San Sebastián, Tours and Paris

The weather forecast for our last day in San Sebastián was thunderstorms. Luckily, the rain held out during the day. However it was horrifically windy, and quite cold; and the sky was an ominous grey, hinting at a storm all day. So not the best day for laying around the beach or going hiking. We had found a bookstore the previous day that sold English books, and we were both in desperate need of a new book, so we decided to make that the first task of the day. We made it just before they were about to close for seista, and thank goodness we did! They not only had English books, but they were so cheap! We found the next few books of the few series that we had started reading, and got them all for a ridiculously good price. We were more than happy! For lunch we found a cheap kebab place, and sat in the sun and ate kebabs. We went for a bit of a walk along a walkway that wound around the rocks and connected the surf beach to the swimming beach. 

About halfway along we had to turn back. The wind had gotten worse, it had gotten colder, and it looked like the sky was going to burst at any moment. On the walk back to the hostel we stopped at an ice cream store and got some ice cream. We got cappuccino and brownie. They competed with the Italian gelato! It was delicious ice cream. 

Before returning to the hostel we had stopped at the grocery store and bought groceries for dinner that night, as the hostel had a kitchen. However, when we walked in the front door, the lady who's family owns the hostel/guest house informed us, in very broken English, that we were infact not allowed to use the kitchen, as it was for family only. We were so annoyed! We had just bought all this food and it was going to have to go to waste. We lay around in our room for a bit, really not wanting to go out into the rain to find dinner. Before we headed out, we found the lady and used google translate to tell her that she could have the mince we had purchased, as we were leaving the next morning and couldn't keep it. I think she felt bad for us, but she used the translate app to say that we could use the kitchen, but fast. And that she never saw us in there. It was very nice of her! So we rushed into action, and hammered out the quickest pasta bolognase ever. We had to sit out the back to eat it so no one would see us. It was a strange experience, but we were really grateful that she let us cook. 

The next morning, as we do every 3 days, we got up bright and early to catch the bus. Today we were travelling to a place in France called Tours. We were done with Spain! I was pretty sad to say goodbye to tapas and siestas. Our first stop of the morning was in a small town called Biarritz. The place we stopped had a beautiful view over the ocean, and a cute coffee shop where we got a delicious sandwich. 

We arrived in Tours at about 5:00. Since Tours is fairly small, there weren't any hostels, so we had to splurge and get a hotel room. We had looked up our hotel before arriving in Tours, so we knew that it was quite far away from the drop off point. We were unsure about buses and public transport to the hotel at this time, so we had to catch a taxi. The taxi took us further and further out of the town centre, and eventually stopped at this run down looking hotel on the side of the highway. Needless to say we were a little nervous. However once inside it was much nicer. Our room was very tiny, just a bed, small desk, and a tiny bathroom. But it had a double bed, and it was our own room which we hadn't had for a long time. It was nice to be able to spread our stuff out, and not have to worry about anyone else. 

Next to our hotel, there was a nice looking Chinese resturant. We decided to have dinner there, as we didn't have a kitchen to cook our own dinner. We walked in, and were the only customers in the whole resturant. We sat down, looked at the menu and ordered our food. We had ordered spring rolls, but rice paper rolls came out instead. We were a bit annoyed but didn't mind too much, as we both like rice paper rolls. We took a bite of the rolls, and almost had to spit them back out again. They were disgusting! I rolled mine up in a servitte and put it on my lap, and we opened Harrison's up and salvaged what we could from it. They were the worst rice paper rolls I've ever eaten. It was like they had been frozen and then thawed, which they probably had. Next came the meals, which were actually okay. We ate and got out of there as quickly as we could, dropping the wrapped up rice paper roll in the bin on the way out. 

After talking to the hotel staff, we found out that there was a bus into the town centre. So we decided to go explore Tours the next day. After a 40 minute bus ride, we finally made it there. We went into the tourist info centre and grabbed a map, and made our way into the old town. On the way there we stopped at an adorable little cafe and got some lunch. There isn't too much to see in Tours. We had walked around the old town and seen most of the important sights within an hour. 

We wandered in and out of little shops and strolled through the cobbled streets. We came across a candy and liquor store, which I found quite amusing. After walking around for a bit, we felt satisfied that we had seen all there was to see in Tours, so we stopped at a pub and got a drink. 

We caught the bus back to our shabby little hotel, and walked to a grocery store to see what we could do for dinner, as we knew better than to go back to the Chinese resturant. We got some tuna, veggies and bread and had tuna sandwiches for dinner that night. They actually weren't that bad. Better than the food from the previous night. 

The rain came down hard the next day, the day we had to leave. Our bus only arrived at 5pm, so we thankfully didn't have to get up too early, and were able to hide from the rain in the hotel for a while. As the time drew nearer, we trekked to the bus stop and made our way into town. There is large train station in Tours, that we hoped had lockers for us to store our bags while we waited. Unfortunately they did not. They were able to point us in the direction of a bike rental store that had luggage storage, so we went in search of that. The rain was coming down quite hard at this time, and it took us a little while of walking around in the rain to find the bike rental shop, but we finally found it and they were able to keep our bags for only €4! Our next mission was to find lunch. So back out into the rain we went to hopefully find somewhere indoors to eat. Ironically we stumbled across another Chinese takeout place, which was the only food place we had found with available indoor seating. The food was not much better than the previous place, but we did get proper spring rolls this time at least. After lunch we went walked around for a bit in the rain, and I got a new phone case as mine had broken during the trip. 

Once we were done we sat in McDonalds until it was time for the bus to arrive. 

The bus ride to Paris was only supposed to take four hours. However due to the ridiculously heavy rain, the traffic was atrocious. Luckily it cleared up near the end of the trip, so we only ended up getting in an hour late. Since we were driving passed the Eifle Tour at night, and on the hour (10pm), we got to see it light up and sparkle! It was an incredible thing to see! The sparkling made that ugly piece of metal into something beautiful and magical. I am really happy that we got to see it! We also drove passed the Moulin Rouge, which was cool to see at night. 

