Arnotts Biscuits Part 1 (Nice)

After getting all engaged the next night we caught our last overnight train (ever) across the Italian Border and into Frenchyland (aka France). The train runs right along the coastline and some of the scenes from our window were beautiful. The sky was so blue. The water was so blue. Simply amazing.

Our hostess at our hostel informed us how lucky we were to arrive as there were currently major train strikes. She told us that the French workers were decent about strikes and would give a few days notice before it happened (they'd even drive around in their trucks with the alarms on), whereas "those" Italian ones were bad as you might be on a platform waiting for the next train and then they'd call a strike willynilly. This one was apparently the French workers striking. The only way we were affected was that we had to get up early in the morning to change trains when we hit the border.

After making our way through town from the station (and finding most of the Avenue Jean Médecin cut up for some kind of roadworks) we dumped our backpacks, went back downstairs and strolled down to the beach.


Pebbly beaches in Nice.


View from some tower at sunset that we hiked up to.


This is a monument looking out onto the beach, the famous Promenade des Anglais, and a motorway.


This is inside the baroque Palais Lascaris in the Old Town of Nice. You'd walk past it if you weren't looking for it. Its not very flashy on the outside, but there's some lovely decorations and ornamentations inside, and also plenty of statues and paintings. This is the roof of one of the rooms.


An example of the booty inside.


The 4-star Hôtel Negresco, a luxurious romantic (and very exxy) private palace facing the beach.


We decided to end a night with a quiet drink inside La Rotonde, a restaurant in the hotel.


It has the best fairy tale merry-go-round décor interior. Hands down, the winner of the best interior decoration in the world.


There's even cherubs dropping roses from the ceiling.


Hold on tight!


They seated us upstairs as we weren't eating anything, but we think they forgot about us, as we waited and waited for them to give us a menu or take our orders.


So we busied ourselves with taking photos.




What?! I don't even get a ring?!


But, in the end it was ok. We got our bubbly drinks ;)


Yummy!


View from ground level. That lady in the middle is actually a mannequin. Every half hour or something the mannequin plays the piano or whatever instrument it is and some of the wall decorations play bells and do things. The merry-go-round horses even bob up and down. Classy.




The next day we walked along the beach, as was our custom in those days. We saw flocks of seagulls flying and swooping into the shallow water.


We discovered that the waves were bringing in schools of tiny little fish and some were even washing up onto the shore (pebbles).


Yummy!

Antics in Rome (Rome again)

We flew out of Spain early the next day arriving in Rome. Rome was the first European place outside of London that we visited and it was our fave place out of almost everywhere we went. The pastas and pizzas were excellent, the gelatos were to-die-for, and it was just the most romantic and magical place we've been to.

We'd booked back into the same hostel we stayed at the first time, Hotel Colors, as we were familiar with the area and also knew how to make our way around town on foot from there. We re-visited some of our favourite sights and even explored some other places more deeply than we did last time. I guess having been there before we could relax and didn't have to rush around and see all the sights again. We did take the camera around, but didn't feel too obliged to go and snap up everything again. We had some more excellent pasta and pizzas, we only had gelato once, we had great coffee, saw the Changing of the Guard, checked out some of the designer shops near the Spanish Steps, hung out at the Piazza Navona and just had a brilliant time.

This is at the Trevi Fountain after I proposed to Tammy. I'm very happy to say that she said yes!

Here's the happy newly engaged couple :)

Surrealism Anyone? (Figueres)

Our trip to Spain was almost finally at an end. Our final destinations were to Girona (where the cheap-ass budget airlines fly out from) and Figueres (to visit Salvador Dalí's Museum).

We caught the train up to Girona which we later decided was a pissant hole with not much to do. This was entirely due to our hotel being very very far away and the complete lack of public transportation to there as it was some kind of feast day. Nevertheless, we managed to leg it all the way out of town to the hotel, drop off our backpacks, then back into town to the train station again to hop on the next train to Figueres. We made it to the Teatre-Museu Dalí with about two hours to check things out. Figueres was Dalí's hometown and the place where he settled with his promiscuous wife (who he stole off a Russian friend).


His cadillac, which rains on the inside if you put some coins in the slot.


Inside the museum. This was actually a theatre that burnt-down. The town approached him and asked if he wanted to set up a museum of his works and his art collection. He helped re-design everything.




Wobbly egg paintings.


A painting of Paris. That's the Eiffel Tower, of course.


Strategically-placed sofa, fireplaces and Paris paintings morph into one Mae West.








His portrait of Picasso.






A funky doorway.


Melty clocks. I think this was over his bed...


Eggs on parade on the roof of the museum.


He really thought outside the box this one. Can you see what is reflected on the bottle?






We then tried to leave the Teatre-Museu site next door to the Dalí Joies (Jewels), which was included in our ticket, but the surly and rude guard refused to let us in.


This is the front of the museum. I like the statue of the deep-sea diver. Very cool.


Then we caught the train back to Girona for the long walk home. We got some tapas and beer on the way and had a nice meal in one of their restaurants at the main square.

Mountain-Trekking (Montserrat)

Our other daytrip out from Barcelona was to visit Montserrat, a serrated mountain where they have the famous Monsterrat boys choir (from the oldest surviving music school and boys' choir left in Europe), and the most popular pilgrimage destination in Spain (a Benedictine abbey) featuring the Virgin of Montserrat (a statue of a black Madonna and child).

We got off the train from Barcelona at the cable car stop. There's also a Cremallera (rack and pinion train) to the top, but the cable car sounded more fun and would get us up there quicker. Plus, I think I've finally gotten over my fear of heights. Hooray for me!








This is the Basilica, where the Black Madonna (La Moreneta) shrine is.




We had read about how they found this statue that had been carved by St Luke and brought to Spain and hidden in a cave which was then found by a soldier during the Napoleanic wars and which apparently aided in the victory of the home team.


We didn't figure that we'd be able to walk up to it, take a photo and touch it too.




It's right above the altar in the cathedral.


The Choirboys. They perform daily at 1pm, so we got there right on time to check out La Moreneta and also get back inside before the rest of the crowd and grab a good spot to experience the Escolanía sing the "Virolai" (hymn of Montserrat) in the basilica.


After the singing, we went out and found a nice shady spot with a great view and had a picnic lunch.


Then we chose one of the not-too-difficult trails for some adventure hiking and mountain climbing.
















We found this distinctive rock formation which they use as the logo of Montserrat!