Porto Day 24

April 23, 2010

Day 24 Porto

After a lovely sleep, it was time to start our adventure in Porto.  First thing to do was find an info booth to figure out what our adventure should include.  We found the info booth on a hilltop overlooking the city.  Though the day didn't start off warm, it was clear and you could see all the buildings around.  It was nice.  We decided to do some Port tastings that day, so we headed to the other side of the river.  The river was very pretty and the houses along the way were really neat.  A lot of them had beautiful tiling on the walls.  We headed to the other side of the river to have some lunch because most of the Port wineries were open after 14:00.  We found a bar with a great view of the river, had our lunch and went in search of the free entrance wineries.  The first one, right next to the bar, didn't seem to be open, so we went with our second choice.  We had to walk around some back streets and happened to stumble upon doors open to the back areas of one of the wineries.  The smell of wine was so strong!  We finally made it to our second choice, Croft.  They started up with a free sample of their Port Branco, a white wine aperitif, which was so delicious.  Unfortunately, the next tour in English was in 2 hours, so we said we'd be back and headed to another winery.  This one, called Taylor, Fladgate and Yeatman, was offering a tour right away, so we waited.  After waiting for 10 min, we finally started the tour which took us to see the barrels that the wine was held in and the vats.  The guy told us about why the climate was great there and some interesting info and then we went to the tasting.  This involved a white Port and a ruby Port.  The white wasn't as good as the other place, but the ruby was very tasty.  I knew as soon as I tried it that my dislike of red wine had ended (well, in a sense).  I had found my new drink of choice.  Especially when they kept mentioning how good it is with cheese and dark chocolate.  Who could resist?  We then headed back to Croft to get our tour.  We had a little bit of time to wait, so we decided to pay for a sample of Croft's Pink Port.  It was tasty.  Then off to the tour.  This time I actually learned the difference between wine and Port wine.  Turns out they stop fermentation and it makes the natural sugars stay in the wine, so it's sweet.  That's the way I like it!  We figured that they had already given us a free sample and remembered us, so we wouldn't get another, but it turns out at the end of the tour you get to try their 5 year old ruby vintage (I think).  Also very tasty.  After having our fill, and me purchasing a bottle (how could I resist at 7 euro a bottle?) we went down to the water.  We decided that we would buy some snacky foods and hang out by the water on the green grass.  They had a little grass mound that you could prop up against and watch the water action.  After buying some cheese from a little shop and some stuffed pastries we went back to the water and started our relaxing.  It was so nice.  The sun had come out at this point so it was extra lovely.  Once we had our fill and after a short nap we headed back to the other side of the water.  After the nap I was feeling groggy and didn't want to do anything anymore so we headed back to the hotel for the night.  At the hotel, I gave in to the meows below our window and fed the cats a little bit of cheese.  You should have seen the one growling.  Thankfully they didn't fight.  They were so adorable, I couldn't resist.  After a bit of reading and watching TV on Trevor's laptop, we headed to bed.

Lisbon-Porto Day 23

April 22,2010

Day 23 Lisbon-Porto

Today we headed for the Oceanario (Aquarium).  To get there you had to go to a more modern looking area with a fancy mall and a nice boardwalk.  Apparently they had built this area for the Expo '98.  It was a nice area.  When we got out of the metro, it had started to drizzle, so doing indoor stuff today was great planning on our part.  We walked along the water for a little bit in search of the Aquarium and finally found it.  The Aquarium was so nice and peaceful.  In the centre was a huge tank that you could see from all areas as you went around, and from the centre were 4 areas: the Pacific, Atlantic, Antarctic and Indian Oceans.  They had penguins and cute otters and, obviously, all kinds of fish.  The big tank was so mesmerizing.  It was great, definitely a nice way to spend the day.  After the Aquarium trip, we grabbed some food at the food court (somehow I was able to eat seafood) and then we headed to the area around the Lisbon castle.  To get there we had to walk through the poorer parts of town and climb uphill quite a ways, but it was definitely interesting.  At the top we decided not to go into the castle since we didn't have much time left before our train.  We sat for a bit people-watching and then headed back down the hill to our hotel to get our bags.  We caught the train to Porto and the 3 hour train was pretty uneventful.  By the time we got into Porto, it was late and dark.  We had to walk uphill to get to our hotel.  (What's with all the uphill?!)  The place looked completely abandoned.  There were only a few people in a square near our hotel outside a café.  Otherwise, there seemed to be no one in the streets.  We got to our hotel and were shown a room bigger than most of the ones we had been in since the start of the trip, which was nice because we were going to be here for 3 nights.  We went to check the view out of our window and noticed that we had some furry friends sitting on a roof that was about 2 meters below us.  It was 3 cats and they started meowing when we opened the window.  I couldn't resist so I fed them some crackers, the only thing we had in our bags.  I didn't think they'd eat them, but they gobbled them up and attracted the attention of another cat.  They didn't look like they were strays.  They had nice fur and didn't look overly skinny, but they seemed famished.  They were so cute.  After explaining that we had no more food, I had to close the window so I wouldn't hear them meowing anymore.  I hoped that I would see them again the next day.

