Tarragona, Spain
Oh magical Tarragona. At the risk of slighting Barcelona, I must admit that my breath was taken away when I got off the train and experienced this view. We had no idea what we were in for and set about to discover the magic of this quaint little town. Tarragona was captured by the Roman Empire in 218 BC and later became the capital of "Tarraconensis" under Augustus' rule. The city is rich in Roman ruins and devoid of tourists. I absolutely suggest making this day
Having spent a good portion of the morning getting to Tarragona, Mark and I jumped at the chance to have a peaceful lunch under the yellow umbrellas of the quaint restaurant.
We were anxious to visit the cathedral but found out it was closed until 4pm (this town takes it siesta time seriously.) We also learned the hardway about Spanish eating habits. Lunch starts around 1pm, siesta is from 1 - 4pm, tapas and gelato (a fancy name for ice cream) are avialble until 6 pm, but the serious dinner
time starts around 8:30 - 9 pm. This town totally shuts down their food until dinner time! We were very hungry and very bummed about that. That was the day that I succumed to the local McDonald's.
After lunch we took a walk around the city to see the big Roman wall. The Roman's built this wall to keep out their enemies. It still stands today and envelopes the old city. You can see it here to the left.
One of the most amazing experiences on our trip was to be in the presence of century old ruins. Two that we saw were The Forum and the Colliseum. The picture of steps is the colliseum -- where people in the early AD centuries enjoyed their "performances." AKA gladiator and animal fights. Too gruesome to think about but I was quite captivated by the history.
Mark decided to sit on the steps and "be" like the spectators. I think he is taking my coaching advice a bit too far. =-) The picture of the arches and pillars is the Forum, where people conducted business and met for meetings. There were many old nooks, statues, pillars and remants of an ancient city life.
As we left the colliseum on our way to see the cathedral, we had to climb about 60 stairs. As we turned around, this was the view.
After a very hot and water-deprived walk, we got back to the cathedral. By the way, water is a serious commodity in these areas. A .79 cent bottle of water in the US went for around 2 Euros (about $2.45 cents US.)
Anyway, once we entered the cathedral, I was awestruck. The entrance is an archetectural wonder in itself. Here are pictures of the entry way and a detail of the carved statues in the arch.
The details, the opulence and the magnificence were tremendous. A few of the pieces that actually turned out in the photoes are here.
We ended our day just outside the cathedral at a wonderful cafe which specializes in chocolate. My favorite. This is a picture of the little cafe -- it was so peaceful to sit and enjoy a te (tea) and enjoy the surroundings. On our way back to Barcelona on the train, we both passed out. It became a ritual for us to nap after a long day of sight seeing -- maybe those siestas make perfect sense afterall.
First Stop: Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona, home of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, was our first stop, and the city where we would start our cruise of the Southern Ports of Italy and France. One of my first sights was in the taxi over to the apartment we rented --
beautiful monuments everywhere. This one monument was at the hub of the port and one of the big tourist areas -- La Rambla.
One of the decisions we made was to enjoy as much of the "real life" as possible. So we selected apartments in a couple of cities. Our apartment in Barcelona was really cool -- and really small. It amazed me how little space people lived in on a regular basis. Our place was in a little district across from the wharf and a major restaurant row. On the first day, we went out and investigated the local market. We are real big on eating vegetables and fresh food so we had a lot of in-home breakfasts. I loved going to the market and picking out our food, including our meat, in a big out door market.
We enjoyed much of the local architecture -- Gaudi has many amazing and quite bizarre sights. This is the Gaudi's Parc Guell -- on top of a hill that you have to climb. It spans quite a large area and includes many unique hallways, benches and stairways. I tried to capture with the camera but it was difficult to really do the view justice.
As you walk up the stairs, under the pillars, is a huge area with a beautiful mosaic inlaid ceiling. This picture to the left is a mosaic in
the ceiling -- it was about 3 - 4 feet in diameter and there were many of them. I kept thinking "how long could it take to build something like this?"
There was another flight of stairs and then a huge park where you could see the whole valley. Very breathtaking. Thank goodness because we were about wiped out from all the stairs and needed a good rest!
There are many sites of architecture from Gaudi. We decided to take a bus tour and drive by most of them. The camera's just don't do them justice.