We finally got to the drop off point at 10:30, and it had not stopped raining. We donned our rain jackets and trekked into the night, in search of a metro. We welcomed the dryness and warmth of the train. We were due to change trains, so we hopped off the first one, only to discover that there was track work on the line we needed. To get to the station we needed we would have to go back the way we had just come, and get on two more trains after that. I was tired, hungry and drenched so I put my foot down and basically demanded we get a taxi. It was almost 11:30 by this point and we had not eaten since lunch time, it was raining heavily and the train station we were in smelled like pee. I had had enough. We found a taxi and finally made it to our hostel, just before midnight. 

The whole bus ride to Paris, I had been really itchy. I had hopes that it was just from sitting for so long, or just in my head. But when we got into our hostel room, and I stripped down, I was dismayed to find bites all over my arms, legs and back. After four months, we had finally gotten a taste of bedbugs. And not even from a hostel! From a hotel! I was so annoyed. Luckily Harrison didn't get them too bad, but I am covered. Even on my hands the little bastards! And I have not reacted to them well, the bites have swollen to three times their original size and are itchy as all hell. I got into the shower and tried to scrub away the itch, but nothing helped. By 12:30 we had settled in and finally been able to go make some dinner. However I was so exhausted, I felt too ill to eat so I just went to bed. 

This morning, the first thing we did after breakfast was scout out the closest laundromat and wash all of our clothes on the hottest wash we could. Hopefully we managed to kill any bugs left on our clothes. Tonight we are making the awful over night bus ride to London, so we have just been preparing for that all day. I can't believe that our time in Europe is over. It feels like we just arrived in Paris to start our journey, and now we are leaving. It has been an incredible few months, we have experienced so many amazing things and met some equally amazing people. This trip has changed the way that I look at the world, life and myself. It has been a huge eye opener, and a true test of character. And if I am being truly honest, I am really proud of both Harrison and myself. We have faced and overcome some pretty bad things, like having our stuff stolen during our first week in Europe, sickness and hospital visits. We have made so many incredible memories. I am proud of the person that I have become, and the things that I have achieved. I am sad to be leaving Europe, and our backpacking days, but I am also so excited to be starting the next chapter of our adventure in South Africa! 

Madrid and San Sebastián

We arrived to a really great hostel in Madrid, which is always a good start for any new city. The hostel is fairly new, so everything was super up to date and good quality. It is always such a relief to arrive at a hostel, and have it be really nice. We got checked in, and headed out for dinner with a bunch of people from the bus that day. Our guide took us to this awesome Mexican place, not far from our hostel. I had been absolutely craving a burrito, so I was more than excited! We arrived and the smell was incredible, everything I had been hoping for. Harrison and I got a burrito each, and we split some nachos and a litre of margarita between us and a new friend from the bus. The food was so delicious! 

And they really weren't shy with the helpings! I don't think anyone got through all their food. 

When we had arrived we had been informed that there was to be a karaoke night at the hostels bar that night! So after dinner we made our way back to the hostel. We were a little early and the karaoke bar wasn't open yet, so we grabbed some beers and sat in the hostels common room and waited for the bar to open. The time came, and we made our way down to the bar. We were pretty much the only people in there! Spain really starts its nights very late. We went in anyway and ordered some drinks. It's great going out in a group, because more often than not bars will have deals on jugs of alcohol. So when you're in a group you can all put money in and the jug ends up being really cheap. We got a few jugs of sangria, and waited for the karaoke to start. Soon enough the bar started to fill up, and they finally started the karaoke! It wasn't very good, the sound system kept dropping out and a lot of people didn't show up when called, but it was still a fun night! We only ended up getting into bed at 2am, and I'm sure the party went on much later into the night. The Spanish are crazy with their late nights.

The next morning we got up and went on a walking tour provided by the hostel, with some people we met on the bus. It was quite an interesting tour, we got to see the oldest resturant in the world!

(According to the guinness world record book). And we stood in the very centre of Spain!

We saw a lot of Madrid and learnt some interesting things about the cities history.

Though it was so hot walking around in the sun that by the end of the tour we were just wishing it would be over. For lunch the four of us decided to go to a tapas bar that we had been told about. But first we had a bit of a pit stop at another bar that served 80 cent beer! And that was the bigger size, you could get a smaller cup for 40 cents. It was pretty awesome! Once we got to the tapas bar, we ordered our drinks and waited for the tapas to come. At many tapas bars around Spain, you have to pay for the tapas that you get with your drink. However, at a traditional tapas bar you only pay for the drinks and the tapas is free. This place was a traditional tapas bar, so we each paid €6 for a drink and that was it. The plates of tapas started arriving, and the food was so good! The first few plates contained pieces of bread with delicious bits of prosciutto and chunks of pork on them and a whole plate of potato wedges. When the waiters saw the plates were empty, they brought more! This time we got a plate of deep fried cheese balls which where absolutely amazing, a plate of paella and a plate with bread with mixed toppings such as omelette, pork, prosciutto and beef slices. It was incredible! All that food for €6 each! If you didn't get up and leave once you were full, they would just keep bringing you plates of food! It was one of the best and cheapest lunches we have had. It was fairly late in the afternoon, and as we are in Spain we decided to uphold the tradition of an afternoon siesta. 

Once we were all rested we walked to the Rein Sofia art gallery, as after 6pm it was free entry. Luckily we didn't have to wait long at all to get in, and there weren't that many people inside. I was particularly excited, as this art gallery had a lot of Salvador Dali's artworks. I had really hoped to visit the Salvador Dali museum whilst in Spain, but due to poor research I was mislead to the whereabouts of the museum. I had really thought it was in Madrid, but this was unfortunately not the case. It is actually located in a town an hour out of Barcelona. I could have kicked myself, I was so disappointed. However this gallery gave me my Dali fix, so that made it a little less painful. 

