EU Holiday, September 08 (Costa Del Sol)

Off to Madrid for the second half of the visit to Spain. I found out that instead of taking three trains to get to to hotel there was an express airport bus with a stop just down the street. Even with the close proximity of the bus stop, it was pretty tough work taking luggage up Gran Via for about one kilometre.

There was still a few hours left in the day, so we set off down Gran Via towards the Royal Palace of Madrid. It's hard to judge, but it certainly seemed bigger and better than the London equivalent. It also had some nice gardens surrounding it and some kind of cathedral next door, which was just as good. Amir wanted to visit the Atletico Madrid stadium for another tour! so we headed off in that direction. This part of Madrid has a strange layout, sort of an upper level and a lower level, which are separated by a steep bank. The lower level also goes through a tunnel under Madrid and I suppose somewhere out the other side. Not something you see very often in town planning.

Plaza de Espana.

Royal Palace of Madrid.

Anyway, after passing by San Francisco el Grande Basilica we eventually found some staircase in order to get down to the lower level and on to the Vicente Calderon stadium. I needed a break for stadiums for a day, so just took some photos and headed back.

Estadio Vicente Calderon.

I walked back down Calle Mayor which runs alongside Gran Via, with the Puerta del Sol square in the middle, which is an intersection point for a number of streets. I also had a look at Plaza Mayor, which is like Grand Place in Brussels but not quite as good. Lots of neat looking stores around this area of the city though - market, food, clothes, souvenirs etc. I even found a self serve frozen yoghurt store! The excitement didn't last long though, I came back later in the evening for some tasty yoghurt, only when I activated the machine it went crazy and I ended up with yoghurt all over my pants and shoes instead.

I think this is Almudena Cathedral.

Plaza Mayor.

Gran Via at night.

City Hall at Plaza de Cibeles.

Where Superman lives.

EU Holiday, September 07 (Return To Cookie Mountain)

Amir was still broken from yesterday so I had my own day planned out. I made a quick pitstop at Torre Agbar because I was curious about what it looked like from close up. Then I jumped back on the train to Park Guell on the edge of the city. It wasn't very close to a train station, and had a killer hill to walk up just before the entrance, but at least there was plenty of sign posts. The park was a little bit of a disappointment only because I expected there to be more things to see. The things that were there were alright.

Torre Agbar, not named after Admiral Agbar apparently.

Entrance to Parc Guell.

Opposite view of the above.

Some small monument in the park.

Back down to Barcelona.

I stopped by the La Boqueria market again for lunch, then back up the mountain to the Olympic Museum which sounded good from the description. Sadly it was closed on Mondays and closed for renovations on this particular Tuesday and Wednesday, so I had perfectly missed out on any opportunity to go see it. Instead I took the other, longer cable car called Transbordador (or something) all the way down to the beach. I was hoping it would be at least a bit frightening, but because it was a larger cart it was pretty stable.

Terror at 500 feet.

After landing on the beach I walked up Barceloneta for an hour along the sand, then stopped off at Mare Magnum shopping centre and the Santa Eulalia cathedral. I had plans to check out a couple of other museums but my feet did not want to know about it. I grabbed some microwavable meals from the Diagonal Mar shopping centre on the way home, since I think this was the only hotel I stayed in with a microwave. Amir had the same idea, so we each had some "pizza cone" things, I had some cheese quesadillas and Amir had some burritos, then later finding out that pollo means chicken in Spanish...

EU Holiday, September 06 (Strangely Familia)

Turned up at Sagrada Familia shortly after opening time and managed to avoid a big queue. My first thoughts when walking into the church was that is was fantastic, I loved the stonework and stained glass, really impressive. Amir on the other hand was complaining it didn't look old and dilapidated, but I don't really get that. The only annoying thing is that there's so many cranes around the outside, you can't really get a nice shot of the exterior of the building.

Outside Sagrada Familia.

In and around Sagrada Familia until futher notice.

