A Gutbuster

Today's daytrip was to Sete, a town around 30kms from Montpellier and said to be "The Venice of Languedoc" though that would be an overstatement, yes there are canals but nothing like Venice.

A vantage point was the lookout at the top of Mont Saint-Claire so we set off up the hill which became steeper and steeper until the heart rate was going through the roof! We literally staggered to the lookout at which point the activity meter on the iPhone indicated that we had climbed 50 flights of stairs and our legs certainly were telling us that was close to the truth.

The town sits between the Mediterranean (to the right of Sherry in the photo below) and the Basin de Thau (left in the third photo) which is a salt water lake used primarily for oyster and mussel growing.

It is also a port for some of the cruise ships plying the Mediterranean as well as the local fishing industry - there are restaurants for Africa all along the street at sea level offering fresh fish meals.

Also at the top of Mont Saint-Clair is a rather unique church which consists of two altars in a curved cave like environment well decorated with paintings featuring activities from the area through the ages

At sea level the town was bristling with cars, tourists, shops & restaurants however the bristling fell away slightly around 1pm as a good number of the shops closed for 3 hours during the heat of the day.

The canal which runs alongside of the "downtown" area was quite a busy waterway with both pleasure and tourist boats fairly active (but not when I took the photo it would seem)

By 4 o'clock we were done, Sete was done and we returned to Montpellier arriving when there was heavy traffic downtown which made the last few kilometres a little hair raising especially when you get into the wrong lane and require some kindly Frenchman to let you in - they do seem rather reluctant!

Dinner in the apartment closed off another enjoyable day of our European holiday.

There is moisture in the air

Woke this morning to see that there had been some precipitation overnight - not much but the ground showed some sign of being wet.

This is the first moisture we have seen since 13 July!

The plan today was to go into the city look at a few sights and then for Sherry to have a look at some more shops (and there are a lot of them) so after watching some of the election debate on live stream we walked into the city- it takes about 15 minutes - and made for the western point of the historic area to the Arc de Triomphe.

That another city has such a structure given that the one we only hear about is on the Champ Élysées in Paris seems strange it is true as the Arc look quite magnificent at the top of the boulevard 

It was built in honour of King Louis XIV in the 17th century and is a copy of the Paris arch.

Behind it was the Chateau D'Eau, the water tower built at the same time as the Aqueduc Saint- Clement in 1754. The Aqueduct supplied water to the town from the springs in the town of Saint-Clement & the water tower (above) held the city's water reserves.

The whole area is known as the Place Royale Du Peyrou which provides the setting for the mounted statue of Louis XIV, the Arc de Triomphe, water tower and the aqueduct

Looking through the water tower across Place Royale Du Peyrou, with the statue and the Arc De Triomphe in the background 

Just before you pass by the Arc De Triomphe there sits the Palais De Justice, the courthouse built in the neo-classical style in 1853

The whole area which is located at the top of rue Foch made for a very pleasant morning and as said the early part of the afternoon was given over to shops.

Mid afternoon we walked back to the apartment and as we neared "home" some drops of moisture rained upon us - it was a nice feeling to experience another side of nature if only briefly.

This evening we took the tram back into town for a meal and a wander around.

Another day of our holiday locked and loaded.

Uzes

Today we travelled to Uzes, a town of approximately 8500 people in the department of Grad some 26kms from Nimes.

Why Uzes you may ask - why not Uzes we would respond. It is an old town (circa 5th century) which has been well maintained and is famous for its Saturday market and as we found today they also have one on a Wednesday.

Sherry became aware of it because it is the French home of Peta Mathias and the town in which she holds her cooking school open to anyone who wishes to pay over €3200 for a seven day course!

As we found out today it is also home to a lot of coiffure salons so what better place than to get a haircut! Not easy when you can't tell the person holding the scissors what length etc. you want the cut so all you can do is sit down and let them go to. 

I am told that the outcome was "tres bien" and so it should have been for €17.

A typical French village street

A nice example of a building in the village

Typical archways from the era

The Wednesday market

The Chateau du Duche 

The Dutchy of Uzes ranks immediately below the peerage list of France (those of princely blood) and was created in 1572 - the current Duke is from the family de Crussol.

Having spent 6 or so hours in Uzes it was back in the 3008 for the 85km trip back to Montpellier which completed a very good day.

A quiet day...

...which we felt was well deserved.

After breakfast we walked into town as the temperature was pleasant and had a look around the central city area.

The city rises up from Place de la Comedie with many plazas (places in French) choke full of restaurants and cafes/bars. One that is quite representative of what we saw is as shown in the following photo

The folk sitting under the umbrellas (terraces of the restaurants) were being entertained by an ensemble playing some lively music - they were pleasant to listen to.

During our wandering we came across a shop branded as Classic All Blacks selling branded merchandise - not official All Black merchandise but associated with the Classic All Blacks a team which first played a game in 2007 and is made up of former NZ rugby players. The team for example played Toulon in a tribute game for Jerry Collins in 2015.

Of interest is that the only Kiwi in the current Montpellier top squad is Aaron Cruden who joined then recently - Justin Marshall has played for them.

