Monday (9th October), a travel day, moving from Widnes to near Alicante, Spain. So starting with a lift to Widnes station for a train to Manchester Oxford Road, and then change trains to Manchester airport. All nice, easy and civilised.
The airport security had no queue, almost unheard of, but true. Once through to the terminal it was fairly busy, as you’ll remember our original flight was from Liverpool, which was cancelled by Ryanair, so we switched to Manchester, it appeared that a lot of people had done the same, so our flight was full.
A uneventful flight, passport control was easy with no real queue, no baggage to collect, so straight to pick up our hire car, again an easy process, then a 30 minute drive to our friends place!
All in all the day was pleasant travel experience, we wish all travel could be this uneventful, but that would make for boring reading !!
We spend the rest of the week, walking the family dog early before it got too hot, pool time, generally relaxing, eating, drinking and watching the rugby quarter finals. On Saturday we visited friends in Elche for lunch, at a lovely Latin American restaurant.
Monday (16th October) we left our friends and drove to Barcelona a 5 & 1/2 hour drive, not too busy, and most of the road was good quality! We dropped off the hire car at Barcelona airport and got the bus into the city, followed by a 10 minute walk to our accommodation. It was a hostel, a private room with share facilities, it was pleasant, clean and cheap (for the centre of Barcelona). We were rudely awakened, at 6am, on our first morning, by raised voices of other hostel users. As well as the aggrieved voices, there were some calm ones trying to settle things down. We left them to it and tried to get back to sleep.
We had planned this visit to Barcelona, as we didn’t make it there last year, when we had the issue with brakes of the Motorhome.
In the evening, we had a wander around the Gothic quarter (where the hostel is) had amazing carpaccio & pizza in a small Italian bar. Chatted to a fellow diner, who had just managed to get out of Israel, and was still waiting for her parents to get a flight out, it put everything in perspective!
She also recommended a ‘free’ walking tour. So we signed up for the following day.
Tuesday, we enjoyed the walking tour, around the old parts of the city, our tour guide was from Argentina. Obviously there’s no such thing as free tour, a tip is expected, but worth it!
After the tour, we set off on our own walking tour, heading around the Gaudi buildings, they have still not finished La Sagrada Familia.
Wednesday, we had a restaurant booking at ‘Los Caracoles’, fulfilling a family challenge to visit and have lunch on table 2. Following in the footsteps of family since the late 1960’s.
Unfortunately nobody told us they had more that one table 2, so we started with a drink at the wrong table, consulted the old family photos, asked a waiter to take a photo, worked out we were on the wrong table, but managed to move to the correct table 2! A great meal!
Wednesday, was an early start, back to the airport for a 9:05 flight to Paris Orly. It was a busy flight, but we did manage to sit together, despite not paying for reserved seats.
The trip into Paris takes a bit more organising to get to the right side of Paris for us, so we got a local bus to a Juvisy station, then a train to Gare d’Austerlitz, followed by a 15min walk, a little bit far dragging our bags, but we got there.
We had come Paris for the Rugby World Cup, semi finals, Rog attended with his brother (Friday & Saturday evenings).
Friday, we walked to all the major sites in Paris, Notre Dame, The Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Les Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides and the Pantheon, we walked about 13 miles! With a few coffee and lunch stops!
The boys headed out to the Stade de France for the match, New Zealand v Argentina. The girls when out for dinner and drinks.
Saturday, a bit more walking, but not as much as Friday. The girls went on a evening river cruise.
The boys were back out to the Stade d France for England v South Africa, “we was robbed!” South Africa won by 1 point!
After the match, there was a heavy police presence around the stadium, and one of the two railway stations was closed, so not sure what was going on.
Sunday, checked out of the hotel, again went for a walk, this time around La Marais and Bastille districts.
Before heading our separate ways, family heading back for the Eurostar, and us heading for an AirBnB in the Belleville district.
We got off the metro near La place de la Republic, to find some sort of demonstration in progress, and another big police presence. We chose a route heading away from the action, and once again Rog dragged our bags towards our accommodation. On arrival, our host was still cleaning the flat, so asked us to wait a few minutes outside. We stood in the doorway, dodging several men coming from an upstairs apartment, with, what looked like, most of it’s contents, which were then being piled up in the street. Those few minutes felt quite lengthy due to the vibe of the area being, what can only be described as colourful ! (The last place we described as colourful was Naples).
Once we had checked in, we did a quick supermarket run, to get provisions for a pasta meal, followed by an early night.
Travurple 