Tag Archives: camping

Barcelona & Gaudi

October 15, 2017Spainbarcelona, camping, cathedral, gaudi, history, park guell, sagrada familia, sightseeing, spain, travelJudy

When we spent a few days in Barcelona 5 years ago, at the end of our Camino Portugues, we did quite a few touristy things including visiting Montserrat, La Rambla & the Cathedral, the beach near where we were staying and Gaudi’s Casa Battlo. We also ate a lot of tapas. This time, at the end of 5 weeks of travelling, we’ve seen about as much touristy stuff as we can take, but there were gaps in our Gaudi experience so we concentrated on filling them a bit.

After sorting out our rental car extension at the Avis counter at BCN airport, we headed straight to Park Guell as it was on the way to our campground. Greg has been using a very handy app and website called Parkopedia to find us parking in cities, towns and at tourist places where getting a park can be tricky, difficult or (often!) impossible. Everywhere around Park Guell was crowded, partly because it’s a residential area, but also because the day we went was a public holiday. So we headed to a parking station a few blocks away. Easy. We took our lunch to the park and joined lots of other people out and about enjoying the weather and the park. When Gaudi designed it right at the beginning of the 20th Century, the area was located outside of Barcelona. A wealthy count purchased a tree-covered hillside and commissioned Gaudi to design up to 60 houses for wealthy people in landscaped grounds, but it was a commercial flop and abandoned in 1914. It was purchased by the city in 1922 for use as a public park. Gaudi spent most of the last 20 years of his life in a house in the park which is now used as a Gaudi museum of memorabilia and some of his furniture from his home and others he designed.

The following day, Friday, we visited Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece Basilica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia The Church of the Holy Family. Wow, what an incredible place! Nothing I write could even begin to describe it, but Greg’s photos will probably give some idea. However I will just say that if you visit Barcelona and only see one thing, it should be this place. It is absolutely awesome, in the true sense of that oft-misused word.

We’ve spent the last few days camping at Camping Barcelona, which is about 35kms north of the city. It’s easily the best campground we’ve stayed at in Spain. Lovely sites, excellent facilities, late check-out – we can stay until 8pm on the day we leave. The campground offers a regular, frequent bus service into Mataro the nearest town, plus a bus to Barcelona and will organise tours to popular tourist places including La Sagrada Familia and Montserrat. They have a bar, restaurant, mini-market, nice looking swimming pool and give discounts for stays of longer than 5 days. Wifi is included in the camping fee and it’s good and fast. We paid a bit extra for power. It’s been lovely staying here.

Plenty of sign of Catalan agitation at Spain

Looking down to Barcelona from Park Guell

la Sagrada Familia showing the old Nativity gate versus the newer extension

la Sagrada Familia Glory gate, a long way from completion, it started in 2002

la Sagrada Familia the top of the Passion gate

la Sagrada Familia stained glass windows on the western side

la Sagrada Familia, the stained glass in the afternoon throwing colours throughout the church

la Sagrada Familia eastern stained glass

When the cheap hotel room doesn’t have enough chairs, table, stove, pressure cooker and more, you just bring them instead

Segovia

October 13, 2017Uncategorizedairbnb, alcazar, aqueduct, camping, food, history, road trip, segovia, spain, travelJudy

This week has just zapped by, in a whirl of places and interesting things and our last few days in Spain …. and not enough blog updates. It’s now Friday evening and we fly out of Barcelona on Sunday, arriving home on Tuesday.

After our quick visit to Toledo, we skirted around Madrid, only stopping to visit the Costco in an outer suburb to get fuel before heading further north to Segovia. We stayed at a lovely Airbnb apartment there for 2 nights. The main drawcard at Segovia is an amazing stretch of Roman Aqueduct right at the edge of the old town. And then there’s the Alcazar Fortress, which was apparently used by Walt Disney as the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle at Disneyland in California. AND THEN there are the myths that the city was founded by Hercules or the son of Noah. Hmm .. let’s forget about the myths and talk about that Aqueduct and the Alcarzar. And lunch. Lunch was very good.

El Acueducto the Roman Aqueduct was built in the 1st century and no mortar was used in its original construction. I’ll just repeat that because it’s very impressive … no mortar was used in the 894 metre long series of 163 arches built with over 20,000 granite blocks. At its highest point at the entrance to Plaze del Azoguejo, it stands at 28 metres high. How did these ancient builders and engineers do it ??

