Ten weeks, thirteen countries, come with us......
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  • The adventure begins

    February 25, 2023 in New Zealand ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    This is a new blog site so I'm experimenting before we go - very much looking forward to our trip starting mid-March, we hope you'll come along for the ride. In the meantime we'll enjoy our own back yard!Read more

  • Day 1

    Family time

    March 17, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    17 March 2023, 36 degrees – Welcome to Sydney!

    Here we are in Ashfield, Sydney, with Jen, Vince, Oisìn and Flynn…….so happy to be here.

    Leaving home and closing up the house for ten weeks has been a bit daunting but Kate and Ian are keeping an eye on it. Chris and John delivered us to the airport and the adventure began on Friday morning 17 March.

    Auckland airport was an eye-opener, thank goodness our bags had been checked all the way through from Nelson to Sydney because it took us close to 90 minutes to go through from a line-up outside the shops and a very long queuing race just to be able to scan boarding passes, another queuing race to scan passports then finally through to the baggage x-rays where only one carousel was working so that was the cause of the bottleneck.

    And then they pulled Pete aside and went through his backpack with a fine-tooth comb, no doubt because of all his electrical cords and things! Either that or he just looked really suspicious?

    Qantas wasn’t too bad, a full flight, on time, they fed us. From the airport it was easy to get on the train to Central, then on to Ashfield. Vince picked us up at the train station and here we are!

    So this first week is family time, the real travel won’t start until we carry on to Singapore on Monday 27th so keep an eye out then. We had a great time on Saturday morning at a playground in the huge Olympic Park, wandered round the lake and saw giant carp and eels, a couple of pelicans. Pete’s nephew Gareth came for dinner and took a family photo, a hot day so bare tummies were the best thing for the boys.

    Sunday morning we were out early to Ashfield Aquatic Centre, all six of us in the water and the grandparents loved it, including in the little paddling pool with its sprinklers and fountains, great fun. In the afternoon it was off to a mall for an airconditioned playground experience, Jen and I were shoe-shopping when…………..EVACUATE, EVACUATE………..sirens and hooters………….EVACUATE!!! Vince could see the kebab shop with smoke billowing out and a hose stuck into the ovens! We went to the top floor and waited because the carpark was jammed, but then went down again and carried on playing and shopping – it was quite strange because some shops shut but most didn’t, the barber had kept on cutting hair, business as usual pretty much so we carried on, roasted only by the temperature outside when we got home. Thank goodness for aircon in the bedrooms of Jen and Vince’s little 1880’s cottage.

    I’ll check in with you in a few days, fingers crossed for cooler days! In the meantime there are lots of stories being read, songs sung, balls kicked around the back yard, and so many cuddles and snuggles given and received, so special.
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  • Day 5

    Snowflakes and spiders

    March 21, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    On Monday there was a slight trace of a gentle perfume in the garden, I thought it was maybe the grapefruit tree next door but on Tuesday morning the whole house was full of a heavy, rich perfume and flowers had opened overnight on the tree at the back door and one in the street. Not as sweet as star jasmine, but stronger and every bit as lovely. No idea what the tree is called. And later the ground underneath was covered in white blossoms with more petals falling like snow. The bees love it too, you should hear the buzzing.

    However, with gardens and undergrowth inevitably come……SPIDERS! Anyone who knows me will know I’m petrified of spiders (except daddy longlegs and small jumping spiders) and I’ve been wary each time we’ve come to Australia expecting them to jump out at me. In the yard out playing Oisin casually said ‘oh there’s a cockroach’ which didn’t worry me. BUT……. Look again, it was actually a fairly sizeable huntsman tearing up and down an outdoor cushion Jen was shifting. Just as well I was two meters away. It took a couple of attempts to kill it and the dead body was pretty big. Scary for sure, and I was too scared to even move or scream.

