Italy

We have had fabulous time with Jacks' nan Carole in Italy. It's been hot and sunny. We feel like we are in a sanctuary here living in her second house on top of a mountain with stunning views. Her dogs and cats and herself are good company in this beautiful place. Almost every morning we have had breakfast and coffee at our favorite cafe in town. 

We have done a few walks around the area although walking up and down the mountains in this heat is not easy. We have spent most of our days chilling in and around the house, playing with the animals, sunbathing and helping Carole around the house. 

The team

The first full day in Italy, was market day and Jack had been waiting to get his hands on the local specialty Porchetta, a pork filled roll. We brought one each and they were so good we decided to buy them in bulk, breakfast sorted for the next few days. Our main day out was getting the train up through the mountains to Perugia. To get to the city itself you take a series of escalators up through an old village built into the hillside. Once you get to the top there are lots of beautiful buildings, squares and restaurants to see and enjoy. One of our favourite parts of Perugia was the incredible views you get from the top. 

In the queue for Porchetta

Perugia

Little local trains 

France III

The parents and more importantly puppies, have arrived! We have had a lovely week although the dogs have probably enjoyed it more as we spent most of our time walking them. The weather has been lovely and we have been topping up our tans whilst drinking french beer.

Choosing our cheese course

It was great to see Jacks' parents again and the highlight of the trip was having a 5 course meal at the nicest restaurant in the area the 'Cheval Blanc'. I don't think I have ever had so much food and wine at lunch time and the rest of the day we spent sleeping off the food, dinner was not needed. We have had lots of BBQ's and other lovely home cooked meals. We also had a wine tasting at a local vineyard where we got to try the local specialty 'Pineau' although neither of us particularly enjoyed it, the wine was great though.

France II

The house is lovely and warm, which took a while and a lot of logs on the fire. The weather has been typically English and we have rarely seen the sun, just clouds and rain. We have actually been having a great time, chilling by the fire and generally playing home. We have well and truly exhausted Nan and Grandad's DVD collection as well as their firelighters (we won't mention the logs, sorry nan and grandad).

We have still been getting around and seeing as much of the local area as possible. Our neighbours Kirsten and Dave and their twin children Dillon and Ella very kindly took us to the big supermarket nearby. We went with Dave in the morning after he had written his shopping list in the order he walks (or in daves case, sprints) around the supermarket. Once we were in the supermarket we turned around and dave had disappeared into the distance and his shopping trolley was already half full. We shopped as quickly as possible and managed to get everything we needed as well as learning the art of man shopping. 

Apart from the shopping trip we stuck to old fashioned transportation and cycled a lot. The nearest shop apart from the local Boulangerie (bad spelling) selling croissants is in Aigre, 5km away. The first time Jack cycled there alone in desperate need of biscuits, not realising it was a Sunday and the town was shut. The next few trips were much more successful and many biscuits were bought as well as the ingredients for a pancake cake. We also cycled through Luxe towards Mansle, stopping of at a pizza restaurant that Jack remembered on a lake in Eschoisy, which looked like it had been shut down for the best part of a century. We got to Mansle which is actually pronounced 'mal', the french seem to have a lot of useless letters in their words. It was still a fairly small town but we cycled through the town, down to the river and very much enjoyed the cakes at the local bakery. Jack brought a cake shaped like a penis whilst giggling like a child, although the rather miserable looking baker obviously didn't see the resemblance or get the joke.

It has been a quiet but very enjoyable and relaxing week, tomorrow Jacks' lovely parents and the dogs arrive. Marianne has been talking constantly about how much she misses the dogs. They arrive at 6am, I will be suprised if Marianne gets any sleep.

France

We have done many long journeys together including overnight trains and 12 hour coach journeys sitting next to a toilet which didn't flush in Vietnam, the journey from Barcelona to Fouqueure, France was undoubtedly the worst. The 9 hour coach journey in itself wasn't too bad, it wasn't spacious but for £15 each it was great value and fairly comfortable. The problem began when we got to Limoge at about half one in the morning. Jack has only visited Limoge once as a kid and remembered it being a big city. The station we arrived into was nice and warm with a coffee machine, we were quite happy to spend our night there before taking an early morning train to Angouleme. After 5 minutes in the train station the guards kicked us out as it was closing for 3 hours. 

We had envisioned that at least a few bars/clubs/restaurants/stations/McDonald's/kebabs would be open, we were unfortunately mistaken and very cold. After wondering around for an hour we noticed two skateboarders, rushed over and asked using Jack's limited French where could we eat. They were really friendly and walked around taking us to kebab shops for around an hour, all were closed. Although the two boys were around our age they did not speak a word of English. They eventually gave up and directed us to a McDonald's drive in they thought might be open. We had to eat our big Macs on a frosty bench outside. After around 3 hours being outside we walked to the station to find it was open and that it had been for 2 hours. The guards were obviously trying to tell us it opened again at 3am not in 3 hours. 

