Not a very interesting travel day. Both of us have been dealing with nagging medical issues so we decided to use today to go by a clinic and get them looked at. We both had our diagnoses confirmed and got some prescriptions to deal with the issues.
In the afternoon we went to downtown San Diego for dinner at Melvin’s. We had a great dinner of Thai Curry. This brewery is originally from Wyoming and was the house brewery for a Thai restaurant, which is an unusual way to found a brewery. Their beer is considered one of the best micro breweries in the country. We then finished the night by taking a walk around downtown San Diego.
Ron and Dylan in front of a monument to craft beer.
Today we shifted to San Diego to see our other son Dylan. The drive over was pretty uneventful.
Ton and I were talking about the difference in how we treat distances here versus Europe. We decided to take it easy driving on the trip. Taking it easy in the US are 300 to 400 mile drives each day. As an example the drive to San Diego today was 328 miles. Our easy drives here would be 500 to 600km drives in Europe which is much farther than we would ever consider driving there. Some of it is the nature of the country. The next closest town to Las Vegas would be San Bernardino which in itself is about 180 miles, so there would be no short drives. When we come home it is interesting how quickly we can switch to the American sense of distance.
We met Dylan for dinner and went to a nice brewery. We had an interesting conversation about the government shutdown, as the office he works is closed though he is getting paid because he is working thru the University of Montana.
Today we spent the day with our son Alex. He wanted to have Korean food for lunch so we had our second Korean barbeque in three days. It was also good and Alex really enjoyed it.
After that we headed out for some shopping and then went to watch the local hockey team on TV as Alex has become a big fan. Who would have ever thought of Las Vegas as a hot bed of hockey. Unfortunately the home team lost.
Ton was looking for some Mexican food and had a place in mind. When we got there though the restaurant was closed. We just drove randomly down the road after that looking for a Mexican restaurant and found a place called Pepe’s. It turned out to be both the cheapest and possibly the best meal we had in Las Vegas. Ton really loved their salsa.
This was the last day for all of our friends in Las Vegas as they all need to get back home to go to work. The guys and Ton wanted to watch the football games, while the girls were either sleeping in from their club adventure, or shopping.
Las Vegas has a replica of the Hofbrauhaus from Munich and we decided to watch the game there. We found ourselves in this cavernous beer hall with one other couple. It was kind of strange to have that much space to ourselves. Both Ton and Tim one of our friends had been to the original Hofbrauhaus in Munich and they thought it was a pretty good imitation. Our waitress had a slight accent so we asked if she was German, and it turns out she was from Heidelberg in Germany. Her and her husband are touring the US by RV for the past few years and have stopped here to raise a little money. We enjoyed comparing the experience of RVing here and Europe for a while until she had to get off to another table.
Ton and her posse at Fremont Street.
Following the games everyone decided we had been in the posh part of Las Vegas too long and decided to head down to Fremont street. The clientele are not as elegant, but Ron felt like he belonged there, and the drinks were significantly cheaper. Our friends decided it was time to take advantage of the lower cost of gambling there, so we took our leave and headed back to Scout for the night.
When we got back there was a Blood Red Wolf Moon which was nice. The weather was talking about high wind warnings, and while a couple of good gusts hit it did not seem to be as bad as they indicated.
Today we spent with our friends, beginning with a walk down the strip for lunch at a Beer haus. After that the group splintered for a while with different people doing what they were most interested in in Las Vegas. Some went to gamble, some went shopping, and Ton and I relaxed in one of our friends posh rooms in the Cosmopolitan Hotel.
In the evening we headed out to dinner at a great Korean Barbeque near the strip. Everyone ate far too much beef and pork, but it was delicious. Following dinner we headed back to the Cosmopolitan and shared some drinks in another friends room. They had a fabulous view of the strip at night, and got to see a fireworks show, and the fountain show at the Bellagio from their balcony.
A fancy dinner with our friends.
When the group decided to go clubbing again for the night, Ton and I headed home to Scout for a good nights sleep.
Our route today was on one of Ron’s favorite stretches of roads. US-95 from Fallon to Las Vegas passes thru some of the most stark terrain in the US. There is a town about every 100 miles and the rest of the time you are surrounded by desert and mountains. Generally the traffic is light so you can enjoy the views.
We have traveled this route quite a bit as in addition to being the way we prefer to go to Las Vegas to visit our son, it also is a way to access Death Valley National Park.
It also passes by Area 54 which is an Air Force test and bombing range, where if you believe the movies the US government keeps the aliens we have captured!