    Flowers and trees are really vibrant, beautiful colours all around the area. Ashfield is a fairly old suburb, Jen and Vince live in an 1880’s workers cottage with a few similar cottages in the street. Many houses are brick, some have lovely tiled paths and entrances, some are in good nick, others falling apart. There aren’t many terraces like you see in the inner city, and there are a lot of three- and four-storey newer apartment complexes. Jen said a lot of the area has been rezoned to allow higher density housing so I guess in ten years the suburb will look a lot different.

    On Tuesday the boys were in day care, Jen and I went shopping, we left Pete at home – he was happy doing a few jobs for Vince so went to Bunnings for a couple of brackets so had to try out the café (no Mitre 10 here) and even used a self-checkout which we both try to avoid. And so did I at Uniqlo. Technophobes!

    We went by train and I noticed the mystery man on the side of a building, don’t know who he is but he looks as though he’s being seen through slightly opaque glass, it’s a great sight.

    Shopping was great, so many shops, so much choice, I’d forgotten what it was like to live in a big city. I’d been looking for shoes and found them reasonably easily, bought a dress, top and jumper so came home happy.

    We had a wander round the Queen Victoria Building – QVB – beautiful stained glass, high ceilings, Victorian tilework, saved from demolition some years ago and now full of high-end shops. On previous visits we’ve had high tea there, a real treat if you have time.

    It was so nice to spend a day with Jen, just like old times when we lived in Singapore.
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  • Day 6

    Trains, boats and planes

    March 22, 2023 in Australia

    Wednesday 22nd – a lovely day out with Oisin and Jen while Flynn was in day care, it was lots of fun from start to finish. We walked ten minutes to get the train so that was exciting for Oisin. First stop was the NSW State Library, we’d been there before and would go again. It has the most beautiful reading room in the middle of the original building with richly coloured stained glass, an art gallery with a portrait section (even has two Gottfried Lindauer paintings of Māori), landscapes and generally paintings describing the settlement and history of the state.

    The old entrance/exit has huge old pillars outside and in the lobby on the floor there’s a stone map of the Pacific showing Abel Tasman’s voyages including (as seen in the photo) his 1642 expedition where he mapped the top of the south island and lower north island – easy to see our Nelson home and Farewell Spit. And the doors are huge with brass or bronze (not sure which) panels depicting Aboriginal life and also portraits of important colonists who contributed to the founding of Sydney.

    The main reason for going to the library though, was for a small exhibition of children’s books highlighting their illustrators and how they went about their work. There were lots of books with an emphasis on diversity but also well-loved Australian books. Oisin was very excited to see the Grug and the painting of its house. https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/imagine-t…

    We headed down the hill to Circular Quay and had lunch at an Italian place Pete and I had been to last year, friendly service, good food – and the peach and passionfruit spritzer was pretty good. Oisin and I spent time looking at the big buildings and watching the ferries come and go, very exciting for the boy.

    I love seeing the old sandstone buildings and got a few photos. There’s so much history in Sydney, well worth a visit and a lot to see especially around the Rocks area and the gardens near Circular Quay but that’s just the start. We’ve been here a few times now and see something different each trip.

    After lunch we walked along towards the Opera House then headed home on the train again – Oisin was pretty tired and well ready for his bed at 7pm.

    We ticked the train box, ticked the boat (ferry) box, and the plane box? Ashfield is under the flight path to and from the airport so planes are frequent but you get used to them. And we'll be heading that way ourselves in a few days.
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  • Day 10

    Last days in Sydney

    March 26, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    The remaining four days in Sydney have been fairly quiet. The weather has been hot, humid, rain, thunder, drizzle, mild, sunny, hot…………repeat, repeat. There’s been a lot of soccer played by Granddad and Oisin in the yard, Flynn is just learning to throw a ball so we’ve had games outside with him too. Oisin and I made up Lego farm bricks from the supermarket, just like the ones in NZ, they’ve just been introduced here. I collected them and made a great little farm which I gave away to a friend’s grandson but things are different here: I’d never seen a henhouse, drone or scarecrow in the NZ packages so great excitement to find them. Yes, I know – I haven’t grown up yet!