The first half of the museum was very interesting, and had some great artworks. However the second half focused on minimalistic artwork, which honestly I just don't understand. (In case you don't know, minimalistic artworks are those canvases you see that have a few dots or lines on them. In one case there were blank canvases. And a candle in a shoe. Not my kind of art.) We quickly grew bored of lines, dots and paint splashes and decided to go find some dinner. 

It was quite late, and we were eager to get some food so we made the hasty decision to eat at a little resturant down a side street on the way home. We looked at the menu and ordered our food. In all honesty, I don't know what I ordered. It was in Spanish, but I could see it had prawns in it so I decided to be brave. What arrived was 3 fried eggs, a few prawns, grilled squid and caviar ontop of some French fries. Let's just say that the only good thing about the meal were the eggs. They had absolutely butchered the prawns. They were so incredibly over cooked, they had the texture of McDonalds chicken nuggets. The squid was fishy and chewy and over cooked. And the caviar was just disgusting. But hey I can say I've tried caviar now. Everyone else's food was less disastrous. Even though our one friend only got his burger after the rest of us had finished eating. 

By the time we got back to the hostel it was about 10:45. We had all decided to go out, so we quickly got ready and headed out again. We had planned on going to the hostels bar, then a big club. But the hostel bar was closed, and the club had terrible reviews on the internet, so we decided to join the pub crawl that was conviently leaving the hostel instead. During the first hour, in the first bar we arrived at, there was an open bar. We paid a set price and then were able to order as many drinks as we could in that hour. There were now 5 of us, and we all drank more than our money's worth at the open bar. The next few bars were fun, and we danced a lot and met lots of people. 

The pub crawl ends at a club. We all danced a lot, and had so much fun. It was an incredible night! But if we had thought the previous night was a late one, we were wrong. We made it back to the hostel at 6:30am, just in time for the sunrise. And just in time to find a guy that had passed out in the toilet whilst taking a poo, puked on himself, then passed out again still sitting on the toilet, and help his friend get him into the shower. 

The next day was not so good, and we didn't do anything. Open bars and shots are bad and I will leave it at that. 

The day after that one, we were on the bus to San Sebastián. It wasn't that long of a bus ride, we arrived at 4pm. Harrison and I had to walk a bit to get to our hostel from the drop off point, so we began on our way. There was a mix up with the address of the hostel so it ended up taking us over an hour to find it. When we finally did, we were less than impressed. This accomodation was one of the most expensive we have had to pay so far. We arrived to an apartment owned by 3 guys, that had been converted into a 'hostel'. Meaning that they had put 5 bunk beds into their garage. It felt like we were staying in someone's basement. Except with 10 strangers and in crappy bunk beds. We were also informed that the hostel would actually be closing the next day so we would have to be moved, but more on that later. At least there was a decent kitchen at this place. 

The room we were in had no windows, as it was a garage, so we woke up really late. Both of us had woken up a few times during the morning, but because it was still so dark our sleepy minds figured it must still be night time. We weren't the only ones. Almost everyone in the room has slept in, most missing check out. Today was the day we had to move. Apparently the hostel was closing for the season, yet they still let us book to stay there. I have no idea why they would do that but they did. So we had to pack up our stuff and move to another hostel up the road that they had made arrangements at for us. Luckily, this hostel is leaps and bounds better. It is more of a guest house than a hostel and is in an adorable old Spanish house, and we are not sleeping in a garage. However we do have to share our room with a Brazilian guy who also had to be moved from the previous hostel. This wouldn't be too bad, if the room wasn't a private room with a double bed, that they have just put a trundle bed in the corner of. It is a fairly small room as well. But oh well, at least we aren't in a garage. 

Due to the disruptive morning we only got out quite late this afternoon. We headed down to the beach and city centre to find some lunch. Whilst in Barcelona and Madrid tapas is the thing, in San Sebastián and surrounding areas it's pintxos (pronounced pintch-ohs). Pintxos is similar to tapas in the way that it is small portions of food you get with your drinks. However pintxos aren't free. And you get to chose what you want, unlike tapas where they serve you whatever they are serving that day. The bar is filled with plates of all sorts of different types of food, with skewers in them. Traditionally you order a drink, get a plate and chose what you want, and then when you are done you take your plate up, they count the skewers and you pay. But since San Sebastián is so touristy, most bars will make you pay before you eat. We made our way into old town and picked a bar. We ordered our drinks and received our plate. None of the pintxos are labelled, so we just dived in and grabbed stuff. We didn't even get that many pintxos, but it was really expensive! 

I prefer tapas. I have no idea what we tried - I am pretty sure it was mostly seafood - but it was all delicious! 

After lunch we made our way through the old town towards the beach. We had been told about a place that hires stand paddle boards on the beach, so as it was quite cheap we had decided to rent some boards and give it a go. We collected our boards, which are much bigger and heavier than surfboards, and made our way into the ocean. We paddled out past where the waves were breaking and attempted to stand up and paddle board. I say attempted, because it didn't really happen. Harrison managed to stand up and stay up a few times, and by the end was actually quite good! 

However, I did not. I managed to stand up briefly a few times, but came crashing down moments later. We only had the boards for an hour, so I feel like if we had had them for longer I would have gotten better. Even though I never got to stand up and paddle board, I still had a lot of fun! I managed to sit cross legged on the board and paddle around which was great! It was a hilarious and exhausting hour, and we both loved it. Although my knees and elbows did not! 

On our walk back to the hostel we came across a fruit shop so we brought some fruit to eat on the way. And as per usual it was delicious. We also passed by a churros stand, and since we haven't had any churros yet in Spain we decided to try some. They were also very delicious. 

Once back at the hostel and showered we were both so tired from our long day, that we decided to just get pizza from the pizza place down the road for dinner. We had actually wanted to buy dinner from the grocery store, but once again forgot that it was Sunday so the grocery store was closed. So pizza it was. But, when Harrison went down to get the pizza they wanted to charge us €25!! For one pizza! We think they might have been trying to rip us off since we are tourists. So we didn't get pizza. We had to walk back into the city centre to try find food. There wasn't that much open, and we couldn't eat pintxos again, because whilst they are delicious, it is expensive to get a lot of them. So we caved and went to McDonalds. I can proudly say that it is the first time this whole trip that we have eaten at McDonalds. We are not proud of it, but we were tired and hungry. It was crap anyway. 

