Today was Sant Jordi day which is the Valentines day for the Catalans. We decided to head back into Barcelona for one more day before setting off for other parts of Spain so once again we were up bright and early to catch the bus to the city.
On Sant Jordi day the men give the women roses, and the women give the men books.
We started the day by heading to the old Cathedral in the Gothic district. What we didn’t realize was that Sant Jordi day was a very big deal in Catalonia. Many of the major streets down town were closed and there were more people about than were down town on Saturday.
People taking a rest from their excursion into the city for Sant Jordi day
The square in front of the Cathedral was busy, and unlike Saturday the majority of the crowd was speaking Catalan rather than a foreign language. Ton and I walked around the Cathedral while Steve and Kit went in for a tour of the interior of the cathedral.
The crowd around the Cathedral was much heavier than on Saturday. Valentines day in Catalonia is a really big holiday.
Ton and I spent our time poking into the buildings that used to be residences for the clergy and rich people. We also spent some time in the building that is now the city archives for Barcelona. The courtyards of these buildings while of a similar design were each different enough to be interesting.
The governors building on the square. Note the flags at half mast to commemorate Pope Francis.
After spending some time around the cathedral and some meandering thru the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter it was time for lunch. Our first choice was closed on Wednesday but Ton had spotted a place nearby and it turned out to be a great find. We got the last four seats available and had a wonderful meal with 4 Tapas, 3 beers, and 2 big plates of Paella. The food was wonderful and it came to around €23 per person.
After lunch we braved the crowds on Las Ramblas to get to the market.
The Market was our next stop. Las Ramblas was teeming with people, and the roads that run parallel to it were closed to handle the overflow. It was a good thing.
The main aisle in the Mercat de la Boqueria.
We spent about 30 minutes in the market and both Kit and Ton made some purchases despite the crowds. It was getting a little overwhelming for me so I was happy when we were done shopping.
No egg shortage in Spain.
Our final stop for the day was at one of Gaudis’ buildings. In honor of St. Jordi they had added Roses to the facade. It was very beautiful, but drew the biggest crowd we had run into for the day. The sidewalk in front Casa Batllo was the densest group of pedestrians I have seen since Tokyo. It was impossible to move without bumping into someone. Despite that Ton and Kit really enjoyed taking pictures while I hung out at the edge of the crowd.
The roses really added to the beauty of the Casa Batllo.
At this point we were all pretty tired from the walking and the crowds so we found a coffee shop to hang out in until it was time to head to the bus for our trip back to the camp. We learned that Sant Jordi day is a really big deal in Catalonia, and a day when the local people can take over their own city.
Today we stayed around the campground while Kit and Steve got there motorhome set up. They are lucky to have gotten a brand new motorhome as their rental so it is sparkling clean. They spent some time getting their bags unpacked and set up. We then joined them on their first shopping trip to a large Spanish grocery. 2 1/2 hours later we emerged they had two carts full of food and supplies for their trip. We had a couple bottles of wine and a six pack of beer. By the time we were finished and they had packed away their food and supplies it was time for dinner. Kit treated us to a nice Thai meal while Steve and I taste tested a couple of Spanish beers. Tomorrow we are off to Barcelona again.
After a leisurely morning sleeping late and having a nice breakfast we headed into Mataro. It was Easter Monday so all of the shops in town were closed. The cafes were open and doing a booming business as families were gathering on the day off. After walking thru the town we headed down to the beach which was thriving.
Ton called this the Jenga tower.
Mataro has a large breakwater protecting its harbor with a very nice walkway on top with views to Barcelona. The harbor was full of recreational boats including a couple of large yachts, and some very nice sailboats. The walkway was quite full with people enjoying the almost perfect weather.
Life jackets lined up in preparation for the beginning of tourist season.
We enjoyed our excursion into Mataro but needed to head back to the campground as our friends Kit and Stephen were due to arrive today. We went back to the campground which was buzzing with activity with many departures, but just as many arrivals. By the end of the day the 400 spaces in the campground were full.
A quiet section of beach in Mataro.
Kit and Stephen arrived and we spent the evening catching up and planning the next couple of days. We then had a nice dinner at the restaurant in the campground before settling in for the evening.
We spontaneously decided to take a day off today. Neither one of us really talked about it, it just happened. We slept in, and then lazed around the van for the morning. Usually we will have a conversation over breakfast about what to do, but it never came up. So instead we just enjoyed a beautiful day in the campground.
We last visited Barcelona in 2018 and really enjoyed the city. One of the reasons we like this campground is that it offers a shuttle into the center of the city. We signed up for the first bus of the day, and I was a little surprised when we got to the bus stop to find over 100 people waiting. It seems that everyone had the same thought to go into the city today. The campground had put on three busses for the 9:15 departure so everyone ended up with a comfortable seat.