The aqueduct was part of a complex system of underground canals and aqueducts that brought water to the city from the mountains 15+kms away. It was restored in the 1990s.

While we were reading up in our Lonely Planet Guide about the aqueduct, we learnt that Segovia is also well known for its roast lamb and roast suckling pig. We tend not to eat out much when we travel because I like to cook like the locals cook, but we do like a good roast, so we found a restaurant which specialied in horno de asar roasts and had a lovely lunch: Entree – ‘grandma’s soup’ and butter bean stew, Main – cochinillo asado roast pork with salad, Dessert – arroz con leche creamed rice for Greg and creme caramel for me. Plus wine.

After that, we needed a big walk, so we headed to the Alcazar. Up a few hills, took a wrong turn somewhere, got back on course and eventually got to the top of the old part of town with the Alcazar on the edge. It looked … unimpressive … from the main entrance. A boxy fortress, a couple of turrets that were a bit reminiscent of Rapunzel and other fairytale princesses, but not really what we’d expected. We didn’t go inside because it all burnt down in the mid-19th century and what is now there seems to be an over-the-top reconstruction. We did find that Sleeping Beauty-like castle we were expecting when we drove to a viewpoint on the outskirts of town. Our Airbnb host has a lovely photo of it in snow, plus a few more on the Airbnb listing for his place – here.

We left Segovia on Wednesday morning and put in a long day’s drive towards Barcelona. We stayed at Lleida at an Ibis Budget hotel and then headed to BCN on Thursday. It was Spain’s National Day, October 12th and everything was closed, but we found bread at a servo on the motorway and went straight to the Avis counter at BCN to extend our rental car hire for a couple of days. We’re staying at a very good campground about 30kms north of the city.

the wood oven where all the lamb and pig is cooked

A Tale of Two Churches – Cordoba

October 10, 2017Spaincamping, cordoba, history, mosque, road trip, sightseeing, spain, travelJudy

We left our lovely Airbnb house in Seville on Saturday morning and headed north to Cordoba. I had a chance conversation with a friend on Facebook and discovered that there are 2 Costco stores in Spain, one in Seville and one in Madrid, and I’d brought my Costco member’s card! So we dropped into the Seville store on our way out of town. It’s amazing how similar these stores are worldwide, but with local differences of course – this one had a lot more fresh, frozen and tinned seafood than the ADL one, but the layout was almost identical and the carpark had Costco’s usual very generous parking spaces. The only thing we bought there was hot chips to have with our bread rolls for lunch. My latest favourite condiment is sherry vinegar and it went very well with those chippies.

And then on to Cordoba, to see the Mezquita, which is regarded as one of the world’s greatest Islamic buildings, and one of the best things we’ve seen on this trip. It is beautiful, spacious and serene, with a Patio de los Naranjos on one side, like Seville Cathedral. The site of the Mezquita has had a church on it since 600AD, originally a small Visigothic temple, then a mosque which was enlarged several times, and then in the 16th Century a Gothic/Renaissance-style cathedral was built inside the existing Mezquita. Sounds like a crazy cacophony of styles, but in reality it all works beautifully.

One of the highlights is the mihrab, the mosque’s prayer niche which faces Mecca. It’s not particularly large, especially not in comparison with the overall size of the whole space, but it is beautifully and richly decorated and a focal point of the Mezquita. I had to go back for a second look after we’d seen everything else.

We walked through some of Cordoba’s side streets in the late afternoon. Bars and restaurants were getting ready for their evening customers, people had started coming back outside after their siesta and tourists cooled their feet in a series of ponds that went along a path by the city wall. We pointed the car in the direction of Toledo and found a municipal campground near a large lake at Villaviciosa and spent the night there.

It wasn’t until the next morning that we realised the GPS was taking us to Toledo in Portugal, not Toledo in Spain! So we set it to the right one and headed north.

the very narrow streets of Cordoba with a garbage truck driving through

inside the Mezquita, also the cover picture on the Spain Lonely Planet

the Villaviciosa campground was three quarters full of permanent sites. This is common in Spain (and Italy). People build structures around their caravans

Villaviciosa campground looking down the row of permanent sites

A Tale of Two Churches – Seville

October 8, 2017Spainairbnb, andalucia, camping, cathedral, cordoba, history, mosque, road trip, sevilla, sightseeing, spain, travelJudy

It was the best of times, it was …. oops, wrong cities, wrong centuries.