The Mojave Desert with the snow capped Sierra Nevada Mountains in the background.
In addition to visiting our son on this trip, a bunch of our friends from Portland are flying in for the weekend to celebrate some birthdays and to enjoy Las Vegas. Alex picked us up at the RV park and we decided to head to the strip for dinner. While Ron was parking our rental car, Ton and Alex ran into Goi one of our friends so she joined us for dinner.
Later we went out for a late dinner and some drinks at a nice but expensive Tapas bar. The rest of the group headed off for some clubbing while Ton and I used our advanced age and ailments to skip the clubs and head to bed.
After getting up we both felt a little better so we decided to push on. We planned an easy day down to Fallon, and Ron optimistically commented that if we got to Fallon too early we could go on to the next town so we would have a shorter drive into Las Vegas the next day.
The weather was supposed to be rain with a chance of mixed rain and snow at the passes. They were mostly right, and the first 150 miles from Klamath to Alturas was just that. The next leg was about 80 miles from Alturas to Susanville California. As we climbed up to the pass the rain turned to mixed rain, and then turned to just snow. Before we new it we were on snow covered roads and in 4 wheel drive. After about 5 miles the lane we were driving in was suddenly clear of snow though the other lane had about 8 or 10 inches covering it. It turns out we were behind a snow plow. We lucked out and followed him for about 20 miles until he turned off. We covered the last 15 miles or so to Susanville in 4wd. While it was slow we made the trip without any real drama, though we did see one accident. Once we descended to Susanville we were back in the rain for the rest of the trip.
The snow plow we followed for about 20 miles. Thanks.
Because of the snow Ron’s optimistic hope of going past Fallon was dashed, and his back was pretty stiff from driving so we decided to spend one more night in a hotel.
We almost did not make this trip. Ton has been battling a rash that is making her very uncomfortable, she decided to push thru. Then the day before we were going to start, right after we completed loading Scout for the trip, Ron’s back went out. We decided to push down to Klamath Falls and see if we felt like continuing south. The drive was pretty easy though we did run into some unexpected snow coming over the cascade mountains.
Surprise mountain snowstorm.
To make it a little easier on both of us we decided to use some of our hotel points for the first night to allow for a little easier access to the bathroom and the bed. Somehow it feels like cheating on Scout.
We had an incident free flight. Thank you United airlines.
Our first trip in our own RV in Europe is over. We were a little nervous that we would burnout, but I think the opposite happened. There were more places we wanted to see. The only issue was the weather was starting to turn to winter. During the trip we covered 5500 km’s (about 3400 miles). We discovered some new parts of France, and really enjoyed Spain. I think we could do another long trip in Spain and not repeat ourselves as we have Madrid, LaMancha, the Pyrenees, and Galicia to still visit. We also think we need to give Brittany more time.
François performed well and gave us no issues. As time went by we found a good rhythm to the trip, and for the first time managed to take a few days off where we just sat and rested.
Our plans for the next trip to Europe are under way, right now it looks like Germany will be the target.
We were up bright and early to deliver François back to France Motorhome Hire. After a quick turnover we were off to the train station in Sens. The trip to Paris was quick and relatively easy, involving a train and two different subway lines. We were lucky that both the train, and the subway to the airport were express with no stops.
There was nothing much to talk about the rest of the day. We went out for a kebab dinner at a place we have discovered near the airport hotel we use. At the end we settled down for the night in a proper bed for the first time in 50 nights.
The weather is definitely going towards winter. No frost this morning but very dense fog. Over night we were joined by 4 other RV’s so it was not the quiet night we had expected.
We had two main chores to accomplish today, wash our clothes and particularly the sheets and towels, and give François a bath inside and out.
Of the two chores the most dicey looked to be getting the laundry done. We normally do our laundry at campgrounds as they usually have washers and dryers, but as the camping season is done, none of the campgrounds are open. Last night we googled laundromats in Sens and only got one response and it is right in the middle of the old city. We decided to head in there early to see if it did exist and if we could find a place to park reasonably close to the laundromat. It did exist and after a small adventure down one way roads we found a place to park only 10 minutes away. The first chore done, we headed over to Auchan and gave François a bath. The next trip Ron is going to have to lay on some proper vehicle washing supplies.
Today is Sunday so by the time we finished those two chores everything was closed. We headed back to Gron, and spent the afternoon cleaning up François’ interior and packing.
Gron, the small village where we are spending the night.