Barcelona is famous for this walkway called Las Rambles. When we arrived it was pretty quiet, later in the day when we returned it was packed.
When we got to the city it was raining a bit, and it would continue to rain off and on until early in the afternoon. We arrived pretty early and while things were bustling it was a fun bustling. Barcelona is one of the top tourism destinations in Europe and has been in the news lately due to local protests against over tourism. As the day went on the crowds got to be quite heavy in nearly every part of the city we visited and uncomfortably dense in the big tourist areas. I can sympathize with the locals, but also understand the attraction of this beautiful city to visitors.
The La Boqueria Market near Las Rambles. One of Ton’s favorite markets in Europe.
Our first stop was the La Boqueria Market which is just off of Las Rambles. We have visited a lot of markets in Europe and this one is near the top of Ton’s favorites so she was excited to visit it again.
Spanish Tacos on sale in one of the food cases.
Ton was looking for a certain brand of Paprika so in addition to just enjoying the ambiance of the market we were checking out all of the stalls that sold spices. Ton really enjoys going from stall to stall looking at all of the displays. She could spend hours in these markets, but is kind to me.
Pre-mixed meals to be taken home and cooked.
We had thoughts of visiting one of the coffee shops in the market but it was packed so we passed. But after visiting several spice shops we found the brand Ton was looking for and bought three cans of paprika to take back to François. Once again La Boqueria did not disappoint us.
A meat stand complete with legs of ham hanging in the back.
Our next stop for the day was the Gothic Quarter. This is one of the oldest parts of Barcelona and is full of cool streets lined with small shops and restaurants.
One of the wider streets in the Gothic Quarter.
The Gothic Quarter also contains the Gothic Cathedral which is now the second most famous Cathedral in Barcelona. We came upon it from the back and wandered around the streets surrounding the Cathedral for a while before we arrived at the front.
Part of the back of the Cathedral.
The front was impressive, but it is no longer the Cathedral that attracts the most tourists. It has been eclipsed by Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in another part of town. It is still a nice Cathedral and was getting a lot of visitors when we went by.
The Gothic Cathedral of Barcelona.
Having done a fair bit of walking already we jumped into a churro shop we came across. We shared a small portion which consisted of one very thick cup of hot chocolate and four 10 inch long churro’s. Another great fried dough.
Unfortunately it was closed or we would have had one of these instead of Churros.
Since Gaudi has just been proposed for saint hood in the Catholic Church we decided to head over to one of the famous buildings he designed. It was a pretty good walk from where we were, but Barcelona is one of the most walkable cities we have toured. Even with the big crowds it is pretty easy to get around and is full of charming things to see.
One of Gaudi’s most famous designs, he hated straight lines.
After visiting Gaudi it was time for lunch. Ton had picked out a Tapas place she wanted to try in the Gothic District. Today was one of more inefficient walking days as we double backed on ourselves several times to check out a place that caught our interest.
We came across this sculpture that we really liked in our back and forth in Barcelona. We ended up seeing it two more times as we criss crossed the city.
The Bodega Biarritz is a small place and we were worried about getting a table, but we arrived 15 minutes after they opened and they gave us a table four on the condition that we be prepared to move to a smaller table if they asked. Later in the meal they did ask so we got to enjoy two different views of this restaurant.
Our appetizer tray with the eight tapas we received as our main course.
The menu is interesting here. You get an appetizer plate of cheese and ham which is pretty standard, but the quality is high. But the chef picks the 8 tapas you receive. Each customer gets a slightly different set of Tapas. We received prawns, a dish of pork and mushrooms, a pigeon in rice, a beef and cheese dish, some chicken in a sauce, and a nice fish dish, a ham with potato and onion, and finally a vegetarian dish. They were all excellent and Ton loved the crispy prawns. We had a look at other trays that went by and they were indeed different than ours. It was one of the best Tapas places we have eaten in.
The Arch of Triumph. We are not sure what Triumph it is celebrating. Probably has something to do with beating the French.
We still had a couple of hours to kill so we crossed back across town to the Arch of Triumph. When we got there we found a nice bench to sit at and recharge our batteries, (both our personal ones, and the ones on our I-phones) while doing some people watching. We then crossed back one more time (with an 800 meter detour do to my poor google map skills) to pick up our bus back to the campsite for the night.
Our friends Stephen and Kit will be joining us on Monday for about a month. They are flying into Barcelona and renting a RV. We selected a campground outside of Barcelona because it is large and we had good memories of being here from 2018.
As I said yesterday we booked our spot here a couple of weeks ago as it is Easter weekend. In Spain it is a four day holiday so we wanted to make sure we had a spot to meet them on Monday. The campground we are staying at has about 400 places and they are all full tonight. It is a bustling place right now.
