Sorry we are missing the 1st part of this textOur next stop was Tarragona. We spent the afternoon exploring the old town. The town dates back from 6th or 5th century BC it’s old! The base of the town walls were built in 6th century BC the Romans added a layer to the walls in 300 B.C. After the Romans the Moorish extended and fortified the walls. The town still has a wealth of Roman architecture remains. We enjoyed exploring a huge Roman Amphitheater. The Amphitheater could hold 12,000 people!
We spent several days in Barcelona. We enjoyed wandering the street "people watching" and touring the city. Barcelona is a very pretty city. It has a huge yacht harbor and lovely tree lined streets. The main boulevards were bustling with sidewalk café and lots of people. There were a lot of wonderful street musicians and artist: several were excellent portrait artist others were very convincing human statues. The city had just the right mix of charm, cultural and hustle-bustle. It is still in great shape from the past Olympics.
We then headed up the Costa Brava coast of Spain to southern France. We met up with our friends from California, Neil and Barbara in Avignon, France. Avignon is a great walled city and as all of France, has some great restaurants. Avignon has a beautiful church and a palace for the Pope. The statue on the top of the Pope’s palace was magnificent. The statue was dazzling gold of the Virgin Mary it appeared to be 20 feet tall.
With Neil and Barbara, we all headed north taking a couple days together working our way up to Paris. We took the little back road through the central mountains part of France. The mountains were thickly forested with the occasional picture perfect meadow. Quaint little village tucked into steep valleys dotted the way. We stopped at Le Pont du Gard to see a huge Roman Aqueduct. It is the highest bridge aqueduct of the roman world. It was built in the year 50 A.D. We marveled at how way back then they could cut granite so perfectly and then stack it three layers of arches to 160 feet high. We stayed in a lovely little mountain town with natural hotsprings and beautiful Roman Church. At dinner we all enjoyed the local specialty a yummy cheese and potato dish. We continued on the following day the mountains fell away to rolling hills as we neared the wine region of Poullie Fume. We stayed and sampled great white wine! We spent the afternoon sipping wine in the sun next to the Lourie River.
On our way into Paris we stopped and toured the Palace of Versailles. Quite the pad! What can you say about Paris? Great sights, food, fun and people. The weather was perfect. We all stayed right in the heart of Paris, near Notre Dame, the area they call the Latin district. It was perfect we were within walking distance of all the great sights. We did all the normal stuff; we walked the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. We toured the Eiffel tower, Norte Dame, Musee D’Orsay and of course Musee du Louvre. It was all very interesting. The magnitude of the Louvre, with one beautiful artwork after another was awesome. There was more works of art than you could see in an entire full day. We enjoyed wandering the museum for hours until we where exhausted and we still didn’t see everything! Yes it is true; the Mona Lisa’s eyes really do follow you.
We went everywhere, hopping in and out of the Metro. We walked miles throughout the city enjoying the river, parks and gardens. We spent the afternoons chatting with our friends in the Central Park and just watching people. We found some great restaurants. Paris is truly a beautiful city. We completely enjoyed it. We said our good-byes to Neil and Barbara. Spent another day exploring Paris then finally moved on heading toward the coast.
We followed the Lourie River valley out to the coast. The valley was where all the Parisian royalty and aristocrats had their Palaces and Chauteaux. The granger of some of the Chauteaux was delightful. It seemed as if there was a beautiful castle at every bend in the river.
We hit the French Atlantic coast at the town of La Rochelle. It is a beautiful yachting community. Lots of nice sailboats and a great harbor with "locks" to keep the water in when the tide goes out. The tide swing is about 25 feet!! Anyway a really cool place. Then it was off to Bordeaux for a few days. Grapes, Grapes everywhere…mile after mile after mile! What were we supposed to do. Drink wine, and we did!! Just by good luck our timing was perfect for the harvest. Everywhere we toured they were picking the grapes, all by hand. The wineries were a bustle of activity and the smell of the crush was delightful. The vineyards were all neatly groomed picture perfect. The wineries were all huge beautiful castle like chateaux and estates. We always thought our hometown Napa wine region was big but in comparison to Bordeaux regions it’s very small. It’s interesting the wineries here don’t have tasting rooms. A lot of them do not even sell directly to the public. The ones that do sell direct allow you to bring your own container and they will just fill it up right on the spot. We fell in love with the wine region and town of St. Emillion, which is about 40 miles west of Bordeaux. It is a medieval town in perfect shape with great restaurants and of course some off our favorite wines.
Enough of the easy life.... Now it was time to do some hiking. So off we went to the Pyreness Mountain. The Pyreness are beautiful majestic peaks on the boarder of France and Spain that are 10,000+ feet tall. They are similar to the Swiss Alps, with saw tooth peaks rising steeply from green river valleys. The trees had all turned their autumn colors (all shades of reds, gold and yellows) which really made the scenery spectacular. We enjoyed a great 8-mile day hike. The hike was a loop around a beautiful towering mountain peak ringed by lakes. The hike took us pass six lakes all very different and gorgeous. We really enjoyed the natural beauty and dramatic ruggedness of the Pyreness.
