Bordeaux

Bordeaux

It is totally gorgeous here. I have a completely new appreciation for France. We’ve spent 5 days now in the Bordeaux area; three days in Pauillac and two days in St.Emillion. I don’t know that much about wine and wasn’t totally convinced that a stop in Bordeaux was “on our way” as Gabri said… but it actually was on our way and I’m so happy that we came here because it is so beautiful and so historic. Seeing the Gironde river and estuary and driving through towns like Margaux and St. Julien and passing amazing chateaux like Latoure. It absolutely blew my mind. The countryside is gorgeous, the chateaux are gorgeous, the towns are gorgeous and the food is quite good too. (Obviously not to mention the wine!) I want to learn some French and come back. Visit more wine regions.

(Miles in the middle of Paulliac!! We were told that they plant roses at the end of each row of vines because they health of the rose plant is a pure indication of the health of the vine. Interesting. And very pretty.)

We’ve been dragging Miles around to visit wineries, which hasn’t been too much fun for him but he’s been pretty good. They always load him up with suckers and that helps a lot. We visited one winery that had preserved their original winery from the 18^th century. On the ground floor they had huge wooden vats where they did the first fermentation and maceration. On the second floor they had complete access to the vats and were amazingly organized. After they would de-stem the grape clusters by hand, they would dump the grapes into a giant table where they crushed the grapes with their feet. Then the table would tilt and empty into the top of the vat. After the juice was drained out the bottom, people would climb into the vats to break up the cap. It was so gassy that people used to die doing this job. They used the pressed juice to pay “taxes”, and still do. They didn’t do the second fermentation until relatively recently so they drank fizzy wine all the time. So far out. So wild. They have such an old way of doing things in Bordeaux.

(Picture of the second floor of the winery. The table on the left was used for smashing the grapes. It tilts and empties into the tops of the giant vats. After the wine has fermented and been drained from the bottom, the crust is pressed in the press on the right. The table and press were on tracks so they could move around to be close to or empty into the various vats.)

Miles made a very good friend named Matilda. She’s adorable and full of personality. I asked Miles on day if he wanted a little sister or brother and he said he wanted a big sister. “I want Matilda.” Aw….

Mojacar, May 12th to 15th

Such a pretty town, but so depressing at the moment. We’ve totally seen the effects of the economic crisis in Mojacar. It’s a lovely little white town perched on top of a steep hill just next to the sea, way down on the southeast coast. It was a serious tourist boom town full of British. All the signs are in English and there are more fish and chips restaurants than beach pajella shacks. Our campsite too was totally bizarre. It was absolutely massive with tennis courts, boxing ring, 4 hot tubs, huge restaurant, bungalows and mobile homes, and it was totally empty except for us and one other Spanish family. It was eerie. Everywhere else we’ve been the campsites have been at least a third full. The biggest hotel on the beach was shut down and half of the apartments and homes had for sale signs in the windows. It was kinda sad to think about all the british pensioners that sunk their savings in these apartments in Mojacar only to go into foreclosure or default. Needless to say the Spanish tour industry must be suffering bigtime. Yikes.

Anyway, I’m feeling a bit melancholy about this little boy we met yesterday, Bradley. Such a cute little kid. He matched Miles in energy and orneriness in every way. The only differences between the two were their accents and the color of their little bodies. Bradley has very white skin and super white hair. And he says things like, “I’m going swimming now I am.”  His grandmother told me that his mother abandoned him when he was 20 moths old and that social services took him away from her. She was leaving him at home alone and going out clubbing all night. The only people who could take him on were them, his grandparents. They are in their mid seventies and Bradley is just three and a half. I have a hard time keeping up with Miles, I can’t imagine how they feel. They seemed exhausted but nevertheless happy to be taking care of this little boy. He was very sweet and he cried when we all parted. We were supposed to meet again on the beach today but it’s cold and cloudy. Ah! So sad!!

Anyway, we’re leaving Mojacar behind and are returning to a little beach town called Peniscola. It’s further up the coast, south of Barcelona. We’ve modified our trip a bit are going to go back up this coast and then cut northwest through Rioja to San Sebastian and Bilbao. Right now we’re driving through such a pretty landscape. It could be Colorado and the area around Grand Junction. Lots of red rocky hills and mountains punctuated by low brush bushes and pine trees. Only difference here is the palm trees, and the flowers. One strange blur on the countryside are the greenhouses. Every now and then we’ll see a hillside or valley covered in white plastic. I guess most of Britain’s tomatoes and vegetables are grown around here. Nearly the entire coast of southeast Spain is covered in these white plastic greenhouses. It’s really strange actually and I’ve never seen anything like it.

