Barcelona: Camp Nou and Passing Thoughts

If you’ve followed this blog, or even know me, at all then you know that I’ve been trying to hit football matches all over the world, whenever possible. I was disappointed that I couldn’t go when I was in Madrid, but I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced between Madrid and Valencia. I didn’t have high hopes in Barcelona, either. Barça’s stadium, Camp Nou, usually sells out. Furthermore, I was leaving on Sunday, when the majority of La Liga Primera Division matches are played. The schedules are never set for certain until around a week ahead of time, so I figured I’d miss out here as well.

When I got to my hotel, I was wearing a D.C. United t-shirt and a San Lorenzo cap. I told the guy at the front desk that I was checking out on Sunday and he replied, “Oh, here for the Barcelona match and then leaving?” I told him that I didn’t know that the match was on Saturday and that if I could find something reasonable priced, I’d love to go. Before I was even properly checked in, he had gone online and found me an affordable ticket and it was being delivered to the hotel. This became my new favorite hotel.

The match was at 6:00 pm Barcelona time on Saturday afternoon. After rushing back to the hotel to get ready, I took the Metro to the stadium. It wasn’t many stops and the stadium was about four or five blocks from the station.

I won’t go into great detail regarding the match or the stadium. If you want further details, there eventually will be an article on my soccer blog World Club Rankings. I will go into a little detail, though. Camp Nou dates back to 1957 and seats a little over 98,000 people, so it is the largest soccer-only stadium I’ve ever seen, let alone visited. It hosts FC Barcelona, defending world champions and current semifinalists in the European Champions League. The team has the greatest player in the world in Lionel Messi, as well as several other international stars, such as Thierry Henri. My seats were in the upper southern corner of the stadium. And when I say upper, I mean upper. I was in the uppermost level in the very top row. Even from so far away, however, the seats were good enough to follow the action of the match. Barcelona won the match 3-1 to maintain its narrow lead over Real Madrid in the Primera Division.

After the match, I returned to the center of the city for dinner. I stopped in a café near the university that had a television on broadcasting the match between Real Madrid and Real Zaragoza. I had some beer and some pizza and watched that match. Other than trekking to the railway station this morning, that was pretty much it for my Barcelona adventures.

What? You want some passing thoughts on Spain? I’m glad you asked. I am planning on coming back to Spain for six weeks in the summer to watch the World Cup in Spanish bars and to take more Spanish classes. For months, I’ve been talking about taking the classes in Barcelona, but I’ve now changed my mind and decided to take the classes in Madrid. There are various reasons for that. First, Barcelonan speak Catalan, which is similar to Castillian, but not similar enough. It just makes more sense to learn Castellano in a place where it is the primary language. Second, Madrid is cheaper that Barcelona. Both can be a little touristy, but Madrid a little less so. Next, I like the centrality of Madrid. It’s location allows me to take weekend trips to virtually any place in Spain. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I just liked Madrid more than I did Barcelona. I had the best day of my entire trip in Barcelona and I still prefer Madrid, which should tell you how much I liked it.

As far as Valencia is concerned, I just didn’t get an opportunity to spend enough time there. I definitely hope to spend a weekend there during the summer.

That’s it for Barcelona and Spain. I just crossed the border into France. If all goes well, I will catch a train in Montpellier for Paris, but of course the last time I was in Montpellier, I got stranded there for two days, so I’m not yet counting any chickens. Wish me luck!!!

Barcelona: Best Day of the Trip

After not having the greatest time in the world in my first-day-and-a-half in Barcelona, I was going to try to make the most of my final day. I had a rough itinerary drawn up in my head. Though I only hit about half of what I had intended, because even better things came up, it probably was the best day that I’ve had in the entire nine-week European leg of my journey.

I started off by going back to the Sagrada Família. I wasn’t there for long, I just needed finally to get some good pictures of the place. This time around, both the weather and my iPhone cooperated.

After the Sagrada Familia, I decided that I finally needed to take a stroll down La Rambla. La Rambla is a pedestrian path in central Barcelona with numerous shops, street performers, painted people and just a general orgy of activity. It’s quite a bit away from where I was at, but since the day was so beautiful, I decided to walk down the Gran Via, nearly connects both sites. Along the way to La Rambla are numerous churches, fountains and statues and the walk was anything but mundane.

