Plans interrupted

It's been a nerve wracking few days. My Air France flights back to Paris and Montreal were both cancelled because of the volcanic ash. George and Sha had no flight to Paris either. We therefore drove from Barcelona all the way to Paris, a marvellous ride over the Pyrennees and the Massif Centrale, seeing a Mediterrean beach on the way and the highest road bridge in the world, and stopping overnight in Beziers.

George and Sha leave for London tomorrow on the Eurostar train, and after a fraught night and early morning on the Internet, using George's computer, I am now booked onto another Eurostar train, leaving Friday afternoon. I also have an Air Canada flight booked for Sunday, Heathrow to Ottawa, if the 'planes are up back in operation by then. Meanwhile I'm staying in Paris, in lovely spring weather.

For the moment I can't really complain!

Volcano!

No more blog posts for a bit, while I find out how to reach Paris in spite of the cloud of volcanic ash. Yesterday we saw the Joan Miro sculptures and paintings but I'm too preoccupied to describe them yet. Watch this space.

Wednesday in Barcelona

Still exhausted, still getting lost, but not quite so badly as yesterday. Sha too; we need more sleep! Had to stand on the crowded train to the city, but got out before the terminus and took the blue line to Gaudi's absolutely enormous Temple de la Sagrada Famiglia with its weird spires and sculptures, a pile of stone unfortunately mixed with scaffolding. Endless crowds of sightseers surrounded it. Again, we decided not to queue for hours to see inside, walked round the outside instead taking photos, unable to avoid including the cranes.

Back on the yellow line to the Vila Olympica. It's hard to know in which direction to walk, but having studied the map and surroundings we found the entrance to the zoo. To penetrate the park behind it, though, we had to keep walking along between the high brick walls and a line of plane trees. Trams were passing by. We should have caught one. At the first corner half a mile or so further, on the corner of Carrer de Pere IV we spotted the Santa Restaurant and stopped there to sample the lunch menu. Thank heavens I learned some Spanish before coming here, for most people shake their heads when you address them in English. Sha says she couldn't have come to the city centre without me! However, food vocabulary on menus defeats me, both in Catalan and in Spanish. I guessed that lacon was some kind of meat—it turned out to be pork, tastily served on couscous and Mediterranean vegetables. I had a glass of white wine and bottle of mineral water, also choc. mousse topped with rum flavoured cream. For Sha we ordered grilled salmon on pureed potatoes with peas, followed by fruit and gelato. Not bad for 12.50 Eur. apiece. The other diners were office types, most of whom sat down to eat around 3 p.m. This is why suppers are not served till 8. Such habits mean an awfully long gap between breakfast and lunch.

Sha had already spotted the park gate round the corner. We went through and saw a monument, a grotesquely mannerist pond like the ones around Berlin adorned with gryhpens and lions' heads. The Catalan Parliament stands beyond the statue of a woolly "mamuth". Some school parties here too; a girl accosted us in a state of excitement, wanting us to stand in a group photo. The more people she persuaded, the better chance she had of winning a prize. We stood beside a small dog for the shoot, before moving toward the Arc de Triomf at the end of an imposing wide walkway, the Passeig Lluis Companys. The Palau de Justicia was here.

The steps to the metro being repaired we had to continue four blocks through a vaguely Chinese quarter to the next station, Tetuan, which necessitated another several hundred paces down the long tunnels. The Sabadell train being a relatively peaceful one, we got seats again, thank goodness.

I left Sha to brace herself for George's three hour Conference Dinner, due to take place later in the evening, while I came on home up the hill to my relatively peaceful business district, meeting hordes of uniformed school boys from the local Collegio, coming the other way. I used my Spanish again to get a pot of tea at the bar, which I was drinking as I wrote this at a table with a view of the hotel piscina, palms and potted shrubs. Had supper here as well: crema de patates and trancha de pez (swordfish) con verduras.

Tuesday in Barcelona (continued)

We were lost in the Barri Gotic, somewhere to the east of the Via Laietana. At one point we did come across the Museu Picasso, which I'd wanted to visit, but the queue for entrance was so long, I said No. There were other tourist attractions, Palau this and Palau that, Santa this and Santa that (gigantic, gloomy churches) but despite its even larger size we never found where the cathedral was, the surrounding buildings being too tall, and the maze of streets too Gothic to lead us anywhere obvious. The alleyways were narrow, dark and positively medieval. It was like the Shambles of York, England, on a huge scale, miles of it. We sat down exhausted for the sake of some green tea and a flapjack in one of the little patisseries that Barcelona does so well.

From here we still had to get back to the Pca de Catalunya to catch our train for Sant Cugat. Stumbling upon the tourist info. office we joined the queue; it was too slow so I asked a nice policeman instead: "Donde estamos, por favor?" He showed me on the map were we were which meant I could hold it the right way up, and we tried again. Still no sign of the Cathedral, but we found Las Ramblas. Sha said the crowds were the same as in Beijing, 10s of 1000s of people all in high spirits. We passed flower stalls and fruit stalls, stalls selling live chickens and pigeons and a whole line of people dressed as statues or devils. In the middle of the avenue it is traffic free, so anything goes. I prayed for a seat on the train.

My prayer was answered and we returned exhausted to Sha's hotel where I fell asleep on the bed.

Supper with George who'd been chairing three hours of meetings without a break and was just as tired and hungry. After some welcome pasta in a sports bar opposite the station I left them to the rest of the evening and came back to my own hotel to write this by hand until my hand ached as much as my legs did. What a place!

