Barcelona!

We love Barcelona!

What a beautiful city this is. Gaudi, the squares, Gothic Quarter, the marina, the beach, Park Guell, the Promenade, La Rambla…the Sagrada Familia!  Wow!

We arrived to Barcelona by train from Nimes, France on Saturday. After a bit of a delay getting into the apartment (we finally tracked down the correct cell number of the manager), we moved in to this great apartment in Barceloneta area – right by the marina and a few blocks from the beach.  Sweet!  The first evening we took it easy – walked to a nearby plaza central area north of Barceloneta on the way to the Gothic Quarter. Walked all over Gothic Quarter over to La Rambla, down to the marina and back. This took us about 4 hours with stops for sangria and dinner, music, street opera singers, gelato, and incredible performances – including a huge  group of people making a human tower in several shapes in front of the Gothic church…then a few steps around the corner and there’s a jazz band, down La Rambla, more bands and singers, on the Promenade there’s an African drum and dance performance, turn your head and there’s a mime – this place is INcredible. We loved it instantly.  

Sunday, we navigated the metro and landed ourselves at the Sagrada Familia, newly designated by the Pope in 2010 as a Basilica. O…M…G.  It was designed by Antoni Gaudi – started in the late 1800s and is not yet completed. Although Gaudi died in 1926, his team and other devoted artists and architects have continued working on Gaudi’s vision to the complete the Sagrada (which is expected to be completed in 2020).  The reason it took so long to become a Basilica? It didn’t have a roof until a couple years ago. Imagine this for a minute and take a look at the photos below.

Both of us – out of ALL the churches, cathedrals and basilicas we’ve visited this trip – thought the Sagrada was the most incredible.  And that’s saying something compared to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the Duomo in Florence, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, etc. etc.  The Sagrada Familia was unbelievable. We spend several hours there. Words can’t describe.

We ventured south from there to the Passieg de Gracia to see a few more Gaudi structures. Late lunch and 2 sangria stops later and we were done for the afternoon…back to the hotel for a siesta.  Evening was another ramble through the Gothic Quarter and paella dinner. With sangria, of course!  And “clara” – a beer and lemon soda drink.

Monday we had the beach and park day – a lazy morning/mid-day at the beach, lunch, siesta and a 5 p.m. metro up up up to Park Guell for sunset. The sidewalk up to the park is so steep from the metro station, they installed multiple escalators (yeay!). What a view!  This park overlooks the entire city and out toward the sea. Trees, sunset, Gaudi structures, designs intended to drawn nature, art, and civic life - we were in a beautiful place.  (see photos below). This Gaudi was in incredible man – an artist, naturalist, religious, architect who built places where music and the soul would carry…

We took the train to Madrid today for our flight back to the U.S.   This little section of Europe captured us – we loved (nearly) every second of it.  It left a little mark on us – not only on our (bigger) midsections and worn out feet, but it was a deeply enriching experience that we hope to share again - and perhaps with more friends and family who want to share this with us next time.

Front entrance, The Passion side of Sagrada Familia

Stained glass, Sagrada Familia

2020 Vision of Sagrada Familia

Back entrance of Sagrada Familia

Inside, front of Sagrada Familia

Front entrance to the Sagrada

Columns in the Sagrada - designed to look like trees

Stained glass, Sagrada Familia

Front entrance Sagrada Familia

Columns in Sagrada Familia

Gaudi design in the Passieg de Gracia

Gaudi apartment on Passieg de Gracia

Gothic Cathedral (or 'Gothic Castle' as we'd refer to it)

Jane, sangria, salad and soon...paella

Park Guell entrance

View just after escalator/sidewalk and upper Park Guell entrance

Kristi with a...yep...sangria (or tinto verano)

Church near our apartment

Jane overlooking the entrance to Park Guell

Tip of Gaudi's house overlooking the city and sea

The wave

Park Guell square

You can see the famous fish structure waaaay in the distance

Beach- check. Umbrella- check! Sangria- check!

The beach a few blocks down from our apartment

Nimes, France

(pronounced “Neem,”  this is the place where denim was invented, thus the name “de Nim”).

