What a weekend! After about 7 hours on the bus (which went by surprisingly quickly) we (we being a group of students from my school) found ourselves in Barcelona! We arrived Friday evening. We checked into our hostel (the first hostel I'd ever stayed in) which was extremely nice compared to what I'd been expecting! Even people who'd stayed in hostels before said this was a really nice one. Luckily there were some rooms of 8 available and I happened to be with 7 other girls I knew so we got a room all to ourselves which was nice! After settling in we went to check out one ofGaudi's houses called La Perdrera. (I had never really heard of Gaudi before this but he is a famous architect who lived during the late 1800s/early 1900s who designed many buildings in Barcelona. We chose La Perdrera because it has a huge terrace. We got there JUST as the sun was setting; it had a great view. And the terrace was... don't know which one word can describe it but definitely the most unique terrace I've ever seen! It was really neat. There were quite a few students (art students I imagine) sketching there.. it was so cool. There were even families still living in the building! We got to look at one of the "show" apartments - amazing. So nice, and huge! I was getting lost it was so big. After La Perdera we went in search of a tapas bar. We found a really good one and shared a variety of delicious tapas (my favourite were the croquetas - it had a breaded outside with a mashed potato kinda thing on the inside - it seemed more American than Spanish but it was amazing!) After dinner we headed back to the hostel as we had to get up pretty early the next day and we knew we'd be going out the next night.
Saturday we woke up on the early side and headed for the Sagrada Familia (which translates to the Sacred Family), a Cathedral designed by Gaudi. It has been under construction since 1882 and isn't supposed to be finished until about 2030! It was pretty pricey to go inside (9 euro to get in and then another 2.50 to take the lift to the top) and although the inside wasn't all I'd expected (the construction materials really detract from the overall design of it all) but the view made it worth it. Again I don't really have just one word to describe the church... it was kind of insane looking! Definitely unique and amazing in a lot of ways. But crazy at the same time! After La Sagrada Familia, Laura (our Spanish friend from Madrid) helped us find a place to eat some paella. We ended up finding a place where you could get a tapa, paella, sangria and dessert for about 11 euro which was an awesome deal.. the food was really good! After lunch we did some walking around - to the old city area and down to the port. Barcelona is a very pretty city! Although it seems that a lot buildings (La Sagrada Familia, other buildings we saw) are under construction which is kind of too bad. After walking around we headed back to the hostel for some down time before going out - clubbing in Spain doesn't start until around 1 AM! So we left at about 12:30 to make our way to "Razzmatazz", an enormous club that is known all over Spain. It was huge - essentially, there were 5 different clubs inside of one! We didn't even get to see all of it. It was a lot of fun though, they had great music! We got home at around 7 AM (and then had to be up again at around 9). I had never, EVER been out that late (or, early) before! So after an hour and a half - ish of sleep we were up to go to Parc Guell, yet another work of Gaudi. This was probably my favourite spot I saw all weekend. Tons of palm trees, beautiful mosaic benches and nice views. It was a beautiful park. Then we were back on the bus (to sleep!). Great weekend, over super fast! Luckily I have no plans this weekend so I can rest up a bit, because then it's off to Brussels and then Paris! :)
Nov 9, 2009
Nov 2, 2009
Chateau Barben/French Halloween
I would like to start this blog off by saying that I DID NOT GET A TATTOO. Not of a Christmas tree, and not of anything else. While in Strasbourg, Jean and I were talking about how we think it's silly to get a tattoo of something just because "you really like it". If we were following this logic, we joked, we should get tattoos of Christmas trees because we really (really!) like Christmas. Anyway, that was the joke, we were very hyper all weekend... anyway, I do not have a tattoo.
ANYWAY! Onto my weekend. It wasn't super busy or exciting as I have plenty of traveling coming up in November. We did however make a trip out to Lambesc, a small town not far outside of Aix, on Saturday. We had been planning to take two buses to get there (we didn't know there was any other way) but we missed the first bus (by one minute I might add). Anyway we were pretty disappointed, and tried to come up with a quick back-up plan. However, we noticed a bus with its sign saying "Lambesc". This was not one of the buses where we could use our "Cartreize" (buses traveling within the Bouche du Rhone region where each bus costs 1 euro) so we figured it would be quite expensive. However, it turned out that this bus only cost 1.10, AND it went DIRECTLY to Lambesc! So it turned out to be a good thing that we missed the bus we had originally planned on taking as we ended up saving time and money.