Pictures to be added later!

Tuesday in Barcelona

A leisurely hotel buffet breakfast con mucho cafe among the flowering cacti because waking up had not been so easy. Took the S2 train one stop then lost my way in S. Cugat trying to find the Rambla del Celler on which the other hotel is situated, but, muttering to myself, caught sight of it eventually. Sha, waiting for me in the lobby, led me confidently back to the station by a more direct route and we bought T-Dia "tiquets" entitling us to every means of public transport within 2 zones. We took the FGC train to Pl. de Catalunya where a busker was giving a terrific performance of Bach's 1st 'cello suite from memory, surely a professional. Then we took the metro to Valcarca, nearest stop to the Parc Güell. A passerby pointed us down the correct street, from which we found signposts to the park up the narrow Baixada de la Gloria. There were 240 steps (counted them later) but for the way up a series of escalators have been installed.

The Park Guell, its excentric design by Gaudi, swarmed with tourists, a large proportion of whom were young school groups from France. It's fun for both children and adults, with passages through leaning tree trunks carved from stone and many a hairpin bend among the pines and cacti. The sandstone cliffs draped with flowering wisteria hid pigeons' nests and caves such as the one where we queued for the WC. Gaudi's house is here as are other colourful ones with murals, turrets & mosaics, and one has a luxuriant flower garden dotted with orange trees. The view of the city, mountains and the coast from the top of the hill was absolutely stunning. We saw an even taller, steeper hill in the distance, the Tibidabo, topped by a huge church: the Temple del Sagrat Cor.

Eventually, having done an adequate tour of the winding paths & the buskers on Chinese fiddle, steel pans, guitars ... we came back down the hill and hopped onto the metro, getting off on impulse at Fontana. Disappointing in that there were no fountains but we took the opportunity to sit down in a tapas bar for coffees and a pasta de manzana (no English spoken) where most other people were enjoying cigarettes and alcoholic drinks with a great variety of tapas. Back on the metro to Barceloneta for another long walk round the harbour, to one of the beaches: Platja Sant Sebastian. There beyond a row of palm trees we saw a building like a giant green glass sail and a metal sculpture Homenatje a la Natacio by Alfredo Lanz, 2004. Waves were breaking on the sand and a games club was playing a sort of volleyball game. We passed a cable car and the dock for cruise ships, one, the AIDA, being cleaned by its crew. Then we caught a 17 bus from the quayside back into town.

Where we got lost beyond redemption in the Barri Gotic. (To be continued.)

In Sant Cugat

I've arrived, and am writing this in the lobby of the Novotel at Sant Cugat on the outskirts of Barcelona. It's an attractive area, especially (despite this afternoon's rain) at this time of year with the trees in bloom.

On first impression, Barcelona was like California, bare rock under the scrubby steep hillsides, beaches (Mediterranean) lined with palm trees, enormous cacti growing on the railway cuttings. My second impression, once my bus from the airport arrived in the centre (Placa de Catalunya), was of a city like Paris, pollarded plane trees, wide boulevards, little balconies and shutters on the windows, fountains in the square. I found some lunch at a nearby restaurant, ordered lasagne, spelled correctly; it was very well presented and "hit the spot" as my Canadian friends would say. Supper was at a quiet Catallan cafe with Sha and George near their hotel. The waitress could only communicate with me in Spanish but I managed it. We enjoyed our cervezas and crispy sandwiches. I was too busy chatting to take notes on the vocabulary, a failing which I now regret.

George's hotel is posher than mine but the Novotel is good enough for me and only a three minute train ride (towards Sabadell) on the S2 line. I buy my ride from the automatic ticket dispensers, following the instructions in Catallan of course (!) We walked round the outside of the beautiful old monastery and danced on the tune-making paving stones in the playground, in the rain. The elegant street, recently paved and cobbled by this obviously prosperous municipality, glistened in the rain and were slippery underfoot. George and Sha took many photos which I'll attach here later.

I only have 2 minutes left so will pause till tomorrow. Very tired after the 20 hour journey, but very happy to be reunited with George. I need to sleep next.

La vie en rose

We spent Easter Sunday in old Montreal, a foretaste of Paris where we'll be together with George and Sha, the weekend after next. On a bright and breezy morning we flew PTN to St. Hubert on the southern edge of the city, parking at the Esso FBO, then took a taxi to the "Université de Sherbrooke" campus where the Longueuil Metro Station is to be found. From there it's a two station hop on the yellow line to Berri-UQAM, walking distance from the Vieux Port.

Although many places were shut, it was still not too late for lunch at a stylish place called the Crêpe Café which, for future reference, is at the corner of Notre Dame and Bonsecours. Inside it felt like being on the set of the film Amélie, even to the extent of the waiter and waitress, a charming, very French couple, being as interested in one another as in their customers, if not more so. The waiter also kept popping outside to check the condition of his bright red motor bike parked against the kerb. Accordion music (La Vie en Rose) was softly playing in the background as we took our table by the window to watch the passers by, and the crêpes, without question, lived up to our expectations.

It being a public holiday, most of the city streets were deserted, but once we came to the waterfront and the Place Jacques-Cartier we realised where all the people had got to.

Home again above the city and across Pierre-Eliot-Trudeau Airport whence I'll take off for Paris and Barcelona ... next Sunday! Chris—whose latest blogpost is less escapist than mine!—will fly over to join George, Sha and me in Paris five days after that.