Barcelona!

Barcelona...

Vibrant and beautiful...

 colorful and sometimes quirky...

architecturally spectacular...

Prime real estate sitting right on the Mediterranean with plenty of parking for cruise ships and some super yachts (man would I like to know who sailed into town on that boat!)...

Good food accompanied by a pitcher of sangria...

 Lots of tourists, just like us...

 but still plenty of space for locals.

This is Barcelona!  

We spent a couple of days in this bustling city in Spain at the end of our week in southern France, not nearly enough time to see all of it, but we hit the highlights.  

We stayed in a cute modern apartment down a narrow tree-lined side street where we could sit on the little balcony and watch the world go by below us.  

A walk around the block got us everything we needed as far as food for a few days...

including this delicious Catalana ice cream from a dairy store that we thought by appearance was carmel swirl but ended up being a flavor we still haven't figured out - sort of a gingerbread flavor, that's as close as a description I can come up with anyway, but whatever it was, it was delicious!  


A little farther afield we found a charming little shop filled with chocolates and other regional specialties.  

We bought a variety of treats, not really knowing what it was we were choosing, but that's the fun of it.  In the beautiful little tin are some of the chocolates I mentioned above.

Our first stop was perhaps the most well recognized building in Barcelona - the Basilica designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.  It's a spectacular sight, there is no doubt about that, it's gothic spires rising high up towards the sky are unlike anything I've seen before, well anything but this particular church, which I did actually see once before.  

Twenty-five years ago I stood in this exact spot during a school trip to Spain.  I never thought I would see it again, but here I was years later but with my family this time.  More of the Basilica is completed now than it was when I visited at the age of 17, but there are still cranes overhead and signs of construction everywhere.  You would think than in 25 years, this building would have been completed, but actually, it is expected to take a total of 144 years to complete.  Crazy, isn't it!  

The Basilica was started in 1882, Gaudi died in 1926, and it's estimated completion date is 2026, exactly 100 years after Gaudi's death.  It really is hard to fathom that a building today could possibly take that long to construct, but when you this marvel of design and architecture, it's not hard to figure out why it will take so long.  The details, the artwork, the size - it's all just so incredible! 

We've seen many, many churches, all beautiful and some quite unique, but nothing even remotely like this one.  

Gaudi's design stands alone. 

We spent most of the two days just wandering the city, looking up and down and all around because you never knew what you would spot and you didn't want to miss anything.  There is just so much to see in Barcelona.  

We wandered the narrow streets of the gothic quarter...

And squeezed through the crowded aisles of La Boqueria, the huge well-known public market that's been operating on this site since 1840.  

We saw all many of food being sold by the vendors.  

I highly recommend trying some of the freshly squeezed fruit juices that are sold in all combinations of fruit you can imagine.  The strawberry-coconut is heavenly!   

We strolled through a couple of lovely parks.  

Even the street lights are gorgeous in Barcelona.

The other park we found had a playground, much to the girls' delight, and maybe mine too.  It gave me a chance to rest my aching feet because I cannot tell you how many miles we walked over our two days in Barcelona.  But there was just so much to see...

We spent one evening waiting patiently for a hour and a half with a few hundred other people by the Magic Fountain for a water and light show that is suppose to be quite spectacular... 

only it never happened.  Disappointed, we trudged back to our cozy apartment where there was ice cream waiting, so the night was not a complete flop.  

And we even found some time one afternoon to relax on our little balcony while enjoying a cold beer from the little bar across the street...

 
Cheers to Barcelona!  What an amazing city.  But I'm not quite done yet.  I have a few more photos to share.  You see, when I visited Barcelona 25 years ago, we did not get to go inside of the great Basilica designed by Gaudi.  I'm not sure it was even open to visitors back then.  It is now though, but sadly, I didn't get to see the inside on this trip either.  We hadn't realized that you need to buy tickets in advance online and when we arrived early in the morning thinking we would beat the crowd, instead we were told the tickets were sold out for the day and for the following day as well.  We would have to come back Monday, only we wouldn't be in Barcelona that long.  So instead, we found an alternative and visited a house that Gaudi designed, and you know what, it was pretty amazing too, unlike anything we've seen.  This is Casa Batllo...

It was an existing home that the Battlo family hired Gaudi to renovate, giving him free reign to design something creative and over the top for them.  

