Got a good start today -- nice breakfast buffet at the hotel, lots of cheese and bread and fruit. Then we grabbed our bags and went downstairs to talk to the nice blonde who had been helpful yesterday. She let us put our big bags in storage for the week and even called the taxi -- "Jaime" -- and asked him to take us to the trailhead. He turned up with another passenger and a minivan, but it was 4WD and he was easily able to take us to the highest trailhead, just an hour's walk from Restanca.
But what an hour -- it felt like we went straight up through the forest on a rocky but clear path. Wow. Really steep. But everyone said that the first hour would suck. So imagine how pleased we were to see the curve of the dam that forms Lake Restanca -- and to see the refuge across the top of the dam. Yay!
The refuge was lovely, and made both of us feel a bit sad that we hadn't just gone up yesterday for the night. Still, we had a little look around and got our swag: a surprisingly cool black hat, our sleepsacks, our maps, and our disappointing "lightweight towels" (read: washcloths). Tiny panic when whey couldn't find the blank forfaits, but then we got them. Hooray!
We set off along the lake but then rapidly climbed (again!) alongside a waterfall up to Cap deth Port lake. Wheezy. Lots of wild flowers and green plants -- reminded us a lot of Mount Rainier national park. We followed the lake for a bit, and then started up through the boulder field to the Coll Crestada, which was really tough: very steep, careful stepping, and frequent breaks. Beautiful views -- I made up strop partway along for candy because I was out of breath and feeling tired. It took us two hours to reach the summit, but then, suddenly, we were headed down the other side. Much more pleasant, grassy rather than bouldery. We managed to take the correct path to the refuge -- a little alarming because I didn't see the other path. But oh well.
The red and white blazes changed to yellow-painted sticks, and there were fewer of them -- but also they weren't as necessary on the obvious path.
A few more ups and downs, then lovely trail past glorious lakes. All greens and blues. Bright sunshine. Still, I admit that I got tired. And seeing the refuge -- even after just 5 hours of hiking -- was a thrill.
Ventosa i Calvell is pretty -- beds upstairs (we got -- after some switching around, end, lower-level bunks) and tabled downstairs. We got the info (dinner 7-8, breakfast 6:30-7:30) and our table assignments, then we bought a beer and a soda and went outside to relax and eat our well-deserved lunch.
Lovely to feel physically tired but not in pain. Bright sun outside, wind whistling around the refuge. Really great day.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Vielha, 7/14
Strange day -=- got up early to get to the bus station and walked around for 20 minutes looking for a cafe/breakfast. In the end we just went to the station restaurant and had rude service. :) But the cheese sandwich was perfect and exactly what I wanted.
Found our bus "spot" -- #31 -- but there was no bus. However, there WAS a working electronic ticket machine right in front of the stop. Would have saved us 45 minutes yesterday...
The bus too late, lot of frantic people saying "Vielha? Vielha?" to anyone who passed. I watched idly as a woman frantically asked nearly every man in sight. I was a little alarmed when the bus arrived and frantic lady was nowhere in sight... but she did come sprinting up a minute or so before we left.
Pretty empty bus -- we wound our way through Barcelona with 5 passengers. Near the Barca stadium we picked up another. Not sure how they can survive financially... but I guess we're travelling in the off season.
At some point we turned off the big motorway onto a 2-lane road and I saw a sign for a Camino del Santiago -- very exciting! A couple of hundred yards later we passed a small icon/signpost. I realized that, here at least, the pilgrimage route is just staggering along a busy, dirty 2-lane highway. I know pilgrimages are supposed to be physically and emotionally challenging, but still, that looked horrible.
Excited to discover that we were going to go through the (relatively new) Tunnel de Vielha -- 5 km of 3-lane tunnel through a mountain. I kept thinking it would make a really fun 5K race.
Then, suddenly, we were in Vielha. We asked a helpful stranger where the hotel was -- luckily just down the road from the bus stops. Got to the hotel, checked in and went up to our oddly shaped room -- a huge bathroom, smallish bedroom area, and a triangular balcony overlooking the river.
But we had questions to ask, problems to solve before we could rest. So we dropped off our stuff and headed into town. Vielha is larger than I had thought -- lots of condos/vacation rentals all over town, and a medieval, higgeldy-piggeldy layout. But most things were closed between 2-5. So we looked in windows and had lunch. We chose a place with a nice-looking menu, a cool location next to the river and a tiny handwritten "we speak English" sign.
