Continuing with the highlight pics of the vacation in the 2nd part of this intro...
PANTICOSA
San Juan de la Pena Monastery
MONTSERRAT
BARCELONA
Casa Batllo
Casa Mila (La Pedrera)
BASILICA DE SAGRADA FAMILIA
Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau
Palau de la Música Catalana
PARC GUELL
PALAU GUELL
Museu Frederic Marès
COLUMBUS MONUMENT
Montjuïc Castle
Poble Espanyol / Pueblo Español (Spanish Village)
National Art Museum of Catalunya - MNAC
Magic fountain
Museu del Disseny [Design museum]
Arc de Triomf
Ciutadella Park
Cathedral of Barcelona (Catedral La Seu)
ITINERARY
This is what we managed to enjoy each day. Detailed report with more pics, videos and maps will follow as usual.
DAY 1, MAY 6, 2022, Friday: Landed in Paris.
STAY: Ibis CDG Airport, Roissypole.
DAY 2, MAY 7, 2022, Saturday: 7.10 am AIR FRANCE flight to reach Barcelona at 9 am. OK Mobility Car rental shuttle to the car rental. Picked up our rental and drove to Tarragona
SIGHTS : Paseo Arqueológico (Murallas [Roman walls]), Roman Circus, Catedral, Amphitheater
DAY 3, MAY 8, Sunday 2022, MOTHERS DAY: Aqueduct, then drive to Girona via Blanes, Tossa del Mar. Drove the scenic GI 682 AUDI advertisement road to Sant Feliu de Guixols. Plan was to also visit small medieval towns like Begur [hit up Aigua Blava], Pals, Peratallada (there are many more) before reaching Girona but had to skip due to paucity of time.
STAY: Ibis, Girona, Costa Brava
DAY 4, MAY 9, Monday: FLOWER FESTIVAL in Girona, Cathedral, Sant Marti D'Empuries, then reached Figueres, dropped our bags at our hotel room. Then drove to Monasterio de Sant Pere de Rodes
STAY: Hotel Sanmar, Figueres,
DAY 5, MAY 10, Tuesday: Checked out, walked around the main square, Dali museum in Figueres, drove to Cadaqués, Cap de Creus. Turned back, drove to Ribes de Freser, hitting up Besalu on the way. Drove on the scenic road Eje Pirenaico/N-260 [Pyrenees Axis road]
STAY: Hostal Porta De Núria, Ribes De Freser
DAY 6, MAY 11, Wednesday: Checked out, drove to Queralbs, parked the car, took the rack railway to Vall de Nuria, came back down, explored the village of Queralbs, then drove on again on Eje Pirenaico/N-260 [Pyrenees Axis road] to Vielha, Val d'Aran
STAY: Aparthotel Nou Vielha, 2 Nights
DAY 7, MAY 12, Thursday: many scenic view points, water falls etc along with medieval villages.
Cascada de Gerber , Baqueira-Beret, Val Ruda, Salardu [did the waterfalls hike both ways, got lost by going up the trail instead of back to the car park], walked through the beautiful village Unha, traced our way back, Salardu Church Sant Andréu de Salardú, lovely village Tredós with its waterfalls and medieval center, Camí de la Bruixa [Witch's way]. We hit the trail for lglèisa de Santa Maria de Cap d'Aran but it was blocked mid way, so we saw it only from far.
We were too tired to get down and explore Arties and just passed it on the way back to hotel. Surprisingly, the road was blocked the next day for maintenance and we had to miss it
STAY: Aparthotel Nou Vielha
DAY 8, MAY 13, Friday: Checked out.
Explored some pretty corners of Vielha including the Church. Tried to drive to Arties but the road was blocked.
Drove to some beautiful waterfalls [ Saut deth Pish. Salto del Pez, Uelths Deth Joèu or the eyes of the devil or of Jupiter], on the way seeing plenty of other waterfalls gushing down the cliffs, right next to our car.
Saut deth Pish. Salto del Pez was an amazing waterfall, so was Uelths Deth Joèu or the eyes of the devil or of Jupiter. We saw Embalse de Eriste on the drive to Jaca, our next base.
STAY: Gran Hotel De Jaca, 2 Nights
DAY 9, MAY 14, Saturday:
Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido : hike of 3 waterfalls Mirador de Aripas waterfalls. Cueva and Estrecho waterfalls,
Drive to Panticosa [Tena valley]Baños de Panticosa, Ibón de los Baños [swimming glacial lake] and 2 beautiful waterfalls. It was drizzling. we drove back to our hotel.
STAY: Gran Hotel De Jaca, 2 Nights
DAY 10, MAY 15, Sunday: Checked out. We had a short drive to our next base and no sights to be seen there. Lleida was close to Montserrat where we wanted to spend the whole of the next day. So we drove around Jaca area enjoying the Pyrenees for the last day.
We drove a little west to the Monastery of San Juan de la Pena. The facade was lovely but we were disappointed with the museum inside and the modern interior. The mirador/viewpoint was also nothing to write home about. .. after the top notch views we had enjoyed. The ticket included entry to the old Basilica down the hill. That was beautiful.
