Another train trip today towards Madrid. This will take us into Spain so we are wondering how our language skills will survive. The country side is beautiful and often we have views of the Mediterranean. To start the day we need to be up early since the train leaves at 9. We have been making breakfast in our room and preparing lunches. We feel this has two advantages. We eat more economically and we also eat healthier.
We walk to the train and wait again to be informed about which platform to head to. Once we know that then we have to go to that platform and check out the scale map for our train to figure where on the platform to stand so we are close to the car we are seated. (We have assigned seating.) The indication is that we are to wait beside the signs W and X which is near the end of the platform. When the train arrives it is a short one and we have to rush from the W/X location to about the K/L. Not a problem we are not alone with this mad rush to get on during the short stop.
We arrive in Barcelona and step out of the train station. We are well prepared with a google map and instructions on how to get to our hotel…only first we have to work out north, south, east and west. One thinks that finding a street name would help – and it would, if you can find it. For those who have not travelled in Europe don’t look for street signs on posts at the corners – look up about 12 feet on the side of the buildings on the corners. Sometimes (and not all the time) you will find the street name. It took us about 2 blocks of walking to finally find a street name and then we got oriented. Needless to say we had walked the exact opposite direction but that is murphy’s law.
Once oriented we follow the clear directions from Google Maps and in no time find the location of the hotel… but wait there is NO HOTEL at that location. I double checked the bookings email and we are looking at 36-38 Sants. We have to get the GPS out and put in the address.. and guess what – yep you guessed, we are standing at the address according to the GPS. Finally I ask someone who does not speak English but looked at the hotel name and street address and pointed down the street. He communicated that it was down the street several blocks to find the Plaza and the street is on the right.
Ok, not sure why the address is wrong, but he seemed positive so off we went following his instructions. After walking several blocks and not even finding a Plaza we start to wonder if we understood him correctly. So I again asked a shop owner and she understood a little English. Yes we were on the right route, just go off on this side street about 4 blocks and it is on your right. Ok, off we go again, and sure enough we find the 4th corner and look to our right and see the sign for the hotel. It is on a street called Bejar and we still have no idea how the address on the bookings have the Sants address. We realized that we had used the GPS incorrectly by trying to put in the given address. If we had just put in the Bejar as the street name since the hotel is called Hostal Bejar we would have found it. I can only imagine what it must be like for the guys on the Amazing Race to constantly placed in strange cities with no language support and trying to solve a riddle. We experienced that again today, but we did not have a challenge of time.
Then we get to the hotel and climb to the second floor to find the reception desk. It seems that everyone has just arrived for check in and it is not a simple process. First there is no desk at the reception, only a table. Then the hostess talks to all three of us, figures out the rooms involved and starts to hand out keys so we can put our gear down. We are not done yet, because then she shepherds us out of the building across the street to another building and up to the second floor to her apartment. Here is the office. We then proceed to get passport numbers copied, details sorted, prices calculated and finally payment collected. The fellow in front of me wants to pay with a credit card, no problem – except the credit card machine is acting up and keeps quitting. She has to reset it, rekey and reapply the card at least 4 times. By now I am nervous about using a credit card for payment wondering if he will discover 4 charges for the room when he gets home. I pay with cash. Not a problem as long as I don’t mind waiting until she writes one out. I left with my receipt and the others all decided they wanted a receipt too so they were waiting.
The room is very nice. I thought it was a hotel, but it really is a hostal with a private bath and private room. We have a nice balcony overlooking the narrow street from the 3rd floor but with a balcony you get wonderful air flow. We face north so there is no direct sunlight into the room.
After eating our lunches on our balcony we decided to explore a bit of the city. We have a map now, courtesy of our hosts, and Wes has noted that we are not far from the harbour. So off we go to explore. I have several pictures of things we saw along the way with several plaza’s, interesting building styles and the area in front of the palace (could not get a decent picture with all the flags and posts set up) being set up for the car show this weekend.
The harbour is fully developed with sidewalks, boardwalks, promenades, and wharfs as far as we could see. Above the harbour is a skyway tram that starts on a hill overlooking the harbour and crosses to a tower on the breakwater on the harbour and then looks like by transferring to another line you continue to a tower on the far side of the harbour. We did not explore but something to think about for another time.
As we walked over a bridge that cut off a corner of the harbour we noticed a large group of people hanging on the edge looking down to the pier below the bridge. We first noticed that this large group consisted of mainly men and the few women who were there were basically standing back a bit. We had to check it out wondering if there was a fishing derby going on below. Nope, it was a female model in a fishnet type of dress wearing only a thong underneath. The open V neck which stretched from each shoulder down to a point at the belly button hardly covered her breasts and since it was a loose weave fishnet material there really was not much modesty demonstrated. I am not sure what the modeling shoot was about (likely something similar to Playboy) but it was a professional job with cameras, light deflectors and someone giving orders. The crowd could have cared less about what the orders were as long as it did not include them moving along.
For some of the readers they will be disappointed to learn that I only brought my little camera along today and left the good camera in the room (Barcelona is noted for grab and run and pickpockets) so the pictures of her are not as close as they would like. For others, you are delighted that I could not get any closer shots especially as I looked back to discover that she had pulled the top of her dress down to her waist and was not posing topless. Wes noticed how tall the heels were on her shoes and could not imagine her walking in them.
At the end of the wharf we came to a building with a mirror wall sloping so that we could see ourselves in the mirror. We of course had to take our picture.
As we walked along the wharf we noticed all types of boats moored along the docks. One that caught my attention was a super yacht with the back opened downward. What we could see ‘parked’ in the open bay at the back of the yacht was a speedboat and beside it a jetski. The toys of the rich are amazing to look to see. Yesterday we talked to a couple from England visiting there son in Nice and staying at his apartment. Their son is a Captain of a super yacht and they were explaining a bit of the costs of using the yacht. It costs about $150,000 pounds to have access to the yacht for a maximum of 6 weeks per year (crew included) but all costs for supplies and fuel have to be paid in addition. The cost of the ship their son captains is about $2000 Euro for fuel alone for a day trip between 2 ports which is approximately a 6 hour cruise. Not going to happen for us I don’t think. I did not know about the stern of the boat opening to reveal a spare boat and a toy in addition.
Back to our walk, we decided after a couple of hours it was time to start to head back to the room and relax before going out for dinner. We did stop at a grocery and fruit store to get supplies for tomorrows breakfast and lunch.
We will be back to Barcelona in a few days with our friends from Canada that we meet tomorrow in Madrid so this really was just a preliminary overview. What we did notice right away is that the streets are not laid out in a grid pattern so never assume that you can work around from one place to another following the grid pattern idea. You will likely get lost so we limited our exploration to main roads this time.
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