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.

Sparkle Wine Makers

Gabri met this hilarious Sicilian at the party. He’s in the army and is based in Trentino, way in the north. Funny thing is, everywhere he goes he buys wine before it goes through its second fermentation, bottles it himself, and therefore makes sparkling wine. He’s made sparkling Pino Grigio, sparkling Merlot, sparkling Chardonnay, etc. It’s really funny. We’ve never seen anyone do this. Riccardo’s dad does this too. He drives all the way up to Friuli, buys Tokai and Merlot and Refosco and makes them all fizzy. Hilarious. We were drinking it at the party. These are all serious salt of the earth people who’ve invented this funny way of bottling and drinking wine. Maybe they’re on to something?

First stop - Orvieto

Spent two great days with Amy and Riccardo. They had a party on saturday at their new house. They just bought it. Awesome location. Will take a year or so to restore. Sarah, her mom and girls were visiting too. We all went to the BEACH on sunday. The weather was gorgeous!

Day 1 Camper!!

Feeling pretty uptight and tense. The guy who rented us the camper, Paolo, was driving me crazy. After all of his hand signal lessons and persnickety instruction, he had the gall to tell Gabri that I didn’t drive well during the test because I didn’t stop at the stops. Ma vafanculo! I have a good hand signal for him! I think he thinks he’s really German. He even told us to keep an eye on Miles so he doesn’t draw all over the camper. I’ve never seen an Italian like him!

Gabri’s mom was about to push me over the edge too. She’s been following me around for two days now making sure that I’ve packed everything, that I know how to cook what Miles likes and where we’re at with the laundry cycle. Interjecting all the time too with comments about how undomfortable the camper will be. I should have told her that we could have stayed with them for 2 ½ months instead. That would have stopped her dead in her tracks.

Anyway, I need to chill out and be super happy because we’re off with the camper!! Yahoo! I LOVE it! Miles loves it too. It’s so well organized. I’m totally geeking out on all the compartments and gadgets. We bought 10 liters of Puglia’s finest rose’, Rosato, 5 liters of olive oil, cacciocavallo, friselle, puccette, mozzarella, oregano, fresh orecchiete and finoccio – all special local products. Ooh, and last night at dinner we lucked out and got to buy a bottle of homemade bay leaf liquor!!! Another super special local treat. Yum, yum and yum.

And we have loads of freedom!

Been driving 2 hours. Just passed Bari, still in Puglia. I love this landscape. Big craggy olive trees, red earth, white stones and bright blue sky. It’s so beautiful. This is my favorite landscape. The sea here is so beautiful too. It’s really clean and crystal clear. The ground under the olive trees is covered in bright yellow flowers and poppies. Every now and then you see big clumps of fichi d’india cactus plants and vineyards that stretch as far as you can see. Mmm… Getting hungry… and thirsty,,, can the camper drive itself? It almost seems so.