France

Travels in Spain

June 14 Our first night in Spain (Ola!) was spent amongst some small mountain villages in a grassy campground at Ribero de Cardos, a valley off Llavorsi.

June 15 Barcelona We are staying with a contact of Mum's - Louise has been lovely to stay with and her son, Gerae and his girlfriend are quite chatty in English. Gerae's sister Gigi only just came home from their beach house with the dog as she is studying for her university exams (as is Gerae). It’s been great to catch up on a bit of news via the BBC (We were able to listen to BBC longwave on the west coast). I received the news that my doctoral thesis had been passed, and that my brother Martin had finally moved out of home.

June 19 We’ve been in Barcelona since Thursday and have ¨done¨ most of the intriguing art deco Gaudi buildings inside and out! We’ve also managed the Picasso museum and the History of the City museum, which had an extrordinary Roman dig exhibition underneath the building - highly recommended. The other museums are closed today (Monday) so we can’t tick them off but we went into the aquarium for something different. We gave the Erotica Museum a miss! I’ve been very impressed with the architecture here and the crowds and street performers on the Rambla are also interesting. A kilo of cherries from the market went down well. We’re thinking of moving on tomorrow sometime, maybe to the Costa Brava.

June 20 After a gorgeous scenic drive along the craggy Costa Brava we started to look for a campsite. Following a sign to a Nature site hidden behind a large fence we discovered a nudist camp. Pat told the clothed office person we'd look elsewhere! A camp just up the road from the beach (photo right) hit the spot. We were able to walk around the beachfront and have a beer while watching Eurocup soccer in the camp bar. A swim in the moring was refreshing as the tent was a sauna in the morning sun.

June 21 Dali's Theatre-Musee at Figueres was amazing with whole room artworks as arranged by Dali himself and contructions such as stereograms. Another artist had some memorable paintings of figures made up of boulders. On the way to France we also had a look at the seaside town where Dali lived, Cadaques.