Hola! We are back from Spain where we had a great vacation. Travelling and seeing new places is just so rewarding and refreshing. We were in Spain for 6 days but it feels like so much more beacuase of all that we expierenced. We had some truly great days and were able to squeeze in a lot of different things into these days.
We flew from Basel to Barcelona with Vueling. It worked fine and yes I would fly with them again. I found them slightly more basic than Easyjet but still good enough. They were more generous when coming to luggage. I was allowed to have both my shoulder bag and one piece of hand luggage whereas Easyjet is very strickt when it comes to the one piece.
We flew to Barcelona but we did not see Barcelona at all. The original plan was to do a bit of sightseeing in Barcelona on our last day. It was however, an easy choice to turn Barcelona down on our last day as the national park that we were at then is one of the most beautiful and stunning places that I have ever seen. Pics of that are coming later.
From Barcelona airport we picked up a rental car with a smaller company called Firefly which I do not recomend. We had to stand in line for 1.5 hours to get the rental car. The first car we got was still wet in the drivers seat. We got another car that was dry but was still quite sandy in the turnk from people that had rented it before and driven it to the beach. From Barcelona we drove to Figueres about 1.5 hours north of Barcelona. This is where the Salvador Dali museum is located.
This is the coolest museum I have ever been to. The building in itself is an old theater that Salvador Dali aquired and turned into his own art museum. Dali is the master of surrealism. He was very diverse when it came to art and worked with many different kinds of materials and objects. He did not only do paintings but also sculputes, jewlery and drawings. One of the things that I love with his art is the complexity and detail. When looking at the paintings and drawings there is always something new and something more to discover.
The musum has all of these differnt rooms, halways and stairs. It is a labyrith of cool art and surrealism. The outside of the building looks like a red palace with gigant eggs lined a long the roof.
From Figueres we continued on to Olot famous for being an old volcanic region. The most recent volcanic acitivity took place here only about 10,000 years ago. By geologic time measurment that is only a blink of an eye ago. Volcanic eruptions began here about 350,000 years ago. We visited tha Parc Natural de la zona volcanica de la Garrotxa. This park contains about 30 old volcanic cones up to 160 cm high and 1.5 km wide.
This is one of the old volcanic craters that we walked to. This tiny cute church is located at the bottom of the old crater. Toghether with the lush vegetation as a result of the fertile soils and a humid climate these create a landscape of unusual beauty.
The volcanic ash soil is very fertile and in this part many of the resturants announce they cook and use the volcanic kitchen meaning that the produce that is used has been grown on the fertile soils making them richer and fuller in flavor.
Between the woods are crop fields and farm houses scatterd around. The misty clouds lifting from the rains the previous evening. So beautiful.
One of the things that I found the most striking was the many different landscapes that we got to see and expirence as we travelled around in both Catalunya and Arragon. The diversity was so wide from lush vegetation here around the volcanic region of Olot to the arid regions of semi-desert landscape that we encounterd later.
When coming to food and wine we discovered some very nice wines. We very much liked the red wines from Somontano. Less well known compared to the famous Riojas but with excellent taste. Full bodied and rich in flavor but slightly lighter than most regular reds. The Jamon or dried hams offerd fantastic flavor for our tastebudds. For the most part food was good but nothing really amazing or fantastic at least not in the parts we visited, mostly small mountain villages. Now I am comparing to how easy and how yummy everything is generally in Italy. Not saying that we did not eat well but we had only one more outstanding dinner. But on the other hand we did not go into Barcelona where I am sure one would have had many excellent choices.
Another interessting thing that we noticed in many of the Spanish resturants was the lack of candels and dimming down the lights a bit. Many places had full bright ceiling lights on, not very cozy at all.
So this is a bit of an apetizer on our Spanish vacation. There is more to come.
5 comments:
Jag är SÅ imponerad över hur mycket ni hann med! Men så brukar det vara med era resor har jag förstått. Ni planerar så väl före resor.