Tomorrow, we are hoping that the weather reports are wrong and it's going to be a nice day. If it is a nice day we will probably go on one of the many hikes in this beautiful part of the world. 

Nice, Barcelona and Valencia.

On our way to Nice, our bus stopped at a perfume factory in a small French town, and we got to go on a free guided tour of the factory. It was quite an interesting thing to experience! We got to see how perfume, soap and body lotion are made. The factory smelt amazing at first, but by the end it was a bit overwhelming and gave me a bit of a headache. We were given the opportunity to smell some of the companies perfumes and walk around te gift shop. Everything was way too expensive, as perfume usually is, so we didn't buy anything. 

We arrived in Nice at around 6pm, and our first course of action was to do washing! Our hostel unfortunately didn't have a laundry, so we went to a laundromat down the road. It was the first time I have ever used a laundromat, so it was kind of exciting. Whilst I sat with our clothes, Harrison had to run (literally run) to the grocery store to grab dinner before it closed. He made it with a few minutes until closing! Once our clothes were washed and dried we set off back to the hostel to make dinner. However when we got there, the kitchen was chaos. There were so many people trying to cook, there was no space to move. It was about 8pm by this time and we were both tired and hungry, so we put the groceries in the fridge for the next night and went to find something cheap and easy to eat. We found a kebab shop, and got some really crap kebabs. But hey, they were cheap and they did the job of filling us up. After dinner we lay around in our room for a bit then went to bed. 

The past 2 weeks I have had a really bad pain in the right side of my chest, just under my ribs. It had started to get quite painful, so we decided I needed to see a doctor. We asked our hostel, and they said that our best bet at finding an English speaking doctor would be to go to the hospital. They marked the hospital on the map and off we went. It wasn't that far a walk, maybe 15 minutes, but when we got there the hospital was deserted. I think maybe they were renovating or something, but all the doors were locked and there were big signs up everywhere. So we walked back to the hostel, and were pointed in the direction of another hospital that was a bit further away. This time we had to take the tram. 

We got there and the receptionists didn't really speak English, so not a good start. We didn't have to wait long at all which was really good. However when we got to the nurses to check in, their English was even worse. They checked my pulse and temperature, which showed as normal so they couldn't understand why I needed to be seen by a doctor. After a while I think they just gave up trying to understand and put me through to the doctors waiting room. Again the doctor didn't speak great English, but he spoke enough to understand what I was trying to say. In the end we found out it was nothing serious, I have just strained the muscles in my chest from coughing so much due to the cold/chest infection I had previously. He prescribed an anti inflammatory cream and some pain meds. Luckily this hospital visit didn't cost us anything, we just had to pay for the medication. 

We made our way back to the hostel. By this time it was fairly late in the afternoon, so we didn't really do too much. We had a late lunch and hung out in the air conditioning of the hostel. After dinner we went for a walk down the main road and along the beach, which was really pretty to see during the night time. We had a drink at a bar, and then headed back for the night. 

The next day was our last day in Nice, so we planned to see as much as we could, as the previous day had kind of been wasted. We had been told about this ice cream shop in Nice that has all sorts of weird and wacky flavours, so we decided to go and check it out. When we got there we were amazed at the variety of ice cream they had! There were so many different flavours! And there truly were some really weird ones; for example there was beer, coke, cactus, avocado, tomato and basil, chewing gum and so many more. Harrison decided to try cactus and rhubarb, and I was somewhat less adventurous and chose Nutella and Irish Coffee; I did try some of Harrison's flavours though.

 

The cactus was actually pretty good! I didn't really like the rhubarb. And of course my flavours were delicious. Once we were done with our ice cream, we headed into the old town of Nice. It was really cute. Very small cobbled streets, lots of windy alleys and adorable, colourful houses. We wandered around the alleys weaving in and out of odd little shops. We made our way to this big hill that we had been told about, which was funnily enough called Castle Hill! We climbed to the top and explored the gardens for a bit, before making our way to the viewpoint, where we got an amazing view of Nice. 

On the hill there is a man made waterfall, so we went and found that too. It was really pretty, and the spray provided a nice relief from the heat! 

Once we had made our way down the hill, we explored some more of the old town and then made our way back to the hostel. By this point in our travels, Harrison was in desperate need of a haircut. However being the money wise people we are (cough, stingy) we had not wanted to go to a hairdresser. Harrison had been practically begging me to cut his hair for a long time, but I had been to nervous to do it. However on the way home that evening we passed a shop selling hair scissors and I decided, screw it, I can do this. We purchased the scissors and went back to the hostel. We had a quick dinner, and then turned our rooms bathroom into a hair salon. It was an absolutely terrifying and hilarious experience, with a few mishaps along the way. However by the end Harrison's hair didn't look half bad, and he was delighted to have short hair again. 

The next morning we were off to Barcelona! We were both really excited to be entering a new country and new culture. The traffic on the way to Barcelona was really bad, turning the 11 hour bus ride into a 12.5 hour bus ride. We only got into Barcelona around 8:30pm. This wouldn't have been too bad, if our hostel wasn't a 30 minute metro ride away. Not only that, but there was track work so we had to make an unnecessary change which pushed us back even later. We arrived at the hostel at about 9:30pm, and by the time we had checked in and got our stuff into our room it was 10. We had to go out in search of food, as we hadn't eaten dinner yet. The area that we were staying in really wasn't the best, so practically nothing was open. We luckily stumbled across a mini mart that was still open, and purchased some 2 minute noodles. We tucked in to the noodles and flopped, exhausted, into bed. 

