We found some interesting things about that part of the world, northern Spain and southern France. It was our first time there. We had been to France before, but only in Paris and in the north. First, we were a little surprised by the people in Spain. In the United States, when we think of Spanish speaking people, we think of Mexican and Central American people: they mostly have dark skin and dark hair, and they are often poor and uneducated. (Not all Mexicans and Central Americans are like that, but it is a stereotype.) But in Spain, it seemed like almost half the people had brown or blond hair, and had skin a lot like the French or other people in middle and northern Europe. And there were lots of middle class and professional people. Maybe it would be different in southern Spain, but it was different from what we thought. The drivers in Barcelona were a little crazy: fast drivers, honking the horn a lot, etc. We're not used to that, at least in Columbus. We rented a car, but I'm glad I didn't have to drive in Barcelona! And a big difference is meal time. The Spanish eat very late in the evening. Some restaurants don't open until 8:30 PM. That was very different, but when in Rome, do as the Romans: we got used to it.
Unfortunately, we had some travel difficulties. We made our reservations in early April, and I think that was too late. We wanted to leave Columbus on Saturday, June 13, and return Saturday, June 27. But when Claire called the travel agent, all flights from Barcelona on the 27th were full. We had to come home on Friday, so we lost a day of the trip. Then when we left, we had real trouble. We got to the Columbus airport early, and got all our ticketing and check-in done. We got into the airplane, but didn't take off. The pilot said that there were really bad rainstorms in New York, and that any airplanes that were not already in the air, could not take off. Our plane was scheduled to leave Columbus at 2:30 PM and arrive in New York at 5:00. Then our plane to Barcelona was scheduled to leave New York at 6:15 PM. We did not leave Columbus until about 4:30 PM, and we arrived at about 7. Unfortunately, the Barcelona plane had already left. And because of the bad weather, the airport was really crowded with people who had arrived late: everybody was trying to make other arrangements. We finally talked to ticket agent at about 9:00 PM. Was there another flight to Barcelona that night? No. Was there a flight to another city in Spain that night? No. Can you book us on tomorrow night's flight? No, it's already full. But you can fly standby. Can you find us a hotel tonight? No, they are all full. So we were in New York, with only a possibility of leaving the next day. And worse, we couldn't get our luggage because of all the late arriving airplanes. And the luggage was going to Barcelona the next day, whether we went or not! The first problem was where to stay overnight. Fortunately, my aunt lives in New York. I called her, and she said we could stay at her house. So we took a taxi to her house (she is 85 years old), and she was happy to see us. We were lucky that she was there. We slept there, but without our luggage, of course! We went back to the airport the next day, and went to the Delta area. We still could not get our baggage, and we couldn't sign up for standby seats until 5:00 PM. We waited, then signed up for standby just a few minutes before 5. By that time, people started getting on the plane, and at 6:00, they started taking standby people. Fortunately, there was room for us. But it was very tense, not knowing whether we would make it. Things were starting to look good. We were on the airplane, going to Barcelona. But after about three hours, somebody on the plane had a heart attack. A doctor on the plane said he was very ill; we had to turn around, and we made an emergency landing in St. John's, Newfoundland, in Canada. Because of refueling and filing another flight plan, that delayed the flight another four hours. But we finally got to Barcelona, and our luggage got there too. All that was the bad news, now for the good news.
On the second day, we had an all-Gaudi day. We toured the "Casa Mila", a large house that he designed. There were many interesting details, especially the chimneys on the roof. He had no ordinary chimneys, but designed fantastic characters that were "witch scarers". The curved lines around the building, and the interesting stairways, balconies, and windows were beautiful. From there, we went to Park Guell, on the north side of the city. It is on a high hill, so we had a nice view of Barcelona all the way out to the sea. But the park itself is even more beautiful. There are benches, towers, designs that are really different. I wonder if Gaudi was smoking something before it became popular! And there were palm trees and other really nice flowers and plants. We then went to Placa Catalunya again. This time, Claire did some shopping, and I walked around and took pictures. There were a lot of good people picture situations: children with pigeons, street musicians, old men selling things. There were some very nice statues, too.