Lisbon Day 22

April 21, 2010

Day 22 Lisbon

We arrived in Lisbon around 07:30 and proceeded to the ticket counter so that we could book our Porto-Paris portion of the trip.  We couldn't do it in Spain because the trip didn't start or end in Spain.  This ended up being a problem because the train we had planned to be on ended up being full so we had to book for the following day, making our stay in Porto a 3 night stay instead of 2.  I guess that's the nature of train travel (with a Eurail pass anyways.  No worries.  We figured we'll just cut that day out of Paris and have an extra beach day (I had no issue with that!)  Then it was time to find our hotel.  We got off the metro where Trevor's instructions told him to go, but as we looked around, we didn't see the street we were suppose to be on, let alone the address.  Right as soon as we got out of the metro station, we could see water and that made me happy, but when we found out that our hotel was actually over a kilometer from where we were, my happiness dwindled.  We decided to grab a little breakfast at a café before walking to our hotel.  A good chunk of it was uphill, not fun with our big bags, but we made it eventually.  Thankfully the lady let us check in early.  I went straight for the bed.  Trevor was feeling adventurous, so I told him to go wander and I would stay in the room for a little while.  I needed a nap (or at least down time) after our not-so-restful sleep on the train.  After having a little down time, I was ready to go.  We headed for the water.  We found an info booth along the way, but didn't end up using the info much.  We decided to head towards Belem.  I'm not sure if this is just a neighbourhood or an actual town outside of the Lisbon border, but apparently it was the place to eat.  So off we went, not quite sure how far we were going to go.  There wasn't much of a boardwalk or really many nice areas for the first bit.  We stopped in at a stand along the way and bought some deep fried snacks like samosas and continued along.  We finally got into an area that was nicer and had more of a sidewalk along the water.  By this time the weather was getting cooler.  Trevor found a dead rat on a little "beach" along the way and we had seen some dead fish floating in the water, so we were astonished that there were fishermen fishing along the walk.  It frightened me a little about what kind of seafood they were selling in the restaurants.  It clearly didn't frighten me enough because by the time we got into Belem (almost 7 km later!) we ended up having a fantastic meal of seafood in a restaurant right on the water.  The food was awesome!  I had shrimp soup, shrimp salad and a shrimp pastry.  Trevor (and I) tried barnacles for the first time.  I didn't care for them much, but Trevor seemed to think they were tasty.  He also got a ridiculous amount of prawns and a crab stuffing as they called it.  After our meal we headed to a popular pastry shop that apparently has the best custard tarts in all of Portugal.  They were good, but I don't really like custard tarts, so I was definitely not the best judge.  We then took the train back and I took the metro to the hotel while Trevor decided he wanted to walk back from the train station.  It was a nice day.