Okay, so the waiter didn't speak English. But he was nice and patient as we struggled to order food. I was trying to figure out what the ingredients of a particular salad was -- was it a bean? A plant? A sausage? But we were stuck. I said "soy... vegetariano?" and his face lit up and he said "Legume!" and smiled and nodded.
We were seated on an outside deck with a glass room, open at the sides, and with a canvas sunscreen stretched under the glass. A water sprinkler sprayed the top of the glass, making "rain" off the sides of the room into the river on one side and the old millrace on the other. It also made gorgeous patterns on the roof between the water and the shadows.
When my food came if was a bit of a surprise -- a big platter of grilled vegetable drenched in amazing olive oil and spiky with salt. Along with a side plate of slabs of toasted bread rubbed with tomato. Wow. Eggplant, tomato, peppers, asparagus, onion, and an entire artichoke. Really tasty, but I'll have to get accustomed to the salt.
Around 5:30 we went back into town, visiting the Carros de Foc office (woo-hoo!) and chatting with the staff. She showed us the towel and bedsheet we would be given and gave us the name and number of a taxi driver. Then more wandering around the various shops -- lots of outdoor shops, none of which sold GPS units. Odd. But perhaps comforting? I mean, they all sold compasses and rucksacks and hiking boots, so they had the essentials.
Also looked for some postcards and got the feeling that this is a tourist town that hates tourists.
Stopped in at the SUPERMERKAT to pick up water, cheese, and bread. Was very impressed by the range of tinned seafood. Wil pointed out that the illustration on the "octopus pieces" can looked like "struggling seamonster" which made us almost buy it, just for a laugh.
We had seen what looked like a nice baker up the road so didn't buy bread -- but after buying the hardest loaf in the world from the surly baker, we actually went back to the merkat for bread. Lesson learned: just because it's from a bakery doesn't mean it's nice.
Spent the evening sorting through our things. Pleasantly surprised by a knock on the door at 7:30, where the bottle of cava (did I mention the "romance package"?) was delivered to our room. So we snacked on bread and cheese to cava for dinner, then went down for a quick visit to the spa to relax before bed. Tomorrow it all starts!
Found our bus "spot" -- #31 -- but there was no bus. However, there WAS a working electronic ticket machine right in front of the stop. Would have saved us 45 minutes yesterday...
The bus too late, lot of frantic people saying "Vielha? Vielha?" to anyone who passed. I watched idly as a woman frantically asked nearly every man in sight. I was a little alarmed when the bus arrived and frantic lady was nowhere in sight... but she did come sprinting up a minute or so before we left.
Pretty empty bus -- we wound our way through Barcelona with 5 passengers. Near the Barca stadium we picked up another. Not sure how they can survive financially... but I guess we're travelling in the off season.
At some point we turned off the big motorway onto a 2-lane road and I saw a sign for a Camino del Santiago -- very exciting! A couple of hundred yards later we passed a small icon/signpost. I realized that, here at least, the pilgrimage route is just staggering along a busy, dirty 2-lane highway. I know pilgrimages are supposed to be physically and emotionally challenging, but still, that looked horrible.
Excited to discover that we were going to go through the (relatively new) Tunnel de Vielha -- 5 km of 3-lane tunnel through a mountain. I kept thinking it would make a really fun 5K race.
Then, suddenly, we were in Vielha. We asked a helpful stranger where the hotel was -- luckily just down the road from the bus stops. Got to the hotel, checked in and went up to our oddly shaped room -- a huge bathroom, smallish bedroom area, and a triangular balcony overlooking the river.
But we had questions to ask, problems to solve before we could rest. So we dropped off our stuff and headed into town. Vielha is larger than I had thought -- lots of condos/vacation rentals all over town, and a medieval, higgeldy-piggeldy layout. But most things were closed between 2-5. So we looked in windows and had lunch. We chose a place with a nice-looking menu, a cool location next to the river and a tiny handwritten "we speak English" sign.
Okay, so the waiter didn't speak English. But he was nice and patient as we struggled to order food. I was trying to figure out what the ingredients of a particular salad was -- was it a bean? A plant? A sausage? But we were stuck. I said "soy... vegetariano?" and his face lit up and he said "Legume!" and smiled and nodded.