We took the tram back to our accommodation stopping at the local supermarket to purchase something that we could make into a dinner, the first meal we have had since leaving home that will not be in a restaurant.

Late in the afternoon we cooled off in the complex's pool to end our day - I said it was a quiet day but we still managed to walk 8.3kms and swim numerous lengths of the pool.

Tomorrow we are driving to Uzes for the day.

France

We have arrived in Montpellier but not before some GPS issues.

Around 30 minutes out from Montpellier we rang ahead to our accommodation advising that we would be there in 30 minutes however the apartment owner suggested that 90 minutes would be more suitable so grumpily we agreed and continued on.

Around 11kms out of town (according to the GPS) there was a road sign advising that the turnoff was in 1km. Ha ha we thought not falling for that one we will follow the GPS.

So we did. Sailed passed that turnoff waiting for advice from the GPS to turnoff in 9kms but it soon became apparent that there had been significant motorway improvements and in fact the only turn off for Montpellier was the one 11kms down the road.

All we could do was continue on the motorway until there was an available exit which was some 20kms passed Montpellier, so we exited paid our by now inflated toll, crossed over the motorway and reentered on the other side and yes there was now another toll to contend with and returned back down the motorway this time following the signposts and not the GPS arriving at the accommodation with 15 minutes to spare.

We were thankful that the owner had not agreed the 30 minutes we had suggested as he would have been left standing there for 45 minutes or so while we were motoring around!

After putting the suitcases in the apartment we went walking in the general direction of the supermarket which we found and returned with our supplies in some hot weather so was thankful to jump into the onsite pool.

After our swim we took a tram into the central city and found a meal on the Plaza de la Comedie which is on the perimeter of the historic area

A reasonable meal followed by a walk around to get some feel for the city, back on the tram and in 15 minutes we were back in the apartment fiddling with a TV which so far has not responded to our urgings and is not giving us any picture at all!

A nice surprise

It was a surprise to us that the people of Girona should put on a farewell party for Sherry and me being our last night in Spain but that is what they did in the Old Town tonight.

There were street stalls selling all types of food, from tapas to Indian meals, and alcohol.

As well there were musical entertainers in a couple of the streets ....

....and the crowds had come out in droves to farewell us

It was a great atmosphere and a fitting end to our stay in Spain

'Tis done

Last night we wandered around downtown Girona before having a meal in Independence Plaza. The main retail street has boutique type shops not the chain stores we have seen all across Spain and luckily there were closing while we were there and are not open today being Sunday 🤑🤑

Independence plaza

Earlyish this morning we went back into the city to particularly have a look through the Old Town. Sitting highish on a hill is the Cathedral - 90 steps up to the main door so not sure how the older locals make it to worship as we barely survived the climb!

The interior of the Cathedral I would best describe as bland in comparison to others through Spain

We moved from the Cathedral to the Jewish Quarter and went through a museum which gave a very good insight into the Jewish history in Girona through the centuries. Given the persecution Jews have suffered over history across the world it is a miracle that Jews as a race still exist.

A nice entrance of a residence in the Jewish Quarter

Taken in the museum - an interesting monument to the contribution Jews have made to science 

Lunch was interesting but that is another story! Having refreshed the inner man we moved onto the Roman Walls. There was no comparison with the Muralles we visited in Tarragona however from the top of the walls there was a very nice view across Girona 

Basilica on the left Cathedral on the right - raises a question why one would construct a Basilica in close proximity to a Cathedral that was there 2 centuries earlier?

What Girona would look like if you were a bird

Today is our last day in Spain - we arrived almost 7 weeks ago in Northern Spain and have travelled the length from north east to south west and basically up the south coast along the Mediterranean so that tonight we are 78kms from the French border, we move onto Montpellier tomorrow and will spend around 2 weeks in France before coming home.

What will we remember about Spain?

The heat! 7 weeks where every day it has been 30 degrees plus and on a good number of days 35 degrees plus. The last inclement day was when we were in Portsmouth and believe it or not according to the BBC weather forecast just seen on TV, tomorrow there may well be rain in some of the southern Spanish towns we have visited. 

We will also remember..

Guggenheim building in Bilbao

La Concha beach at San Sebastián 

Picasso museum in Madrid

The Aqueduct in Segovia

Old Town in Toledo

The Windmills at Consuegra 

The Mezquita in Córdoba

The Alcazar and the Flamenco show in Sevilla 

Cadiz

The monkeys in Gibraltar (not Spain but close)

The Alhambra at Granada

Our swim in the Mediterranean at Almeria

The Roman ruins at Cartegena

The crowds on the broadwalk in the evening at Torrevieja 

The beautiful buildings and unfortunately the quality of the Mediterranean in Valencia 

The Cathedral at Zaragoza 

The Roman Walls and amphitheater at Tarragona 

The view from the Walls here in Girona 

How cities come alive in a very social way in the evenings

The number of kilometres we walked to try and get a reasonable meal each evening 

Our tussles with the language

How all bar a very few who came in contact with us cheerfully assisted with our tussle with the language

The difficulty in getting the 3008 into some of the underground car parks

.....and much much more!