Madrid-Lisbon Day 21

April 20, 2010

Day 21 Madrid-Lisbon

We woke up the next morning and by accident realized that we had had free internet all night and didn't use it.  So Trevor quickly tried to take advantage of some of the internet.  We then headed to breakfast at a nearby café that served really good food.  It was off to find an info place next to see what the must do's in Madrid were.  There was one in Plaza Mayor, a popular square in Madrid.  After finding out that seeing a Flamenco show would be a pretty big must do, we went in search of a place to make reservations.  Along the way we walked by the Royal palace and saw some cute Spanish streets and alleys, though cleaner and less narrow than Barcelona's.  We made it to one of the places that have Flamenco shows, but they weren't open so we tried to find a pay phone to call.  Heading to a pay phone, we found a little market where Trevor finally bought himself sunglasses and I got myself churros while making our phone calls.  After reserving a spot at one of the places, we went back to the Royal Palace to do a tour there.  The palace had an amazing courtyard and inside the actual palace we got to see some armor, which was cool.  We also saw a peacock that had opened its tail and was trying to impress 3 females (to no avail, it appeared).  The palace had some beautiful rooms and amazing art on the ceilings, but it was similar to those in Poland.  Another cool part of the palace was the Royal Pharmacy full of all kinds of bottles labeled with different plant names.  It was neat.  After the Palace tour we headed back towards our hotel and stopped to eat at a pub that felt like we had been dropped in to Ireland for an hour.  We had a less than tasty Greek salad and some pasta and then headed towards Plaza Mayor where we did a little bit of people watching.  Along the way we went to buy some juice and found chocolate covered Oreos!!!  I was so amazed, I had to buy them.  We then headed back to the hostel but made a pit stop in Plaza del Sol where we watched some Spanish singers.  In the square there were a bunch of characters walking around including Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, Mickey and Minnie.  It was like a thing of nightmares when I saw Mickey take his head off!  We also watched a man making huge bubbles.  Then it was off to the hotel to pick up our bags and off to our Flamenco show.  The café that the Flamenco show happened was quite nice.  To stay and see the show you had to purchase at least a drink so Trevor ordered a beer and I ordered Sangria.  When it came, I was astounded how much Sangria I got.  It was basically a pitcher!  Very tasty!  The Flamenco show was super cool.  They had a live band singing while a bunch of women danced, young and old.  There was even a guy who danced.  The best part, Trevor and I agreed, was when one of the guitar players played a solo.  I can't even believe how fast his fingers moved.  It was amazing!  And the music was beautiful!  It was a lot of fun and it was a bit sad that we had to leave early to catch our train.  Thankfully we made our train.  We had stayed at the show later than we originally had planned and practically ran to the metro.  This train ride was a 10 hour train so we had to get comfortable cause we would be in our seats for a while.

Barcelona-Madrid Day 20

April 19, 2010

Day 20 Barcelona-Madrid

Most of our room got woken up this morning when a girl fell off the bed from the top bunk.  Trevor asked her if she was okay and another guy went up to her, but she fled the room and wasn't seen again.  I went to the bathroom soon after and didn't notice her in there (though truly I thought it was a guy that had fallen off.  Trevor had a better view because we were sleeping in 2 different beds on opposite sides of the room and he was one of the closest out of all of us to the girl who fell.)  After getting up and getting our free breakfast, we headed to the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, an amazing church in Barcelona.  It looks like it was carved out of one solid piece of rock.  (Unfortunately it was under construction, but it still looked crazy!)  It looked incredible.  We then figured it was time to head to the beach (so I could get my beach day in) and even though it was a long way, we decided to walk there.  On the way we saw the outside of the bull fighting stadium.  We thought about going in, but it was way too pricey and decided just seeing it from the outside was satisfying.  We then tried to make our way through a lovely park.   In the park there were some cool things like a temple of sorts and a huge mammoth.  Unfortunately, all our chosen routes were blocked so we ended up going right back to where we entered the park and took the long way around to get to the beach.  Finally, we made it!  It was definitely cooler when we finally got to the water, but the sun was shining and I was ready for some lounging.  Trevor went and climbed on some jungle gym while I suntanned and watched as some girl was getting a massage.  After much contemplation, I finally got up the courage to ask one of the passing masseuses how much it cost.  5 euro for 15 min and I was hooked!  So there I was getting a massage on the beach!  I commented to Trevor that it's funny how normally when I've gotten a massage they play ocean sounds in the background.  Here, you got the oceans sounds along with "Cervasa, beer, Fanta, Coke" as the drink seller passed by.  The massage was awesome!!!  I'm so glad I got up the courage to ask how much it cost.  We hung out until the wind got so cold that we couldn't stay any longer.  It was time to hunt down some food.  We found a cute place just off the beach and I ordered some paella while Trevor got the squid.  The food was very good.  The prawns in my paella were so sweet and so good.  It was awesome.  After the good food, we headed back toward our hostel so we could pick up our bags before our train to Madrid.  On the way we stumbled upon a street band.  They were a lot of fun and I'm pretty sure the guy who was dancing as if he was made of rubber also thought so.  It was some random dude dancing and his dance moves were interesting to say the least.  When he swung his arms as if he were jumping rope backwards, it definitely caught your attention.  We took the music in for a while then headed towards the hostel.  We took a detour toward the Christopher Columbus statue and finally made it to our hostel.  We headed to the train station that apparently is a bus station and an airport (or at least the signs showed airplanes).  We had to walk through security this time and it felt like we were going to board a plane.  They even checked our tickets before we got on the train (which was weird since normally they do that in the train) and once on the train we got headphones to watch a movie or listen to music.  It was very fancy.  The train ride was good and uneventful (other than our sneaky 1.5L of delicious Sangria).  Once in Madrid, Trevor led us to our hotel and we settled in for the night.