After spending some good time exploring the church and the museum, as well as taking a lift up one of the spirals, we moved on to Barcelona's version of Arc De Triomf. It was a little different to the usual, mostly the colour, and the location was nice with a path leading through it and down towards the park. Quite surprisingly, there was about four fantastic comic book stores in the area, even selling some good stuff in English. I found a great Saw t-shirt with the guy on his tricycle, but it was only in large. That's the worst thing about anime and comic book stores, you have to get lucky with the sizes they have in stock- and I'm guessing the larger sizes are in higher demand...

No good city is complete without one.

With the Barcelona Card we had, one of the free entry passes was for the Chocolate Museum. It wasn't so much a history of how to make chocolate, or even a short film about the land of chocolate, but rather things made out of chocolate. They had some cool displays, my favourite is shown below. The neighbourhood nearby is known as Barri Gotic and the streets have a nice old, gothic feel to it as the name suggests. Also they are quite small and narrow, but generally they go in a straight line.

Chocolate Tintin on the Moon.

Gothic Quarter.

This leads on to La Rambla or possibly Las Ramblas, a long mall kind of street which is heavy on tourists. Headed down towards the sea, passing through Placa Reial and eventually to Port Vell. Amir had run out of energy for the day, so while he headed off I turned back in the other direction and went up La Rambla to explore some more. I came across a great market called La Boqueria which has lots of fruit and drinks and stuff like that, as well as one neat confectionery store which was selling these great range of lollies that looked like fried eggs, tennis balls and other things.

Mirador de Colon.

Transbordador running from the mountain to the beach.

Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria.

I continued up and then across one street to Passeig de Gracia to hunt down some more Gaudi architecture. I found the Casa Mila by accident and then the more well known Casa Battlo. Both fantastic, they should just design everything like that. I ended up back down down at the bottom of La Rambla and found out the little Columbus Monument they had there had a lift to go up to the top. It was so squashed at the top though, only about eight people could fit up there and everyone had to move around at one time otherwise you'd just be stuck. When the door for the elevator had to open it made it even worse, but it gives a good view of Barcelona from close up at least.

Casa Mila.

Casa Battlo.

La Rambla on the right.

In the evening I tried to suggest a second course of tapas, but instead we went to a sports bar to watch England vs Wales European qualifier.

EU Holiday, September 05 (Spaining Day)

First stop for the day was the Nou Camp stadium, home of FC Barcelona. Amir was convinced he had found a better train route to get to the stadium, so we had a race off for it. He claims he got lost walking to the ground, and arrived about half an hour later than I did. It was weird to see so many people lining up to buy a ticket for the tour, surely 90% of them don't know anything about football. Between the tour and the official store, the team must be making millions of dollars each week, or day. The team museum was kind of ridiculous because either Barcelona or Madrid seem to have won everything for the last 75 years. Also got to walk around and see some other parts of the stadium.

About the only thing I could get a photo in front of.

More than a club. Not sure what that's supposed to mean.

Next was Plaza De Espana, which was another feature intersection! This one was actually ok, had these twin towers at one exit, and some Arenas De Barcelona at another. The street with the towers also leads down to the massive Museu Nacional d'Art that sits up on the hill. The museum was closed but still looked impressive, and you can look down where you've come from once you've climbed all the way up to the top. Around the back of the museum was this very odd shaped Telefonica Tower, as well as the old stadium where Espanyol used to play - that we would have incorrectly turned up to the previous day. Not a very convenient location for a stadium. Speaking of inconvenient locations, right need to the football stadium was the athletics track they used for the Barcelona 1992 olympics. It is certainly a nice place to be, but seems very impractical to get to.

The Arenas de Barcelona and some viewing platform.

The big museum.

The rest of Barcelona.

Apparently it doubles as a big sundial !

The olympic athletics track.

From there we took a cable car further up the mountain to the very top, where old Castle Montjuic sits. The cable car ride was alright and the castle was in pretty good shape. Took the cable car down again, which connects with a funicular to get back to the metro train line. A funicular is like a small train that is specifically design to run up and down a slope.

Entrance to Castle Montjuic.

The cable car back down.

A funicular.