We were seated on an outside deck with a glass room, open at the sides, and with a canvas sunscreen stretched under the glass. A water sprinkler sprayed the top of the glass, making "rain" off the sides of the room into the river on one side and the old millrace on the other. It also made gorgeous patterns on the roof between the water and the shadows.
When my food came if was a bit of a surprise -- a big platter of grilled vegetable drenched in amazing olive oil and spiky with salt. Along with a side plate of slabs of toasted bread rubbed with tomato. Wow. Eggplant, tomato, peppers, asparagus, onion, and an entire artichoke. Really tasty, but I'll have to get accustomed to the salt.
Around 5:30 we went back into town, visiting the Carros de Foc office (woo-hoo!) and chatting with the staff. She showed us the towel and bedsheet we would be given and gave us the name and number of a taxi driver. Then more wandering around the various shops -- lots of outdoor shops, none of which sold GPS units. Odd. But perhaps comforting? I mean, they all sold compasses and rucksacks and hiking boots, so they had the essentials.
Also looked for some postcards and got the feeling that this is a tourist town that hates tourists.
Stopped in at the SUPERMERKAT to pick up water, cheese, and bread. Was very impressed by the range of tinned seafood. Wil pointed out that the illustration on the "octopus pieces" can looked like "struggling seamonster" which made us almost buy it, just for a laugh.
We had seen what looked like a nice baker up the road so didn't buy bread -- but after buying the hardest loaf in the world from the surly baker, we actually went back to the merkat for bread. Lesson learned: just because it's from a bakery doesn't mean it's nice.
Spent the evening sorting through our things. Pleasantly surprised by a knock on the door at 7:30, where the bottle of cava (did I mention the "romance package"?) was delivered to our room. So we snacked on bread and cheese to cava for dinner, then went down for a quick visit to the spa to relax before bed. Tomorrow it all starts!
Monday, July 13, 2009
Barcelona misc.
Slept pretty well... at least until 4:15. But then was able to listen to the Now Show and try to get a little more rest. Some mice random thoughts from yesterday, in no particular order...
- sitting in the plaza across from the hotel at 10:30 last night, eating Solera and Magnum ice creams, drinking beer from cans, and discovering what we think might be the hot-climate version of the Kinder Surprise eggs -- the Kinder Joy. It's still an egg, but you pop it open into two symmetrical halves -- one with a toy and a little spoon, the other with a white chocolate mousse/creme and two tiny chocolatey spheres inside -- like tiny ferro rochers. Gorgeous!
- lovely to watch families out with their children in the moonlight -- riding bikes and whooshing around on scooters. I mean, if they take a siesta at 2, then of course they can stay up late.
- seeing lots and lots of the same type of dog -- a French bulldog perhaps? -- 3 or 4 at a time. Must be a good apartment dog.
- stumbling across the Palau de Musica Catalunya late at night, lit up beautifully. Love the green glass newel posts and the floral mosaic pillars
- overhearing an English girl ordering the chorizo y jamon pizza, "SIN chorizo". Um, okay.
- the "BICING" program with all the white and red bicycles all over town
- discovering an interesting new artist/character by stumbling across a comics/manga shop: Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese.
Now getting started with the day -- showers, packing, and getting on the road. Today we start with a long bus ride to Vielha!
- sitting in the plaza across from the hotel at 10:30 last night, eating Solera and Magnum ice creams, drinking beer from cans, and discovering what we think might be the hot-climate version of the Kinder Surprise eggs -- the Kinder Joy. It's still an egg, but you pop it open into two symmetrical halves -- one with a toy and a little spoon, the other with a white chocolate mousse/creme and two tiny chocolatey spheres inside -- like tiny ferro rochers. Gorgeous!
- lovely to watch families out with their children in the moonlight -- riding bikes and whooshing around on scooters. I mean, if they take a siesta at 2, then of course they can stay up late.
- seeing lots and lots of the same type of dog -- a French bulldog perhaps? -- 3 or 4 at a time. Must be a good apartment dog.
- stumbling across the Palau de Musica Catalunya late at night, lit up beautifully. Love the green glass newel posts and the floral mosaic pillars
- overhearing an English girl ordering the chorizo y jamon pizza, "SIN chorizo". Um, okay.