On Friday we visited the amazing Seville Cathedral, then on Saturday we visited the even more incredible Mezquita – the Mosque-Cathedral in Cordoba. Seville Cathedral is huge, third largest Christian church in the world, the largest cathedral (because the other 2 are not the seats of bishops) and the largest Gothic church. Like many of Spain’s churches, the site was originally a mosque, and the mosque’s minaret, El Giradillo, still stands beside it. The rest of the original mosque was knocked down in the early 15th century, and when the Cathedral was completed 100 years later, it was the largest church in the world by volume. Some sources claim that it still is.

The tomb of Christopher Columbus is a major point of interest. It’s very impressive for its size and there has been a long-standing debate over whether the remains are actually Columbus’ (DNA says they are). Also impressive is the cathedral’s collection of art and treasure, including a very decorative crown which contains the second-largest pearl in the world, and is used during the Feast of the Assumption. Another surviving remnant of the original 12th Century mosque is the Patio de los Naranjos Oranges, a lovely cool open area with a large fountain in the centre.

We walked a few blocks to the Plaza de Espana and the adjoining Parque de Maria Luisa. The Plaza was built for the 1929 Exposicion Iberoamericana and has fountains, mini-canals with boats for hire and a huge curved brick & tile building showcasing Seville tilework. It was a hot day and we opted to sit under a huge Australian Grevillea Robusta in the park rather than walk around the Plaza. Then we headed back to the car via the river. We’re listening to the audiobook of Ken Follet’s Column of Fire, Part 3 of his Kingsbridge series, and the Rio Guadalquiver is mentioned several times as an important asset to Seville because ships were the main form of transport to and from the city. It has silted up over the centuries, but is still an impressive body of water.

On the way back to our Airbnb, we drove a slightly different way and came to a deserted suburb. There were tram tracks with a big bridge going to who knows where, parking area, roads, street lights … everything except houses. We’ve been through another Spanish ghost town where there were houses, some finished and empty, others never finished, but this suburb with everything but the houses was really different.

We’re heading north now, towards Madrid andSegovia, and will then head west back to Barcelona. This post is getting a bit long, so I’ll write about Cordoba later.

Old graffiti (from at least 1884) in Seville Catheral

Walking to Plaza de Espana we knew we were getting close, we could see the tour buses lined up

Abandoned suburb with parking for the tram station

New footpaths and trees overgrown with weeds

Cadiz

October 5, 2017Spainandalucia, cadiz, camping, road trip, sightseeing, spain, travelJudy

After our epic trip to another continent on Monday – ha! – we just did a short drive on Tuesday. We headed a bit further west to Cadiz, which is considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe, founded by the Phoenicians in around 1100BC. Cadiz sits right out on a piece of land that’s almost an island which is reached via a narrow sand spit from the east, and a huge impressive new suspension bridge on the western side. We drove to a big municipal carpark which seems to take up a very large area below street level, then parked and walked around the old, interesting part of town. We got to the Central Market just as they were closing up for the day at around 3pm, then headed to the cathedral and walked across the street to look at the bay east of the town, ie: where we’d come from. We spotted an official Camino de Santiago sign, which made sense to us … most Camino routes start at a church or cathedral. This one marked the start of the Augusta route, which is an add-on to the Via de la Plata route which starts at Seville. Only of any interest to Camino nerds like ourselves.

Our Lonely Planet Guide tells us that ‘the distinctive urban model of Cadiz provided a blueprint for fortified Spanish colonial cities in the Americas and the port with its crenellated sea walls and chunky forts is heavily reminiscent of Cuba’s Havana and Puerto Rico’s San Juan. ‘

We had called in to a big Carrefour supermarket on the way to Cadiz, to get some bread for lunch and a few other things, and I was horrified to see Disney branded non-alcoholic wine for kids in the alcohol section. Really a low point in marketing, I reckon.

And then another short drive to Rota, across the bay from Cadiz, to a campground. Not bad as far as facilities and campsites go, with each site screened by bushes and easy access to the beach. But I was extremely unimpressed when a gardener revved up his chainsaw the next morning and started chopping the bushes near us. No eye or ear protection, for him or us! When he got to the bushes about 2 metres away from where we were sitting, I asked him to stop and go somewhere else. He wanted to keep going, telling me it would only take 2 minutes. I told him that I hadn’t paid to stay there and have my hearing damaged. It went on like that for a while, but finally he went elsewhere, or maybe just stopped – Greg saw the chainsaw sitting outside the reception area when we were leaving. Spanish customer service shines again … not! And it’s also more proof that I’m just a grumpy old woman.

