We had a morning visit to the town of Tournon sur Rhone. Another smallish town in what has been a depressed area but is now enjoying some restoration and economic growth thanks largely to tourism. The dominant, prison-like building as you look across the river is a public high school, the second oldest in France, […]
Friday 27 June: Viviers
We had a morning sailing and then guided walking tours of the small town of Viviers. It’s historic (like all the towns) and cute with a castle on the hill. The main reason for the visit to this area were the optional bus tours to the lavender fields and truffle farm. Given my tendency to […]
Thursday 26 June: Avignon
We arrived in Avignon quite late on Wednesday evening as there was a queue to get through one of the locks. There are quite a few locks to go through and we are travelling upstream so we rise up through the locks. A number of them are also power stations. We had signed up to […]
Wednesday 25: Arles
We had a bit of sorting out to do with our tours as the AvalonGo app doesn’t work properly for NZ and Australia but our tour director is very adept. In the morning we just chilled out on the boat and enjoyed down time. The food on the boat is great and you have a […]
Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 June: Beziers to Arles
Mike and I both had slightly dodgy stomachs on Monday morning so we headed to the Champs Elysees equivalent in Beziers where we got drinks and a croissant. Mike also wanted a haircut. According to Google there are 2 barbers just 400m away which we navigated to in blistering heat. Both were closed even though […]
Sunday 22 June: Beziers
Eventually it cooled down enough and we all got some sleep. The music finished at about 12.30 which wasn’t too bad and everything was quiet not too long afterwards. We did some washing and headed out to find coffee and something to eat. There seemed a shortage of open cafes although the market had a […]
Saturday 21 June: to Beziers
We said goodbye to Pauline, who was off to Tarragona on babysitting duties and then to a family holiday with Sarah and Hamish and Fin in the South of Spain. Our train left mid afternoon so we got a taxi and sorted out the correct access point and platform at the railway station. Getting through […]
Friday 20 June: Barcelona
A hotter day as we were heading for a high of 32C, which is a lot on the top deck of a hop on hop off bus. We decided to get another 24 hour ticket and complete the red route, given we’d had to abandon that less than half way on Wednesday in order to […]
Thursday 19 July: Park Guell
We still had ¡travel time on our Hop on hop off bus ticket so we walked to the first stop and bused to Park Guell. It’s another World Heritage site that was designed by Gaudi as part of an intended housing subdivision. His father bought the first show home and he and his father and […]
Wednesday 18 July: Barcelona
This was a big day. Hop on hop off bus in the morning, followed by a visit to the Sagrada Familia in the afternoon then a tour and concert at Casa Batilo, which is one of Antonio Gaudi’s former homes. The big focus was on the modernist architecture of Barcelona, much of which was influenced […]
Tuesday 17 June: Barcelona
Our host ordered a taxi for us which arrived on time and we were able to purchase unappealing sandwiches to take on the train. The train from Seville to Granada had no restaurant car and we were a bit anxious given this was a 5 hour journey. The train was uncharacteristically 10 minutes late and […]
Monday 16 June: Cordoba
Today we had tickets for the Mosque-Cathedral and hop on hop off bus. We booked our visits in the wrong order in retrospect. Should have done the bus tours first before it got too hot and the Mosque-Cathedral later as we would be inside. Oh well. There is a lovely green courtyard that has a […]