The Long Road (Flight) Home

This is the last posting to the blog. Time to go home.

I left Barcelona at 10:30AM Wednesday morning and landed in Melbourne at 7:15PM Thursday evening. Both times are local times, so that is a total journey time of 22 hours and 45 minutes. I had 2 sunsets on the way.


At Singapore Airport they have set up an area specifically for watching the World Cup. Many of the food shops and bars at the airport have multiple screens for watching the football too.




Yibida yibida - that's all folks. I hope you enjoyed reading the blog as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

The Shadow of the Wind - Las Ramblas

These 2 pictures show what the Ramblas in Barcelona looks like at 7 in the morning - before the buskers, "human statues", florists, artists and tourists all arrive! It's quite serene and normal. A couple of joggers went past and a couple of the vendors were starting to set up their stalls.

When Daniel first went to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books it was at 5Am, and it wasn't in summer either.

Spot the Cathedral

Just like in Rome (and Malta for that matter) if you walk more than 500m without encountering a church, either you're walking on the spot or round in circles. The difference with Rome and Barcelona is that they all seem so big.

So I've thought of a little game to play. I've marked the location of 4 churches on a Google map of Barcelona, and taken photos of the churches at those locations. What you need to do is work out which church belongs to which location, and guess which of the four is THE cathedral.

You will need to enlarge the map (by clicking on it) to see the letters of the locations and the numbers associated with each photo. Good luck.

The Shadow of the Wind - The Aldayas Home

On the way up to the Tibidabo I went past the home of the Aldaya family from The Shadow of the Wind. From memory the Aldayas lived on a corner, at number 32.

• This is a view looking up the Avenida del Tibidabo from the bottom of the hill. The tram is visible coming down the hill.
  
  


• The blue tram that Daniel took to the Aldayas' home. They seem to have solved the problem of Daniel getting a free ride by placing the conductor at the stop, so you have to buy the ticket before you get on.
  
  
  


• This is what stands on the corner at number 32 now. I think number 32 was the site of the Aldayas' home.
  
  

I was hoping to cover more of The Shadow of the Wind sites but that's as far as I got.

The Tibidabo

The Tibidabo is a fun park located on the highest peak around Barcelona. If it was anywhere else it would be a bit lame but the setting makes it absolutely magical. The views from there are magnificent, even more magnificent than the other views I have spoken about before. I got there in the afternoon heat so the haze over the city reduced the effectiveness of the photo, but on a clear day the view would be magical.


The trip to Tibidabo involves a few steps but it is good fun anyway. The first step is to take the Metro to Avenida del Tibidabo. Nothing too hard about that except that the station is on Linea 7. Much of Linea 7 is shared with Linea 6 (so you neeed to be careful which train you take) and I couldn't find a way at either Placa Catalunya or Diagonal of getting from Linea 3 to Linea 7 without getting out of the system and having to register another trip on my card. The trip itself is routine especially as Avenida del Tibidabo is the last stop on Linea 7.


You get out of the station into Placa John F Kennedy, and the Blue Tram is right in front of you. The tram seems to be a similar vintage to the ole Melbourne trams and about half the length. It's a slow and noisy thing like our old trains with a very loud bell! It costs E2.60 one way or E4.80 return - the Metro ticket is not accepted. If in doubt about taking the tram, keep in mind it's a long hill that gets steeper as it goes. I walked down the hill on the way back which was quite easy :-)


Once the tram drops you off at the top of the hill, you need to fork out E4 for a return trip on the Funicular. Not many option to walk here as it's quite a long and steep climb and I have no idea where the road goes, and the trip is worth doing anyway. As you look out the back window of the Funicular (this was fun - everyone else was up the front looking at the hill) you see Barcelona unfold before you. Really quite something!

Once you're at the top there is the theme park and the spectacular view. A really worth while trip!

Barcelona III - More Sun And Sea

It sounds a bit like a bad movie sequel. Well, here I am again. I don't think I've ever been to the same city 3 times on the same trip before, never mind specifically flown there all 3 times. Still it's a wonderful place so no complaints. I am still running into plazas and inte3resting streets I hadn't come across before, like this church square and this quaint walkway across the narrow laneway - both of which are only a few yards away from where I'd walked previously.


I had a slow start this morning. I went to a bookshop we'd been to last time and bought myself a decent Spanish - English dictionary as well as a book about the Norte Camino (the north route of the Camino) for Marianne. Then it was off to the El Cortes Ingles department store and some other "incidental" shopping.


I finally decided enough was enough. I really don't have the genes for shopping. Football shirts and books is about my limit. I think my brothers got the shopping genes, the older one in particular. It was quite hot by now so I thought I'd go to the beach. To my surprise Barceloneta is only about 20 minutes walk from the bottom of Las Ramblas, or a 10 minute walk from the Barceloneta Metro station. So I opted for the walk and walked there from the hotel. It was a lovely day so why not?