The hostel we were staying at in Barcelona was not the greatest. Let's just say that it smelt like we had returned to Amsterdam. The kitchen had basically no plates, cups, knives or forks. There was mold all over the ceilings, and it was 30 minutes out of Barcelona. But it was cheap, so we made the best of it. We had a relaxing morning, and then headed into town for a free walking tour. Unfortunately our guide wasn't the best, so I feel like we didn't get as much out of the tour as we could have. However it was a good way to orient ourselves in the city, and we saw some pretty things. 

 Once the tour was over we wandered through the streets, looking at shops and art. Barcelona is such a colourful city, with such an awesome vibe about it! 

It seemed that wherever we went, there was music playing. I really liked it. 

We had booked through our bus company to go on a Spanish cooking course that evening, so we started to make our way to the meeting point. There were a few familiar faces from the bus, but also some people who weren't with busabout. Usually, the chef would start the course by taking you on a tour of the food market. However it was unfortunately a public holiday that day, so the markets were closed. Instead he took us to a meat store and told us about this special meat from Spain. We were cut short when it started to rain. We all rushed to the place where the course would be taking place. We started the night with a glass of sangria and some tapas.

 We tried the special meat he had told us about (that I can't remember the name of), some awesome cheese and these things called razor clams. The razor clams were horrible. I had to subtlety spit mine into my napkin. 

Next we were called into the kitchen, were a huge paella pan awaited. We didn't actually get to cook, which I thought was a little disappointing. The chef explained how to make paella and showed us the steps. He made a huge batch of seafood paella, filled with prawns, clams, mussels, salmon, white fish and squid. 

The kitchen smelled absolutely amazing! Once the paella was finished we were all served a large portion and sat down together to eat, there were about 20 people in total, and 6 of us at our table. The paella was really good! I tried all of the seafood, and can now confidently say I don't like most of the seafood in there! I love prawns though, and they were the one thing I didn't get! However one guy at our table heard me say I was upset with my lack of prawns, so he gave me one of his as he had a few, which was really nice. We also learnt how to make sangria, and then were allowed to make our own sangria at the bar.

By the end of the night we were really friendly with all the people at our table, and we had a great time together. We finished the night with mojitos made by the chef. 

We made our way back into town fairly late in the afternoon the next day. We got some noodles and ate lunch in a beautiful park. We had planned to go to the Picasso museum, however when we got there the next available tickets were at 6pm! And the line to get those was huge, so we unfortunately had to give the museum a miss. We walked through the streets a bit before heading to Gaudi's cathederal, La Sagrada Familia. While we were in Barcelona I totally fell in love with Gaudi's work. I think he was an incredible artist, and his art is just so amazing! Gaudi's cathedral was absolutely incredible. It has been under construction for over 100 years, and they still aren't even close to finishing it.

However, even half finished it is still something to behold. I was totally blown away by it! It is something I would highly recommend trying to see at some point. 

The next place we planned to visit was Park Güell, which Gaudi designed and created a whole bunch of installations in. It was a bit of a trek to get to the park, and once we got there we weren't too sure where to go as we came into the park at the back. There was a big hill where we came in so we decided to walk up it to get a good view of Barcelona, and then look for Gaudi's stuff after that. The walk up wasn't very difficult, and the view was really incredible from the top. 

We stayed up there for a bit taking in the view, before making the descent. We decided to take a different and more direct route down, which was also somewhat less pathed. About halfway down, I slipped and landed directly onto a pointy rock, very hard on my butt/tailbone. At first there was shock, and then the pain set in and I had to sit on the ground and cry for a bit. But I was okay. I got up and we made it down the rest of the hill with no further accidents. My butt was really sore though, and still is. I also have a really nasty bruise, that makes sitting on the bus very unfun. 

We finally found the part of the park we wanted, we had just gone the wrong way at first. We walked through the free section of the park first, looking at all of Gaudi's artworks. Mainly wacky bridges and more nature inspired works in this area.

We moved on to the paid section. We had to wait a little while, but finally made it in. Here his works were more modern and full of colour!

He has created these buildings that look like ginger bread houses and a whole cave type thing filled with columns. 

We had come at a great time, and got to watch the sun setting around the art, which was just incredible. I absolutely loved the park! 

We only made it home at 10:30pm that night, and once again were to have a noodle dinner. However when we went to cook, the kitchen was closed! Luckily the guy at reception was kind enough to give us the key and let us make our dinner, as long as we promised to clean up after ourselves. (Which we would have anyway.) 

We had to get up super early to get the bus the next day, as we were staying so far away from the pick up point. We were off to Valencia! Fortunately the bus ride there wasn't too long, and we arrived at 1pm. We had to wait until 2 to check in to our hostel, so we just waited around until then. We were greeted at the hostel with free sangria while we waited, so it wasn't too bad! We checked in and straight away headed out to find a grocery store. We hadn't really had the chance to eat a proper breakfast as we had been up so early, and we hadn't eaten lunch yet so we were starving! We got a bunch of groceries and practically ran back to the hostel to make some lunch. We have an awesome kitchen at this hostel, which is always really great. Travelling has really made me appreciate a good kitchen. The weather wasn't very good, it was really windy and it looked like it was going to rain, so we spent the day relaxing at the hostel. 

Today we went to check out some of the sights in Valencia. We went to an old cathedral, which was really pretty but not as great as Gaudi's.

Gaudi's cathedral has probably ruined cathedrals for me. Nothing will ever compare. We walked around the town for a while, and headed into the huge indoor food market. It was pretty amazing in there. There were all sorts of different food stalls, some food that I had never seen before. 

We tried the local drink called Horchata, which is made out of the milk of tiger nuts. (Sounds bad I know). It was feral. Harrison managed a few mouthfuls, but in the end we had to throw it away. I don't even know how to describe it. It was just so horrible! 

We went back to the hostel and had some lunch, and sat down for a bit before heading back out again. Valencia used to have a large river running through it, but one year the river flooded really badly and destroyed a lot of the city, and killed a lot of people. So the people of Valencia decided to divert the river to get it away from the town. This lead to a large dry riverbed running through and around the town. The riverbed has since been turned into a beautiful park!

