Friday, September 30, 2016

Road Trip

Barry is feeling better after his steroid treatment and we rented a car and set off on a road trip. We visited England in 1987 with all the kids and Barry and I had planned on a getaway trip to Paris, but there were fish wars around St. Pierre and Miquelon and we would have had to apply for a visa and wait 6 weeks to visit so we couldn't.  I really didn't want to leave Europe again this time without a chance to visit France when we were so close. I had a hard time getting Barry to agree to come but he finally relented.
This picture is of Capo Gato a large cape about 40 miles east of where we are staying. The first day on the car we drove to Barcelona. I would not recommend driving that distance in one day but we had only booked the car for one week so we had to boogie. 
Our visit to Barcelona was not an unqualified success. It is a huge city and since we only wanted to stay for one day it was difficult to judge what we wanted to visit.  I wanted to choose attractions no tha did not involve too much walking so that is t would not stress Barry's body too much.  We chose to visit Casa Battlo, designed by Antonio Gaudi, unfortunately all the pictures are on the camera and I did not bring the attachment to transfer them to the IPAD. It was unbelievable with ornate modern designs and lots of tiling.  I will post pictures later. 
Next we headed up a funicular and got a great view of the city and visited the Mont Juic fortress at the top of the mountain. 
The fortress was used as early as the tenth century to warn to approaching ships and then in the eighteenth century the people in power ordered the city of Barcelona to be bombarded from their own fortress. The bourgeoisie were revolting to protest the poverty and lack of freedom and lack of services they were receiving from the aristocracy.  The fortress was used again later in the century to put done another revolt, it seemed to used more against the local populace than against invaders?!?
We had to dive through the Pyrenees to get to France and there was some beautiful countryside. We stayed on some secondary roads and wound our way through fields covered with vineyards. We stopped for lunch in a French town and had a lovely lunch, our first truly French food.  We are in Marseille at the moment but I will save that for another blog, but will leave you with this picture of the old port with the fort guarding the entrance.