Our camper all alone in the deserted campsite of Mojacar.

Stunning day. We just spent two days in El Puerto de Santa Maria, near Cadiz. It was a funky little port/beach town with loads of history and lots of good sherry and fried fish. We went to visit Osborne, one of the largest producers of sherry in the area. I know it doesn’t sound Spanish at all but I learned the sherry production was more or less started by the British, or is at least a product of British importation of wine and brandy from the area. Osborne (Osborn-ay) was started in 17something by Thomas Osborne and is still a family run company, except that they are now all completely Spanish. Anyway, the tour was pretty cool and we got to see the bodegas where they keep the hundreds of sherry and brandy barrels. At the end of the tour we were left alone in this beautiful old room next to the bodegas with bottles of all of their sherry and brandy. Yum, yum and yum. I had never had a dry sherry, or Fino, and I didn’t know that the grape to make the sweet sherry that we know is actually a different grape called Pedro Ximenez. I always thought Pedro Ximenez some guy that founded a well known sweet sherry brand. Anyway, now I know. After loading up on Osborne products, (as in in our tummies and in our arms) we stumbled over to Romerijo a well-known restaurant in the area that has two locations, one right across the street from the other. In one you pick your fish or seafood out of the glass case and they steam it up, and in the other, your pick is fried! Fantastic! Naturally we went for fried sardines and sea bass, and steamed shrimp and lobster. And we washed it all down with another bottle of fino. Miles was a model child and slept through lunch in his stroller.

Why is it that I can drink like a fish in Europe and never have a hangover but in Denver I can drink 2 glasses of wine and clearly feel it the next day? Is it the altitude? Anyway, I wouldn’t want to miss any of the local food or wine so I’ve decided that as long as Miles is happy and gets what he needs and as long as I can stuff myself into the clothes that I already own, I’m not going to moderate consumption of either.

The next day we went to visit a cool little castle/mosque/church/temple. Actually I should put it in this order; temple/mosque/church/castle. The original Roman temple columns were still intact, the mosque part dated from the 13^th century and three different altars from different periods were perfectly preserved in 3 different parts of the church. It mostly looked like a castle though and apparently Columbus lived there for 5 years while he was waiting to get funding for one of his trips. And on the outside of the castle you could see bullet holes on one wall from where they executed republicans during the Spanish Civil War. God! All this history! It just blew my American mind away. At the end of the tour of the now privately owned temple/mosque/church/caste we were again served sherry! How cool!

The next day we decided to skip Cadiz, although I really wanted to see it, and take off. It was raining and windy and we would have had to take a 40 minute ferry ride over to Cadiz just to walk around and visit the city in the rain and wind. It would have been fine if we could have just put on our rain jackets and fortified ourselves with sherry and tromped through town, but we had Miles to think of. So, we drove east along the coast. This is where the stunning bit comes in. Fortunately the weather cleared up a bit so we could have a clear view. The rolling countryside went right up to the beach, and we were on the Atlantic side now so the sea was really dramatic. The area was barely populated with just a few little farmhouses and cows grazing right next to the sand. Maybe this is what Ireland or Novia Scotia looks like but I’ve never seen something like that on the coast of Italy and it was totally unexpected here in Spain. It was absolutely idyllic. Farmland that butts up right against the beach. Wow. We made a stop in Bolonia, not even a town really, where they had discovered a Roman port town that was supprisingly intact. Apparently it was a center for salted fish and got loads of recognition from some Roman emperor. (Sorry, this is history according to Jane, which is always a bit vague). Anyway, these ruins were right on the beach off to the side of an incredibly beautiful valley where cows were grazing and bougainvillea was spilling over the sides of retaining walls and the 3 houses that were there. We didn’t stay though because it was super windy but we did stop to eat at the only place around which was a shack at the top of a hill overlooking the beach, and the most amazing view, where we ate pizza made by a real Italian. Unbelievable. You can always count of finding at least one Italian and one Chinese in every beautiful spot on the planet. I’ve seen this again and again. One is there for the beautiful view and idyllic location and the other is there to make a buck off of everyone who comes to check it out. Both quite smart in my book.

(Picture taken from pizza place. It doesn't do it justice at all but you can just barely see the Roman town down on the beach.)