In the evening we took a quick stroll around the park next to the aire. The village has planted some apple trees in the park. Each tree is a different variety, and they all still have fruit on them. We were poking around looking at the apples when a couple from the village began encouraging us to eat them. They were all delicious much to our surprise and you could really tell the differences in the varieties.
This fellow really encouraged us to take all we could. Note the different varieties on the ground.Ton’s favorite variety based on a taste test of the different apples.
We woke up to frost, another sign that it is time to probably be going. In France most churches stop tolling there bells around 6 pm, but for some reason in Noyers they toll them all night, so I heard midnight counted off on the church bell.
The trip is pretty much in the maintenance phase at this point. Today we headed towards Sens and began getting François ready to be put in the barn for the winter. (in this case it literally is an old barn.) After fueling up with diesel and propane our pockets were considerably lighter, due to a combination of expensive French diesel, and Ron letting the fuel gauge get into the red. We stopped at Auchan to do some last minute gift shopping. Ton had done an inventory of food and planned our last cooked meals, they are going to be large in order to get rid of all of the perishables.
A village in Burgundy, one of many beautiful little villages tucked away in fields.
We have settled in in an aire in Gron and Ton is packing one of the suit cases. This aire has this super high tech toilet unlike anything we have ever seen. It is self cleaning, has a push button locking system, and dispenses soap, water, and air to dry out of a large fixture in the center. Everyone who approaches it spends a few minutes studying how to operate the thing.
As the trip is winding down we are less focused on seeing things and more focused on moving in the right direction. Now we are not googling good places to visit, but where are laundromats, and car washes in Sens.
Today though we decided to make a couple of stops, the first was Vezeley and the second was Noyers. We miscalculated the time it would take to cover the 200km’s as the GPS after behaving itself for the whole trip decided to send us on a 80km adventure along one and one and a half lane D roads which slowed us down considerably. Having said that the leaves are turning here and we did see some really beautiful countryside.
One of the roads the GPS sent us down, luckily we did not run into anyone.
When we arrived at Vezaley we pulled up in the parking lot and both of us realized we had stopped here in the spring. It is a beautiful place but it was getting late, so we decided to head to Noyers. It was a good decision.
Fall colors.
We arrived in Noyers about 4pm and it made a good first impression. We quickly got our warm clothes on as it is quite cold and spitting rain on and off. The town is one of the best collections of half-timbered buildings we have seen in France, and has an air of pride and history that made us like it quite a lot. Ton saw a patissiery and decided she wanted an eclair, but after we bought it we realized it was something else, but never the less delicious.
A courtyard of half timbered buildings in various states of restoration.Two more examples of half timbered buildings.A nice window surrounded by vines.
We ended the day in the gothic church at sunset and the stained glass windows were perfectly illuminated by the setting sun. We are really looking forward to a walk in the morning, and the sun is supposed to be out then. Right now the church bells are pealing and it is drizzling on the roof of François. Tonight we are going to give François’ heating system a test as it is supposed to get down to freezing here.
After a short nights sleep and feeling a little worst for wear we woke up to beautiful blue skies. It was time to make some tracks and begin heading towards the barn. Today we decided to drive about half way to Sens, and for the first time we used a toll road on the trip to expedite the 550 km’s we wanted to drive.
There is not much to talk about today as it was a long drive, and it turns out a holiday in France so there was extra traffic. Ton took a couple of windshield pictures of fall colors as we drove thru the central mastiff a mountainous region in central France.
This highway bridge the Viaduct de Millau jumps over a valley and is about 500 feet high and over two miles long. It is also quite expensive costing €12, but it probably saves you 45 minutes of winding down into the valley and then climbing back out. Instead you jump across the valley in 2 minutes.
The problem with traveling during shoulder season is the weather is unpredictable. It has been a wet October in Spain, and it culminated with today. When we checked the weather last night they predicted a very large storm with possible flash floods, high winds and thunderstorms. It was supposed to last all day. Our original thoughts were to begin moving north towards France by bounding up the coast to Roses. But when we checked the weather there it was actually supposed to be worst than Mataros. Eventually we decided to hunker down for the day.
This picture is recycled as the weather did not allow us to get anything nice today.
Unfortunately the weather man got it right and it was spectacularly bad weather all day. We were a little surprised that so many people were choosing to leave when the weather was so bad, and we were beginning to think we were whimps for not carrying on with our plans. It turns out we did not know that today was the last day the campground was open this year and everyone has to be out by tomorrow morning.