We walked through the park for a while. We came across 5 cats at one point! They were living in the park, and we watched a man feed them. 

They were so cute. There was also a large avery in the park, with lots of beautiful birds. I find it so amazing that we as humans have the ability to do something like divert a river, and turn the riverbed into a beautiful park. It's a truly amazing thing. The weather started to turn, and we made our way back to the hostel.

Tomorrow we leave the quiet town of Valencia, for the bustling Madrid!  

Cinque Terre

On our second day in Cinque Terre we decided to explore the other villages. The first village we went to was Riomaggiore, which is first in the line of villages. We wandered up the main street of the village, looking at all the cute shops and resturants along the way. The towns are not very big, so we had seen the main part of the town within about 20 minutes. As it was approaching lunch time we went in search of some food. We came across this seafood shop that sells seafood in a cone. I decided to be adventurous and ordered the mixed seafood cone! When I got it, I began to question what I had done. There were small, whole fish staring blankly up at me, whole baby squid, chunks of who knows what. You need to understand that I am an incredibly fussy eater, so this was a huge moment for me. 

With a brave heart I tucked into the meal. I tried almost everything in the cone. Some things were actually very yummy, but other things not so much. The tiny whole fish were not so good. They were very hard to eat, with their eyes still staring at you, and were incredibly salty and fishy. There was one other whole fish in there, that Harrison tried but it still had the bones in it so I couldn't handle that. But most of the other seafood in the cone was actually pretty good. I'm not entirely sure what I ate, but I am glad that I tried it! 

After braving lunch, we made our way done to the beach. As I mentioned in the previous posts, the beaches aren't really beaches more rocks, and this one was much the same. However, this one was more of a bay that you could swim in, with little boats parked all around. 

We had bought some fruit from the local grocer and sat on the rocks to eat our fruit and take in the beauty of the town. I chose a nectarine, and it was the best nectarine I have ever eaten in my entire life! It was so juicy and full of flavour! It was absolutely incredible, I am so in love with the fruit here!! We finished our fruit and headed into the water. We had rented goggles from our hostel so we hoped to do a bit of snorkelling. The water was much colder than the day before, but we made it in and ventured further out into the bay. The water was also not as clear as the beach in our village, but it was still very beautiful. We swam around for a while, looking at the little fish swimming about. 

The next town we planned to visit was Manarola. We hopped on a train heading in the direction we needed, and watched as a few minutes later it went straight past Manarola. And past the our villiage, and the one after ours. It eventually stopped at the last and biggest villiage of the 5 called Monterosso. We quickly jumped off before we went any further away from where we wanted to be. Montorosso is where all the big resorts and hotels are, as it is the largest of the villages. It is also the only villiage with a proper beach. 

Although the beach is half sand and half pebbles. It was incredibly busy when we got there, we took one look at all the people and decided we had seen enough. We did wander down to the beach, but there were just so many people you could barely move. So we went back to the train station in a second attempt to get to Manarola. We looked up which train we needed to be on and waited for it to arrive. When it did we got on, and once again watched all of the villages pass us by. This time we ended up in a place called La Spezia, which is the town before Cinque Terre. We had gotten on the right train, it had just been an express to La Spezia and didn't stop at all the stops like it normally does. So once again we waited and boarded a third train. And finally made it to Manarola! 

I think that Manarola and Corniglia are my favourites of the five villages. Manarola is really beautiful, with the picturesque coloured houses overlooking the water. We walked up a bit of a hill to a look out point and got the see the whole, beautiful villiage. It sits right on the water, and the coloured houses compliment the crystal blue of the ocean. It was truly beautiful. 

After taking some photos we wandered back down to the area where you could swim. The water was very deep here, but still crystal blue. There weren't as many little fish and things to see with the goggles though. 

We swam for a bit, and then sat on the rocks and watched the water and the people swimming around, and jumping off rocks. 

By the time we made it home, we were both pretty knackered. It had turned out to be a really long day. After a bit of a rest we walked into the town to look for dinner, and some gelato. 

The next day we visited the next villiage along, Vernazza. Luckily we didn't have any issues getting there. Much the same as the previous day, we wandered around the villiage for a bit and then found somewhere to eat lunch. I ordered ravioli and Harrison ordered cannelloni, and we also ordered a 1/2 litre jug of wine. Firstly, the wine came out in a 300mL bottle. We were a bit confused but didn't say anything, thinking they must have run out of the 1/2 litre or something and would charge us less. Secondly, our food came out and Harrison took a bite of his cannelloni, only to find out the centre was stone cold. He took the meal to the front to complain and was met with attitude. They brought the meal back, the same meal, scraped onto a different plate and put in the microwave. We went to pay and found out that they intended to charge us for the 1/2 litre of wine, even though we never received it, and full price for Harrison's meal, even though it came out ice cold! Harrison stood his ground, and refused to pay full price. They were incredibly rude to Harrison, and then only ended up taking €2 off the price. We weren't happy! 

We walked down to the beach area and were a little disappointed. It wasn't nearly as nice as all of the others, with murky water and dark brown mud/sand. We decided against swimming there, and made our way to Monterosso to meet our friend, Bec. There were just as many people at Monterosso as the previous day, but by some miracle we managed to find our friend in the crowd. We were looking around for somewhere to sit, when we were told by a life guard that it was a private beach, and we had to leave or rent a chair. We went looking for a chair, and Bec and her friend got the last two. And had to pay €25 for 2 chairs and an umbrella. I think it's a bit ridiculous that you have to pay to sit on the beach. We went swimming for a little while, and then made our way back to our hostel. 

For dinner that night we found a cute little resturant overlooking the water. 

After having such a bad experience with lunch, we were looking forward to some good food. And we certainly weren't disappointed! The waiters were super friendly, and the food was absolutely amazing! I ordered carbonara, and they serve it to you with scrambled eggs in the pasta. It was really different, but tasted good! Harrison got the pesto pizza and it was amazing! Even better than the first days pizza. To end the night we walked to the lookout, to catch the end of the sunset. We sat on the wall of the lookout and chatted to an American guy we met at our hostel, until it got dark. 