Anyway, after lunch we continued down this beautiful coast and soon were shocked by the coast of Africa popping up! It looked so close I thought we could swim to it! I didn’t realize how close it really was. So we now had cows grazing next to beach with the next hill across the water being Morocco. I was totally stunned. Then five minutes later after we rounded the next turn, we saw Gibraltar! And Africa still! Oh my god! All that geography and history! I just couldn’t stand it! It was so cool and I spent the next hour of our drive exclaiming how amazing that was.

The next couple of hours we passed through some more pretty countryside and seaside but it was WAY more populated, if not totally over-populated around Marbella and Malaga, and covered in greenhouses. Then it all came to an abrupt stop again after we arrived in the nature preserve of Cabo de Gata. This is another totally unexpected landscape. It was very dry and rocky with steep rugged hills. Again it reminded me of the western slop in Colorado. There were very few trees and tumble weed blowing around. In fact, loads of Westerns have been filmed here! And the craziest thing is that all this dramatic landscape again drops right into the sea! It was really striking. We stayed in a mostly empty campsite and decided to leave after a couple of days because it was super windy and there really wasn’t much to do.

Sevilla

Sevilla, May 1^st to the 4^th.

LOVED Sevilla! It’s the prettiest town I’ve ever seen. Food was the best we’ve had yet too. I was really blown away by the architecture and the parks and the people and the history. I didn’t realize what an important city it was in the past for sea voyages and trade. Two of Columbus’s voyages left from Sevilla.

 

First pic from Plaza de Espana, built in 1929 (?) for the world's fair. Above pic from inside the Alcazar, a beautiful palace right in the center of town built by the Moors.

(Above pics: Miles and the gorgeous Tio Pepe girls (representing a kind of liquor) and Miles with a group of Sevilla women dressed up for the Feria.)

We also lucked out and stumbled into the Sevilla Feria, the biggest festival in Sevilla and one of the biggest in Spain. Basically what it meant was that everyone, especially the women and girls were dressed up in their Sevilla finest. They all had on flamenco dresses. Yesterday we went to see the actual fair, which was pretty awesome. They had hundreds of permanent looking tents that each housed a private party. People were spilling out of them. In some they were dancing and singing, in some they had security at the door, in all of them they were eating and drinking. Then off on one end of these rows of tents was a huge fair with rides. Miles went on his first Ferris wheel and had a blast.

We stayed in a packed campground south of Sevilla in a town called Dos Hermanas. Strange little place. Our campground, while nice, was pretty much off the highway next to huge container stores and nothing. We had to walk 15 minutes to a weird little bus stop and then wait to take a 20 minute bus ride to town. That’s the only problem with traveling in a camper and trying to visit places. Keep in mind too that we have Miles with us. Bus rides aren’t a novelty anymore so convincing him that we’re going to visit a city for his sake is getting more and more tricky. Needless to say, we’re off to explore smaller towns with adjacent campsites.

Barcelona!!!

We made it to Barcelona! Yay! We're so excited to be here. We found a campsite on the beach about 5 km south of the city. We have to take a 40 minute bus ride to the city. We bought a stroller to try to minimize the whining and it seems to be working like a charm. Of course Gabri and I immediately love Barcelona and our visualizing ourselves living here. I immediately compared it to Italian cities. My impressions were that it's really clean and well organized. IT has a ton of parks with awesome playgrounds for kids. People are super mellow and approachable. It has a lot to offer in terms of culture and museums and outdoor life. The beaches are really pretty and nice and it's just basically really cool.
Here's Miles on the playground outside of the Sagrada Familia

Ouside the Arc del Trionf

Parc Guell

Walking around...

And finishing off the day at an awesome tapas bar in the Barrio Gotico with Miles asleep in the stroller! Double yay!

Stes Maries de-la-Mer

This place is really pretty and highly recommended. It looks like the everglades. The town is way at the end of the nature reserve and peninsula and is right on the sea. THe town itself is all whitewashed with pretty blue and purple shutters everywhere. We arrived with a deep, low fog and an eerie quiet. It was actually quite pretty. Wish I could speak some french!

We went to the local market on the first morning and really felt like we were in France. They had one stand with products made just from lavender, another stand with stacks of baguettes and gorgeous french bread. Another stand with salami and pate... yum yum yum. We saw an olive stand with a million kids of olives.

Italy to France

April 4th. Leaving Orvieto...

Heading to France and our first real campground experience. Found a campground near Antibes. Surprised by all the permanent camper people with their garden ornaments and gadgets. Visited Antibes and Nice. Had a lovely time.

Miles with his new Barbapapa stuff.