That he did, for Casa Batllo is truly unique both inside and out...

with a roof that looks like a sleeping dragon...

wonky doors beautifully crafted out of wood...

and crazy nooks and crannies.  It all makes you feel as if you are walking through the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.  Gaudi had a great imagination, colorful and quirky, but from a designing and engineering perspective, extremely impressive and inventive.  A truly unique style that is all his own and what a fun place to visit.  So I leave you today with a few more photos of Casa Ballto and the beautiful city of Barcelona.

Les Plus Beaux Villages de France - Part 2

The sun was shining.  The sky a brilliant shade of blue.  Misty mountains in the distance.  The now dormant lavender fields stretched out in every direction.  

And another “Les plus beaux village de France” to visit (translated: one of the most beautiful villages of France).  The little village of Rousillon, sitting high on it’s hill certainly earns this distinction.   

But what makes this village unique among the rather large group of Les Plus Beaux Villages de France is the rich ochre deposit it sits on and is surrounded by.   

The ochre was mined from the hills around Rousillon until the 1930s, and now, one of the former mines is open to the public for a spectacular and colorful walk through the forest of green...

so sharply contrasting with the yellows and reds and oranges beneath your feet. 

And the color of ochre is painted all over this beautiful little village.  

I was in heaven because I love these colors, as our house back in the US reflects.  It’s narrow and winding streets are filled with charming little shops and cafes...

 And doorways that looked like photographs I've seen for sale in galleries...

and small, graceful archways that looked like picture frames for the scene that unfolded on the other side.  

All we did was stroll around this lovely little village of Roussillon and it's abandoned ochre mine.  

But that was enough.   

France - The Verdon River Gorge and Le Chateau in the Sky

After leaving the enchanting village of Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, we decided to drive south for a little ways while we still had a couple hours of daylight.  We knew that the Gorges Du Verdon, or Verdon Gorge, lay in that direction, but we weren’t sure exactly what we would see of it. 

It didn’t take long before we started catching glimpses of the most brilliantly colored lake I have ever set eyes upon.  As we reached a pulloff that sits high over the astonishingly turquoise-green waters of the Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon, we pulled over to the side of the road and from there we could see the source of these amazingly beautiful waters – the Verdon River which spilled out from the Verdon Gorge.  

 

I’m not sure even how to put this sight into words because I just sat there in the car, jaw dropped, staring at this awesome show of nature before us.  We were parked above a huge lake with aquamarine waters that looked more befitting for a Caribbean Island.  And off in the distance we could see a narrow gorge with impossibly high limestone walls - the Verdon Gorge.  Where the River emerges from the spellbindingly beautiful Gorge and into the lake sits a bridge, the only way over the lake unless you swim or take a boat.  As we walked across the bridge and looked deep into the canyon, it's sheer walls rising straight up towards the sky, and the Verdon River below us with crystal clear waters but no sign of the bottom which left my imagination wondering just how deep is this river is, my head started to spin and my heart beat fast.  It was just magnificent...

Amazing...astonishing...breathtaking...mind blowing… I think you get the picture. 

You can drive around the rim of the Verdon Gorge, but unfortunately we didn’t have time for that late in the afternoon.  So we settled for a shorter drive up to an overlook where you supposedly can see down into the Gorge. 

Well my friends, this Gorge is so deep that after climbing up for several miles to this overlook, we could not catch even a small glimpse of the vibrantly turquoise waters that we knew were hidden way down on the bottom of this great Gorge.   

Eric snapped what photos he could get, and we started our journey back to our little Robion apartment two hours away.  But we didn’t get far before we were distracted once again, this time by a beautiful little village that sits not far from the top of the Gorge overlooking the sparkling turquoise waters of the lake... 

The village of Aiguines...

And as the golden glow from the setting sun washed over the village, the sight was spectacular...

As was the Chateau that sits on the edge of the town with a view of the lake and surround countryside that is just unreal.  All the gates around Le Chateau were locked, but we could still get a pretty good view of the Chateau and it's four interesting towers, the roofs of which were each tiled in different colors and patterns.   

Beautiful, yes, but also very intriguing.   

Why would you use such different colored roof tiles on each tower?   

Well, it didn’t take long before we found the answer on a little plaque hanging outside the Chateau. 

The tiled roof of each tower represents one of the four seasons of the year - spring, summer, fall, winter. A tribute to mother nature, or as the plaque states, a local tradition - whatever the reason, it was beautiful, as was everything we had seen that day.