I arrived at Plaza Catalunya and La Rambla begins just south of the Plaza. As I started strolling down La Rambla, I couldn’t believe that I had missed this completely on my first day in Barcelona, though being a pedestrian street, the tour bus skipped past it completely. The street was lined with shops and restaurants and people drinking beer and sangria at ten in the morning. It seemed to go on forever and led me all the way down to the port.

As with the Sagrada Família, my earlier pictures from around the port left much to be desired. Now, the weather was beautiful and I had more time to position myself around the buildings and statues with the sun at my back and the views were much more breathtaking. Also, I crossed La Rambla del Mar, which is a continuation of sorts of La Rambla that is built upon a wooden platform that is built over the port. Ultimately, it leads to a shopping mall, which is a little anti-climactic, but what the heck.

Now, I was ready for the beach. It was closing in on 75 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I had seen people on the beach the previous day on the tour bus, so I had an approximate idea of where to find it, so I just walked around the port while I tried to get there. Along the way, there were more statues and buildings that asked me for a picture and I obliged.

Eventually, I found myself at the beach. Unlike in Nice, this was an actual beach, not a bunch of little rocks that the tide comes upon. The sand was soft, the water was semi-warm and there were even some Mediterranean waves crashing up that a few people were trying to surf. I ended up hanging around for an hour or so. It didn’t hurt the situation that it was a topless beach. There were a handful of people who took it even a step further than that, but those people really shouldn’t have. A few of them made you glad that American beaches require people to keep their clothes on.

After the beach, I walked back around the port and up La Rambla on my way back to my hotel. I stopped at some shops and bought some souvenirs and stopped at one of the little cafes and had some pizza and sangria. I had to get back, though, because the highlight of my day was still to come and I didn’t want to be late for it. I’ll get to that in my next post.

Barcelona: A Tale of Two Days in One City

For me, Barcelona was a tale of two cities, or perhaps more accurately, two tales of one city. The first day and a half that I spent in the city, I was mildly disappointed because I think that I was expecting so much. My final day, however, probably was my favorite day of my entire European trip. Because of this, the overall score is kind of confusing.

I arrived in Barcelona on Thursday, early enough in the day that I could go out and at least see something. The weather was grey and windy, but at least it wasn’t raining, so I ventured out. The hotel was easy enough to fine and was close to the subway. The biggest landmark that I’m aware of in Barcelona is the Sagrada Família, so that’s where I went.

Sagrada Família is a cathedral that was started by Gaudi. In fact, it was his pretty much the only project of Gaudi’s over the last several years of his life. When he died in 1926, it was only partially complete and others continued to work on the structure after Gaudi’s death. Apparently, people are still working on it because there were cranes all around, scaffolding and other viewing obstructions surrounding the cathedral. (Actually, I read that it is supposed to be completed sometime around 2030.) I tried to take some pictures, but the bright grey sky behind it kept any of the pictures from coming out very well. (I’m including pictures in this post from my final day, which was a much more beautiful day.) I have to admit that I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole Sagrada Família experience, especially the first day. It’s touted as the eighth-wonder-of-the-world-in-the-making but it’s really just a large church with way too much going on. At least that’s my opinion. Others don’t seem to share it.

For dinner, I went to a tapas bar to try some things that I still hadn’t tried. I finally tried some Iberian ham. It was excellent, but being the southerner that I am, I came away thinking that Virginia ham was just as good and a lot less expensive – at least in Virginia. I also had a Russian Salad, which basically is a potato salad with egg and vegetables and mayonnaise. The highlight of the meal, however, was the patatas bravas. This consisted of fried potato chunks in a pair of sauces, one a spicy tomato-based sauce and the other a horseradishy-mayonnaise sauce. All of the tapas that I tried that night were very good, but the patatas bravas took the proverbial cake.

On my first full day I did something that I rarely do on these trips – I hit the tour bus. One of the reasons is that I enjoyed the little tour I had on the bus in Montpellier when I was trying to kill time. The other reason is that I was having trouble orienting myself in Barcelona and I thought it would give me a better idea of what the most prominent landmarks were in Barcelona and a general idea of where to find them. In this way, I figured that I could go back and hit the places with which I was most impressed.

The tour bus consisted of two lines – a western line and an eastern line. Both take between two and two-and-a-half hours. The bus isn’t really a good way to see any of the sights, but it is a good way to orient oneself with the city. On the western line, the highlights included the Olympic Stadium, Camp Nou and Plaza Espanyol. The highlight of the eastern line was the Sagrada Familía, though it was little more than a drive-by. Both tours started in Plaza Catalunya and went south to the monument of Columbus at the port and came in from the north past La Pedrera, another famous Gaudi work.