We were woken today by the clap of thunder, and the loud downpour of rain. A storm had settled over Cinque Terre. We spent the morning in the hostel, until we had to leave for them to clean. Luckily it had stopped raining by this point, and there was only a faint grumble of thunder every now and then. We found a dry spot to sit and nestled down to read our books. Our friend Bec met us at our village for lunch, and by then it was pouring again. Poor Bec had walked from Monterosso and was totally drenched! We took shelter in the same little resturant we had eaten at the night before. The weather had turned fierce, the rain was really coming down and the wind was howling. We were really grateful to be under shelter. We ate lunch and waited until the rain had eased a bit. We stayed in the safety of the hostel until it was done. Once the rain stopped, it turned out to be quite a nice day. However this was only at about 4:30. We decided to go over to Manarola, since Bec hadn't seen it yet, and get some gelato. The gelato was amazing, as per usual! 

We spent the evening watching the sunset over the beautiful Italian coastline. 

Tomorrow we are leaving our little patch of paradise, and moving to Nice. 

Rome and Cinque Terre

We arrived at the bus to Rome's pick up point early Monday morning, hopeful that we would get a spot on the already full bus. More often than not some people who have booked a seat on the bus do not show up for some reason, and those seats are left free. So we were really hoping that there would be at least two seats free for us. Unfortunately, 5 other people had the same hope. The departure time was looming nearer, and things were looking good. 8 people had not shown up, meaning that all 7 of us could get on the bus! With three minutes to go, we were getting excited. We were going to get on the bus! Then we saw two girls, jogging towards us with their bags. They had already booked, and were running late. They took 2 of the 8 seats left available. This left us in a bit of a predicament. Who would be getting on the bus, and who would be left behind? Well two girls that were travelling together got priority, I am not entirely sure why but they did. 4 seats left. The other people trying to get on the bus were a group of 3 friends. Harrison and I decided to let them take the free seats, as it made more sense for them to get on and have only 1 extra seat, rather than having 2 extra seats if we got on. We had been so close! We watched with feelings of despair and frustration as the bus drove away without us. 

We had to get to Rome that day, as we have booked in the rest of our trip and are unable to make anymore changes, or we would have to take places out. Plus we had already booked that nights accomodation in Rome. So we got googling. We were pretty devastated to find out that a train from Venice to Rome was going to cost us €80 each. This seemed totally unrealistic and we weren't willing to pay that much. We were incredibly fortunate that one of the lovely ladies at reception was able to look online for us and find an Italian coach company that was going to Rome that night, and would only cost us €40 for the both of us. It was a huge relief. The only downside was that the coach only left Venice at 11:30pm, and arrived in Rome at 6am. Therefore we wouldn't be able to make our accomodation, but would still have to pay for that night even though we hadn't been there. We spent the day by the pool, relaxing and napping. 

11:30 came around, and it was time to get on the bus. Luckily a person was willing to move so Harrison and I got a seat together. It wasn't too bad of a bus ride. There were some very loud Italian men making phone calls at 3:30am, but other than that the trip was fairly uneventful. We arrived in Rome at 6:30 and began our journey to the hostel. To get there we had to catch two trains and a bus. Since it was rush hour, we were really packed into that train. It was not fun with our big backpacks! We finally arrived at the hostel at 8:30am. It was hot in Rome. Already by 8:30 it was uncomfortably warm. We were staying at another camping hostel, so we got checked in and headed over to our tent. If we thought outside was hot, the inside of that tent was 10 times hotter. It was like we had our own personal sauna. We grabbed a quick breakfast, and attempted to have a nap before heading out for the day. Unfortunately it was so damn hot in that tent, we didn't get much rest. 

Once we were up and ready we caught the train into the city. We planned to start at the Trevi Fountain and then make our way around to all of the famous sights from there. I had been really excited to see the Trevi Fountain, and toss in my coin. We walked up the narrow winding streets, and came out in the square where the fountain is. We were greeted by scaffolding. They have completely drained the fountain, and are doing work to it.

I was pretty gutted. Not only could you barely see the fountain through the scaffolding, but I wasn't going to be able to toss my coin! With saddened hearts, we moved on to the next sight. We arrived at the Pantheon, and were relived to see that it was not under construction. I was blown away by the Pantheon. I think the Romans were absolutely incredible to be able to build something so spectacular with so little technology and equipment. 

We were quite lucky, and by fluke had shown up at a time when there actually weren't that many people about. We made our way inside the building (it was free, which I was impressed by!) and my admiration for the Romans deepened. The inside of the Pantheon is amazing! 

The artwork and the designs on the walls were just incredible. The dome roof was also absolutely amazing! I was totally awe struck. 

When we had finished admiring the beauties of the Pantheon, we moved onto our next spot which was Piazza Navona. This was a lovely square, with 3 large and beautiful fountains. There were a few artists around the piazza trying to sell their artwork, and a some other vendors here and there selling knick knacks. 

It was a very beautiful square. There was also a lovely church in the piazza that we went inside. As usual, it was beautiful on the inside. We found a little restaurant down one of the winding streets to have lunch in, and had gnocchi and ravioli. It was super delicious.  

Next up was the Colosseum. We had to catch a bus to get there, which again was totally packed. I am starting to see that in Italy, every hour is rush hour on public transport. Fortunately the bus ride wasn't too long. We arrived at the Colosseum, and were once again greeted with scaffolding. 

Has Europe just decided that 2015 is the year to fix up every famous monument they have? It wasn't as disappointing as the Trevi Fountain, as there was only a fairly small area of the building covered with scaffolding. However it did somewhat take away from the beauty of the colosseum. We did not get to go inside the colosseum, as the line was ridiculously long, and it was fairly expensive to get in. We wandered up to palatine's hill, and walked up a path to the top of a hill. We didnt actually go into the paid part of the ruins, but from this path you could see a lot of them anyway. At the top of the hill was a cute little church that we went into. The church and the streets and buildings along this path really made you feel like you had stepped back in time. 