    We’ve visited a few playgrounds including a playland at Rhodes Mall, very impressed with that one and Flynn and Nan had some big races in the ball pit. A new adventure for me, lots of fun. There are three or four playgrounds within walking distance of Jen and Vince’s place, couldn’t resist a slide and swing at this one.

    We’ve had a drive around the neighbourhood, streets full of Federation era houses (early 1900’s), different sizes, some with wrap-around verandas, all brick with stucco on some, delicate stained glass in some windows – a contrast to the older Victorian houses we’ve seen, and worker’s cottages like Jen and Vince’s. So different from New Zealand architecture.

    Very excited to find an IKEA in Rhodes Mall, no time to get lost in the endless aisles unfortunately but we did buy our favourite ginger snaps which we knew as ‘Anna’s Biscuits’, always a must-buy at IKEA in Singapore when we’d go to buy one thing and go home with bags full of ‘essentials’ (okay, probably not really essential) for our apartment.

    Today we had a lovely walk along the Glebe shoreline, which is in a little cove (Blackwattle Bay) part of Sydney Harbour – you can just see the Harbour Bridge in my bigger photo if you look closely. And the close-up, I thought the Tanqueray Gin signage on the building was appropriate when you looked at the line-up of ‘gin palaces’ docked across the bay. Not envious of course. There are lovely new apartment blocks along the shoreline, gardens, parks, and a big playground where we stopped for a while before lunch.

    We finished with lunch in The Tramshed – as it sounds, refurbished tramsheds with a token old tram and the rest of the place has several restaurants, all sorts from Italian to Vietnamese. On Sunday there’s a small market in the middle with stalls for lovely candles, fresh bread, olives, handcrafts etc, and there’s also a good supermarket with an emphasis on fresh produce so we came home with focaccia and strawberries for tea.

    And that’s our nine days in Sydney, next stop Singapore and then on to Barcelona on Thursday. We’ll be back to Sydney late May. Please join us on our travels over the next few weeks.
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  • Day 12

    Familiar faces, familiar places

    March 28, 2023 in Singapore ⋅ 🌙 27 °C

    We spent most of Monday 27/3 travelling,, Jen having dropped us at the train late morning (very good train service from Ashfield to the airport), 8-hour flight Sydney to Singapore, not too crowded, we sat in aisle seats across from each other and each had an empty seat beside us so that was good. Food was okay, Qantas crew very pleasant. And we barely had to stand and wait going through to immigration in Sydney, not a repetition of the 90 minutes in Auckland thank goodness.

    Timeline – we lived in Singapore for several years, in Asia for more than 10, this will explain how we got there
    • April 1993 Pete was made redundant by Telecom, went to work in Ho Chi Minh City for a year for NZ company TeleNZ
    • Nov/Dec 1997 Pete/then family moved to Bangkok, Pete working for Nokia
    • Oct 1998 Pete working mainly in Singapore on a Nokia project, family in BKK completing schooling
    • July 1999 Family to Singapore
    • Feb 2002 Pete made redundant by Nokia, took 3 1/2 years of telecom contract work in Thailand, Philippines, Kuala Lumpur; Andy to Melbourne to Uni 2002, Jen to Brisbane to Uni 2004; Ailsa worked in Singapore 2000-2005
    • Aug/Sept 2005 Pete/Ailsa to Hiroshima, Japan, contracting to Nokia
    • Oct 2007 Redundant again, moved to Bangkok to look for work but nothing came up
    • Feb 2008 Pete/Ailsa returned to NZ

    We’ve had a few short stays in Singapore over the past years on our way to see the family in Poland, it’s always good to get back. This time we’re staying at Hotel Royal on Queens Road, good tourist grade, comfortable room, very pretty to look out at the lights from the 13th floor at midnight. It’s two blocks from Raffles, might have to find a Singapore Sling tomorrow

    Got a taxi from the airport, typical taxi ‘uncle’ talked the whole time, we got the gen on the new expressway and how many billion $ it cost, tourism is picking up which is good, no masks unless going to the doctor or hospital AND the best chicken rice in Singapore is down in Chinatown, he gave us the address three times, so keen for us to go. Lovely man. Hard to get my language ear back into the ‘Singlish’ though, a bit hard to understand the fast chat, but so familiar all the same, made us smile.