We planned to do several other hikes but the weather turned on us. We left the area in pounding rain...we didn't want to stick around in case it turned to snow! Off to the very southern coast of France and to see the Basque area. Nice people and pretty area but still raining so on south to northern Espana (Spain). The rain finally stopped as we approached the old town of Salamanca. Salamanca is an ancient university town. The university was built in 1415. By the 16th century it had over 7000 students and was one of the leading Universities in Europe. The old University buildings and churches made the town quite charming.
The county side of northern Espana isn't that great. Mostly big treeless desert plains and the cities are very industrial looking. So we decided to head back to central Portugal...... why, because we really like Portugal! We spent a couple of days enjoying the countryside. We wandered aimlessly through the mountain towns. They are all so quaint with their cobblestone streets, white houses with red tile roof and flowers growing in the gardens. We got the welcomest feeling from Portugal, the people are really friendly and the towns and villages are comfortable and inviting. We toured a Portuguese castle in Tomar. The castle was lovely and the town of Tomar delightful.
Reluctantly we head back to central Espana (Spain). The landscape returned to barren plateaus, but the old Espana cities are marvelous. We toured the beautiful towns of Avila and Segovia on our way into Madrid. Avila is medieval walled city just north of Madrid. The walls were built in 1090-99. They are an average of 40 feet high and 10 feet thick, with 88 beautiful towers set at intervals 65 feet. The town is in great shape. We just happened to arrive in the middle of a festival for Santa Terese. Avila is the birthplace of Espana’s national saint, Terese of Avila. The town was a bustle with a long line of local people, many in native folk costumes bringing flowers in offering to the statue of Santa Terese. We enjoyed the parade.
In Segovia there is a Roman aqueduct from the 1st century that is in perfect shape. It's 40 kilometer long. The last 1-kilometer is 100 feet high and leads right into town. We marveled at the perfectly cut granite stones. There are 118 arches, built of granite blocks laid without mortar or metal cramps…still standing 2000 years later! The town was really great and really alive at night. We enjoyed eating at an outdoor café and just people watching as families and folks of all ages strolled by on their evening walk. We were intrigued at how nicely everybody was dressed; men were in suits and ties, women and little girls all in dresses. It was a Sunday but we got the feeling that it was a daily event to dress up for their evening stroll. The whole town seemed to be out wandering the main street and enjoying visiting.
Then it was off to Madrid for a couple of days. Madrid is a great "new" looking city. We had lots of fun riding the Metro all over and taking in some more culture. We toured the Prada Museum. The Prada has lots of paintings by Goya, apiece by Bosco done in the 15th century that was extremely futuristic for it’s time. One of our favorite art collections in the museum was about a dozen tables all done in detailed inlayed rock. Each table had a different theme, for example the ocean, hunting or gardening. The perfection of the inlayed rock cuts and the huge range of different rocks used to get a full spectrum of colors was exquisite. Then off a short hop to Toledo. Great fun "old" city...more culture... Toledo is lies on a granite hill surrounded on three sides by the deep gorge of the river Tagus. With its ring of Gothic and Moorish walls, its towering Alcazar and Cathedral it presents a picture perfect ancient town. Toledo is maintained beautiful for it is a major tourist destination for the Madrid area. We enjoyed wandering the narrow cobblestone street and spent hours popping into all the little tourist shops. Toledo is world renown for its gold, silver and metal craftsmen. Toledo craftsmen have been making swords, armor and knifes for generations. We have never seen so many knives in all our life. Every shop had hundred and hundreds of beautiful knifes; everything from pocketknives to huge swords. From all the full suits of armor for sell you would think we were still back in the Middle Ages. From Toledo we followed the Don Quixote trail to Cordoba. The area was gentle rolling hills covered in olive orchards. Miles and miles (maybe 250!) of olive trees. Never seen so much of one crop in our lives! Cordoba’s unique features and outstanding monument is La Mezquita-Cathedral. It is a Cathedral that was built inside a huge Islamic mosque. Mezquita was the one of largest Islamic mosques in the world, built in 785. The prayer hall of the mosque is 600ft long and has 856 marble, jasper and porphyry columns, linked longitudinally by red and white horseshoe arches. Then in 1599 after the defeat of the Moorish strong hold by the Christians, Charles V orders a Cathedral to be built right in the center of the mosque. The cathedral blends the Islamic style into the traditional Christian Gothic Cathedral…very unique! From Cordoba we crossed through the Espana Sierra Nevada mountain range and returned back to Reality. We covered about 3500 miles and took 30 days. It was great fun but we are glad to get back to our "Reality".