Andorra La Vella-Barcelona Day 19

April 18, 2010

Day 19 Andorra La Vella-Barcelona

We shared a lovely breakfast with Kristin this morning.  And then it was time to separate.  Kristin was heading back to Toulouse that day and we were heading to Barcelona.  We said our good-byes and off we went to catch our bus.  The bus took 3 hours and cost us money, but we were happy not to head back into France because of the issues with the train strike.  The bus ride was uneventful.  When we got into Barcelona we had an interesting time at the train station.  We needed to book the next part of our trip, but it turned out that not only were there problems with people trying to get into France, them having issues due to the "indefinite" train strike, but apparently there were also flights cancelled due to the volcano erupting in Iceland, so there were ridiculous line ups for people trying to buy that day's train tickets.  I would say there were probably somewhere around 300-500 people in line.  To get a train for another day, it was a different line up (thankfully), but first you had to line up to get a ticket (a number) for the actual line up.  That took 30 min.  It took us another 2 hours to actually get to the window to talk to someone.  It was insane!  We helped some other travelers with contingency plans because apparently their whole trip had been mucked up due to flight cancellations and the strike.  Apparently every flight they had planned to be on had been cancelled.  Thankfully they were able to get their tickets to Madrid for that night after a little help from us (we let them into the line up to get a sooner number).  After the insanity, we headed to the hostel where we would be spending our night.  The street that lead us to the square where our hostel was located was really neat.  There were all kinds of street people dressed up as crazy things.  There was an invisible man, lots of statue people, a guy in a fruit stand that would move if you paid him, a guy dressed up like a ghost in a bed with a skeleton and other crazy things.  It was actually really fun.  After getting to the hostel, we headed to the Picasso Museum.  We lucked out because the museum was free that day (apparently it's free on Sundays).  It was actually a really interesting art gallery and you could really see the change in his painting.  It was very cool.  After the museum we walked around some of the narrow streets and headed toward the beach.  It wasn't very warm and the closer we got to the water, the cooler it got, but I was desperate to see a beach.  Along the way it was interesting to hear the people's conversations.  It felt a little like Rome in the sense that everyone seemed to speak English.  Very few people were speaking Spanish or even looked Spanish.  It was crazy.  We made it to the water and walked along an area that was like a market, right next to the sailboat docks.  And then we finally made it to the beach.  It was lovely to see the Mediterranean Sea and the sand beach.  At the beach we saw a few cool sand castles, like the ones you see on those chain emails.  Once we got a little too cold, we headed back for the hostel.  Apparently if you were at the hostel at 20:30, they offered their guests free dinner.  So we managed to get some free food!  It was good too.  After we ate, we decided to get some water and on our way we figured we would get ourselves a pitcher of Sangria.  When in Rome, afterall.  It was awesome!  Then we headed back to our 10 person room for the night.  Barcelona, in my opinion, feels like the party town.  It felt like Cancun Mexico, except less American and better.