We were going a little stir crazy so we decided to see if the campground had anything planned for the evening, and they did, a wine tasting. We signed up and it became the highlight of our day. The tasting was by a local winery in Mataro, and there were only 6 people at the tasting, two English couples and us. Laura the representative from the winery had brought 4 wines to taste. She did a great job of explaining the characteristics of the wine from Mataro, and the wines were quite good. During the tasting we struck up a conversation with one of the English couples , and at the end of the tasting Laura surprised us by putting the 4 bottles in the center of the table and told us we were free to finish them, not knowing this we had also purchased a wine from them, so the 4 of us had the duty of finishing off 5 bottles of wine. Lyndsey and her husband John were kind enough to invite us over for supper so we could have some food with the wine. It turned into a fun night, and it was nearly 1am when we made it to bed having done our duty and finished off all of the wine. Thanks for the exceptional hospitality Lyndsey and John.
Today we planned a second trip into Barcelona. The primary purpose was to visit the interior of the Sagarda Familia, much like the Alhambra visitors are limited per day, and you have to register in advance to get a time to visit. When we returned to the campground on Sunday we signed up for the next available spot and it turned out to be at 4:45 PM today.
Today was by far the nicest day of our visit to Barcelona with clear blue skies, though it was still on the chilly side. We took the first bus into town as we wanted to spend some time in the markets at Barcelona. They have two markets and we (particularly Ton) really enjoy poking around in the markets to look at the different food products. We also used the time to look around the old town. We pretty much just wandered around looking at churches, stores, and people. Barcelona is now the third or fourth most visited city in Europe, depending on who is counting, so there is quite a lot to see. The shopping is diverse and interesting.
The entrance to the Market.A fruit and vegetable display complete with jack o lanterns, here in Spain they attach tape to the exterior of the pumpkin to make the face.
We have become addicted to Pinxos which is Basque Tapas, and had them again at lunch. In the past we had been eating mostly seafood, so today we went more towards meets and sausages. They were also delicious, Ton also had her new favorite drink at lunch, a good Spanish Vermouth.
Finally we headed over to the Sagarda for our tour. They are really serious about the time on your ticket, we got in line at 4:30, and when we got to the door they turned us around and told us to come back in 15 minutes.
While we were waiting to get in Ton took this shot depicting Judas kissing Jesus before betraying him. The numbers on the left add up to 33 in all directions, Jesus age at his death.
We have seen a lot of cathedrals in our last two trips. Ron thought the exterior of the Sagarda was a little overwrought for his tastes, and preferred the more traditional gothic cathedrals. Ton thinks you cannot compare the Sagarda with a traditional cathedral. However, Ron was wowed with the interior of the Sagarda. While the exterior is extremely busy, the interior is magically elegant, and the use of light is masterful. His vision of the columns of the cathedral as a forest of trees is stunning. The soaring ceilings are really something, and seem much grander than the large gothic cathedrals. Ton was impressed with the stained glass windows, and the way the colors effected the mood of the interior. The Sagarda is an extremely moving place, and we think Gaudi’s genius came thru on the interior, and his madness comes thru on the exterior.
The columns divide at the top to look like canopies of trees and also to support the roof.One of the few statues inside the cathedral, this one is of Mary.
Well we are starting to run into some bad weather. We woke up to temperatures in the low 40’s scattered showers and heavy wind. All together a miserable day. We hung around François for the morning, finally getting cabin fever we decided to head into town to the mall, because that’s what you do when the weather sucks.
Our thought was to catch a movie, but they do not appear to have matinees in Spain, or at least in Mataro. So we poked around the mall for a couple of hours, and then headed to the campground. We attended a class on how to make Sangria, which was fun, and we got a pitcher of Sangria to taste at the end. Some days are better than others.
While we are staying in Mataro, the purpose of the visit is to see Barcelona. The campground we are staying at is about 40 minutes outside of Barcelona, but offers free shuttles into the city which is nice. It is one of the huge campgrounds in Spain that cater to European snowbirds, there are over 300 spots here, with a bar, restaurant, pool, beach club, and tourist activities. It is quite a place.
The weather was a little better than yesterday but cold. The place we visited two days ago had snow overnight, and it was still raining when we set off. We intended today to be a bit of a reconnaissance of Barcelona so we did not have any firm plans but just wanted to get a feel for the city.
When we got there it was raining pretty hard so we decided to duck into a coffee shop to plan the day. After nursing our coffee and chocolate as long as possible we decided to head towards the medieval cathedral. Barcelona has two cathedrals, one is world famous, and the other is the medieval one. We will talk about the famous one later.