The day, Friday, also was La Diada de Sant Jordi, or St. George’s Day. Evidently, this day is celebrated in different ways in various places in which St. George is the patron saint. In Catalan culture, it is celebrated much like Valentines Day in the United States. Traditionally, women are given flowers and men are given books. Sounds a little sexist, but I think in modern times, both sides commonly get flowers and books. Like in the United States, there were people on every corner, as well as in between, selling flowers on this day and there also were hundreds of little outdoor bookshops opened for the day. On top of that, there were free concerts and street shows going on everywhere so the middle of the city was very crowded and very lively. I walked around with the crowds for a while, but the weather still wasn’t cooperating so I wasn’t out as long as I normally would have been.

I now had a general idea of what I wanted to do on my final full day in Barcelona. (The trip was much shorter than I had originally planned.) I was hoping the weather would finally cooperate but was willing to go with the flow in any event. The next day will be in the next post or two.

Madrid: Tour With a Local

After exiting the Prado museum, I headed towards Buen Retiro Park, which is very close by. Buen Retiro Park is the largest park in Madrid, covering around 350 acres, and dates back to the early 17^th century. (I do read, sometimes.)

The park has two lakes, one of them large enough that you can rent a boat and take a trip across it. On the smaller lake, I happened along the filming of a music video. I walked behind the singer as he was lip-synching to one of his songs – maybe I’ll make it into a Spanish music video.

In addition to the lakes, there are numerous paths, monuments, statues, bridges and other things that you typically find in a big city park. There were also people. Joggers, readers, boaters, sleepers, sitters, walkers, sunbathers . . . your typical spring park mix. I walked around for a while and then went back to the hotel for una siesta.

My main goal for Tuesday evening was to find a place to watch the Champions League match between Inter Milan and Barcelona. I wanted to go some place different than I went on Sunday night, but an Irish pub still seemed like a good idea. I found a place called the James Joyce on the Gran Via which looked like it would have the food, beer and football necessary to quench my appetite for each. The match began at 8:45 pm, so I arrived at 8:00 to try and get a seat and to get some dinner. I was fortunate because there was plenty of space when I arrived, though the place was packed by 8:30. I had shepherds pie, which was really good, actually, and drank Murphy’s while I watched the match and rooted on Inter Milan.

Unlike the bar that I had been to on Sunday for the Real Madrid match, this bar was packed with more tourists than locals. I suppose the bar’s location on the Gran Via allowed it to catch the eye of a lot of tourists who were interested in watching the match. The crowd was about evenly divided between Inter Milan and Barcelona supporters. Inter Milan won the match and all was good in the world.

On my last full day in Madrid, I met up with the uncle of a friend of mine from Washington who lives in a suburb of Madrid. We tried to get into the Real Madrid practice field, but we weren’t allowed. Instead, we went to Alcalá. This is the home of Cervantes and has some beautiful pedestrian areas, though they were not very busy at the time of day (late morning) in which we were there. We stopped at a local bar for a beer, a bocadillo and some coffee. Afterwards, we returned to Madrid.

We drove around Madrid for awhile and my new friend pointed out some landmarks that I had missed. We went to the area around the Plaza Mayor and walked around. We went to el Palacio Real de Madrid and to a nearby cathedral. At both places were magnificent views of Madrid and its suburbs.

It was time to eat and I wanted to try something authentic and Spanish. We stopped by a little restaurant of which he knew and we had Cocino Madirleño. This dish is huge and packed with several ingredients including chickpeas (which serve as the main part of the dish), potatoes, carrots, cabbage, chicken, salt pork, uncured chorizo, blood sausage and other items that I couldn’t completely identify. The meal started with a soup made from pasta and the broth of the cocino. It was an excellent meal and was served with a strong red wine that we drank along with carbonated water. Afterwards, Tito returned to Alcalá and I returned to my hotel where I had a much-needed siesta.

That night, for dinner, I went out to a sandwich shop and had a jamon and brie sandwich along with a salad. It wasn’t anything special, and it lacked the exoticness and authenticity of the Cocino Madrileño, but it was quite tasty in its own right.