So, we've been constantly reminded of Steve Martin's "It’s like those French have a different word for everything!"  Jane had learned a bit of Italian for this trip, and Kristi already knew Spanish…neither of which were any help in Nimes.  Much fewer people spoke English here too, so we made more use of the Phrase Book we ever thought we would need to (including at the cell phone store, actually pointing at phrases in the book.)  J 

Tuesday (July 24):  we arrived in Nimes at about 6 p.m. after a day long train ride from Zermatt.  Both of us were exhausted, but we managed to get a bit of a walkabout, and find a place to eat dinner.  We both kept saying how much we needed to eat some protein, and this street café had – oh comfort food – cheeseburgers and fries!   Damn good.  Also, they had Sangria.  This was a good place.

Wednesday:  we didn’t like our hotel that much in Nimes, mostly because their internet was all wonky all the time, and we both had some work to get done.  Also, it was further away from the pretty park/center of town.  So, we spent this morning checking into a new hotel right across from the Center Park (also about 600 meters from the Roman Arena (the big draw here.  See below).   Part of that process, though, included sleeping in late, having a lovely lunch, walking lazily to the new hotel, sitting for a couple of Rose wines, using their internet in their lovely and huge air conditioned lobby...

We visited the Roman Arena –the best preserved Roman Arena in the world, then a Parthenon-like building in the center of town.  In both cases, the Nimes people have kept these two ancient monuments in use:  the arena still hosts concerts and other events, including bull fights; the Parthenon-type building is now used to show a 3D tourist film about the history of Nimes.  It was pretty cool actually.  A lot of eagle-view footage flying over the Provence area. After walking through the famous “People’s Park,” and sitting for a beer, we moseyed back to our hotel, for an early evening, eat-in dinner, and French TV.  

The highlight was Thursday:  We rented a car and drove over to Collias, and rented kayaks so that we could paddle our way 8 km down the Gard river, to the Pont du Gard:  the largest and best preserved section of an ancient Roman aqueduct.  That was amazing.  The water was cool and calm.  Half way to the Aqueduct we stopped for our picnic lunch on the riverside.  And as you can see by the pictures the below, the experience of arriving to the Pont Du Gard was pretty awesome.

After a bus ride back to our car, we drove to a little village called Uzes - one of our top favorite 'cool' towns to spend more time in next trip. It is the center of the regions “Dukedom,” and apparently, if the flag is flying (which it was), the Duke is home.  Mostly we just walked around (shockingly, we didn’t even bring our cameras!  We just walked), looking at gorgeous cotton and linen clothes (Jane wants a new wardrobe and wants it to come from this village), and ate at a lovely brasserie (French street café).

We drove back to Nimes, and thought we were going to settle into our hotel room for the night, but there was a great Gipsy-Kings style band down on the square (we could see and hear them from our window), with throngs of people around the square.  So, of course:  passeggiata.   

Both Tuesday and Wednesday nights had been quite quiet in Nimes, so this evening was quite the surprise: we both felt we had entered a parallel universe of Nimes.  This street party extended through the entire town, down all the little pedestrian walkways, a different band in every little square.  Tons of people with their kids, tons of adults with their drinks and cigarettes listening to jazz, or rock or salsa.  It was very cool.  

(It turns out that happens every Thursday night in Nimes during the summer.  We had to ask our waitress when, on Friday, we walked around the same village at the same time, and it was nearly quiet as a door mouse again…)

Friday:  We had a great breakfast at the hotel, and hopped into our car for a day trip down to Marseille.  We hung out at the beach, ate lunch at a little beach side café, and then started on our way back so that we could stop at a little vineyard we had done some research on.


La Mas des Tourelles is a little vineyard about 30 km from Nimes, and it is the only place in the world where there is a working ancient Roman grape press.  The family who owns this vineyard discovered ancient Roman winery ruins, and so they “reconstituted” the site, and now make wine using the same methods and recipes as the ancient Romans did.  They get their recipes from the writings of Pliny the Elder, Lucius Columelle and Palladius, and from studying the artifacts of the site.  We walked around the ruins, took a tour of the artifacts, and watched a movie about how they use the ancient press to make their wine. Then we tasted it.  Three different types, using a kind of Roman grape-sugar called “frutum”, and herbs that you could smell in your nose before tasting….and one wine that smelled completely sweet, but did not taste sweet at all.  That was a cool experience.  We bought a bottle of the lightly sweet wine (called Mulsum), and a small bottle of the frutum wine (kind of like a port, called “Carenum”).      