On our way to the cathedral we bumped into a “free” walking tour of Barcelona. We had done these “free” tours in Chile and enjoyed them so we joined it. It was a good decision as it gave us some good background on Catalonia, Barcelona, and the history of Wilfred the Hairy which is Ron’s favorite medieval name, (Richard the Lionhearted, Charles the Brave, and Wilfred the Hairy were all contemporaries more or less, apparently Wilfred was exceptionally hairy).
The door of the Gothic Cathedral in Barcelona.Wilfred the Hairy depicted slaying a dragon (that looks suspiciously like a giant parrot) on the side of the cathedral
We stopped in a little cafe on the tour that was run entirely by Americans, but they had a good vermouth that Ton and I enjoyed. After the tour was over they were offering a non-free Gaudi and modernisme tour. We decided to join that tour also.
The modernisme movement flourished in Barcelona in the early 1900’s and is led by a guy named Gaudi. We looked at several interesting versions of modernisme buildings ending with a tour of the La Sagarda Familia. It is an extremely interesting building. Gaudi was a Catalan who is considered the leader of the modernisme movement. The university he received his architecture degree from said they were giving a degree to either a genius or a madman.
The facade of a building Gaudi re-modeled in the early 1900’s.Another Gaudi building from the early 1900’s he hated straight lines and symmetry as he believed they were not natural.
The Sagarda was commissioned by the city during the 1880’s and Gaudi took over the building a year after it was started. In the end he did descend into madness, and it became his obsession. It is still under construction 140 years later, and looks like it has another 20 or 30 years to go, though the official completion date is supposed to be in 8 years. One interesting fact is that for the first 130 years it was under construction it did not have a building permit. They recently resolved that and the commission that owns it paid a €30 million fine. We will tour the interior on Tuesday so more to come on Gaudi and the Sagarda.
The door of the Sagarda, contrast it with the Gothic Cathedral above. All of the figures around the door were plaster casts of real people in Barcelona.
There is nothing much to write about today. The weather forecast was for rain all day, and they were right. We shifted about 90 KM’s to a campground north of Barcelona where we plan to spend a few days exploring Barcelona once the rain stops.
After the drive we settled in for a maintenance day, did some laundry, bought some groceries, and listened to the rain pound on François. Tomorrow will be more interesting.
Some pretty flowers, since the rain helps make the beautiful flowers.
Tonight we are parked at a winery called Cellar Battl Artcava. We are little bit southwest of Barcelona. This area is known for a sparkling wine called Cava.
We had booked a visit to the largest producer of Cava in Spain called Codorniu, it has been in business since 1541, and is still owned by the 18th generation of the original family. We both woke up early and even though it was only a couple of hours to the winery we left pretty early, and sure enough arrived very early for our 330 pm tour. After looking at our options we decided to head into one of the larger towns nearby to see if we could knock out some laundry. That did not happen, but we did find a Lidl which is Ton’s favorite grocery store here.
After spending some money in Lidl we headed back to the winery and still had some time to kill so, so we settled in and did some reading. Finally we went in and had the light lunch we had scheduled, we met a couple from Austin who were touring Italy and Spain by car. We swapped stories about wine regions before beginning the tour.
In the foreground is a very large vessel used for olive oil production in the 16th century, in the background is a wine press from the 19th century.
We have been on a lot of wine tours but this one was unique. This is an industrial sized winery and they have the capacity to produce one million bottles in a year, though last year they “only” made 600,000 bottles. Around 1911 they focused exclusively on Cava which is a sparkling wine. The tour focused on their storage caves which are about 90 feet underground and according to the guide cover 13.5 km’s of tunnels. To prove the extent of the tunnels at one point they loaded us all onto a train and drove us around the tunnels for about 10 minutes. They are really vast. The wine was good, but we still are not great fans of sparkling wines.
Part of the extensive cellars used to store Cava while it ages 2 to 10 years.
After the tour we moved over to Cellar Battl Artcava which is supposed to be located 5 minutes from the source of the original vineyards in Catalan, so it is the Cava (winery) closest to the origin of wine here.
We have been in Catalan for a few days now and are beginning to get even more confused with romance languages. The signs here are in Catalan and Spanish. Catalan unlike Basque is a romance language, but it is as different from Spanish as French or Portuguese is. As an example wine in French is Vin, in Spanish is Vino, and in Catalan is Vi. There has been a bit of a political uproar as the Catalan parliament voted to leave Spain last year, but driving around there is no sign that anything is happening to move that forward or to stymie it, but of course we cannot read the signs in Spanish or Catalan!
This vineyard is 2 minutes from the source of the original vineyard in Catalan.