On our way to Bordeaux, we visited the small town of Girona. It was very interesting, with many old buildings and narrow streets. I had never seen such narrow streets, but now I was driving on them! And they were two-way streets, but fortunately I didn't see any cars coming the other way. There is a beautiful cathedral there with a very nice museum. Among other things, the museum has a very well preserved book written in 975. Claire was very excited about this! The book is a religious lesson for the people of the time; there were many pictures of stories from the Bible. There was also an old tapestry from the 12th century. It had some religious pictures, and some pictures of the seasons. It was interesting, but it was not as well preserved as the tapestry at Bayeux in France.
We arrived in Bordeaux very late on Wednesday evening. We knew the address of our hotel and had a map, but it was very exciting driving through the city! The drivers in Bordeaux weren't as active as those in Barcelona, but it was still a challenge for us easy-going American drivers. We called our hosts when we arrived, then had dinner. Bordeaux was hosting some World Cup games, so there was a lot of activity. Fortunately the English weren't playing there, so everybody was well behaved! On our first full day, Lindsay met us at our hotel and took us out to wine country. She had arranged a tour of the Mouton Rothschild winery, one of the finest in the region. When she called them to make reservations, she asked if there was an English tour. Yes, but it was full. Would we like the tour in French with some wine tasting? Yes we would! We got a tour with tasting, and the wine was, of course, very nice. We had dinner at Lindsay's house that evening, and we met her children. (Her husband had some professional meetings that night and couldn't join us.) During the dinner, we watched France beat Saudi Arabia 4-0: a very good day for the French. After dinner, Lindsay said it was an easy drive back to the hotel, and she gave us directions. The directions took us past a large square. Because of the football match, it was really crowded with people celebrating the victory. It took us a long time to get through, and some people looked at us because our license plate was not French! Although there was no trouble, we were very nervous!
On our second day in Bordeaux, Lindsay showed us some interesting things in the city. Also, she and Claire went shopping, and I walked around taking pictures. Bordeaux was once a very prosperous city, and there are some really beautiful buildings and statues. The wine there has made the city wealthy for a long time. Claire and Lindsay and I got together again, and we went to her house. We met her husband, and we all went out for the evening. First, her daughter was performing in a music festival. It was nice to see a local performance with real people (not the shop and hotel people who treat everybody like tourists). Then we went to an outdoor restaurant on the Garonne River. The restaurant was wonderful, of course; too much cannot be said about French cuisine.
On the third day, Claire and I did some walking and last minute shopping. We were entertained by the football fans: Belgium was playing Mexico that evening, and the fans were preparing for the game!
After we left Bordeaux, we visited Biarritz, the beach resort for wealthy people. It was very nice, of course, with beautiful buildings and beaches. But it was very hot there: it was 40C/104F! Hotter than most places in the United States. We walked around, did some shopping, then began driving again. We drove to San Sebastian, a small town in Spain, not far from Biarritz. We wanted to spend the night there, then go to the beach and relax. But it was Saturday, and San Sebastian was very crowded. It was perhaps like Atlantic City: crowds of people and cars everywhere. And there were no available hotel rooms. We tried at some small cities nearby, but no rooms anywhere on the beach. We were disappointed, but we began our journey into the Pyrenees. We finally stopped at Pamplona.
We felt lucky to get a hotel in Pamplona, especially after the difficulty along the way. We checked in, then walked around the city streets for a while. There were a lot of people out walking, including many young people. As usual, there was no trouble. I think only American cities are dangerous at night. We didn't want to spend a lot of time in Pamplona, but we did walk for a little while in the morning. We found the famous bull ring and the statue of Ernest Hemingway, and we almost certainly passed where the people "run with the bulls". It was all very interesting, of course.
We began driving east again, through the Pyrenees, back toward Barcelona. The scenery was beautiful: rolling hills with mountains in the distance; almost no signs of the city, only rural areas. The first town we stopped at was Sanguesa. I can't remember why we stopped there; perhaps there was a cathedral or something. But while looking for a parking place, we saw some Basque folk dancers in the street. We parked as fast as we could and hurried to the place where they were dancing. We were a little familiar with Basque dancing because we hosted two French girls in 1992; they were from a dance group visiting Columbus. The costumes were very nice, and the dances were really interesting. It was a good first stop. Our next stop was in a small town called Leyre. There was a monastery on a hill there. It was a beautiful building, but it was closed, not to open for two or three hours. We didn't want to wait, so we were on the road again. We went off the main road and up the mountain to visit the monastery of San Juan de la Pena, St. John of the mountain. It took us 15 or 20 minutes driving to get up the mountain; it was really up there. And the monastery was fortified: somebody actually attacked it several hundred years ago! It was not only a nice structure, but there were interesting inscriptions in the rock from as far back as the twelfth century. And being up there gave us a spectacular view of the scenery. We then drove to Jaca, the former capital of Aragon, and one of the larger towns in the area. There were some interesting things, but more importantly, there was a nice hotel at a reasonable price.