We learned a few interesting tidbits about Barcelona: 1) pickpockets are rampant. Our second day, someone tried to pick pocket our backpack on the bus. We were prepared though and had a bunch of my personals in the outside pocket-- lipstick, chapstick, etc. When it all fell out, we realized someone had tried and failed. We had our super-strength lock on the zipper -- no one was getting in! 2) restaurants in this area love iceberg lettuce. Ick. Hated the salads and never really got a fabulous meal there. This was also about the time I learned that ice-tea only comes in a bottle in Europe. After three failed drink orders produced water, a
soda and a frustrated waiter, I gave up and went for hot "te". 3) Fashion is interesting -- or doesn't exist -- not sure which. We cruised a mall one afternoon at the port and found the clothes to be very bright, 80's-ish style. Wow.
The next area we enjoyed was the tree-lined walk of La Rambla. Many street magicians are there to entertain you as well as about 3 million people. This one "statue" really caught my eye. I was so impressed by the complexity of their costumes. Again, a big pick-pocket area, so we didn't linger much.
The entrance to the Barri Gotic (the oldest part of town) was found by these small streets filled with shops, cafes and even local American favorites like Gucci and Prada. Go figure. I could have shopped for hours -- enjoying the feeling of real cobblestone streets and knowing you were in the middle of centuries-old buildings.
The Cathedral was absolutely amazing. Breathtaking. I kept saying to myself how amazing it was that something so old was
still standing (I we hadn't even experienced Rome yet.)
After a couple of days of running around we opted for our last day to be on the pebble-lined beach. Being as the beach was across the street, we rented chairs and spent a few luxurious hours melting into the beautiful beach sun. You will notice that there aren't many pictures of the beaches -- that's because we couldn't get any PG rated views. Yes, they are topless beaches and the sites weren't that pretty =-)
This is a picture of me as we walked to dinner -- notice it was a bit chilly in the evenings. I loved how peaceful it felt as the sun went down very late in the evening -- this is about 8:15 at night.
Next stop, a beautiful "locals" area an hour south of Barcelona -- Tarragona.
My Summer Vacation in Europe
My summer vacation started early this year with a whirlwind trip to the coasts of Spain, Italy and France. I should probably start by saying that most sane people would not take on so many cities. After the last post, many emailed or said in passing, "Boy, that's a lot to take on."
Your were right.
The idea for the trip started with a cruise through the Western Mediterranean. As we researched the area, Mark suggested that we add on a couple days on the front in Barcelona and on the back in France. In theory it was a good idea. But the temptation to "see it all" really took it's toll.
Bottom line -- I learned (again) that doing too much can take the joy out of your experience. I don't want to give the impression that the trip wasn't marvelous, it was, I am just a big relaxation princess when I travel. I didn't get enough of that.
I'll go through each city and share some stories and pictures. To kick things off, I have to laugh at Mark. It was a hectic day when we left. My family had all been in town to help me celebrate by big 4-0 and I had to drive my brother to the airport shuttle at 5:30 am. As I arrived home again, we noticed much to our dismay a big water leak in the water heater. So there was a lot of commotion and strategizing as we finalized things. As I always say to my clients, you can't plan for the unplannable!
Here is a picture of Mark, down to the wire, handling his real estate deals on the runway as we leave for our first stop in Heathrow, England. I, on the other hand, was very proud of myself. I didn't touch my cell phone or email once.
My team knew the secret phone # in case of emergency. This is the first time I left on vacation for 3 weeks and it felt really good to just be completely in vacation mode!
Oh magical Tarragona. At the risk of slighting Barcelona, I must admit that my breath was taken away when I got off the train and experienced this view. We had no idea what we were in for and set about to discover the magic of this quaint little town. Tarragona was captured by the Roman Empire in 218 BC and later became the capital of "Tarraconensis" under Augustus' rule. The city is rich in Roman ruins and devoid of tourists. I absolutely suggest making this day
Having spent a good portion of the morning getting to Tarragona, Mark and I jumped at the chance to have a peaceful lunch under the yellow umbrellas of the quaint restaurant.
time starts around 8:30 - 9 pm. This town totally shuts down their food until dinner time! We were very hungry and very bummed about that. That was the day that I succumed to the local McDonald's.
As we left the colliseum on our way to see the cathedral, we had to climb about 60 stairs. As we turned around, this was the view.