We’ve decided not to go to Portugal. We’re running out of time and during a conversation where we tried to figure out where in Portugal we wanted to go, we realised that we’ve already been to most of the interesting places anyway. So we’ll have a look at some of Spain’s interior, now that we’ve covered just about the entire Spanish coastline.

Solar panels providing shade at Ikea Jerez

Almuñécar

September 29, 2017Spainairbnb, andalucia, camping, food, granada, history, road trip, sightseeing, spain, tapas, travelJudy

After our epic morning at Alhambra, we headed back to the apartment, walked up to one of the nearby supermarkets to get some stuff & noticed a little stall selling churros & coffee just around the corner from us. It wasn’t open until later, so we went back intending to ‘eat dessert first’, but the serve of churros & chocolate was so huge that it ended up being dinner. These churros were cooked differently from others we’ve had, in that a continuous spiral of batter was poured into the deep fryer until the entire surface was full, then when it was cooked it was chopped into lengths of about 15cm. Every other churro we’ve had has been piped, usually through a star-shaped nozzle, and cooked individually. However they are cooked, though, they are all delicious!

Yesterday morning we packed up to leave Granada, met our Airbnb host at the apartment, then drove into the city centre to have a bit more of a look. Greg picked out a parking station not far from the cathedral and the food market but we ended up on one of those city streets that are only accessible to buses, taxis and cars with special permission between 0730 – 2230 … aargghh! So we did a few quick right turns to get away from there and found another parking station which was a bit further away, but we got to walk along more of the streets in town. We found the cathedral but didn’t go inside, then the food market which was … erm … unimpressive after Valencia’s gorgeous Central Market. At least half the stalls were closed, and most of the ones that were open were selling seafood which looked great but not what we wanted to buy. I did have a nice glass of wine which included some tapas – prawns and some kind of squid thing on bread. Cost about $2. Bargain.

Then we headed to the streets below the Alhambra, to see what it looked like perched up there on its hill. We found a tapas bar that seemed to be aimed at locals rather than tourists, wandered in and had lunch … tortilla espanol, patatas a lo pobre (poor man’s potatoes), croquettes, artichokes with anchovies. And then, just in case we hadn’t had enough potatoes, the waiter brought us a plate of chips, on the house. Plus orange juice for Greg and a fino jerez sherry for me. I’ve gotta say, that sherry didn’t taste anything like the cream sherry my nanna used to consume by the flagon. I might need to do some more ‘research’ into Spanish sherry.

Campgrounds are not all that common on the Costa del Sol, but there seems to be an over-abundance of apartments and resorts. It’s a bit early, ie hot, in the season for the major influx of tourists, most of whom come during the Northern Hemisphere winter to get away from whichever cold country they live in, for weeks or months. Greg did a Google search and found Camping Tropical at Almuñécar, on the coast about 80kms south of Granada, so we just had a short drive to get to it. Run by a German guy, it is one of the best campgrounds we’ve stayed at. As Greg pointed out – the 2 places we’ve liked the best have both been run by non-Spanish people. Anyway, this one had some extra little bonuses like a really good washing up area with scourers and dishwashing liquid, and nicely decorated bathrooms with toilet seats, toilet paper and hand towels. Most of the trees in the grounds were fruit and nut trees; I picked a pomegranate and a couple of avocadoes this morning.

And now we’re in La Linea de la Conception, which is the town on the Spanish border with Gibraltar. We can see The Rock from the front of the building. We’re spending a couple of nights in this Airbnb and will walk across to Gibraltar tomorrow. Wow, that’s another of those mythical places I never imagined I’d ever see in my lifetime.

Parking in Granada, first you drive into the car lift and take the car down 1 level

A mechanics opposite our apartment. You took a ramp up to the 3rd floor where the mechanics workshop was located

Tapas and wine at the Central Market in Granada

Fruit trees outside the Cathedral in Granada

Capella Real, the royal chapel in Granada

The road that runs downhill from La Alhambra

The less than desirable stoney beach at Almuñécar

The view of the rock from outside the apartment in La Línea de la Concepción

Los Baños De Fortuna

September 27, 2017Spaincamping, road trip, sightseeing, spain, travelJudy

Heading south from Valencia, we thought about going to Murcia, but then got distracted by a nice-sounding campground about 20kms north at Los Baños De Fortuna. We can be easily distracted.