Those are the highlights of my trip to Madrid. I’ve said before that I fell in love with Madrid at first sight. The longer I was there, the more I loved it. Before I came here, I had been planning on spending some time in Barcelona during the summer and taking some Spanish classes. At this point in time, I’m convinced that instead of Barcelona, I’m returning to Madrid. It is definitely one of my favorite cities in the world. That being said, I am currently on a train heading from Madrid to Barcelona, which now has three days to try and change my mind back to its original Summer plans. Stay tuned.

Madrid: Prado and Beranbéu

There are numerous landmarks in Madrid that you can visit, and I tried to visit as many as I could, but in the online guidebook that I used didn’t even mention the one in which I was most interested as a “Top Ten Sight.” That, of course, is Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, home of Real Madrid.

I missed the match the night before, but I had read that the Bernabéu was open to visitors, allowing you to visit the pitch, the royal box, the dressing room, et al. It sounded like a great experience, so on Monday morning, I hopped on the Metro and went to the stadium. When I got there, I saw that for a few additional Euros, you could get a guided tour in Spanish or English. The next one started at noon, and it was around eleven, so I decided to go for the guided tour and kill time by walking around the neighborhood.

When the time came for my tour, I entered the stadium and waited for my group. They never arrived. At noon, my guide showed up. She told me that I was the only person who signed up for the noon tour in either Spanish or English, so I was going to get a personal tour of the stadium. That rocked!!!

The tour itself was very interesting. I’m sure that it would have been more interesting had I been a Real Madrid supporter, but the history of the place is tremendous, nonetheless. My guide realized that I wasn’t a Real Madrid fan because she noticed that I wasn’t stopping to have my picture taken everywhere, though I did have a few. The best parts of the tour, at least for me, was the tour of the trophy rooms for both football and basketball, and the pitch. I had pictures taken in both of those, as well as in the football equivalent of the dugout. My guide was very nice and the tour was about 75% in English and 25% in Spanish. I really need to practice more Spanish. All-in-all, the tour took about an hour.

After lunch, I took a long walk along the Gran Via. The Gran Via is the most famous street of Madrid. It was built a hundred years ago and architects kept trying to outdo each other with the buildings that were built all along the street. There are a lot of beautiful early-20^th century buildings, and of course, art deco. There are also many upscale stores and cinemas along the way. There also many statues, including one that was pointed out to me as the statue in which all of the Real Madrid supporters gather whenever they win something significant like La Liga’s Primera Division or a Champions League trophy. (It’s been a few years since there’s been any such gathering.)

For dinner on Monday night, I decided that I wanted to try a few things, so I went to a little tapas place not too far from my hotel. It wasn’t the fanciest of places but it did the trick. I tried the Jamon Serrano, a potato dish with a garlic cream sauce and some fried chorizo with cheese. You don’t really need to know me too well to know that the fried chorizo with cheese was my favorite.

My main goal on Tuesday morning was to visit El Museo Nacional del Prado. Everything that I had read about Madrid said that this is the highlight of any trip to Madrid and it didn’t disappoint. It is an art museum in central Madrid. I did not find the outside of the structure to be as imposing as I had expected, but that didn’t take away from what I found inside. There were works of Goya, Raphael, Dutch and Flemish masters as well as many others, primarily from the 14^th – 17^th centuries. There also were rooms devoted to sculptures. I used an audio guide (only 3.5 Euros) and found myself spending much more time listening to stories about the paintings and artists than I anticipated.

Adjacent, or close to adjacent, to Prado are the Royal Botanical Gardens and Buen Retiro Park. Since this is already about as long as I like any of my posts to be, I’ll pick up at Buen Retiro Park in my next entry.

Madrid: Love at First Sight

Madrid now is absolutely one of my favorite cities in the world. I fell in love with it immediately and my initial feelings just got stronger as the days passed.

I think that it’s safe to say that the train ride into Madrid put me into the right frame of mind. I have a first-class rail pass, which is pretty much useless in Eastern Europe because of the lack of first-class trains, but does provide some comfort in the west. Only in Spain, however, has it resulted in actual first-class service, by which I mean a free meal and drink. Granted it was airline food, but swordfish is swordfish and I was happy to get some food and coffee in my mid-day trek halfway across Spain.

I arrived at Charmatin station and started looking for the Metro. I’m still not sure what kind of train I jumped on, but it wasn’t the Metro. This turned out to be rather fortunate because it was cheaper than the Metro and got to my stop – Sol – in two stops rather than fourteen. Again, my frame of mind was properly set for Madrid.