Toulouse-L’Hospitalet près l’Andorre-Andorra La Vella Day 18

April 17

Day 18 Toulouse-L'Hospitalet près l'Andorre-Andorra La Vella

If I had only known how crazy this day would be…  The day started out early so we could catch the bus at 07:45 to l'Hospitalet près l'Andorre, a town in France just a few kilometers from Andorra, a country between France and Spain.  We had no idea that getting on the bus would be so insane.  There was a huge mob of people that were just trying to stuff themselves into the bus.  There were two busses going to the same place, but both mobs were about the same size, so we just got into one of the mobs and started pushing our way in.  Unfortunately, a group of guys that were trying to get on our  bus managed to block off the mob and get themselves on and just as Trevor and I were to load the bus, we were told that it was full and there was no more room for us even though Trevor saw 2 empty seats.  Trevor wanted to just take the seats and ignore the bus driver, but I didn't want us to get into trouble, so we turned around and headed back to the train station to find out what our options were.  We were told we could take another bus that would be arriving at 09:00.  It was already 08:30 so we wouldn't have to wait long for the next bus.  We went back to the bus area, sat on our bags and waited.  While waiting, Trevor started talking with a girl who happened to be heading to the same place we were, but to hike rather than just to make it to another country.  She lives in Toulouse, but is American.  We chatted a bit and waited some more until 09:45 when the bus FINALLY came.  Thankfully this time it was practically empty with just the few of us (about 10 or so) that hadn't made it on the last 2 busses.  We were off.  A few hours later, we were in l'Hospitalet près l'Andorre and Kristin, the girl from Toulouse, was the only other person that got off the bus with us.  We decided to stick together for a bit until we got into Andorra.  We walked around this tiny little village and Trevor and I figured we would leave our bags at the hotel here because the plan was to return after a few hours in Andorra.  We then realized that there wasn't a bus that night to Barcelona, as was our plan, so we figured we'd take our bags with us when we went to Andorra, and we would likely be spending the night there.  We grabbed some food and waited for the bus that would take us into Andorra.  Unfortunately, none of the busses stopped for us at the time that the bus was suppose to come (several passes by) and after waiting an extra 30 min just in case (and getting really frustrated), we decided to make a plan B.  Trevor figured it couldn't be that far to Andorra, about 15km to the capital and really we just wanted to get to the border.  So we started hiking, us and Kristin.  At first we tried hitchhiking, but that was very unsuccessful.  So off we went, thinking it wouldn't be too far so carrying 17 kg bags wouldn't be that hard.  We hit the first sign about a kilometer into our hike (so far all uphill) that told us that the border was 12km!  Now we had some serious thinking to do.  Would we be able to make it to the border with our bags?  The idea of hitchhiking came to us again, but we tried again and yet again was unsuccessful, so we decided, "Let's do this, let's hike".  (I was still sick and feeling not too hot, I think I lost my mind somewhere!)  Trevor had a map and was thankfully able to cut down our hiking by quite a bit.  We decided to hike straight up hill instead of following the windy long road.  In one kilometer we were able to walk 3 kilometers (according to the sign).  This was helpful, but I still wasn't feeling great, so it probably wasn't a good idea for me to be exerting so much effort to get to the border.  None-the-less, we continued to hike.  The scenery was beautiful and thanks to Kristin being with us, I managed to keep my complaining to a minimum.  After another couple kilometers and several more attempts at hitchhiking, we finally made it to the border crossing between France and Andorra.  You can't imagine how happy I was.  We figured we would ask about a taxi to the nearest town, so we went into the building.  This also made me happy because they had a vending machine with water and I had run out a little while back.  I was so ecstatic to have made it!  The border patrol guy was super nice and even stamped our passports.  He told us to talk to the guys outside to get a taxi.  We waited for about 10 min before the black Mercedes came to pick us up and drive us the remainder 3km into the closest town.  From there we took a bus that took us into the Andorra capital.  The whole country appeared to be mountainous.  It was quite beautiful.  Once in Andorra, Kristin, Trevor and I tried to find the info booth.  It was closed, so we tried to find some wireless internet so we could book ourselves into a hotel for the night.  Thankfully we found some and Trevor was able to work his magic and find a hotel close by.  We dropped off our stuff and then headed out for supper.  We found a lovely buffet and shared a bottle of wine.  I couldn't stop smiling.  I was happy we hiked as far as we did.  I was happy that we finally made it and I was happy we made a new friend.  We then headed back to the hotel to get some sleep after our exhausting adventure.  It was nice making a friend and sharing an adventure.

Corseaux-Geneva-Toulouse Day 17

April 16 

Day 17  Corseaux-Geneva-Toulouse

We said our good-byes to Matt and Heather early this morning before catching way too many trains to get to Geneva.  Our plan was to visit CERN, home of the largest particle accelerator the LHC.  After dealing with a strange lady at the Geneva train station (who tried to buy our bus tickets for us) and finding out that we won't be able to reserve seats on our Marseille train due to the French strike, we caught our bus to CERN.  CERN was an interesting place and at 10:00 we began with a video and then one of the scientists took us to a station called Atlas where we saw one of the observation stations for the collisions occurring in a 27km tunnel 100m below us.  The scientist was funny and informative.  Unfortunately you can't see the LHC now because it's in operation and it just looks like a wall of metal apparently.  After our tour, we headed back to the train station to catch our train to Marseille.  Once in Marseille we thankfully got some free drinks offered by the train station (I needed something to drink so bad) and we went to talk to the train people to find out if our next days' train plans were going to work.  Our next train took us from Marseille to Toulouse where Trevor had booked a hotel right across the street from the train station.  That was all the travel for tonight and hopefully we get into Andorra tomorrow.