- the "BICING" program with all the white and red bicycles all over town
- discovering an interesting new artist/character by stumbling across a comics/manga shop: Hugo Pratt's Corto Maltese.
Now getting started with the day -- showers, packing, and getting on the road. Today we start with a long bus ride to Vielha!
Barcelona
HOT. And humid. Uh-oh. Spent most of yesterday traipsing around beautiful Barcelona. Arrived at the airport, collected our bags (phew!), and emerged into the steamy heat and a fog of cigarette smoke. Oh, right -- people still smoke outside of Seattle!
Walked right on to the Aerobus to the center of town, and then the 15-minute walk to the hotel where I didn't really get lost -- we were heading in the right direction -- so much as lost faith in my internal compass. Anyway, we checked in, went straight up to the small but very tidy room, and took showers to wash away the ick of travel. Awesome water pressure!
Walked over to the bus station to sort out tickets to Vielha. We had decided to stay a last night in Vielha rather than race back to Barca, given that we almost always prefer smaller villages to larger cities. So we figured out the timetable and the days we wanted. See, we had plenty of time because the queue to buy tickets stretched all the way around the ticket hall. At least the 4 ticket sellers had a system whereby every now and then one of them would go out to the line and look for people who were waiting to buy tickets for buses leaving within 30 minutes. So that was good. We considered just trying our luck the next day, but didn't want to risk missing the bus while waiting in an even longer line. But our main focus today was just to stay awake for most of the day rather than sleep it off.
BTW, I busted out my awesome 5th-grade Spanish to order the tickets. The woman behind the counter kept smiling to herself, probably thinking "Oh, you idiot" but I did feel as if I had made the effort. :)
.JPG)
we wandered up to Sagrada Familia -- looked very different to my memory of it. More pink? More rainbow-colors on the "sanctus sanctus" art? But I guess that what happens on a work-in-progress after 10 years have passed.
.JPG)
On a whim, and because we were a bit sleepy, we jumped on one of those city tour buses and rode around for a while. We sat in full sun on the top deck -- which felt really nice when we were moving (lovely breeze!) but less nice when we were stopped. I didn't feel like the narration was particulary good -- indeed, when we jumped on a bus later on I noticed that absolutely no one was wearing their headphones. But it was probably a convenient way to move between the sights. Both of us nodded off at a couple of times, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a very brief siesta.
.JPG)
We went through the Barri Gotic, somehow getting completely turned around in the marvellous winding lanes. Absolutely beautiful, but we were tired and getting cranky. So we knew the right thing to do was to give in to morpheus and then go back out.
90 minutes later, very refreshed, we walked back out and through the Parc Ciutadella, where we caught one of the tourist buses and rode for a couple of stops. Then we dove back in to the Barri Gotic and wandered around, looking at shops and then settling on a cute little restaurant for dinner. I know, I know -- paella and sangria isn't exactly original, but it was very tasty. And by the time we left, the restaurant was full of locals.
Walked right on to the Aerobus to the center of town, and then the 15-minute walk to the hotel where I didn't really get lost -- we were heading in the right direction -- so much as lost faith in my internal compass. Anyway, we checked in, went straight up to the small but very tidy room, and took showers to wash away the ick of travel. Awesome water pressure!
Walked over to the bus station to sort out tickets to Vielha. We had decided to stay a last night in Vielha rather than race back to Barca, given that we almost always prefer smaller villages to larger cities. So we figured out the timetable and the days we wanted. See, we had plenty of time because the queue to buy tickets stretched all the way around the ticket hall. At least the 4 ticket sellers had a system whereby every now and then one of them would go out to the line and look for people who were waiting to buy tickets for buses leaving within 30 minutes. So that was good. We considered just trying our luck the next day, but didn't want to risk missing the bus while waiting in an even longer line. But our main focus today was just to stay awake for most of the day rather than sleep it off.
