First of all, the night train was awesome. Except for the fact that we were late for breakfast (honestly... no one told us there was a time limit) and we missed it, the ride was great. The train was a little shakey, but that may have actually helped us to sleep better. The beds were pretty comfortable, and we both slept really well! Two thumbs up for night trains from us!
So, we arrived in Barcelona bright and early yesterday morning, immediately bought our train ticket leaving Barcelona (we´re finally catching on to the whole "buy the ticket ahead of time, and don´t put it off so that you have to make a special trip to the train station just to buy the ticket" thing), then found our way to our hotel. For those of you familar with Barcelona, we´re staying at a little hotel just off of La Ramblas (http://www.hotelespanya.com) which is a
perfectlocation. We have already strolled up and down La Ramblas a few times, stopping to visit shops, watch street performers, and purchase fresh fruit at the local outdoor market. We´re also very close to the beach, so we´ve visited the beach a couple of times and I even laid out with only my "Wicked" book to hide the top half of me for a while. :) Today we went to the Gaudi cathedral and walked all 350+ steps of the way up! It was quite a workout, but worth it. It was raining quite a bit this afternoon, so we are planning to head to the park with Gaudi´s work in it tomorrow after we go to the Picasso Museum. Then, it will be off to Milan on another night train, and immediately on to Cinque Terre where we´ll stay for a couple of days if we´re able to find somewhere to sleep there. If not, then we´ll come up with another Italian town to stay in for a couple of nights.
Recap:
Keith and I have been discussing our "favorites" about the trip and also some things that we´ve found interesting about the individual cities/countries we´ve visited or about Europe in general. I thought I would share my responses...
- Favorite Amsterdam experience: The canals... I thought they were really beautiful and it was great to get to go sailing as well.
- Memorable Amsterdam experience: Being awoken in the middle of the night by a screaming frog (yes, they DOscream) as Bram´s cat tortured it! The only reason we even knew what that noise was is because we´ve experienced the same thing at the barn... so it was like we were at home. :)
- Favorite Belgium experience: Experiencing the cities with Belgium locals! On top of being great hosts, Erwin and Bieke were great about showing us the hot spots for tourists and locals alike. And Steven also added some great tid bits of information. :)
- Memorable Belgium finding: The toilet seat at the first restaurant that we went to actually cleaned themselves after each flush! Why don´t American toilets do that?!?!
- Favorite Paris experience: You might think this would be visiting the Eiffel Tower, seeing the Arc de Tromph, or going through Notre Dame, but my favorite time was stolling through the park at the Louvre because the weather was so perfect, the sight was so beautiful, everyone seemed so relaxed and happy, and I was able to share it all with my Love (Keith, of course)!
I´ll update with Barcelona and maybe even Keith´s picks later, but for now... Adios!
No comments:
Post a Comment