We drove to Foz de Jaca and enjoyed the skywalk over the stunning lake. Then we drove to our next base Lleida and rested for the night
STAY: Ramon Berenguer IV, LLEIDA
DAY 11, MAY 16, Monday: Checked out and drove to Montserrat. Visited the beautiful Basilica, the fantastic museum, 1 PM Boys choir, 3 PM Black Madonna [without reservation, no lines]
Sant Joan Funicular Railway... views
STAY: Hotel Abat Cisneros Montserrat
DAY 12, MAY 17, Tuesday: Checked out, drove down to Barcelona airport car rental, returned the car. Their shuttle dropped us at Terminal 2 and we took the airport shuttle [ticket 6 euro each] to Placa de Catalunya. walked 300 m to our hotel.
Checked in.
Booked Casa Batllo for 1.30 and Casa Mila for 3.30 online. walked to both and enjoyed our visit to the famous Gaudi treasures.
STAY: APT Super Balmes, Placa de Catalunya
DAY 13, MAY 18, Wednesday: .Basilica Sagrada Familia, 9 am tickets bought online many days in advance.
11am, 900 m walk to Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau
3 PM English tour Palau de Musica Catalana
DAY 14, MAY 19, Thursday: 9.30 am online ticket to Parc Guell. Took bus 26 from Placa de Catalunya and got down at Park entrance.
After 2 hours at the park, we walked to the metro station. Went to Palau Guell.
Then Museu Frederic Marès
DAY 15, MAY 20, Friday: Columbus monument, Montjuic Castle, Poble Espanyol / Pueblo Español (Spanish Village) , National Art Museum of Catalunya - MNAC, Magic Fountain
DAY 16, MAY 21, Saturday: Checked out. Stored our bags in a locker 14 euros. Museu del Disseny [Design museum], Arc de Triomf, Ciutadella Park, Cathedral of Barcelona (Catedral La Seu)
Took airport shuttle to airport .7.30 PM Air France flight to Paris
STAY: Ibis Paris CDG Airport, 3 nights
DAY 17, MAY 22, Sunday: Paris Luxembourg gardens, Saint Sulspice Cathedral, St Germaine, Petit Palais
DAY 18, MAY 23, Monday: Sevre museum
DAY 19, MAY 24, Tuesday: morning flight back home
FOOD:
We are vegetarians and self catered as usual. There were supermarkets like Carrefour with great variety and reasonable prices. Milk, yogurt, rice, bread, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, bell peppers, olives, banana, grapes, oranges chocolates, icecream were our purchases supplemented by the nuts and raisins we had brought from home
CAR RENTAL
Son usually goes with Enterprise as he has a corporate discount. This time all the MNC s were very expensive. Our rental was from OK MOBILITY through DiscoverCars.
We read all the negative reviews on Tripadvisor, decided it won't apply for us. The few positive reviews turned out true for our experience. Full insurance, automatic transmission at OK was cheaper than the manual transmission from other rentals... 366 usd total, 264 usd taken by OK plus 102 usd BY DISCOVER CARS initially
basically 366 usd for 10 day rental, insurance included. very resonable
From Barcelona airport Arrivals we walked all the way to Parking G and further down where their shuttle was waiting. We got upgraded , Peugeot with just 3200km on it. 3000 km was allowed for 10 days, we drove 2000 km. No entry into other countries allowed, we were happy with scenic Spain... no regrets on any count
INFRASTRUCTURE:
Roads and driving conditions were excellent. All the mountain roads were impeccably maintained.
Hiking trails were well laid. We had offline maps with all our destinations marked /pinned and it played out well.
We bought T-Casual , one for each and when it ran out, bought 1 T Familia. Barcelona metro and buses were easy to use.
At La Seu metro, we got into the station which had only one direction. We could not go to Placa de Catalunya , we went in the opp direction and then switched sides. This was the last day when we were going to collect our bags and board the airport shutle. So it was a bit stressful.
Airport shuttle is amazing. Frequency of one every 5 min and just 6 euros ticket!
LANGUAGE
We have a little Spanish travel vocabulary. We downloaded offline dictionary for Catalan and Spanish. Did not need it though. People were very sweet and helpful.
PARKING
There is free parking in most medieval towns and all trail heads. OK to park in white dotted slots. Blue is ticketed. Yellow is for only loading/unloading. I've marked all parking spots in the map and will discuss in detail in the daily reports. All our accommodations had free parking , except 2.
ACCOMMODATIONS
We had had a bathroom with glass walls and door at the Madrid airport the last time we visited. This time I read over the reviews to ensure regular bathrooms. In Figueres, I was stunned when we entered our room... the bathroom had a glass wall and no door. Thankfully we were escorted to their sister hotel which had a regular washroom. Phew!
All the accommodations were well located, some in the old town with old world charm. Couple of pics here.
Tarragona
I'll give the details and videos in the daily report posts.
CROWDS AND WEATHER
Weather was cool and pleasant and there were no crowds in Costa Brava , Pyrenees. In Barcelona, by timing our visits to late afternoon at Casa Batllo and Mila, and visiting Sagrada Familia and Park Guell in the morning in the 1st slot, we managed to have a nice experience
The intro concludes here.
Day 1 report continues here
https://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2022/06/spain-2022-trip-report-day-1-paris.html
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