Our Spanish Odyssey is all but over

Sardines

Dinner last night at a restaurant in El Serrallo was a plate each of grilled sardines accompanied by potatoes and onions, a green salad and a plate of grilled red peppers and aubergines - all for €28.50.

It was a superb meal

Today we drove from Tarragona to Girona and what should have been a 2.5 hour drive turned into something much longer due to an accident some 60 kms approx from Girona. Three lanes of motorway came to a virtual stop and we crawled forward for around 40 minutes before normal speeds were attained. 

As a consequence we didn't arrive in a Girona until around 1.45pm which was too late to go to a market that Sherry had seen was on -while we walked to where it was they were packing up. From what we could see however we didn't miss much.

Staggered in 35 degree heat to have a quick look at the Old Town but the heat beat us and we made a retreat to the hotel (memo to self, may pay to drive and park closer to the city instead of walking for the 25 minutes it takes)

Looking at the rear of the buildings on the outer edge of the Old Town

The hotel has a pool so it was off there to cool down before turning around and returning to the centre to have a meal.

Tried to follow the ABs game v Wallabies and if it was as exciting as the score changes indicated them it would have been a good watch.

All that is needed is for the Warriors to have success this weekend (which I think they will) to put the icing on the sporting cake.

Fight for Independence

As we have walked around town we had got the feeling that there was some "political unrest" as the Catalonian flag was more prominent than the Spanish flag, there were notices stuck on walls and while they were obviously in Spanish it was relatively easy to work out they were anti-government and there were banners hanging out of windows with "Si" imprinted. A google gave the answer.

In September the province of Catalonia is having a referendum to determine whether the citizenry wish to form an independent state - there have been numerous referenda in the past and they like this one have been ruled unconstitutional by the Spanish Constitutional Court so I suspect that the rousing Yes vote in this referendum will mean nothing long term.

Completing our list of things to see was the aim this morning and the first on the agenda was to see the Muralles or Roman Walls - these well preserved walls on the northern side of the city are 800m long and were nice to walk around not the least because they gave some shade from the ever heating sun.

Following the Muralles next on the list was the Cathedral - it in comparison to others we have seen was rather stark/bland in the main altar area but there were some colourful side chapels as well as some valuable pieces in the Treasury

We also gatecrashed another wedding in the Cathedral - apart from the couple, bestman & bridesmaid, photographer and two others there were no other guests but it seemed to be a full blown ceremony 

With all the poverty in the world it seems more appropriate, to me at least, that some of the wealth that exists in these Cathedrals/Basilicas/ Churches be turned into hard cold cash and used for humanitarian purposes.

After the Cathedral we ticked off a couple of other sites before going for a walk along the beach - we started at the rocks in the foreground, took off our sandals and paddled our way to the far end. It was very refreshing with the warm water splashing around our legs and a nice breeze but we were pissed that we didn't have our togs with us as a dip would have been a good reward for our efforts of the morning.

Along the way there was a small group showing some interest in something in the water so we had to have a look and we think it was a small turtle being washed in with the waves.

The following is a selfie with the Med behind taken on the rocky point before we started our walk along the beach.

Back at the hotel it wasn't long before we were in the pool - we have used the pool everyday and on every occasion we have been the only ones in it. We have been thankful for that as it is a very small pool certified for 5 people max and I think that would be a squeeze.

The town will wake up again in around 2 hours after the siesta.

Market Day

During our drive to Tarragona we crossed a dateline, a unique experience for us as though when flying you do so without realising it, on this occasion the actual line was clearly marked out across the highway.

What did it mean in terms of time - frankly nothing as all of Spain is on the same time as is most of Western Europe. 

We awoke this morning or it is better said we were woken this morning by activity out in the Rambla Nova being the Main Street through Tarragona and on which the hotel is situated. When we looked out we found that a street market was being set up so after breakfast we walked the market.

There was stall after stall of shoes and clothes and more shoes and more clothes and .. you get the picture all relatively cheap. I was able to purchase two reasonable quality polo shirts for the princely sum of 16€.

After lunch we walked down to the port area and El Serrallo a restaurant area much like the Viaduct, though smaller. There was little activity in the port however a nice looking vessel was moored across "the other side"

On the way back up to the city area we called in to the Roman Forum, a reasonably large area with numerous ruins - every time we see an area such as this I think how the archeologists must have wet themselves in delight as they excavated and uncovered the history of the area

A couple of months before we left for holiday we saw a programme on TV which highlighted a traditional sport in Tarragona province - to see which team could build the highest human tower (Castells). There are some very good YouTube clips to have a look at and there was also a statue on the Main Street in tribute to the sport.

While walking around after tea last night we came across a building which had the whole side of it, some five storeys in all painted to tell a story - what the story was I'm not sure but it certainly livened up the surrounding area....

....and before retiring for the evening I stood on the terrace and took a photo of the scene below on Rambla Nova, there is a large area between the two lanes of roadway which people amble, even perhaps ramble along (while the market was on today there were concrete bollards in place at either end of the Rambla to prevent a Barcelona type tragedy)