In fact, I probably wouldn’t even mention this place except that something happened during the night while we were (not) sleeping.

We were woken at about 1.30am by running footsteps on the gravel near our tent and someone trying to get out the locked gate nearby. Then more running and someone yelling. I needed to go to the toilet and WALKED PAST someone hiding in a bush! Gah! What to do? So I just kept on walking to the bathroom block then walked back to our tent. Apparently the person hiding had tried to steal a car (which was unlocked and had the keys in the ignition) from a guy who seems to live here permanently. He stopped it at the boom gate at the entrance to the campground and must have dragged the thief out.

But then he drove his car out of the campground, probably thinking the thief had left the campground. We got up and stood outside and watched the thief run past us carrying a laptop that he’d probably just pinched from the guy in the car! Sorry, senor, but I wasn’t about to risk getting beaten up to save your laptop.The guy in the car drove back and I pointed to where the ‘thief’ had run to, he wanted me to call the police, but he went to the local police station himself and they followed him back.

Everything settled down until the next morning, when of course it was the talk of the campground! I talked to our French neighbours who told me that this young man has been hanging around the campground for a while. He’s been in at least one other RV while the French occupants were asleep in it!! All these canny old French folk will get him for sure! Our neighbours have been ‘taking the waters’ and staying at that campground for over 20 years and they do not want their holiday ruined, thanks very much. It was a bit disconcerting talking to them cos Monsieur was only wearing a g-string and I had to concentrate on looking him in the eye, not … you know …. lower down!

Anyway, hopefully that was the only real excitement we have on this trip. We are always careful about locking our car and keeping our valuables with us, and it’s hard to undo tent zips quietly, but on the other hand, if someone is desperate enough, they may try hard to find a way.

The Delta de L’Ebre

September 25, 2017Spaincamping, delta de ebre, festival, river, road trip, sightseeing, spain, travel, valenciaJudy

A quick one, which I’ll add to later. We’re heading out to find breakfast at Valencia’s Central Market.

Following on from our afternoon of watching human tower-building, we once again pointed the car in the direction of Valencia, and once again found something else to distract us along the way. The delta of the River Ebre is about 90kms south of Tarragona and looked like an interesting place to visit. Lots of birds especially in autumn. We found a campground near the delta and headed there. Along the way we noticed fields full of stubble that also had a lot of groundwater. But why? It hadn’t rained much in the last few days. Took us a while to realised that this is a rice-growing area and what we were seeing were the remains of the last crop. As we got further along, we also saw newly planted areas and crops that looked almost ready to harvest.

We camped under eucalyptus trees, which went against a lifetime of not camping under them at home in case one dropped a limb on the tent, but these trees weren’t all that big and there were no big limbs over our tent. It was lovely to see a little piece of home, though.

As we drove down to the beach the next morning, we stopped at another festival of some sort. Lots of cars, marquees, people. We didn’t realise what it was until we got to the main entrance – the last day of the 3-day Delta birding Festival. Not having the slightest clue about birds, we decided against going in, but it all looked very well organised and from the lengths of some of the camera lenses, I’m sure a lot of excellent bird pics were taken.

And then on to Valencia.

Camped under eucalyptus trees on the Delta

Tarragona, Catalonia

September 24, 2017Spaincamping, catalonia, festival, history, roman ruins, saint thecla, santa tecla, sightseeing, spain, tarragona, travelJudy

We went to a supermarket just before we left Andorra. There were more cigarettes there than I’ve ever seen before! Some brands had special offers – buy 3 cartons, get a free bottle of booze, or free lighters. And there was even one brand that was sold by the bucket – approx 198 cigs in it. Yuck! I guess the prices were good, I have no idea how much a packet of cigs is at home. Anyway, we got some food and a tetrapak of wine ‘cos we are complete philistines (and they fit in our fridge better than glass wine bottles) and headed south towards Valencia.

One of the towns along the way is Tarragona, which is on the coast about 100km south of Barcelona. I consulted our Lonely Planet guide and it sounded like we should stop there and have a look. Originally founded by the Romans in 200-something BC, it is Spain’s second-most important Roman site. In 27BC Augustus made it the capital of his new Tarraconesis province, which is now roughly all of modern Spain. In its heyday, it had a population of over 200,000. Current population is around 132,000. It was abandoned in AD714 when the Muslims arrived, then reborn as the seat of a Christian archbishopric in the 11th Century.