Like everything else in Barcelona the beach is wonderful. It even comes with its own sights (not all in photos) so it wasn't even the end of the sightseeing! The sea was calm and refreshing, really nice - it didn't even take long to adjust to the water temperature.

The beach is great as long as you don't mind being asked every 30 - 60 seconds if you would like to purchase:

• A cold drink (offered by an army of guys walking up and down the beach), with beer, Coke, Fanta and water being on offer.


• A massage (offered by various young females walking up and down the beach).


• Beach clothing (mostly shawls) on offer by a small army of people walking up and down the beach.

These people are mostly not intrusive though so you learn to just ignore them after a while.


I did get a little bit lucky though. A woman about 20 metres away from me had stuff taken from her. You should have heard her shout obscenities as her very fit looking and muscular partner chased the thief down the crowded beach. The thief would have had a 50 metre head start but he had no chance. The guy caught him and held him until the police turned up. Luckily for the theief, the police turned up straight away (they seem to be on constant patrol), before the woman caught up to them otherwise I think she would have turned him into pulp. She wasn't a small woman and quite capable of it I think!



Tomorrow is my last day here. I think I will start with the Tibidabo in the morning and then the beach (minus camera this time) in the afternoon. According to the BBC tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, 21C to 30C. According to barcelona.com we are expeccting "

Sprinkles early. Morning clouds. Mild

" (with a picture of rain). I liked the word "sprinkles" to describe showers so I had to throw that in! I'll find out tomorrow which is right but I suspect I'll be at the beach!

Rome - How NOT to Organise an Airport

I think there is a good reason why Italians and spaghetti go ttogether, I think spaghetti reflects the essential Italian character when it comes to organising things. My main experience of that was the airport today.

Marianne & I got there and went our various ways to our check-ins, hoping to meet up afterwards.

My check-in was not yet open when I got there.So I waited patiently (second in line). Eventually they changed the check-in counter by simply opening one that was different to the one advertised. A few people took advantage of this to jump the queue but to their credit it was only a handful.

By the time I got through that I must have missed Marianne and she is now on her way back home.

While waiting at the gate I was surprised at how many of the announcements were for changes to the advertised (and ticketed) gate numbers. Heaps.

People finally started to gather around the gate where I was waiting so I sauntered over. Just as I was going over one of the guys from the check-in queue (an Italian who spoke no English) recognised me as he walked past and informed me (correctly) that the gate was now for a Lufthansa flight and we had been moved to another gate. I must have missed that particular announcement.

Just for good measure, as I got to the newly assigned gate I heard the following announcement (in Italian of course) - "will passenger Agius travelling to Barcelona please report immediately to the gate for more information". My heart sank even before the English version of the announcement. What now?

No biggie in the end, they apparently had double booked the seat and had decided to move me from 7F to 25A. Thank goodness that's all it was.

What a mess! I'm back in Barca now and just recovering from the shock of Germany smashing England 4 - 1. Wow. While at the airport in Barcelona I went to the Tourist Information office. The woman in the queue behind me rang someone and spoke in heavily accented English. :I'm in deep sh*t. I am not booked on the flight. The man showed me my booking was for July, not June. Swiss had a spare seat but they want E450 and I don't have E450:.

Ouch.

Important tip. When booking online, always make sure you click the correct month and year, then double check it.

Marianne sent me an email from Singapore. This is what it said:-

I was probably still in the queue. I got through at close to 11am. The flight was delayed, they were taking 5 to 10 minutes to process each person. Service was appalling, no information, people trying to jump the queue and people getting angry. Had to get an extra train to the gate, then signs pointed you the long way around to go past all the shops. I think we passed your plane on the tarmac

While in the subject of Rome & Organisation, here are a couple more things to be aware of:

• We bought a 3 day Roma Pass for (I think) E26. This gave us unlimited travel on public transport within Rome excluding the airport, plus entry into 2 museums (excluding the Vatican which is another country and therefore not in Rome). Entry to the Colosseum is E12 so you can see it is actually good value and we used the buses and Metro quite a lot. The Roma Pass comes in this beautifully presented pack (almost a gift box actally) but is very short on information about public transport! The included tourist map is reasonable but Marianne had to use my telescope to read the railway & Metro schematic (we decided it is printed in 4-point!). The schematic itself is not very clear, confusing. And buses? Not a mention of them anywhere.


• Buying food and drink involves using a system I haven't seen in a long time, where you pay at a separate counter from where you order. In some cases you pay first, other times you pay on the way out.

Don't get me wrong, we had a great time in Rome, just it's a bit more quirky than the other places we've been to. But hey, even they have completely separated lanes for bicycles (see attached photo) and an express train to the airport, concepts that Melbourne still can't get its head around!