The Sol Metro stop is in the Puerta del Sol, which is the geographic center of Madrid. As I learned later, it also is the spot in Madrid where Madrileños celebrate New Year’s Eve. I got off of the train and exited in Puerta del Sol and it was love at first sight. It helped that the weather was beautiful, but it also helped that the area was so lively, with street performers, locals, tourists, people in a rush to get from here to there, people with time on their hands, sitting on the steps of the fountain, statues, buildings with amazing architecture. It had it all. I only absorbed it for a minute or two before heading to my hotel, but since my hotel was only a third-kilometer away, I knew I would be absorbing a lot over the next several days.

I got to my hotel, the Hotel Regina, and I was blown away. The hotel is a relative budget hotel, costing less than $100/night, but I had a huge room, a huge bathroom, a king-size bed, a 26-inch plasma television and a strong wifi connection. I had no view, but I wasn’t planning on sitting in there and staring out the window, and at least not being on the street meant it would be relatively quiet. It was Sunday afternoon. I dropped my stuff off to do a little exploring.

I went back to Puerta del Sol, of course. Not too far beyond is Plaza Mayor, which is Madrid’s old town square. The plaza isn’t quite as magnificent as, say, the old town squares in Brussels, Prague or Amsterdam, but has quite a bit of charm. Again, street performers and artists abounded. Also, there were outdoor cafes almost completely around the perimeter. As you also would expect, there were tons of gift shops and other stores. I’m told that there is a fabulous street market leading from the Plaza Mayor on Sunday mornings and early afternoons, but I must have just missed the excitement.

I ended up having dinner at one of the little restaurants in Plaza Mayor. The dish I had was a steak combination plate with some french fries and a salad. Not very Spanish and not very healthy, but the beer was cold and it did the job.

One of the biggest football matches of the weekend was taking place that evening at the Bernabéu between Real Madrid and Valencia. I couldn’t find any tickets for it that were under $250 and as badly as I wanted to go, I just wasn’t willing to shell out that kind of dough for the privilege. I ended up finding an Irish pub not too far from Puerta del Sol and watched the match there. It was crowded, mostly with locals from what I could tell, but I drank Newcastle Brown Ale (in celebration of Newcastle winning the Championship Division in England) and watched the match. A Cristiano Ronaldo goal mid-way through the second half ended the drama as Real Madrid won the match 2-0.

That was it for my first day in Madrid. I wasn’t hoping for it to get better. I was just contemplating how fortunate I would be if it stayed the same.

Valencia: En fin, estoy en España (100th Post!!!)

Finally, about thirty hours later than originally anticipated, I arrived in Spain. My plan had been to spend a day in Barcelona, two days in Valencia, four days in Madrid and then return to Barcelona for three days. Because of the communist, frog-eating strikers in France (yes, I’m still pissed), I had to cancel my first day in Barcelona and my first night in Valencia. I arrived in Valencia at 8 am with no sleep and had to catch a train the next morning to Madrid. Well, let’s see what we can do.

The first thing I had to do was find the hotel. As luck would have it, the hotel was much easier to find from the bus station than it would have been from the train station and I was there in no time. I was pretty much dead on my feet, so I decided that I needed a nap. I set the alarm on my iPhone for 11 am and got a few hours of shuteye. When I woke up, I looked on the internet for a Valencia tourist map. I found one and noticed that most of the landmarks were just to the north or just to the south of the train station. Since I had to get a reservation for my train to Madrid anyway, I figured that my tour of the city would begin there.

Getting to the station and getting the reservation were both fairly painless procedures. When I got out of the metro station, which I knew was close to the train station but not at the train station, I noticed two structures. One was what appeared to be the Colosseum except that it was all in one piece and it wasn’t in Rome. Next to that was a large, colorful building. I made a mental note that I would have to photograph both, but first I had to find the train station. After looking around for around 45-seconds, I realized that the large, colorful building WAS the train station. Cool. After getting my ticket, I headed south.

I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going and I didn’t see a lot of stuff to the south of the station. I walked along what appeared to be a main road until I came upon Valencia’s football stadium. I thought it was cool that it was right in the middle of town. If you’ve been following this blog then you know that I love me some football stadiums, so I walked around it and took some pictures. Afterwards, I followed the main road to a bridge and a park in the middle of the old part of the city.