When we arrived we settled in to a spot that is a tight fit for François. Ton asked where the laundry facilities were, and we she saw the large commercial Maytag washers and dryers the afternoon was settled. We now have a fresh load of clean clothes.
We spent the day watching the other campers settle into our spots. This is always good entertainment. On our little block of sites there are three Spanish families, one Italian with three cute girls, one Bulgarian couple, and us. We’ve been watching a Spanish girl who is about the same age as the Italian girls try to get up the nerve to join them in play. Hopefully she will.
The campground is is located about 100 yards from the Mediterranean, but unfortunately there is a four lane highway and two railway tracks between us and the water. We walked over and found an underpass to the ocean but when we got under the road and the tracks there was only a narrow dirt trail along the water. So we headed back to François to settle in for the evening.
The oceanfront trail near the campground. Not very appealing.
We have been meaning to visit Girona for a while. It had a reputation as a real foody town with great restaurants which was our primary motivation. So this morning we shifted the 80 kilometers from Roses. On the way out of town we passed a car wash so we swung in and knocked some of the worst of the road dirt off François.
Girona is full of beautiful narrow streets like this. It is a town to be explored on foot which we love.
We found our aire near the center of town. It is a concrete parking lot surrounded by apartments, so not romantic, but very practical as it is only 1 kilometer from the center of the city.
Some really nice street art near our aire tonight.
The old town is built on a hill in the center of the city and has been a fortress town since the Romans. It was heavily fought over during the War of Spanish Succession in the early 1700’s when the French and Spanish fought over who was going to control Catalonia. The border was eventually settled with most of Catalonia being in Spain, and a small part around Perpignon in France. The Catalans have a slightly different feel for the story, but that is for another time.
A monument to the General who defended Girona from the French during the Napoleanic wars.
Girona is located in a very strategic spot as it controls one of the best exits from Spain into France. As a result it has suffered 25 sieges and been captured 7 times. During the period between about 715 and 980 it was basically on the front line in the war between the Christian kingdoms of France, and the Islamic rulers of Moorish Spain. During that time it changed hands multiple times.
This is the area around the Arab Baths, reflecting the Moorish influence on Girona. The church is Catholic from around 980.
Girona also had a thriving Jewish community during the middle ages that occupied an area in the center of the city. This community was forced to convert to Christianity or were expelled by the Spanish kings in 1492 (a year familiar to American educated people for a different reason).
The city is full of these pedestrian stair cases. There are many of them, some quite small that would make for a fun day of exploration if you have the legs for it.
The Cathedral in the city is located on the highest point of land in the city. The Cathedral was built on a site that the Moors had converted to a Mosque. It is Spanish Gothic. It has become famous recently as it was used in the Game of Thrones. The massive steps in front of the church are quite impressive, and fans of the show will remember them as the steps that Arya Stark fell down while being chased in Season 6.
The impressive steps leading to the hilltop Cathedral in Girona.
A lot of the walls of the city are still intact and you can walk large sections of them. We scrambled up onto them a couple of times and the views were spectacular.
This church also has some impressive steps, but it is unusual in Spain for having a spire. This is not common in Spanish Churches.
The river is crossed by multiple pedestrian bridges. The most famous is a bridge built by Gustave Eiffel who is of course famous for the Eiffel tower. Most of the bridges are stone or concrete, but Eiffel’s bridge is of course made of Iron.
The Eiffel bridge in Girona.
The architecture along the river was more modern, and reminded me of the Netherlands where buildings are built right to, or even overhanging the river. The river was pretty low right now, but must at times be much higher based on the design of the homes.
The riverfront reminded me of the Netherlands.
We also went down to the town market right before it closed. Once again we did some recreational shopping. Ton loves these old markets, and finds the regional foods to be fascinating. Even though it was close to closing time most of the vendors were still open and doing good business.
These are the red shrimp we enjoyed so much yesterday.Ton has enjoyed tomatoes since she was a child; so she was intrigued by this presentation.
After the walking and climbing (my Fitbit said we climbed the equivalent of 161 flight of stairs today) we had a long discussion about what to eat. Despite Girona’s reputation as a foody town (it is supposed to have the most Michelin stars per capita in the world) we opted for a very light lunch and two glasses of Vermouth. I think we were both still enjoying our meal from yesterday in Roses.
Figures from the Cathedral.
We did have enough room to try the local dessert called Xuixo de Crema. They are another great example of why fried dough makes the best desserts and nearly every culture has their version of it.
Our Xuixo’s (roughly pronounced Choo-chu).
Girona reminds me of why I like traveling without reservations or commitments. If not for our reservations tomorrow in Barcelona I think we would stay for another day here. Girona warrants another day of exploration, maybe more. But we were nervous about Easter weekend so we booked ourselves in the campground in Barcelona. So tomorrow we are off for Barcelona.