In the evening we came back into the city to Port Olimpic. Checked out the casino and then on to the restaurant district near the port. We chose some tapas kind of place and ordered a meal and some tapas - crazy potatoes and crazy salad, where crazy potatoes = wedges and crazy salad = some kind of potato salad type meal only with ham! Lucky Amir tried that one out before me. My suspicion was confirmed that tapas is nothing special at all and people just order it to sound special, tapas = small meals to share, only in a foreign country.

EU Holiday, September 04 (London Stalling II)

The flight to Barcelona was out of London City airport instead of Heathrow, so I was feeling relieved I wouldn't have to endure another airport disaster. We boarded the plane around 12:30pm just as it started raining, and everything looked on track. Then we didn't take off. The announcement said because of the rain we had to take off in the opposite direction, but we were too heavy ? After nearly an hour they figured out they'd need to pay four people to jump off the plane. They also had to take off all the luggage under the plane so they could locate theirs. After that was sorted, we'd used up too much fuel while stationary, so needed a top up. By 2:30pm we were in the air...

So what was going to be a casual afternoon with plenty of time to get to tonight's soccer match became a rush. Luckily we found out when picking up the soccer tickets at the airport that the game was at a different stadium than was advertised. Moments later I realised why I went out of my way not to take my big suitcase on the rest of my trip up until now. Trying to get through train stations, up and down stairs, through ticket carousels and onto the train during a hot summer day is the worst. Also it's not a good idea to buy several jumpers on holiday to add to the bag weight, or go on holiday to locations where you need both summer and winter clothes...

We dumped the bags and then had to head to the other side of the city for the Mexico vs. Chile friendly at FC Espanyol's stadium. The attendant at the airport also warned that there are no signs from the station telling you how to get to the stadium, so just follow everyone else. That would have been a lot easier if the game hadn't already started. We followed the only girl in a Mexico top we could see, potentially looking like stalkers in the process, and made it to the game just ten minutes late. There seemed to be a lot more Chile fans for whatever reason, but it didn't do them any good as Mexico won 1-0. The game was ok but not quite the same quality as the English Premier League.

Not a packed house.

EU Holiday, September 03 (Oxford Comma)

Didn't really have a big day planned, given I was kind of tired and had to get everything in order for the final Barcelona-Madrid-Paris-London-Melbourne trip. Went down to Oxford Street to check out some shops as well as hunting down the Tintin Shop, it didn't have much different to the stores in Brussels though.

Then on to the Emirates Stadium for a tour of the relegation-bound Arsenal FC. It was a guided tour for a change and probably one of the better ones. It suffers from the same problem any tour with a lot of people, too many idiots getting in the way when you want to take photos. Also everyone wants a photo with just themselves in front of each particular point of interest along the way.

The Emirates.

Not a bad stadium.

A rare Premier League title.

Down at ground level. Every team needs a good logo in the stands.

Arsenal's range of fiction books.

EU Holiday, September 02 (London Stalling)

I booked a late night flight back to London as I figured I'd need most of three days to see everything in Italy. The problem was I got so far ahead of schedule I didn't really have anything planned. I started off by trying to head south of the city to Via Appia (Appian Way). It's not really anything too famous, just an old stone street and some buildings up on one of the old hills of Italy. I had some rough details about how to get there, but it wasn't near any train station so I had a lot of walking to do. Like usual I didn't actually check the distances, and after walking for about 30 minutes I still wasn't seeing anything familiar so decided to abandon the plan and head back.

Since it was early in the day I stopped by Campo De Fiori once again, to find out it is actually a marketplace, they just close up at 3pm. I was also about to die from dehydration, so I grabbed a litre of Gatorade and some milk, drank it in about two minutes and felt no more refreshed than before it.

Altare della patria.

Next I tried to find the Capuchin Crypts, I knew the street it was supposed to be on in the city, but just couldn't locate it. I'm pretty sure I walked straight past it, just didn't know what I was looking for or how to get to the entrance perhaps. Kept going up Via Veneto to the Borghese Gardens instead. It's the large park area in Rome or something, with a whole bunch of different things to see. Gardens, a lake, a big gallery building etc.