We parked just outside the old city walls, which now have apartments built into and on top of them. Walked through the old town to the cathedral, whose spire is the highest point of the town and can be seen for miles. Along the way, there were posters everywhere advertising the Festival of Santa Tecla Saint Thecla (a saint of the early Christian Church and reported follower of Paul the Apostle), which was happening while we were there. And we found out after a bit more research that one of the highlights of the festival – the human tower display – was happening the next day, Saturday. More on that later.

There are some excellent historical Roman sites in Tarragona – the amphitheatre near the beach, which also contains the remains of a couple of 6th and 12th century churches. The original stone from the amphitheatre was used to build the nearby port, so what is now there is a partial reconstruction. Right near one part of the city walls is the ruins of the Roman circus, the ancient chariot racetrack. If you follow the modern road up to the right of the circus, you can see the apartments built above the city wall.

We stayed at a campground on the beach just north of the town. First one we tried had shut for the season, and the one we stayed at seemed to be closing the morning we left. Everyone around us was packing up their caravans, chucking out huge rolls of lino, rolling up fake grass, putting fridges and freezers into storage and trying to cram months of accumulated crap into either their caravans or the huge dumpsters that were already overflowing.

Drove back into town just before midday and parked at a parking station so we could go to the Plaza de la Font to watch the human tower building. The Municipal building is at one end of the square, and it had a stage set up in front of it. When we got there, there was a group of people in costume reciting pieces of poetry, with the occasional display of fireworks and loud bangs. We had no idea what was going on, but clapped along with everyone else. There was a very enthusiastic rendition of what we thought was the Catalonian anthem (Catalonia is currently trying to gain independence from the rest of Spain, there are many pro-Catalonia posters everywhere). And then the 4 teams of tower-builders marched into the square, each heralded by its own band. The teams took turns to build towers of up to 9 people high, in various configurations ranging from 3 people on each level, to just one person supporting another one on his or her shoulders, going up and up … all with little kids wearing helmets at the very top. For anyone who has a child who is a climber, send ’em to Human Tower Building classes at Tarragona. They will either love it, or decide they’re not so keen on climbing after all.

We spent a few hours at the square, watching the poetry recital and then the tower building, and one thing that really struck me was how amiable the crowd was. Everyone was happy, there was no tension or crying kids or irritable people, it all just flowed beautifully. Over the course of our time there, we ended up getting closer to the front as the crowd ebbed and flowed. It was just one of those lucky occasions of us being in the right place at the right time.

Many yes posters for the “illegal” Catalonia independence referendum

The beach with all the Caravan parks north of Tarragona

The tower climbers matching into the square

They built the tower with human scaffolding then they climbed down leaving these balanced all alone

We sometimes don’t have much room so the car bonnet does well for drying dishes (don’t tell Avis!)

Andorra

September 22, 2017Andorracamping, Eastern Pyrenees, road trip, sightseeing, travel, walkingJudy

We like visiting tiny countries. Swaziland, Lesotho, Monaco and now Andorra. Oh, and Greg and Sam went to Luxembourg to buy fuel on a Sunday when they couldn’t find any servos open in France. I guess they appeal because it’s such a novelty to get from one side of a country in a day or two, or even less. In the case of Andorra, we could have zapped in and out in an hour or two, but we decided to stay for a while, go for a walk and spend a night at a campground.

The walk was up to a lake in the mountains at 2745 metres above sea level. We started at around 1800 metres altitude and climbed almost vertically for the first part. I’m not sure how far I got, with plenty of rest stops to allow my lungs to recover, but I eventually gave up and headed back down the mountain. Greg made it all the way .. and all the way back too! Stunning views of the surrounding mountains & farmland, and I was delighted to see lots of Colchicum Autumn Crocus with their purple flowers dotting the fields.

We found a campground on the main road as we drove south. Nice set-up but it was a cold night – down to 3C. We’re heading south now and hoping for warmer weather. Andorra gets 80% of its GDP from tourism, and I’d say most of that happens in the winter. The towns and villages seemed quiet, but I’m sure they’re all full of skiers, snowboarders and holiday-makers as soon as it snows. There was actually a dusting of snow on the higher peaks, but not on any of the ski slopes that we saw.

Many of the buildings in Andorra are build of local stone, and they sit beautifully along the sides of mountains, really lovely use of readily available building materials.