    Headed out this morning having bought bus/MRT cards, not without difficulty but I have to say there was a very helpful and proactive young woman at the station on duty to help helpless tourists, very impressed. In the mall above the station we saw three cops, all armed with tasers and possibly guns (didn’t like to stare), Singapore is still a safe place.

    We took the 77 bus to Holland Village – I took that bus route from Orchard Road every day for more than five years to and from work, interesting to see the changes but also there’s much the same ‘Fort Americal (AKA the US Embassy) is still standing alongside the Aussies and Brits. All around the Botanic Gardens still looks like a jungle in the middle of the city, Singapore has a law that a certain percentage of the island has to remain green, a good thing. Funny to see two ‘helpers’ (or maids) on the bus with two little expat kids in strollers, kids were griping so they gave the kids their phones to play with, next thing we hear the familiar ‘Baaaaby Shark, do do do do, do dit, do do’. Oisin and Flynn love that song.

    We had a look around Lims Chinese furniture and Asian homeware store, my fingers itched to get some of the blue and white pottery to add to my collection, not to mention wooden cabinets, but Pete reckoned they wouldn’t fit in the backpacks. Bother!

    Then we met up for coffee with our old friend of nearly 25 years, Amy, so much to catch up on about family and what we’ve all been doing, shared memories are wonderful. Then we went to 6th Avenue for old time’s sake to check out our old neighbourhoods. Quite a bit of building going on, some seriously expensive real estate around the area now, condos and houses. The workers still have their makan (lunch) then lie in the shade for a sleep, we tiptoed past.

    Our Lily Avenue house is still standing but we were amazed at the beautiful park next door. One photo shows the huge storm drain that was at the end of our cul de sac, and the other shows that it has been completely piped in (the whole canal job cost $500m I believe), and a park, playground and walking/cycling track created.

    Took the bus back to Orchard Road and had Yakitori chicken at Ngee Ann City food court, nostalgia again. It was my go-to meal at least once a week when I was living on my own, I worked for NZ Defence in the Ngee Ann City tower block (it has 8 floors of food and shopping complex, and about 40 storeys of office space in two towers).

    I’d booked a treat for the evening, another of our favourite places, the 70th floor of Swisshotel the Stamford where we took visitors to see the sun go down, beautiful. When booking on line they asked ‘any special occasion?’ so, ever resourceful (cheeky?) I said it was an early birthday celebration, and please could we have a table by the window. So we got the table and a surprise cake and candle. There were two young men alongside us setting up advertising for Veuve Clicquot champagne, bottles and glasses set up for photos with food, the staff member pouring, sunset, views – interesting to watch and they were ready for a chat too, having been assured that they weren’t disturbing us at all. The sunset was pretty but it’s really lovely watching the sky dim and all the city lights come on below us, beautiful. Such a good day all round.
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  • Day 13

    More friends and food

    March 29, 2023 in Singapore

    We repacked for our night flight after breakfast (adequate, basic mix of ‘American Breakfast’ and Asian with fresh fruit, toast, croissants etc), checked out and left our bags at the hotel. I had arranged to meet two old friends from my High Commission/Defence days for lunch so they introduced me to the Defence PA and I had a look through some of the HC, great view over Boat Quay and down to the sea. We went to a nearby Hawker for delicious chicken rice and kalian, so I was very happy, and we had an hour catching up on family, ex colleagues etc, a very pleasant hour spent.- Very pleased with the photo of the view looking across to the Stamford where we were last night on the 70th floor

    Pete had gone wandering on his own when I went to the HC so, despite it being (according to Google weather) ’32 degrees, feels like 37’, I walked along to Boat Quay and down to the Fullerton Hotel where I braved the revolving door (I hate them, scary) and had 15 minutes wandering round their little museum and breathing in the perfume from several enormous flower arrangements with lots of pink lilies amongst other blooms, it was really beautiful. The Fullerton used to be the General Post Office many years ago. In our time they had amazing Sunday brunches with ‘free pour’ champagne and I have to say we indulged a few times, great food, lovely surroundings by the river, what’s not to like?