It was raining heavily when we woke up in the morning so we settled in and enjoyed our coffee. After we got going in the morning we checked the weather and the rain was supposed to stop around noon. We had been planning to go to Girona today, but decided to wait for tomorrow.
After the rain stopped at noon it turned into a beautiful day.
Around noon we decided to head out to the promenade and see what was happening today in Roses. On the walk down to the town it was still cold and gray, Ton took some pictures but was not happy with the result. She then told me that this region was famous for two different Prawns called Palamos and Carabinero, and handed me a list of three places we could find them.
Our restaurant where we had a great plate of shellfish and shrimp.
After checking out all three we decided on a fourth restaurant we remembered from our last stay here. We had to wait to get a table, which is always a good sign. After about 10 minutes we were seated, but had spent the time trying to decide what to order. We were still undecided when we got to the table so we used the walk to the table to look at all of the dishes. We finally decided on a plate of shellfish and shrimp.
Our mixed plate for two.
Ton was thrilled with the selection of different shell fish and shrimp including three different shrimp and a lobster, plus a nice mixture of clams, mussels, and razor clams. The meal was fantastic, Ton was very happy.
The remnants of our meal.
When we left the restaurant the sun had come out so Ton was very happy again. This time she was stopping every few yards to take photos as the sea, sky, and surrounding sites were perfect for photos.
The sky was beautiful, and the sea was crystal clear.
The walk back was a very enjoyable for Ton, and I enjoyed people watching and watching Ton have fun.
Ice plant on the beach.
I have talked about Roses in the past. It has an interesting role historically as a port during the Spanish empire and celebrates that. But mostly it is a great beach resort town with a nice vibe that really appeals to us.
Posing with a couple of conquistadors.
It was a late start to the day, but in the end it turned into a great day at a place we really like.
We have been corresponding with a RV shop in Roses Spain about getting our privacy screen fixed. Yesterday they said they had a replacement screen available, but their technician said he thought he could fix the existing one. So our next stop for the day was set.
It was a cold and drizzly day but the promenade at Roses was still busy in the evening.
The drive was a little further than we thought it was going to be. When we started out looking at the distance we were going to cover on the Autopista (freeway) Ton and I guessed it was going to be a €40 toll. We were both wrong today there was no tolls. We arrived at the RV repair place and the tech looked at the problem and thru his interpreter (his wife) said it wont be elegant but it will work. He underestimated the quality of his work and while he was with us I had him fix one more small item. The repair was quoted at €700 in the Netherlands so the €108 we paid today was a great bargain.
We’ve seen some interesting rigs in Europe.
We were at the campground by 3:30 just in time for it to rain. Ton cooked a nice dinner, and then declared her day over. I took a short evening walk and then came back to relax in François.
We really need tires for François and since Zaragoza is a good sized city we decided to take the day and see if we could find some here. A google search led me to a tire place with multiple branches in Zaragoza and one of them was near Costco so that is where we went to start the day. The store near Costco did not have any but the receptionist did a quick search and found that another branch did. She even said she would call ahead since she wasn’t sure anyone there spoke English. On arrival it was clear we were expected, and they got right to work. It was a busy place with a police car, two ambulances, a road safety truck, and a bunch of cars getting tires.
François in the middle of getting new rubber. Not NASCAR fast, but pretty efficient.
We spent time watching the cars come and go, watching a cooking show on the TV with one of the customers, and Ton tried to read the local papers. The two local papers had extensive coverage of yesterdays parade, its too bad we couldn’t read them.
The local papers had extensive coverage of the parade.
Since we had such good luck with the tires we decided to try a RV place to see if we could solve our problem with the privacy screen. A google search showed a place with good ratings that was supposed to be a dealer for our motorhome. It was only about 15 minutes away so we decided to try our luck again. Greta directed us into a BP station and said we had arrived. We looked around for a minute and saw a shop with a motorhome in front of it tucked into a corner of the lot with the BP. I went in and asked if they could look at the problem. The lady was very nice but then said no mechanic, vacation. She did come out and look at the problem, she asked where we were going next and when I told her Barcelona she actually called a repair place there and described our problem. Unfortunately, they told her they could not fix it.
Nothing from today, Ton liked this picture from yesterday so I included it today.
Figuring we still had done pretty well, and having solved our major problem we decided another trip to Costco would do us some good. After an hour of walking around Costco, and filling another cart with stuff we headed out to François to see a major thunderstorm heading towards us.
The land around Zaragoza reminds me of the mid-west which means you can see the storms coming. We beat feet for the campground, and I was just able to get set up on our site before the storm hit. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching the thunderstorms approach trying to guess if they were going to hit us. Two of them did, both pretty large with lots of lightning and rain.