After a very long and hot day, we made our way back to the hostel. The first thing we did when we got back was get in the pool to cool down. It has been really great having pools at our hostels. We had dinner with some friends that we have made through busabout that were also in Rome. It was a really fun night! Harrison and I returned to our tent, to find that it had not cooled down that much. However we were both so exhausted that we flopped into bed and went to sleep.

One of our friends from the bus wanted to go to the Vatican, and we decided to go with her as we wanted to see it too. We got there really early, half and hour before it opened. The line was already about an hour long! And the day had already started to heat up. Luckily we were in the shade for most of the wait. We actually didn't have to wait that long. Once the doors opened, we only waited about an hour, maybe less. We went through security, and we were in! It was uncomfortably warm in the museum, but we made the most of it. We wandered through the museum taking in all of the incredible art. However, like the Louvre, I really found the architecture and the building far more impressive than the artworks.

 At the end of the museum is the Sistine Chapel. We walked in, and were assaulted with colours and paintings. Every inch of wall and roof is covered in painting! We saw the really famous painting, the birth of Christ I believe it's called, and it was a lot smaller than I had originally thought. 

Whilst the chapel and the paintings were incredibly beautiful, I enjoyed the Vatican museum more. 

When we had seen all there was to see at the Vatican, we made our way to St Peters Basilica. We had hoped to get in, but when we arrived we saw that the line wove all the way around the square! It was absolutely ridiculous! I have never seen a line for something that long in my entire life! Not only would the wait have been far over 2 hours, but the line was not in the shade. The temperature had creeped up to 37 degrees, and the sun was showing no mercy to the square. Even just standing there taking photos was a bit much. The heat was overwhelming. So we unfortunately had to give St Peters basilica a miss. 

Our hostel runs a bus service from the hostel to the Vatican, and vice versa. You have to buy a return ticket at the hostel and you can get on any coach that day. The bus service stops from 12:30, and resumes again at 3:30. Since we were done before 12:30, we were able to make the 12:30 bus back to the hostel. Now usually the bus that picks you up and drops you off is a fairly large coach. Enough to fit like 40 or 50 people. However, the 'bus' that showed up to fetch us from the Vatican was a 14 seater van. There were far more than 14 of us waiting for the bus back. But that didn't seen to phase the driver, as he allowed 25 of us to cram into this van. We had to leave people behind. Let me remind you that it was a 37 degree day, and this van had no air con, and there were 25 of us squished into it. I honestly thought I was going to pass out. It was a horrific experience! The drive back to the hostel seemed to last forever. When we finally did make it back, we spent the rest of our day with some friends by the pool. 

The next day was a bus day, and we were making our way to Florence. I was sad to leave the beauty of Rome, but pretty happy to say goodbye to the heat. On the way to Florence we stopped at a small town called Orvieto. It's a really old town on top of a huge hill, and you have to catch a cable car type thing up there. Our guide told us about this cafe up there that serves the best pork sandwich ever. However, it was not normal pork, it was wild boar! Harrison got one and tried it, and said it was really delicious. The cafe owners had the cutest French bulldog called Julius Caesar!

 He was absolutely adorable and we spent most of the stop gushing over him. 

We wandered around the small markets there for a bit, and walked around the old fort, which had an absolutely amazing view. 

Since we had to rearrange our itinery when Harrison was sick and unable to travel on the bus, we were only able to spend one night in Florence. We made the most of it, and went on a walking tour of the city with our bus company so we got to see most of the big sights.

 We also went out to dinner with all the people on the bus that day. We went to an Italian resturant, and were served a four course meal. It was all so delicious. We started with bruschetta, followed by pesto and spicy pasta, then a chicken dish and a beef stew type thing and finally gelato for dessert. It was amazing food! Once we were done with dinner we all moved to the club next door, which has karaoke every night! It was a really fun night of singing, drinking cocktails and meeting new people. 

Today we were on the bus again, heading to Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre consists of 5 villages along the Italian Coast. We are staying in the village called Corniglia, which is the third village along. The villages are all very tiny, there are no more than 2000 locals living at each one. We unintentionally picked the one village that is on top of a massive hill. We arrived at the train station and were completely awe struck by the incredible views of the coast. And then we came across the stairs. To get to the village, you have to climb 400 stairs. 

Let's remember that we had just arrived, so we had our backpacks with us. Not only that but it was about 35 degrees today. I think climbing those stairs with the backpack was possibly one of the worst things I have ever experienced. My legs have not yet forgiven me. But once we reached the top we were greeted with the cutest, most beautiful little town. All brightly coloured buildings and tiny cobbled streets. We couldn't check into our hostel until 3, so we went off to explore the town. We sat down at a cute resturant for lunch, and had pesto bruschetta and pesto pizza. Cinque Terre is famous for their pesto, so you can only imagine how incredible the food was. The best pesto I have ever eaten! 

We finished up with lunch and followed the signs to the beach. We had to go down just as many stairs as we had climbed that morning! But wow, it was worth it. It wasn't really a beach as we know it, white sand and rolling waves, it was just rocks at the bottom of a cliff that you could sit on, and use to get yourself into the water. I have never in my life seen water so blue and so clear. It was like something out of a movie! We also got a really good view of the town up on the hill! 

We hadn't brought our swimmers, as we had planned on just looking around, but the water was so inviting that we got in, in our clothes! It was lovely and warm, and crystal clear. One of the most amazing experiences of my life!

We swam and sat on the rocks until it was time to check in to our hostel. Climbing the stairs back up without a bag was much easier, but still pretty unpleasant. We checked into the hostel and stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. We wandered back into the village and got some more pizza for dinner. We also picked up a little carton of grapes and watermelon. It was the best fruit I have had in a long time! Totally amazing. 

Tomorrow we are going to head into some of the other villages and explore what they have to offer. I am so excited to be in Cinque Terre, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to!!