Anyway we made it to Angouleme, from there took a train to Luxe which is also the closest train station to Fouqueure, the lovely house in France. First couple of days it was quite rainy and cold and we mostly spent our time cleaning and heating up the house as no one had been there over the winter. In France it has been our first time where we stayed in a house all on our own and we loved it.

Ps: Didn't feel very motivated to take any pictures.

Barcelona

I tend to have this thing when I fall in love with something from the first sight, Barcelona was one of them. Our hostel was only a 4 km walk from the train station and as we reached the hostel we realised it's right by the sea and very close to the main area of the city. Barcelona Gothic hostel also turned out to be one of the best hostels we have stayed in with it's clean and cosy rooms and the friendliest staff we have ever encountered. Can't wait to go to Barcelona to stay there again hopefully with better weather next time. Although it was nice and sunny the first day we arrived the rest of our short stay was quite rainy and the bittersweet weather forecast promised the most perfect spring weather just after we left Spain. 

Most of the time we spent in Barcelona we devised our own walking tour, mostly following the tourist bus. Although we didn't enter any of the tourist sights you have to pay for, in our opinion the best views were to be had from outside, or maybe we were just trying to justify our decision. At least our bank accounts were happier, it wasn't cheap. Without Gaudi Barcelona wouldn't be the same because the most stunning things we saw were created or influenced by him.

Güell park

Güell park

Güell park

Güell park

Barcelona was filled with happy and relaxed locals and tourists, food was lovely and surprisingly affordable for a big city. We had two delicious all you can eat buffets. One called Wok which was mainly Japanese style seafood which was just fabulous. For 10 euros we filled ourselves up with unlimited fish and seafood cooked from fresh in front of our eyes, sushi and steaks. 

For today we have booked a 9 hour couch journey from Barcelona to Limoges in France which with megabus only cost us £15. From there we have to find our way to Jack's parents' holiday house. 

Cadaques

On Thursday we borrowed Ramon's car again and took a road over the mountains to Cadaques which is probably the most beautiful town in the area. I have to mention I quite like driving in the mountains, it can be bit scary but it is definitely much better than sitting on the passenger seat. Ramon's car is very old and not very well looked after, half of the time the speedometer refuses to work which only leaves us to hope that they won't receive any speeding tickets. 

Cadaques

Cadaques is known as the home of Salvatore Dali. We also walked up to his house which now is a very expensive museum. It was too expensive for us to buy a ticket and see how Dali used to live and we could only guess that as a painter he probably didn't even spend that much time inside the house but sitting in his lovely garden surrounded by relaxing views to the sea and mountains. And also Brian has told us some interesting stories about Dali as they used to know each other. That's all we needed to know about this famous 20th century artist. 

Home of Dali with the two heads

Sitting where Dali used to

Cadaques is much more than the home of Dali, it is a stunning town by the clear blue sea framed by mountains. Most of the houses there are white with sky-blue window shutters and doors leaving the overall feel of the town very clean and bright. It is typically Spanish to have the white and blue contrast but to see a whole town in that same style is quite rare.

We finally feel like we have seen most of the local area and therefor we are heading to Barcelona tomorrow. It has been very nice to spend some time with Brian, Ramon and Carlos. Through the many customers we have met we have been offered an insight into how the other half live. Brian has spoilt us with the endless dinners and unlimited drinks at his shop. We are very lucky and grateful. 

Snowy mountains

Since we arrived in Spain and saw the snowy mountains we have wanted to trek up to one of them. Yesterday we finally decided to do it. We woke up early in the morning, packed our bag with water and warm clothes as it can get quite cold up in the snow and off we went. As we could see our destination a map wasn't necessary. We walked 6 km to the first village, another 3 to the next village and after another 4 km we reached the final village which was as close to the mountains as a village can be. The road ended there. The snowy mountains didn't seem to be any closer though. Somehow we still managed to walk couple of more kilometers on a private property but decided that we were probably way too optimistic about this trek and started heading back. 

Destination

Our bamboo walking sticks

SPOT the difference

The way back was exhausting, we were probably more tired than we imagined we could be. Our attempt to get some food in the village didn't turn out so great either. First of all we didn't have any money with us and everything was shut anyway because of the Spanish siesta. So all we had to eat before crawling back home was this big juicy orange we had nicked from someone's garden. To make things even worse it started raining. The temptation to call Brian and Ramon to pick us up was won over by our determination to cope without any help. 

After having something quick to eat back in Peralada it finally hit us. We are not the most fit people you can find and 30 km up and down the hills isn't the easiest walk you can have. Finding it hard to move we somehow made it to the apartment (we live at Brian's now). I was so tired that I probably fell asleep half the way up the stairs. 

Today all we are doing is recovering. I find it extremely hard to stand up and move my legs after having sat down. Jack doesn't seem to be in any sort of pain as all he does is mock me about how I look like a penguin when I walk. Reading all I've written now it seems like all we do is complain but although yesterday was very tiring it was well worth it. 18.3