Today is Palm Sunday which represents the official beginning of Holy Week. Zaragoza goes in big for Holy Week with 53 processions during the week by the 23 brotherhoods in the city.
Palms for sale for Palm Sunday celebration. They came in many sizes and shapes.
I had tried to check the schedule for the processions before we left for the center of the city, and as near as I could tell there was not one until 7:45 at night, which is too late for us. But as we turned the corner onto a main road we noticed a large crowd lining the road so we joined the crowd and found a good spot looking down the road at the main Cathedral.
The road to the Cathedral that the procession would come up.
While we were waiting I did a quick Wikipedia search of these processions and found that they were led by different Cofraternity of penitents, or to use their simple names brotherhoods. The brotherhoods exist in many countries, and were initially secret male only societies. Today they are not so secret and are not male only. They exist to allow the members to make penance through charitable works, and once a year to walk the streets doing a public penance. Each “brotherhood” takes a story from the life of Jesus to base their work on and adopts a unique dress and color to tell them apart from the other brotherhoods.
This large statue of Jesus was the center piece of the procession.
One of the principles of the brotherhood is that the penitents must do this work anonymously to the community at large. So they wear what is to an American a startling piece of head gear to maintain their anonymity. It is called a Capirote and is a tall pointed mask with a face covering that we associate with the KKK in the US.
This conjures up a very different image here in Spain than it does in the US!
Today the penitents parade thru town with many of the members banging on drums and a small ratchet like device. When they went by it was quite noisy.
There were several hundred drummers in the parade. Some did not wear the pointed hats but these white hats.
Each “brotherhood” has its own unique color combination, and today the group in the procession wore blue Capirotes. Near the end of the procession there were representatives of other brotherhoods marching in support of the blue group.
Representatives of other “brotherhoods” walking with their palms in support of the Blues.
After we got over being startled by the dress it was an interesting experience. There appeared to be a lot of symbology in the dress, the statues, and the drums that went over our heads. But we enjoyed watching it.
This women surrounded by Palm bearing walkers in plain robes was near the front of the procession. These were the only people in the parade without their heads covered by some kind of cover.
After the statue with a scene of Jesus’ life went by their was a collection of older ladies dressed in traditional Spanish widow dresses. Ton wondered what that was about but I could only guess.
The widows with a couple of priests and politicians behind them.
It was a beautiful day in Zaragoza and with the processions the city center was hoping. We headed down to the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of Pillar to check out the sites in the center. The Cathedral is located on a very large square. On one end is a very modern fountain, on the other end are a series of sculptures dedicated to the artist Goya who was from here, and in between is the Cathedral, what is now the parliament building of Aragon that resides in an old Mosque as Zaragoza was ruled by Moslems for about 300 years.
Another large church, with a carousel in the forefront that was doing booming business.
It is said that there are three major architectural influences in Zaragoza. It started as a Roman city, then was conquered and ruled as a Moslem city, and finally the influence of Christianity. Each has left their mark on Zaragoza.
The interior of the Cathedral.
We were not able to tour the parliament building today, but it is supposed to have some of the best examples of western Islamic art in the world. When we got to the Roman theater it was closed but we were able to look at it thru a fence and it is quite extensive though it looks like it was buried for a while so is not functional like many we have seen in Europe.
The Roman amphitheater.
The center of Zaragoza was also full of good restaurants that were doing booming business on this beautiful Sunday. Zaragoza is the fifth largest city in Spain and seems to be a prosperous and comfortable city.
Statue fo Goya enjoying a cup of wine on the main square in Zaragossa.
After spending several hours watching processions and wandering thru the city we were getting tired so we returned to the campground and for the first time on the trip had to open up all of the windows in François to allow him to cool off. We were pretty happy about that too.
One of the old gates in the city walls. The walls appear to have been removed in the 1800’s to allow for development of the city.
This will be short. We were up early, said goodbye for our neighbors and were on the road about 9:30. Our destination for today was Zaragoza for two reasons. We had not visited it on our previous trips, and it had a brand new Costco to visit. We are still on the hunt for new tires for François and we were hoping this brand new Costco would have doors that he could fit in to change tires.
One thing we like about visiting Costco’s over here are the interesting products that we don’t have at home. These are chicken feet. Lots of chicken feet.
The drive over was smooth though a little more expensive than we hoped for. It looks like the Spanish are catching up to the French for the cost of toll roads. We found the brand new Costco on the edge of Zaragoza and headed straight for the fuel station. This was the cheapest fuel we have seen in years and was 40cents a liter less than we have paid anywhere in the last two years. That translated into €30 savings on a tank of fuel.
Ton kept me from making a disastrous mistake. In the US diesel fuel pumps have green handles and gas have black handles, these colors are reversed in Spain. I had the green handled filler for gas in the fill spout for François and was about to turn on the pump when Ton came flying over and intervened before I started, putting gas in a diesel engine would have caused a tow, and a lengthy stay in a garage to purge the system and change all of the filters. I am going to have to pay more attention going forward.
