 lane road, (not looking happy) some cars slid off the road, and we thought this is for sure, the first, last, and only time we will EVER come to Andorra!
About that time we found a tunnel that would cut off a lot of switchbacks, so we took it. Today we probably paid $50 in tolls to go through tunnels that are shorter than going for free the long way!
We also went through Llivia, which neither of us had ever heard of. I just looked it up and the site was in Spanish, but I think it says Livia is an enclave of Spain that is totally surrounded by France. Huh? Llivia is lovely, however, and we liked it.
The Pyrenees are big steep mountains made of dark granite. The French side was not nearly as pictureque as German mountains, mainly because the towns aren´t as perfect. the tops were covered in clouds or snow, so we could not see them. The Spanish side had a very lovely 50-mile scenic drive along the base of the southern edge of the mountains. I kept wishing the sky would clear so we could see the tops of the mountains, which were way up there.
We followed our GPS right to the hotel door, out of the castle of Carcassonne where we stayed in France, down through the mountains and switching freeways and into the bowels of Barcelona. I will never leave home without it again! I love the GPS. If you buy one, get one that does Europe, of course!