BTW, I busted out my awesome 5th-grade Spanish to order the tickets. The woman behind the counter kept smiling to herself, probably thinking "Oh, you idiot" but I did feel as if I had made the effort. :)
.JPG)
we wandered up to Sagrada Familia -- looked very different to my memory of it. More pink? More rainbow-colors on the "sanctus sanctus" art? But I guess that what happens on a work-in-progress after 10 years have passed. .JPG)
On a whim, and because we were a bit sleepy, we jumped on one of those city tour buses and rode around for a while. We sat in full sun on the top deck -- which felt really nice when we were moving (lovely breeze!) but less nice when we were stopped. I didn't feel like the narration was particulary good -- indeed, when we jumped on a bus later on I noticed that absolutely no one was wearing their headphones. But it was probably a convenient way to move between the sights. Both of us nodded off at a couple of times, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a very brief siesta..JPG)
We went through the Barri Gotic, somehow getting completely turned around in the marvellous winding lanes. Absolutely beautiful, but we were tired and getting cranky. So we knew the right thing to do was to give in to morpheus and then go back out.90 minutes later, very refreshed, we walked back out and through the Parc Ciutadella, where we caught one of the tourist buses and rode for a couple of stops. Then we dove back in to the Barri Gotic and wandered around, looking at shops and then settling on a cute little restaurant for dinner. I know, I know -- paella and sangria isn't exactly original, but it was very tasty. And by the time we left, the restaurant was full of locals.
Day 1 – 2009 07 12 - Prior to landing in the 'Dam…
Our clocks are set to Amsterdam/Barcelona time, which means that it’s midnight 22 tomorrow, and maybe we should think about trying to get a little sleep.
England was cloudy as we passed over, there was a point where I could see land, but the land was dark and the sun was light, so my camera decided that it would prefer not to take pics...
Wil
Amsterdam
Lovely uneventful flight where we watched too many movies (Monsters v Aliens, Benjamin Button, and Frost/Nixon), drank red wine, and ate really nice "Asian vegetarian" meals with a chickpea curry and rice for dinner, a bean-salad pita for "lunch", and... well.. a plastic bowl of multigrain Cheerios and soymilk for breakfast. Which wouldn't have been quite so bad if the standard breakfast hadn't been egg and cheese biscuits. Oh well.
Schiphol Airport is amazing -- beautiful design, lots of self-service transfer kiosks (where Wil could finally print his boarding pass for Barcelona, which the less-than-genius agent in Seattle claimed she couldn't do even though I had printed mine...), lots of fun shops, and an interesting system whereby we suddenly had to pass through immigration and security but there didn't seem to be any differences between the two sides. (Love the brightly colored bins they have at their x-ray machines!) Also, I noticed that, in addition to their metal detectors, they had one of those x-ray picture machines... that had a large monitor attached. I said "Ooh, it's the naked picture machine!" and Wil said "Yeah, and I guess the monitor is for the entertainment of the queue."
Didn't have too long to kill, but did manage to find a cheese shop and buy some lovely cheese in honor of my international cheese-smuggling mother. Say cheese!
.JPG)
Schiphol Airport is amazing -- beautiful design, lots of self-service transfer kiosks (where Wil could finally print his boarding pass for Barcelona, which the less-than-genius agent in Seattle claimed she couldn't do even though I had printed mine...), lots of fun shops, and an interesting system whereby we suddenly had to pass through immigration and security but there didn't seem to be any differences between the two sides. (Love the brightly colored bins they have at their x-ray machines!) Also, I noticed that, in addition to their metal detectors, they had one of those x-ray picture machines... that had a large monitor attached. I said "Ooh, it's the naked picture machine!" and Wil said "Yeah, and I guess the monitor is for the entertainment of the queue."
Didn't have too long to kill, but did manage to find a cheese shop and buy some lovely cheese in honor of my international cheese-smuggling mother. Say cheese!
.JPG)
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Flight
So we're on the plane and I'm slightly tipsy. Nightmare @ checking - I was fine, but Wil had to go to the "special services" line -- where we waited for 90 minutes. Good thing we got to the airport so early! Then they wanted me to go wait in another line to check my bag... but eventually (since there were 10+ of us in the "special services" limbo, they let us move to the front of the queue.
Eventually we made it through check-in and the huge (but relatively fast-moving) line at security. And we still had time to raise a glass to Betsy before getting on the plane.
It's a relatively full flight, but it seems like we've got nice people around us, so that's good.
Really excited about our trip - happy that everything has gone smoothly so far!
Eventually we made it through check-in and the huge (but relatively fast-moving) line at security. And we still had time to raise a glass to Betsy before getting on the plane.
It's a relatively full flight, but it seems like we've got nice people around us, so that's good.
Really excited about our trip - happy that everything has gone smoothly so far!
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