Unfortunately, it looks like none of the Costco’s in Europe are going to be able to take François but the guy at the tire center gave us a tip for a RV place that does tires so we will swing in there Monday and see if we have any luck. We spent the next hour happily perusing Costco and we now have a bunch of Spanish goodies in our cupboards.
We decided to have a laid back day today so we did not plan to leave Orio. We spent the morning doing some light chores around François before heading into town for lunch.
Part of the old town in Orio.
Our neighbor had recommended a restaurant to try, and about 1:45 we started into town to get lunch as it is served later in Spain than we are used to at home. We arrived and ordered a three course lunch with a starter, a main course, and a desert for €13. The waitress spoke limited English, and I can read limited Spanish, she left us her notebook with the options (there were 4 starters, and 4 main courses to pick from), between the three of us we eventually figured out the options and we were served an excellent lunch. After we placed our order the waitress asked us if we wanted water or wine, when we said wine she returned with a bottle of wine and put it in the center of the table. It was included in the €13.
If my Spanish is correct this is a ceramic factory across the river from the center of Orio.
After lunch we decided to take a stroll thru town to burn off some of the food. We also unsuccessfully cased another grocery store looking for Basque Vermouth. On our way back to the campground we saw 2 oxen yoked together with red masks covering their eyes being led from a barn. There happened to be a bench nearby so we sat down to see what was going to happen. Eventually, they hitched the two oxen to a sled and placed a couple of large rocks on it, then a grandfather and we presume his grandson got on the sled, and the boys father led the bulls down the field.
These two oxen were being trained for a Basque sport called Idi Probak.
The bulls were being trained for a Basque sport called Idi Probak. The contest consists of having two ox yoked together at the horns, (if you look carefully at the picture you can see their horns are interlocked.) then heavy rocks are put on a sled, and the ox have to drag the rocks, the sled, and a driver around an oval for 30 minutes to 2 hours. The problem is that the way the ox are yoked together makes it difficult for them to pull in a straight line unless they are well trained, so the driver and another person who walks in front have to work hard to keep the ox on track and moving. The winners are determined by who covers the most distance and carries the most weight in the time period allotted.
The ox off on their Idi Probak training session.
After we returned we took it easy for the rest of the day. I spent some time chatting with our Irish neighbor about life while Ton watched some movies on Netflix.
We took our time leaving in the morning as we were hoping that the traffic in Bordeaux would die down. We have experienced more traffic jams passing thru Bordeaux than any city in France including Paris. So we lingered around the campground until 10 am hoping, but we still ran into a lot of slow traffic in Bordeaux. It wasn’t as bad as some of our other trips but it was slow crossing the city.
Ton was up for sunrise.
Once we broke out of Bordeaux the remainder of the trip was smooth sailing and we arrived at one of our favorite campsites in Orio Spain about 1:30. We had made reservations in advance, so check in was smooth, and we were settled in by 2pm. Our neighbors were Irish and English so we had a chat. with them.
Sunrise from our campsite. Not bad for $15.
Later in the afternoon we had a stroll into Orio for some recreational shopping. When we returned we were invited by the Irish neighbor to join him in the campground bar for an after dinner beer.
Ton loves the wide sidewalks in Spain. She calls them three generation sidewalks as often you see three generations of the same family out for a stroll together.
The drink turned into several, and we had a nice time learning about his very interesting life as first a Catholic Priest, and then a teacher in Ireland. Just as we were about to leave, our English neighbors arrived so we enjoyed some more time swapping stories about life in general and traveling in Europe. It was a late (for us), but enjoyable evening.
Tonight we are in one of our favorite campsites in France, the winery at Chateau Marquis de Vauban gives you the opportunity to park in the vineyard. We have been here three times and each time we stay here it makes us appreciate the choice we made to tour Europe by motorhome.
The weather on this trip has been fantastic, these are the most clouds we have seen in the last 10 days!
Last night we were looking for a place to camp about 300 kilometers south of Tours, and when I did the check Blaye came up as the best option. We visited the Chateau Marquis de Vauban winery on our very first trip to France before we purchased François. We also visited it a couple years ago when we were heading to Portugal. We were thrilled that we would get to visit again.
These black swans are in a pond 10 feet from the door of François.
Every time we stop here we have a splendid time just chilling and drinking good wine. The owners make you feel very welcome, and each time we have met nice people who are sharing the campground. Sometimes we park in industrial parks, and under freeways, but then a magical place like this comes along and we are filled with contentment.
Vauban the great French fort builder stands guard over the winery and the camping area.
Tomorrow we are going to stay at another old favorite in Orio Spain.