Once in Lambesc we headed to the tourism office. Thinking we were traveling with a car, the lady there suggested taking a trip to the Chateau Barben (supposedly the most picturesque Chateau in Provence). However, we informed her that we did not have a car and it turned out there were no buses going there from Labesc (although the lady thought there might be some going back to Aix from the Chateau). We found out it was less than 10 kilometers away, so we decided to walk (thinking we would be able to catch a bus back to Aix!) So we walked.. and walked.. for about an hour and a half. Finally we made it! Luckily on the way we ran into a nice older couple in their 60s and asked if they knew of any buses going out of the area. They didn't think there were any but kindly offered to drive us back into Lambesc, as long as we weren't back from the Chateau too late. So we arrived at the Chateau and inquired about entering the Castle. We were informed that we could not enter without a guide and a guided visit had just left, and there wasn't another one for several hours. I asked if there was any way we could run up and join the group that had just left, and luckily we were able to! Unfortunately the Chateau is currently inhabited and therefore privately owned, with only a small portion being shown to the public. It was very nice though! Very authentic... some of the ceilings were original, had never been restored! And the view from the terrace... WOW. I was so glad we'd visited in fall because the beautifully colored leaves really added something to the view. It was SO pretty. The Chateau also had a very impressive garden which I loved. Even though we walked pretty far to get there (it was about 8 kilometers in total) and had a kinda pricey entrance fee (8 euros = 12$CAN) it was worth it. And, true to her word, the extremely nice older lady gave us a ride back into town.
That night we went out to celebrate Halloween, which is slowly but surely making its way over to Europe! It is most definitely not as a big of a deal over here but you do see the odd decorations in some of the shops, and there were definitely some people who dressed up (although the costumes are not as creative as back home... people here mostly just put on white face paint and go as a dead person, be it a dead ballerina, dead bride, etc.) Unfortunately I didn't have a costume, so I wore a black dress along with a zebra print scarf/zebra print cardigan and went as... you guessed it.. a zebra! We had a pretty good time though.
This weekend I am going to Barcelona which I am very excited for!!! Happy belated Halloween to everyone!
ANYWAY! Onto my weekend. It wasn't super busy or exciting as I have plenty of traveling coming up in November. We did however make a trip out to Lambesc, a small town not far outside of Aix, on Saturday. We had been planning to take two buses to get there (we didn't know there was any other way) but we missed the first bus (by one minute I might add). Anyway we were pretty disappointed, and tried to come up with a quick back-up plan. However, we noticed a bus with its sign saying "Lambesc". This was not one of the buses where we could use our "Cartreize" (buses traveling within the Bouche du Rhone region where each bus costs 1 euro) so we figured it would be quite expensive. However, it turned out that this bus only cost 1.10, AND it went DIRECTLY to Lambesc! So it turned out to be a good thing that we missed the bus we had originally planned on taking as we ended up saving time and money.
Once in Lambesc we headed to the tourism office. Thinking we were traveling with a car, the lady there suggested taking a trip to the Chateau Barben (supposedly the most picturesque Chateau in Provence). However, we informed her that we did not have a car and it turned out there were no buses going there from Labesc (although the lady thought there might be some going back to Aix from the Chateau). We found out it was less than 10 kilometers away, so we decided to walk (thinking we would be able to catch a bus back to Aix!) So we walked.. and walked.. for about an hour and a half. Finally we made it! Luckily on the way we ran into a nice older couple in their 60s and asked if they knew of any buses going out of the area. They didn't think there were any but kindly offered to drive us back into Lambesc, as long as we weren't back from the Chateau too late. So we arrived at the Chateau and inquired about entering the Castle. We were informed that we could not enter without a guide and a guided visit had just left, and there wasn't another one for several hours. I asked if there was any way we could run up and join the group that had just left, and luckily we were able to! Unfortunately the Chateau is currently inhabited and therefore privately owned, with only a small portion being shown to the public. It was very nice though! Very authentic... some of the ceilings were original, had never been restored! And the view from the terrace... WOW. I was so glad we'd visited in fall because the beautifully colored leaves really added something to the view. It was SO pretty. The Chateau also had a very impressive garden which I loved. Even though we walked pretty far to get there (it was about 8 kilometers in total) and had a kinda pricey entrance fee (8 euros = 12$CAN) it was worth it. And, true to her word, the extremely nice older lady gave us a ride back into town.
That night we went out to celebrate Halloween, which is slowly but surely making its way over to Europe! It is most definitely not as a big of a deal over here but you do see the odd decorations in some of the shops, and there were definitely some people who dressed up (although the costumes are not as creative as back home... people here mostly just put on white face paint and go as a dead person, be it a dead ballerina, dead bride, etc.) Unfortunately I didn't have a costume, so I wore a black dress along with a zebra print scarf/zebra print cardigan and went as... you guessed it.. a zebra! We had a pretty good time though.
This weekend I am going to Barcelona which I am very excited for!!! Happy belated Halloween to everyone!
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