We came back from that incredible day, answered a few important emails, and walked over to a little Brasserie we liked.  Had some pizza and “Panache” (beer with lemonade, inspired by Regina), and savored our final evening in Nimes. 

And we are off to Barcelona!!

Plaza view from the hotel

The Arena 

Church on the plaza (neighbor to the hotel) 

View of a clock tower from inside the Arena 

Arena (concert set-up in the background) 

Parthenon-type structure 

Temple of Diane 

Archway at the Temple of Diane at People's Park 

Arena 

Kayaking the Gard River 

Pont du Gard 

Driving (yeay!) 

Pont du Gard

Pont du Gard (by the way, this was a very cool thing to do!) 

Winery Tour (and Roman Ruin) 

Roman wine press 

Roman wines 

Beautiful grapes!

Vineyard tour 

Wine tasting 

beach in Marseille 

beach in Marseille

Zermatt

This is one of our mom’s favorite places to go…and for good reason. Today (Monday) we hiked in the Swiss Alps!

We arrived here a few days ago by train and checked into our apartment which was the first place this whole trip that had a full kitchen.  So, we went to the grocery store and bought makings for… beef and bean burritos!  There was a tiny tiny section of Old El Paso products (clearly not too picky, we're very excited to have a Tex-Mex option!) So the first night we cooked dinner, made wine spritzers, and stared forever at the Matterhorn.  Heaven!

The next day (Sunday) was a day of rest. We caught up on grading, crossfit video watching, reading, laying on couches (with the views of the Matterhorn of course) – and didn’t leave the place until 3 p.m.  With a few sprinkles of rain and clouds, we walked through Zermatt town uphill into a gorge/canyon called Gorner Gorge (see photos below). Then we had a lovely dinner and beer at Derby’s (mom’s suggestion).  It turns out, everything closes at 7 p.m. here so realizing it was 7:10 we rushed across the street to a little chocolate shop called La Petite Royal; they hooked us up with makings for hot chocolate, kahlua, coffee for the morning – they rock.  We came back to the apartment, watched the sunset over a now clear-skied Matterhorn, and drank our hot chocolate wrapped up in blankets due to the descending temperatures. (It feels like fall here – good thing we brought a warm fleece!) It was a good day.

Today/Monday was our big hike day.  It was a crystal clear and cold morning – Kristi was up and took no less than a zillion pictures of the sun rising on the Matterhorn. After breakfast, we took a fernicular railway – an underground very steep railway up the side of the mountain to an alpine lake.  We spent an hour or so trying to recreate an old high school photo of our sister Sara sitting at the lake in front of the Matterhorn – and I think we found that very spot!  It was cold, blustery, and clear – see photos of this unbelievable scene below.

From there we walked all the way back to Zermatt through lovely scenic views, dense forest and mountain meadows - stopping of course at an open ski lodge restaurant to take in the scenery and sample a brew while we had our sandwich picnic. Loved this hike!

We came into town pretty tired so we only had energy to stop for our favorite coffee-liquor-sweet cream drink called “galleano”, soup, more beer and of course…since we had gone 3 whole days without it and were experiencing withdrawal symptoms…gelato…thanks to the trusty La Petite Royal ladies!

Thank you Zermatt for such a lovely experience! See you again sometime soon.

Train up up up from Brig to Zermatt 

View from our balcony (yep!) 

The Matterhorn

The Gorge hike

Gorge hike

Gorge hike (waterfall in background)

Zermatt town (you had to walk through Zermatt to do the gorge hike)

 Beer break at a small cafe right off the trail. :)

Zermatt (and Matterhorn overlook view) from trail 

Mountains, forests, meadows - a lovely hike 

Cafe in Zermatt 

Sunrise on Matterhorn 

Lake hike 

More Matterhorn views from the lake trail

The Matterhorn 

Panorama from the cafe on the trail 

Hikers near the lake 

Lake hike 

Jane, starting down down down to Zermatt from lake/fernicular rail stop

Break at the lake 

Glaciers visible on both peaks

We could not stop looking at (or taking photos of) the Matterhorn