We have been looking at Tours for a few days now and we finally decided to make it a stop. No guidebook of France is featuring Tours as one of the cities you should visit. Tours is the kind of town every country needs, there are a lot of things produced here, a lot of things are transported thru here, and a lot of people make a good living here, and it is a good place to live. What it doesn’t have is a lot of cool things for non-residents to look at. It is the French version of Pittsburg or Birmingham.
A pond near the campground.
Our original plan was to drive the 280 kilometers here, check in to the campground and head to town. Based on our quick look around town we would decide whether to stay another day and explore some more or get back on the Autoroute and continue driving to Spain.
While driving I remembered that quite often French campgrounds have extended lunches where you cannot check in. We figured we would arrive at about 1:15, while we were driving Ton did some research and it looked like they would open at 2:30, it was a little frustrating but early enough to take a run into town. But when we arrived there was a sign on the door saying they were closed from 12:00 to 3:30 for lunch. Nowhere but France would a business close for 31/2 hours at lunch. After some muttering by me we both settled in for the 2 hour wait. By the time they reopened there were 7 motorhomes waiting. We will visit Tours tomorrow.
We had a long discussion last night about what to do today. Initially there were two options, go into Paris or drive to Tours. Neither option appealed much to Ton though Tours is in out future as it is a stopping point on our way to Spain. After a lot of hemming and hawing we had not reached a decision when Ton saw that Fontainebleau was free today. So the decision was made and we were up bright and early for the 80 kilometer drive to Fontainebleau.
This guy featured heavily in today’s activities.
Ton had visited Fontainebleau during her student days in London and had very good memories of it. She had told me about it several times during our travels the last few years every time we blew by the exit for it on the A6 Autoroute. It had made a really strong impression on her then.
The other half of today’s featured family.
So we were up and off early for the 80 kilometer drive south from Paris. We made a quick stop in Samoreau a village close to Fontainebleau to make sure they had space for us in their campground, they did, so after checking in and doing a quick drive by of our assigned spot we headed over to Fontainebleau.
A wedding party posing at the main entrance to Fontainebleau.
This is a very large Chateau, probably the third largest we have seen, Chambord, and Versailles were larger we think. There are over a thousand rooms and multiple wings to the place that make it difficult to capture just how immense it is.
The church inside the Chateau.
The theme of the tour definitely is Napoleonic. The stories about all of the rooms talk about how Napoleon and his family used them. So I was a little surprised when I did some research to find that it had been a royal palace since the 1200’s, and the buildings we saw today were all in place when Napoleon occupied them.
The rear of the palace looking across the Carp Lake.
Between 1200 and 1780 it was constantly added on to by various kings until it was transformed from a modest (relatively speaking) hunting lodge to the giant building we see today. Most of the construction took place between 1550 and 1780.
The throne room.
Unlike Versailles, Fontainebleau did not suffer any damage during the French Revolution as it was far enough away from Paris to miss out on the chaos that affected royal buildings in the capital. As it was intact Napoleon used it as his official palace when he declared himself emperor.
The furniture all came from Napoleon as the original furnishings were sold off during the French Revolution.
We spent a couple of hours working our way thru the palace and we missed one section of rooms. There was a lot to see and some of the art and furnishings were spectacular.
A couch for Napoleon to recline on while he had informal interviews.
The grounds were quite large and included a very large man made lake. We were expecting more gardens, but there were no formal gardens. The grounds were effectively giant lawns with a few statues and a few trees.
This stream had a few wild flowers blooming just about the only flowers on the grounds.
At the end Ton told me she was a little disappointed. She remembers being awed by this place when she was a student. Today she was not awed, she was thinking that maybe because over the last few years we have visited so many different palaces and castles that they are losing their ability to wow her.
The Carp Lake does have very impressive carp in it.
We headed back to our campground in Samoreau, and I was really charmed by it. The campground is on the banks of the Seine river and when we arrived they were having sailboat races. There is a small restaurant on the banks of the river that was doing booming business as a large percentage of the population of the town were enjoying the beautiful spring day with friends. I was clinched on the place when Ton casually mentioned that Django Reinhardt had lived here most of his life, he is one of my favorite jazz guitarists.
The locals chilling on the bank of the Seine River in front of our campground.
We took a quick stroll along the Seine to end a very nice spring day in France.
We had thoughts of going to Paris but on the way to the train station we ran into a market near the campground and spent some time looking around. It was a pretty small market, but the different vendors were busy. These markets are very common throughout Europe. Most towns have them a couple of times a week, and in bigger towns they are often daily. While the prices are slightly higher than the supermarkets they are well supported.
A fruit and vegetable stand with a mixture of locally grown and imported goods.
Across the street was a very popular bakery, that had a long line stretching out the door the whole time we were there. We were curious about the food inside, but were never able to get inside.
