Greg and Deb's Travel Blog

Today was a free day for us to do, or not, whatever we wanted.
That automatically means a slow start to our day. Breakfast at some time after 9, then we sat in our Junior Suite and watched the 36’ers game live on a 100cm+ TV. They won, beat SE Melbourne 88-71.
We eventually made it out exploring on our own. We started walking down Pg devGracia past Casa Batlo ( a Gaudi creation) and then made out way across and onto Rambla de Catalunya. We came to a large open placa, Placa de Catalunya. The placa had two large circular fountains and lots of interesting classical statues on the top level, and a huge open oval paved area on the bottom side. There were pigeons everywhere, cooling off in the fountain ponds, roosting on all the statues, and much to their delight on the bottom area, getting fed by the people enjoying the plaza. Continue reading →

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We met Laura our guide and our driver at our hotel at 9am. It’s Gaudi Day!
Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926), was an architect who embraced the Catalan Modernisme Movement (a branch of Art Nouveau). His signature designs used organic forms, vibrant colours, mosaics, and textures. He Integrated ceramics, stained glass, and wrought iron into innovative structural forms using paraboloids, hyperboloids, and helicoids. His work is striking and often polarising, often described as living sculpture. Above all it is always unmistakably Gaudi.
So I guess if you’re going to have a Gaudi day, you should dive in at the deep end, and that is exactly what we did. Continue reading →

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Our driver picked us up at about 10:30 and took us to the train station next to the Valencia Bullring. I think it would be a great looking station, but at the moment it is covered in scaffolding, so you can’t really see it.
Our train was due to leave at 11:25, when we didn’t have a platform number by 11:20 Deb went to the platform entrance gate and got told our train was cancelled due to severe weather.
We got onto our tour company to try and get to Barcelona sometime today.
Ella at Unforgettable was on the case.
New plan. We are now going to Barcelona by car, leaving Valencia at 5pm for a 4hr drive. Continue reading →

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A slow morning, we had a late breakfast, then I went out and did my Ingress Second Sunday things while Deb had a quiet morning in our room.
My walk took me to the Alemeda Birdge, an interesting looking curved structure over the Rio Turia Gardens and then through back streets past the Cathedral and up to the Central Markets.
I thought there were quiet a few churches in Valencia, but I was mistaken, there are LOTS. On my walk it seemed that every half block a door would be open and a church was inside. The older generations were out in their Sunday best going to church, and lots of younger people were also out either going to or having coffee after church. Continue reading →

We left our hotel this morning and walked to meet our guide out in front of the town hall, did I mention that when we left our hotel it was dark and raining, it was 9:40am.
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A new day, a new city.
Today was all about getting to Valencia.
Our transfer driver arrived at 8:30 for our 9am transfer to the airport. No pressure!!!!
We were at the airport a bit before 9:30, and thankfully we were able to check our luggage in for our midday flight. We both dislike long waits at airports.
Our flight was flagged as boarding at 11:10, they lied. We didn’t board until 12. Our aircraft was an Bombardier CRJ1000 in a 2 x 2 seating configuration, a longish skinny plane.
We were in the air at 12:38 for our planned 35, or is that 19min flight. Well the pilot got his 19 min flight wrong! We are glad that’s all, lol.
We landed at 1:07. A 29 min flight. Continue reading →

We were on our own today so it was a slow easy start. A leisurely breakfast and then we headed out to have a look around the old town.
Our day started with a visit to the Convent de Santa Clara, and then we called in to the nuns next-door. The church is a dark Gothic style building founded in 1256 by nuns of the Franciscan Order. For all its darkness this church had a very peaceful feel about it. The only brightness was the golden Reredos behind the alter. It was carved with columns and two arches and adorned with 8 statues. The church was modestly lit with a small chandelier just in front of the alter. There were 8 chapels in the church, 4 on each side in a blend of Gothic and post Renaissance styles. It was a refuge from the outside world. Continue reading →

We were picked up at 8am by our guide and driver and headed into the interior of the Island of Mallorca.
Mallorca is the largest of the Balearic Islands, it has an area of 3640 sq kms and its highest point is Puig Majorin, 1445m the Serra de Tramuntana Range. It has a population of about 1 million permanent residents, and has visits from about 4 million tourists a year. Tourism accounts for about 85% of the Island’s GDP. It get about 300 days of sunshine a year. The biggest crops grown are almonds, olives, citrus and carob, and a little wine. Porkies the main meat produced on the island, and they have a healthy seafood industry.
Some/many of the olive trees we saw were very old, up to 1000 years old. In the early times the romans, and others, had grafted good fruiting varieties of olive trees onto the very old trunks of wild olive trees. Those trees looked very impressive. Continue reading →

Happy birthday Craig, we hope you’ve been spoilt.

From our hotel room we could see that another 4 or 5 cruise ships had docked in the port overnight, and the aircraft carrier was now pointing east, it was pointing west when we went to bed last night, I guess the wind or currents had shifted.

We left the hotel at 9:20 and walked up the main street to Estacio Intermodal to get a bus to Ponca to see some “old” friends V & V, and get a feel for where Deb’s parents had holidays in years gone by.

When we got to the Estacio Intermodal I saw a tourist information centre, so I went in and asked where we get the bus from, the guy said go up the hill past a coffee shop, turn right and go down two levels! I’m so glad I asked! We got down to the bus station just in time to get the 10:10am 103 bus going west from Palma to Santa Ponca.
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