Piazza del Popolo.

After that it was time to go back to pick up my bags that I left at the hotel and travel back to London. After last weeks disaster at customs I'd booked a seat close to the front of the plane and ran to customs and on to the baggage claim in quick time. And there was no bags. I just heard the end of an announcement as I was entering the area that there was some delays expected. It was only 10:30pm so I wasn't too concerned. One or two announcements later it was 11:00pm and they opened up a desk where people could get their luggage sent to their home if they didn't want to wait around any longer. Not a good sign, and not an option for me as I was leaving London again on Sunday and couldn't risk having my bags go through the mail.

Half an hour later we got an explanation that a technical issue was preventing staff moving between planes to get the bags out, whatever that means. Also a friendly reminder that in five minutes the last trains to London would be leaving. I was pretty much stuck because I needed my bags. And just after that a slow stream of bags came on to the carousel. It was around 12:15am before mine came through however, and then I was left to figure out what to do next. I had a look at all of the bus markers and found one that sounded like it was going into central London. It was a crappy commuter bus though, so it made at least one hundred stops and took more than an hour. I then had to find another bus heading north, and I think I was finally done with my travel at 2:30am, not a great day.

EU Holiday, September 01 (All Roads Lead To Rome)

I booked a ticket for the Vatican Museums for the morning. Again you need to specify a time but they don't seem to enforce it very much. The museums are located in a strange location, you have to walk around the exterior wall of the Vatican to get to it. It's no problem though, because there's so many people going the same way - not to mention all the people trying to sell guided tours along the way. The simple rule of a tourist is, the more people you see the better.

I managed to skip a sizeable queue thanks to the booking again which was nice, and started making my way through the museum exhibits. I didn't have an audio guide or a map, so didn't always know what I was looking at besides the signs for each room. They had a nice range of stuff, some clay stuff, artwork, painted walls and ceilings, and this weird large gold ball. All the while there was a sign indicating the Sistine Chapel was coming up next, but of course it was right at the end of the tour. I think it was just to assure people it was still coming and you hadn't missed it.

Not the Ballon d'Or.

Not the Sistine Chapel.

One of the many halls in the Vatican museum.

The Sistine Chapel was very full when I got there, and the only place that you aren't allowed to take photos, or talk. And for once they actually enforced it. The ceiling was pretty cool, but I was surprised that the famous centrepiece of the ceiling wasn't as large and prominent as I assumed it would be, it was just one small part.

Even leaving was a bit of fun.

Went back down the hill to Vatican City next, which consists of little more than St. Peter's Square and the buildings around it. The most famous of these would be St. Peter's Basilica in the middle, which you can queue up and enter for free. Waiting in the sun in the line to get through security took forever. The Basilica is similar in design to the museums, with all of the gold decorated walls and statues. It was a lot bigger than I expected, particular the big dome area towards the back. I'm pretty sure I could see people up at the top of the dome walking around, but I have no idea if there was some tour you had to go on to get up there.

St. Peter's square.

The similarly named St. Peter's basilica.

I think I can see people up the top there.

The Schweizergarde.

St. Peter's square and the basilica. I still don't know what a basilica is.

Since Rome is so small as I discovered yesterday, I realised I could walk all the way back from Vatican City to the centre of Rome without any trouble. On the way I passed Castel Sant'angelo, which is a castle if you hadn't guessed. Next was Piazza Del Popolo which didn't really have much in it, so I rank it second out of the three piazzas I've passed by. The piazza leads into Via Del Corso which the hotel reception have told me is the main street for shops. Most of the usual stuff was there, but nothing too interesting and it wasn't really that big.

There's always time for one more piazza so I also saw Piazza Di Spagna and The Spanish Steps. I'm not sure why they are Spanish, but I can confirm there was some steps there. Every restaurant I saw in Italy was described as a Ristorante Pizzeria, I don't even know if they sold anything else in the city. I didn't go to any special authentic looking restaurant, I just picked one that looked normal and easy to order from.

The Spanish Steps.