When we left Jaca, we drove into the heart of the Pyrenees. The mountains were getting higher, more rocky, and covered with snow. Really beautiful scenery. Our first stop was Torla, a small mountain town. Here again, the streets were very narrow. The houses were all stone, and there were farms with cattle grazing. And of course there were souvenir shops! Very picturesque, except for the souvenir shops! We continued driving to a town called Vielha. It was in a part of Spain called Val d'Aran, the Valley of Aran. They spoke still another language here: Aranese. This was probably the most beautiful part of the Pyrenese; this area was a very popular skiing and hiking resort. We were lucky because the skiers had left and the hikers weren't there yet! The weather was perfect: warm, sunny, and with clouds below some of the mountain tops. Claire and I decided that we were going to buy a house there when we win the lottery! We spent the night there, and the hotel was quite reasonably priced. In the morning, we drove to Andorra, one of the "postage stamp" countries. We were advised not to go there because there was nothing to see. Because Andorra doesn't charge any tax, products are much cheaper than in Spain or France. Consequently, there are hundreds of shops selling cigarettes, alcohol, perfume, electronics, all sorts of junk. And there was very little nice scenery. But a friend of ours wanted a postcard from there, so we sent one. Just after filling our car with cheap petrol!
We drove to the airport, returned our rental car, and took a taxi to our hotel downtown. We decided to do one more day of touring, so we took the subway to the Montjuic part of town: the mountain of Jews. There were some fabulous things there: an art museum in the National Palace, Olympic village from the 1992 Olympics (although we didn't see any of it), "Spanish Village", a tourist area established in the 1920's, and some beautiful fountains. We started by walking through the Spanish Village. It was mostly shops, but the buildings were interesting and I got several good black and white photos. And we finished our souvenir shopping. We went to the National Palace and visited the Museum of Catalan Art. There was an interesting photography exhibit, and there was a lot of old religious art from the region. Finally, we went outside and watched the fountains. They were large fountains with lots of different water sprays. And they were lighted by different color lights. When the sun went down, there was a really nice show of music, lights, and water. The fountains were choreographed to such music as the 1992 Barcelona Olympic theme, a Strauss waltz, and the theme from the movie "ET". It was a great show and worth waiting until late at night. We were very lucky: it was Thursday, and the shows only started the Tuesday of that week. The show is only in the summer time.
We had one last adventure before going home. We got up the next morning and packed our luggage. Claire wanted to buy another book, so we walked down the Avenue to a bookstore. When we were returning to the hotel, a man was standing there with an open map. He asked a question about Sagrada Familia. That is one of the most popular tourist attractions. We started telling him how to get there, and he opened his wallet. It had lots of American dollars and Spanish Pesetas. He started asking "How much ..." when two other men came to us. One of them showed us what looked like a police badge. He said "Spanish Police! Passports, please." We showed him our passports. He said "How much money do you have?" I opened my wallet; there was one American dollar in it. Claire opened her purse, and she had only about 5,000 pesetas, about 30 dollars, just about enough for taxi cab fare to the airport. The man then said he was sorry, he was only doing his job. He said we should only change money in the banks. Then they all walked away. We didn't understand what was happening at the time. We went back to the hotel, took the taxi, got to the airport, and got home. We later learned that that was a common Barcelona street scam. The "police" were actually thieves. If we had a lot of money they would have accused us of illegally trading currency. Then they would have "arrested" us, and perhaps "fined" us. The fine might have been one hundred dollars or so. Not a lot, but just enough. That way, we wouldn't have had to go to the "police station". We were lucky; Claire had more cash, but it was hidden. We were angry for a while, but it didn't detract from our good vacation.
Our flight home was good, and the delay in New York wasn't too bad. We didn't have trouble with customs, and we got to Columbus pretty much on time. All in all, it was a good trip.