    Next stop was the Asian Civilisations Museum, stopping to take a photo of my reflection in the ball sculpture on the lawn, it has the sounds of the city quietly coming out of speakers – kids, trains, cars, birds etc, very effective. ACM has a great display of goods from a shipwreck https://www.nhb.gov.sg/acm/galleries/maritime-t…, and another set of pottery from about the 8th century, some gold, all sorts. I loved two dresses in the small costume display, maybe 2-300 years old, a gold cup, and a beautiful headless statue that looked like very faded painted wood, fascinating.

    Then out into the ’32 degree’ heat to walk down to Raffles City mall where I met Pete for a cold drink and after that we headed to the Long Bar in Raffles itself for, of course, a Singapore Sling. We had plenty of time up our sleeves so the maybe 20-minute queue to get in didn’t bother us standing in the shade. They were busy but we both felt there were fewer tables on the main floor, and they seemed to be sending bigger groups of maybe five or more, up the circular staircase to the additional bar. I chucked peanuts on the floor, as you do, and we had the obligatory photo, it was a pleasant way to pass an hour. We were sitting at the bar and chatting to the man next door, in his 80’s, on his way home after a cruise round Australia and NZ.

    It was also a chance to find out what Pete was doing out on his own, behaving of course, he’d had more than three hours walking the back streets, went as far as Sri Mariamman temple, crossed the river, got some photos of pretty good art work on some shops. He likes just wandering and seeing what’s around the next corner.

    We were able to have a shower at the hotel pool, got a taxi to the airport, and I’d booked us into a lounge for a few hours so we were able to relax with their buffet meal, something to drink. Nice and easy.
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  • Day 14

    Singapore photos and a few thoughts

    March 30, 2023 ⋅ ⛅ 30 °C

    I thought I’d add a few photos taken in Singapore including the silver ball photo missed in the original post.

    We’re now in Barcelona and I’m thinking about the long day from Singapore to Barcelona, though it won’t be the longest flight in our whole trip, and have made a couple of observations of customer service along the way. I’ve been in that business since starting work 50 whole years ago as a telephone exchange operator aged almost 17, have been in PA/secretarial roles and various training/teaching of adult roles along the way. I think you need to be polite and friendly but not servile and it disturbed me in Singapore to see men and women cleaners and other similar roles almost bowing when they were given a polite thank you.

    On the other hand, in a public facing role in airports such as check-in, managing queues, checking boarding passes and passports on boarding, those people need to be on their guard for dodgy people (not us of course) but can still be polite. A sneering nod of the head or flick of the hand when indicating to come forward doesn’t do it for me, nor a snapped answer and virtual push off.

    Flight crews so far have varied too. The Qantas crews Auckland/Sydney and Sydney/Singapore were ‘normal’ – efficient but pleasant, friendly, had a few laughs and nothing seemed to be a bother. Emirates on the other hand were there just to pick up their pay; they looked bored, weren’t very visible, barely smiled, didn’t interact with the passengers much at all. A real contrast and Emirates had a good reputation but now the cost cutting shows too with no amenity packs for night flights, no printed menus (first world problem of course), snacks served were ‘interesting’ – a choice of a hot pre-packaged bread roll filled with a cheese or egg mix, plus water and a dryish sweet small cupcake. Meals varied from fairly unappetising to not too bad.

