Monthly Archives: June 2013

Marseille, Aix en Provence & Nice

Well its been a very busy couple of days. We caught a 9 hour train from Barcelona to Marseille on Monday which was a huge trip but wasn’t too bad. We arrived in at about 8pm then had a great dinner on the waterfront.

image
Marseille

We got up the next day and headed to Aix en Provence to see Claire and her family. Was an amazing time because Claire took us to an old little town called Lourmarin. It was a 45min drive so is something we could never have done otherwise.

image
Lourmarin
image
Lourmarin
image
Lourmarin

We then went back to Claire’s apartment and met her family. Got back to Marseille late and then left first thing this morning so didn’t see much of the city which is a bit of a shame but we are in Nice now which is a choice place and hot!

image
Nice
image
Nice

Have got 2 nights in Nice and heading to Monaco tomorrow for the afternoon. Then onto Milan on Friday.

Barcelona: Day 3

Another cracker of a day in Barcelona. Not as hot as yesterday but still 25 degrees.

We checked out Goudi’s park this morning. It is a park designed by the same guy who started building the Sagrada Família. It was pretty cool to see as everything is all mosaic.

image
Entrance to Goudi's Park
image
Goudi's Park
image
View from the top
image
Heaps of mosaic
image
The salamander

We then headed down to La Ramblas which is the main street of Barca. So many souvenir shops! We went to check out the huge market that everyone talks about but it was closed for an unknown reason which was annoying.

We worked our way down the street to the port which was busy and very hot!

image
At the port
image
The port

On our way back to the hostel we ran into masses of football fans singing and with vuvuzelas and all the metro stations were packed.

Last night tonight before we go to Marseille tomorrow (9 hour train ride) and meet up with Claire and her family in Aix en Provence.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Hola! This is more like it!! We woke up this morning to a brilliant day. 30 degrees in the scorching sun.

Decided to head to Sagrada Família which is a large Roman Catholic church which started to be built in 1882 and construction passed the midpoint in 2010 with a completion date of 2026. So a very long time in the making and is so easy to see the differences in the eras.

image

image

The inside was pretty breathtaking but seemed really modern compared to some of the other churches we have been to. It didn’t quite have the same sacred atmosphere.

image

image

image

We were way too hot by now so heading back to our hostel (one block from the beach) to cool off.

image
Time to cool off
image
One block from our hostel

Danielle is disgusted by some of the local cuisine because almost every shop has loads of stinky fish and legs of meat hanging EVERYWHERE! Hooves and all…

image
Health and safety standards?....Not in Spain!

Our hostel is overrun by middle age Germans with huge beards and long hair all wearing heavy metal t shirts because Iron Maiden are playing tonight just down the road. So will have a pretty noisy night ahead.