Spain

Since we have now reached our fifth country - Andorra - it's time to write about Spain...

We left a grey and windy France and it felt like the weather improved as soon as we crossed the border to Spain. We spent about three days in a place called Llanca, which had a nice beach/yacht-harbour, two great playgrounds for Yana and a cheap, but completely acceptable, camping ground. The weather was great during our stay. We got to do a bit of sun-bathing, Lindsay went for a 4 hour run/tramp while Kerstin went to the beach with Yana and Kerstin went for a shorter run the next day.

The coast by Llanca

The beach/yacht-harbour of Llanca

Our next stop was Girona, a city with a nice colourful row of houses along the river, an impressive cathedral, cute narrow streets, but a slightly dodgy looking carpark that we were glad to leave behind.

Girona's colourful houses

The next few days we spent in a camping ground just north of Barcelona, near a town called Mataro. From there we took the train into Barcelona for two days. In Barcelona we bought a two-day tourist bus pass, which was a great way to see the city and learn about all the sights. We were able to hop on and off the bus as many times as we wanted. On the first day, a slightly rainy day unfortunately, we did the Southern route that took us to the Olympic stadium and the harbour. And on the second day, a nice and sunny day, we did the Northern route that took us to a couple of creative houses, the impressive Sagrada Familia and the colourful Park Güell - all designed by Gaudi.

The Sagrada Familia from the outside...

...and from the inside

Inside Park Güell - it was hard to get this photo without anyone posing in it.

More from Park Güell - again very hard to not get anyone in the ph

A very very unique looking building... anyone else get cravings for gherkins???

The first part of our drive to Andorra was not very exciting. Last night, however, we stayed in a really cool spot by a gorge here in the pyrenees and the drive today was really spectacular as well. After we've done some duty-free shopping tomorrow, we will try to experience the pyrenees from a hiker's perspective.

Provence etc

Well this update is a little slow as usual. We have travelled around a fair bit since the last entry. 

After reluctantly leaving Annecy, we went to a camping ground in Jonquieres near Orange. While there, we thought Yana was going to make the jump and finally start walking because she took a few shuffling steps, but since then she has seemed rather disinclined to try it again. However she still loves pushing the pram around, and is getting more skilled at getting unstuck

 when she bumps into something. We are a little worried that she might just skip walking and just start driving everywhere. Fortunately she can't reach both the pedals and the steering wheel yet.

One interesting thing we have seen a lot in Provence, is vineyards where the vines are not tied to wires, but left to grow like little trees. We can assure you that they taste the same though (its not stealing when you're doing scientific experiments (e.g. do they taste good)).

Next we went to Carpentras to go to a farmers market (very friendly little town), and managed to take a wrong turn which took us down a maze of tiny little streets that we were seriously worried about needing to back out of with our campervan... fortunately we managed to find our way back out without knocking any bits off the campervan!

Next we went to Avignon, which while ok, was quite shady (lots of strange homeless people) and also a little boring - apart from the Pont d'Avignon (Avignon Bridge, which cost €4.50 just to walk onto! - we didn't bother...) and the Palais des Papes (old Papal palace), there wasn't much else to see - just living from its past.

€4.50 just to walk on half a bridge - the cheek of the french aye...

After Avignon we went to see Pont du Gard, an amazing old Aquaduct built by the romans in about 19BC and still in very good nick. The scale of it is pretty amazing and to think that the bridge was only one small part of the total Aquaduct going through hilly countryside (50 something kms)... We found a nice place to park only a couple of kms from the bridge and therefore managed to get there at about 8am before anybody else, and got some nice piccies.

Pont du Gard - those Romans sure knew how to build!

Big Yana against one of the 'little' arches on the top tier to get an idea of the size.

After Pont du Gard we went to Arles, where van Gogh spent quite a bit of time (including several hundred paintings and chopping off his ear).
Missing ear and all...

There happened to be a festival on with bull fighting (and running) etc and with its old roman amphitheatre etc it was a really nice place. We also got to experience the famous Mistral wind wistling down the Rhone valley - rocked us to sleep in the campervan ;-)

We are now on the Mediterranean coast with nice summery conditions. On Sunday we stopped off near Montpellier on a nice beach where I (and Yana) got to swim in the Mediterranean sea for the first time (I only dipped my toes in when we were in Rome a few years ago). We are planning on staying on various beaches along the coast as long as the weather holds out (is due to rain on Thursday) and then heading towards Spain/Pyrenees mountains.

As this was written on Monday and it is now Friday, it is a little out of date - we have now reached Spain - a little earlier than expected due to the weather packing it in on Wednesday instead... but that will all have to wait until the next post ;)