    But back to customer service and you definitely do get some gems such as the lovely Filipina lady at the boarding gate in Dubai, short and quite round (like some of us are), ‘Good morning’ greeting with a happy smile, checked the boarding pass and passport and sent us on our way with a ‘have a nice flight’. Great example to others.
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  • Day 15

    Food relieves frustrations

    March 31, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Our overnight flight from 1am in Singapore on 30 March to 3pm in Barcelona – it was a beautiful sight going over India, I was surprised at how populated it seemed, so many lights like a blanket of stars, some scattered but many quite dense - very pretty. We had two legs via Dubai, had a bit of a challenge finding the bus shuttle from Barcelona airport to the city so in the end took a taxi, pleasant driver but silent, no social comment from this one, unlike our nice man in Singapore. We had a wander round early evening, found some fruit and Spanish pastries at the big and busy fruit/meat/fish market a couple of hundred meters away, and were in bed not much after 9pm, we really needed a good night’s sleep.

    Our hotel is directly across from the Gaudi museum and there have been a dozen or so people lining up most times we've gone in and out. Not tempted to go in ourselves, we went to the Batllo Gaudi house when we were in Barcelona in 2017 and really liked it, pretty, colourful, and Gaudi influences are everywhere of course.

    We’re staying at Hotel Gaudi https://www.hotelgaudibarcelona.com/en/, 100m from La Rambla, 200 from a Metro underground stop, not far to the cruise port for our start on Monday. It’s a good tourist-grade hotel, obviously fairly recently renovated with the rooms freshly painted white, upgraded very good bathroom (excellent shower), comfortable bed. We’ve got the cheapest room I think, a window that opens into a fire escape courtyard but it has a grille outside so happy to part open it when we’re in the room during the day and you don’t see a view when you’re asleep. Breakfast was typical cereals, fresh and preserved fruit, cold cuts, hot bacon and sausages, bread and a toaster, rolls, jam – all we needed, served in a light bright room with a comfy sitting area/library next door.

    Friday 31st was a ‘life admin’ morning, as Jen calls it. Pete went to the laundry along the street, did a wash then found the dryer didn’t work, the place didn’t have any on-site staff (all coins and self-programmed) so he came back for breakfast then went to another place further up the street – success second time round and nice dry clothes. He thinks he’ll try again on Monday, can’t lose that new-found skill! I did a bit of sorting out and reorganising bags, emails, and it was a productive morning.

    Next task was to find the tourist information office but on the way we popped into a church on La Rambla, the organ was playing and on the face of it the church was quite plain but it actually had some lovely stained glass and the Stations of the Cross were pottery plaques, quite unusual. This may be a theme in the blog – I’m not religious (Pete is the Catholic in the family) but I love old churches and the ritual of Mass so am always keen to have a look around. In Europe they seem to be very ‘anonymous’, often just a door on a street, but when you go in you find several hundred years of history, gold, paintings………..all sorts. However, at the end of ten weeks let’s see how I’m doing.

    Anyway, we were off to buy an all-in-one ticket to Montserrat, taking in metro, local train, gondola from station to Montserrat Abbey, Montserrat museum ticket, interactive display ticket, café meal. A bargain, and we wanted to go to the Abbey again having had a morning tour from Barcelona back in 2017. Lesson learned – don’t always trust Google maps implicitly, accept that English is not the first language in Spain, realise that hand waves don’t necessarily point in the way you think they do, don’t have a hissy fit when things don’t work, and…….go with the flow (eventually). Oh, and policemen are handsome and kind, not very good at giving directions to the nearby (apparently) station, but when they’re standing next to KFC and you’re hungry and cross it’s a good idea to have late lunch. Be warned – KFC Barcelona in Placa Espana tastes good but the wait is every bit as long as KFC in Tahuna.

    And long story short-ish, the multi ticket isn’t being sold at present so, having worked out how to buy Metro tickets, we headed off to check out the meeting point for our ‘Devour’ food and history tour, had a walk through the Gothic quarter then back to the hotel to decide what to do on Saturday.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Quarter,_B…
    https://devourtours.com/tours/barcelona-tapas-t…

    The food tour that night was great from start to finish. The company ‘Devour’ has tours in various European cities, we’d been on one in Madrid. The guide, Alex, English 40-ish, and a trainee young woman, Benedetta was Italian and they tag-teamed through the evening. History/food – what a great combination. We had a group of six Canadians (two brothers, sister and spouses), a couple from Detroit and the Gillins from NZ. Everyone was really friendly and the Canadians’ first question was ‘what happened to your Prime Minister? We heard she quit!!!’ They couldn’t believe it.

