Barcelona is Fun!

eating paella, traditional spanish dish.

I loved wandering the medievel streets at night and coming across all different buskers. On one corner a guy with half a mowhawk singing amazing opera, then someone blowing huge bubbles...

A bustling, vibrant city. La Rambes, a busy touristy street was full of buskers, who pretty much wear customes and then stand like a statue (except some weren't even very good at it).

After seeing some postcards of the beautiful concert hall we decided to have a look. would cost 9 euro for a tour and was closed for a concert the following morning. so instead we spent the 9 euro on going to the concert. orchestra with guest pianist; a chinese girl from NZ! and it was amazing inside the hall... no photographs allowed, but we mananged to sneak one or two.

We spent four nights in total in Barcelona staying in the youth hostel (in Europe youth hostels really are for the young; there were a heap of noisy school kids that sometimes were up later than us).

On the Monday we left on a train, the idea was to get quite far north towards Paris. We got as far as Ceberes, the French border town and then were told 'no trains, come back in two hours'. A strike apparently....

So we decided to cycle 25km up the coast to a beautiful coastal town called Collueres, which had been recommended by a british guy. We got there and it was beautiful... then the france welcomed us back with weather we had experienced before. HEAVY rain... so unfortunately we really didn't explore much of Collueres, just sheltered under a shop cover instead until it cleared enough to go to our campground.

The following morning we caught a regional train to catch the fast train to Paris. (we got some large rubbish bags to become our 'bike bags' required for these trains). Unfortunately the regional train was running late.... so we got to Perpignon minutes before train was due to leave. rushed to platform (amazing how quickly you can carry a fully loaded bike up and down stairs when you have too...) Rapidly unloaded bikes, much to the entertainment of bystanders. Conductors talking loudly and rapidly to us in French. We clicked that they wanted us to just get on the train.... and we had actually held up the train. oops....

only 5hrs in total to Paris, which was a luxury compared to previous slow trains.