This bakery is on the corner of the street that the market is on.
After spending about an hour walking around checking out the Saturday sites in our little corner of Versailles, Ton suggested we do laundry. So our trip to Paris was put aside and instead we headed back to the campground to knock out our laundry.
In addition to fresh vegetables and meat, pre-cooked foods were widely available.
A couple hours later we had all fresh clothes, and Ton asked if I wanted to head into Paris. By then it was mid-afternoon so we decided to take it easy around the campground. I did walk over to the rugby field next to the campground and watched a game of high school aged kids, the home team was running away with the game at half time so I headed back to François to rejoin Ton.
Most of the stalls were doing steady business the whole time we were there.
As we do this longer, and as we get a little older, these down days where we hang around become a little more common. We are going to be busier tomorrow.
Today will be short. We were up early as we are shifting to Paris. It was a 300 kilometer drive, but it involved crossing Paris at mid-day. We had one stop in mind for the day which was one of the two Costco’s in Paris.
There was a circus in the parking lot next to Costco.
We arrived at Costco without any incident and went on a shopping spree to stock up with cool things we don’t see in our Costco at home and some old friends we do. François needs new tires and I was hoping they could do them here. We had everything worked out, I would buy the tires now, they would order them and then hold them for me until, we passed thru going north on our way back to Amsterdam then they would install them. Just as we were to seal the deal I mentioned that François was 3 meters tall and everything collapsed, their doors can only accommodate vehicles 2.75 meters tall. So I am still looking for tires.
Eventually we walked out with a large chariot (the French word for shopping basket) full of food, and a bottle of wine from Chile to add to our collection of French and Italian wines. Another interesting (at least to Ton and me) thing is that the days we do the least are often the most expensive. Due to tolls, buying fuel (at Costco), and groceries we spent 400% of what we budget per day while traveling.
Today we wanted to visit a town about 25 kilometers away to check out a restaurant Ton had read about. It is famous for its seafood. It’s funny how sometimes a place is so very different than what you expect. We expected Boulogne-sur-Mer to be a sleepy fishing village. To our surprise when we arrived we found a bustling city with heavy traffic. Instead of a few local fisherman we found a waterfront full of giant seafood factories with semi-trucks backing into loading docks to be dispatched with various frozen seafood for markets throughout and France, and the rest of Europe. Our impression was that Boulogne was a much bigger and busier town than Calais. When I checked though Calais is about 30% larger than Boulogne so again impressions do not always line up with facts.
The street art on display was quite beautiful, parking to enjoy it was hard to find.
We almost abandoned our quest as we could not find a place to park François. All of the street side parking in the city was full. There were a couple of large parking lots by the port, but they also turned out to be full. We tried to get into a lot that looked promising but the entrance was barricaded, which led to me backing François down a narrow street for a couple of hundred yards to get turned around. Just as we were driving out of town I spied a street that looked to have available parking. It took a couple of attempts to find the entrance, but we finally had a place to begin our day.
The pleasure port in Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Boulogne-sur-Mer’s other attraction beside seafood is a UNESCO tower in the old town. We walked up the hill to it but were disappointed when we got there. As we were standing in front of it in a large square, Ton asked me where it was and I pointed at it and she said, it is supposed to be beautiful?
The church belfry taken from the moat of the castle in town.
Having gotten our morning walk in we decided to head back down to the port to Tons restaurant. Local ambiance was not what drove people to this place as the view out of the windows was of the loading area for a giant fish processing building. To get in we had to navigate a couple of tables of workers on their lunch break and step over a large dog which was sprawled across the sidewalk. But when we entered the decor was first class, and the place was jammed. When we got to the hostess she asked if we had reservations I said no and she said nothing available until 2pm. As I was having this conversation an older gentleman was standing next to the hostess stand, he made eye contact and gave me a glance that said hang on, he then had a long conversation with the hostess and at the end kissed her on both cheeks, and then looked at us and said 2 minutes. In less than 2 minutes we were shown to a very nice table. The meal was wonderful consisting of three courses of local fish dishes we were wowed by the food. This was one of the best seafood meals we have had in Europe and was definitely worth the walk.
The 2 Caps scenic route.
We took a scenic route back to Calais. There are two capes that face each other across an inlet in the English channel each with with white cliffs similar to smaller versions of the cliffs of Dover on the English side. In between the towns are dune lands and pastures with rolling hills it was a very nice drive to our final destination of the day the 2 Caps Brewery. After a little GPS misadventure we arrived at the brewery hoping for a table over looking the beautiful countryside. It turns out it is not a cafe, but a place to buy beer to take away. They did offer tastes of beer similar to a wine tasting. We tasted the beer and it was excellent, so we walked out with 6 large beers, and 6 small beers, we just have to find a place to store them in François.