I walked around the park for a while and it eventually led me close to the train station again. Well, that was as good a point of reference as any so I headed back. This time, I turned north and went to see what I could find in this part of town. Here, there were many more landmarks. There was a huge cathedral and a castle-like building flying a Valencian flag that I had seen on many of the souvenirs that were being sold in the city. I also had lunch – which was at Burger King because I knew I would be dropping some dime on paella later in the evening and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on two meals in one day. For the record, the Burger Kings in Spain have tapas – though the tapas consist of chicken fries, chicken fingers and the like.

After the touring and the eating, I returned to my hotel. Next door to my hotel was a shopping mall so I checked that out a little bit. It was a combination of stores you see in typical American shopping malls (e.g., the Gap) and various other European versions of the same type of stores. I bought a bottle of Valencian wine for the evening and brought it back to the hotel.

Soon, it was time for dinner. Dinner was the one thing in Valencia regarding which I knew what I needed to do. I had read that Valencia was the home of paella (thanks for the reminder, Scott). My only goal for dinner was to find an acceptable paella. I knew that this wouldn’t be much of a problem in Valencia. I decided on a place in the old city that was packed with people speaking Spanish. It looked kind of touristy, but if the Spanish were eating there, it was good enough for me.

I ordered the Paella Valencia. I’m no expert on paellas, but this one had chicken wings, green beans, some big white beans and sweet red peppers with Spanish rice. It took about 25-minutes to cook but it was worth the wait. The only other paella that I can remember eating was in the cafeteria at Dickstein Shapiro. The paella here in Valencia was much better. The rice was tender but not soggy and the chicken was lightly but appropriately seasoned. I saw paella served all over the place, but I was glad that I chose the restaurant that I was at because the presentation was perfect. Even though my trip to Valencia was cut short, I didn’t get to see much, and I didn’t really know what it was I did see, but I did have paella in Valencia and that made the entire trip worthwhile.

Obviously, there is so much more to Valencia than I was able to see in my brief stay. I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to go back when I am studying Spanish this summer in Spain and I look forward to it.

Montpellier: The Accidental Tourist

Now it’s time for a little bit about Montpellier. As you know, I didn’t want to do anything but switch trains in Montpellier, but that hope died almost as soon as I arrived. Between what I had learned at the train station and the bus sales office, I was going to have to spend the next thirty hours in Montpellier and I had to make the best of it. (Note: The pictures in this entry were taken from my little tour of Montpellier and may or may not correspond with the paragraphs to which they are closest. I’m sure you can handle any confusion that may cause.)

The first thing I had to do was get a hotel room for the night. The first hotel I stopped in was a Holiday Inn and I asked if it had any single rooms for the night. The guy at reception told me that it did, but that the rooms were 110 euros a night. He pointed me in the direction of cheaper hotels and I went into the first one I said that had a “Free WiFi” sign on the door. The rooms here were only 48 euros a night and I decided that would do. I forget the name of the hotel, but the hotel was pretty forgettable anyway. I went up to the room and discovered that the toilet didn’t have a seat. I hadn’t seen that in a hotel before, but at least it flushed and was sufficiently clean, so I didn’t argue. I also learned the next morning that the walls were incredibly thin as the couple next to me enjoyed a little them time and displayed little modesty in doing it. Whatever. The bed was comfortable enough and I slept well.

In the morning, I left my backpack at the hotel because I still had ten hours to kill, but I brought my other bag with me because it held my computer and I was a little nervous about leaving it in the baggage room at the hotel.

The day was beautiful, but I was carrying a load and had no idea what to do. The hotel’s location was fantastic, however, as it was close to the train station and to the central square in the old part of the city. (I later learned that the square is shaped like an oval and that it is one of the largest pedestrian squares in all of Europe, or so I was told.) There was also a mall nearby, so I went to that to kill some time. I also spent some time in a McDonald’s because it had free wifi and a bathroom. It also had a CBO – chicken, bacon and onions – that was actually quite tasty. Do we have those in the U.S.? I don’t go to McDonald’s there often enough to know.

Since the day was so beautiful, I decided to sit out in the park and write some blog entries. While I was sitting in the park, I noticed a little, white, toy-like train go by full of tourists. On the side of the train, I read that it was a 40-minute tour of Monpellier that cost only six euros. I also saw that it left from Comedie Place, which I recognized as a place that was just around the corner from where I was sitting. I needed to kill some time and this seemed like a good way to kill it.