    I’ve put in a photo of the ‘Bishop’s Bridge’ which we’ve seen a few times as we’ve walked around, and it has a bit of a story – the architect in 1928 had submitted several plans for Barcelona’s new buildings but only this one for the bridge was accepted. Apparently disappointed, he secretly incorporated a hidden skull (a real one, not stone) with a dagger inside it, and supposedly anyone who crosses the bridge and sees the skull will have bad luck. On the other hand, if you walk backwards under the bridge while making a wish it will come true.

    I’ve attached a link to the tour website. It was fairly fast-paced and the main things learned were: don’t eat on La Rambla because it’s pretty much a rip-off; and always go down quiet dodgy-looking alleys because you’ll quickly come to a little square with at least one small place to eat, local food, local prices, great value.

    The food was excellent apart from (in my opinion) deep fried skinny fish, too ‘fishy tasting’ for my liking, but Pete ate it all. At the first place they lined up the cava on the bar when we walked in, and after eating they brought out glasses of vermouth. And so it carried on! We got the history of the bars, the history of the general area, info about food, we ate lots, drank a bit, and at the third place we had an actual meal, three small courses, the dessert being crème Catalan which is flavoured with orange, cinnamon and nutmeg – crème brulée is apparently a distant second best because it’s ‘only flavoured with vanilla, very bland’.

    All very delicious, and we rolled back to the hotel after a very satisfying evening.
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  • Day 16

    Monks on a mountain - Montserrat

    April 1, 2023 in Spain

    Saturday 1/4 After getting pretty much nowhere on Friday afternoon we decided to do a full day tour instead of doing our own thing, much more efficient and time-effective, so chose to go to Montserrat and then lunch and wine tasting at a 10th century castle – what’s not to like about that? Taxi to a bus hub, met up with our really lovely tour guide Guille and a group of 17 so not too big. Guille is from Argentina, mid-20’s, bubbly and did a great job. The group was mainly American, and we ended up mostly with a Filipina woman, Chris, who worked in the Telecom supply industry based in Dubai, and was travelling on her own. She was good company.

    It was good to see more of the main city, we remembered that many of the houses (or really apartment blocks I guess, several storeys high) had quite ornate balconies, this time I noticed pulleys sticking out below the roofline, I guess no other way to get stuff in other than through the front windows – what a task! Further out we were seeing what seemed to be shantytowns, bits of tin and whatever spread out, some with little vege plots around them, but most in very scrubby countryside and sad to see. The area is very dry, not a lot of rain in the past months and farms are struggling.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_de_Mo…

    Montserrat (‘serrated/jagged mountain’ if you hadn’t guessed the translation) dominates the views as you get out of the city, it was about an hour’s drive and Guille gave a good commentary on the way about Barcelona’s history, the use now of the mountain for rock climbing and dare-devil jumping etc, and then about the abbey’s history. I’ve put in the link, lots of detail about this lovely place dating back to the supposed discovery of the Black Madonna in a cave on the mountain in 880. There have been bad bishops, miracles, destruction by Napoleon, good times and bad, but it is an amazing place to visit and very well done with an emphasis still on the pilgrim side of it with the monks taking care of visitors and the abbey but not visible usually until after 6pm when only those staying in the abbey’s accommodation part are left.