Den här resan måste ha varit helt underbar med tanke på alla fina bilder. Små skitsaker som hyrbilar försvinner liksom i allt det roliga och fina.
Var ni in i den där lilla kyrkan? Häftigt ställe att bygga kyrka på.
Kram, kram
När man faktiskt utnyttjar dagarna och startar rätt tidigt och inte såsar bort tiden, samt planerat och i förväg gjort research/bestämt/vet/har planen klar vad man ska göra så tycker jag också att man hinner otroligt mycket på säg 6 dagar. Speciellt också om man är på en plats där avstånden inte är så långa. I sydvästra USA t.ex. kan jag känna man hinner mycket mindre pga avstånden är så stora och man måste sitta mer i bilen.
Men du, vilket coolt museum. Såg bilder på FB och Insta från nationaparkerna, ser mycket framemot höra mer om det. Bland det bästa du någonsin sett skrev du, det låter helt fantastiskt. Du har ju sett och upplevt så mycket så hyllar du något högt vet man att då är det nåt alldeles extra,
Intressant höra kulturella skillnaderna där i belysning på restaurangerna i Spanien och Italien. Intressant också höra hur lätt det är att i Italien kunna äta så gott även i mindre byar och ställen medan det inte riktigt var samma i Spanien på motsvarande ställen/små byar.
Ser framemot mer! Så roligt med reseberättelser.
Kram
Härligt att få vara med er även på denna resa. Ni har så mycket runt omkring er och det får man väl ändå kalla Spanien med. Jag gillade verkligen Barcelona, har själv varit där ett antal gånger. Men det är alltid roligt att läsa andras berättelser. Nu hoppas jag själv att min blogg är kryare den har spelat mig ett spratt. Jag läser nu igenom din blogg och ser att ni haft en händelserik period. kram, www.kattasbetraktelser.se
Jösses, det ser ju helt fantastiskt ut! Ska bli SÅ kul att få se fler bilder!
Välkomna hem!
Taina, ja vi forsoker att plannera och lasa pa innan sa att vi far ut sa mycket som mojligt av vara dagar da vi ar pa plats. Men den har gangen kanner jag att vi garna hade behovt en dag eller ett par till for att hinna med lite mer av dessa otroligt vackra nationalparker I synnerhet den sista som vi besokte. Det som ar bra ar att Barcelona inte ligger langt bort och att det inte blir sa svart att aka tillbaka och kora lite mer hiking I Monte Perdido.
Nej tyvarr kunde man inte ga in I den lilla kyrkan for den var valdigt sot. Men den var last.
Kramar!
Anne, ja det ar nagot som ar skont med Europa att avstanden inte ar alls lika langa som I USA. Daremot var vagnara har uppe I Bergen valdigt slingriga sa det tog oss vid flera tilfallen ca en halvdag (3 timmar) att ta sig fran ett stallen till nasta. Denna gang hade vi bara bokat hotelnatter for de forsta tva natterna och sedan lamnat agendan open vilket var smart. Det var Inga problem att hitta boende eftersom vi rese I off season. Museet var verkligen speciellt och coolt. Aven om man inte ar inbiten fan av konstmuseum sa var detta sa mycket mer an bara ett vanligt museum. Lite korsning av lustiga huset och museum.
Tror du kommer att gilla de inlagg som kommer framover med mer bilder om nationalparkerna och annat vi hittade pa.
Kramar!
Katta, du ar ju en inbiten resare med mycket erfarenhet. Jag inser att vi far aka tillbaka igen for att ocksa hinna med lite av Barcelona nasta gang. Hoppas att det ordnar sig med bloggen. Ar avis pa er resa till Champange som ni haller pa att plannera. Den tror jag kommer bli kanon pa alla satt. Ska bli spannande att hora mer om den da ni varit dar.
Kramar!
Charlotta,tackar.Borta bra men hemma bast. Alskar dock att resa ivag sa har for att det ar sa berikande.
Kram!
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