    In essence the train from Barcelona goes close to the abbey but then you either walk uphill or get a gondola or smaller railway to the abbey itself. It’s on a small plateau which you can see in a photo I cribbed from our visit in 2017. At that time we took the funicular right up high above but today it was closed due to fire risk on the mountain, we saw several fire crews as we travelled. So, although closed at times, the funicular is one ‘attraction’ and as for the rest: you can hike half an hour to a cross on another high point, take a path downhill to a small chapel on the site of the famous cave, there are two cafes if you’re hungry, an interactive ‘history of the abbey’ display which takes about half an hour, the museum/art gallery, the church itself with the famous Madonna………..and great views and some other walking paths. The abbey supports a famous boys choir, live-in tuition and music up to when the voices break, not singing at the moment because of school holidays but tourists can hear them in the church each day when they’re there.

    The whole group went to the church and had a good look around, beautiful stained glass and statues, and to the side there was a constant stream of people going up the steps above the altar, walking in front of the Madonna, brief stop to pray, then out again. You had to buy tickets for that, which some of our group did, Chris especially was so happy to have done that. There was a statue outside of (I think) St Joseph and his eyes followed you wherever you walked to the side or in front – creepy but clever.

    Pete and I went to the museum/art gallery, some very serious value in their art collection with Picasso’s old fisherman (and I had no idea he painted ‘normal’ pictures, this was from when he was about 30 and is so lifelike), others from Caravaggio, Degas, Monet, Breughel, and many others. Some beautiful paintings and we spent a lot of time there and then in the museum itself with all sorts of things from an Egyptian mummy to the richly decorated works of gold, enamel, silver etc in the ‘treasury’. There’s also an enormous library with extremely old and valuable books and manuscripts though not open to the public.

    Last stop was the interactive display which started with a big video of the history from discovery through to Napoleon’s destruction and through to now, then walk-through information about all sorts of things, sporting activities on the mountain, and finished with a short concert video from the choir and it looks as though the boys have a good life of music, general education, travel for concerts around the world etc. We met up at 1.45 with the rest of the group at the cheese and honey stalls set up at the gates, plenty there to try and buy if you wanted, all very high quality apparently. The abbey wasn’t hugely busy though there seemed to be an awful lot of cars in the carpark as well as a few buses, so we’d had around three hours to look around in total and now be overcrowded.

    I’ve put in a couple of photos from 2017 taken from the top of the funicular so you can see the layout and of the Madonna because on that visit we did see her up close.

    https://ollerdelmas.com/energia-i-sostenibilita…

    We drove on for half an hour to the Oller del Mas winery for a late lunch, but first walked about 500m round the edge of the vineyard which looked a bit scruffy to my eyes but they told us they are a sustainable vineyard (not quite organic) and don’t mow between every second row in alternate years but let the grass and plants grow then plough them in for nutrients, do the same with the alternate row the following year. The vines were cut right back with just a few leaves of the new season’s growth showing. It would be a beautiful sight in summer. The centuries-old castle has been joined by a few very posh-looking ‘cabins’ for accommodation, another money-making scheme to keep things going, they looked very inviting.

    The group and Guille sat around the table for delicious vegetable soup, chicken with potato and asparagus, crème Catalan to finish, and two glasses of the Oller del Mas wine which was the start of the ‘tasting’. We moved into the castle for that – four fairly generous offerings (Pete felt obliged to drink my red), then a short tour of part of the building including a look at very old cellars through grill doors, no chance of borrowing another bottle. I’d love to have seen more about the history of the family itself, there’s a bit in the link above if you go through it though.

    We had time for a wander round the grounds, sat for a while in the garden chatting while some bought more wine to take home and Pete had a glass of their special ‘orange’ wine to try (at $25, he didn’t realise that’s what he paid!). We’d been told all through about the family-run aspect and Pete asked the young man behind the bar if he was one of the family. The answer was ‘definitely not, with the money they’ve got they wouldn’t be doing this job’.

    An hour’s ride took us back to the city, we had a bit of a spell then went across to the Gothic quarter for tea, found the Bar des Pi that we’d been to first on our food tour so thought ‘that’s good for us’, tapas and a glass of cava and beer and we were set. Another good day on our holiday - and I've loaded the photos from the winery in the next episode....
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