The little tourist train was actually pretty interesting and well-worth the six euro price of admission. We went all around the old city of Montpellier and learned some of the history and saw all of the landmarks. The post office was really nice. No, seriously, it was. There also was an Arc de Triomphe, patterned after the famous one in Paris and not a hell of a lot smaller than the original. One interesting tidbit was that I picked up was that Magnolia trees were named after a guy from Montpellier named Magnol. At least that’s what they said. I always blame my misinformation on them.

Okay, that’s about all I have for Montpellier. I wasn’t there long and I was there against my will, so my bitterness probably prevented me from enjoying it as much as I could have. From here, you can go back and read my last post about leaving Montpellier and then read the next one about my next day in Valencia.

I'm An American, Get Me Out Of Here!!!

Montpellier was a pretty nice city. This post, however, is not about Montpellier. That probably will be the next post. This post is about why I was in Montpellier. If you had seen my itinerary at any point during my journey (since my itinerary changed often while I was on my journey), the only reference that you would have seen to Montpellier is that this is the city in which you need to switch trains from any point in France to Barcelona. I figured that I was going through it at some point, but I had hoped for a much shorter period.

I knew that many trains in the south of France had been cancelled due to the train strike. A few days before I was scheduled to go to Barcelona, the train people in Nice told me that my train to Montpellier from Nice had been cancelled, but that I could catch a train from Nice to Marseille and then catch another train from Marseille to Montpellier and head to Barcelona. Fair enough. I arrived at the train station an hour earlier than I needed to, just in case something went wrong. Something went wrong. I saw that my train to Marseille wasn’t on the board. I went to the ticket counter and found out that my train had been cancelled, but there was a train to Marseille that was boarding now. He told me that if I ran, I could make it. I ran. I made it.

I arrived in Marseille, and having been there before, went straight to the ticket counter to see what I could find out. The person at the counter told me that there was no way I could get to Barcelona today. Another person at the booth suggested that the best way to get to Barcelona would be by bus and pointed me (sort of) to the bus station, which is located in the same building. After I finally found the right line in which to stand and making it to the front of said line, the bus dude told me that the next train going to Barcelona that wasn’t sold out would be departing Saturday morning. It was still Thursday morning and I was only going to be in Barcelona for one day, on my way to Valencia. That wouldn’t work. I went back to the train counter and spoke with another ticket agent. She told me that she could get me to Montpellier, but that she had no idea if there would be a train to Barcelona waiting for me. She told me that they had run some busses a few days before from Montpellier to Barcelona, but she didn’t know if they were doing that today. I had already spent some time in Marseille, so I bought a ticket to Montpellier and decided that I would try my luck once I got there.

My luck wasn’t in the mood to be tried. I arrived in Montpellier, got off the train and looked at the big board. There was no reference to Barcelona or anything else in Spain. I went downstairs in the station where the information booth was located. Rather than a “booth” they had a few people at a few tables telling lots of angry people that they weren’t going anywhere because of the strike. I was informed that there were no trains going to Spain that day or the next, but I was directed to a travel agency a few blocks away. The travel agency was useless, but when I left the agency, I saw a sign down the block for the European bus lines Eurolines.

I went in and inquired if there were any buses taking off anytime soon for Barcelona. The answer was no, not until the next night. How about Valencia? Madrid? Zaragoza? Bilbao? Anywhere in Spain? Nope. Vive la France!!! Well, if I couldn’t get to Barcelona tonight, I was going to Valencia. When was the next train to Valencia? It was the same train as the one to Barcelona, leaving Friday night at 9 pm and arriving in Valencia at 7 am on Saturday morning. Okay, that would have to do.

The guy’s directions to the bus station were horrible. I took a tram to a station in Montpellier where the guy told me I would see signs for Eurolines. (Getting off the tram, I fell and my backpack got wedged between two empty seats. I had to squirm out of the backpack – it’s huge – and then pull the backpack out from the seats to exit. Nobody even bothered to see if I was okay. Thus France.) I didn’t see any signs for Eurolines. I walked around in full gear for an hour, following useless directions located on my ticket. Arriving back at the tram station at the last possible minute, I finally saw a Eurolines bus and learned that I only needed to walk around 200 feet to the bus stop. A sign would have helped.

Whatever. I got on the bus and headed towards Valencia. From here on out, the story gets mundane. The bus was pretty full, but not packed. The trip was rather uneventful and painless, except for the French dude who was pulled off the bus at the Spanish border because he didn’t realize that he needed a passport in order to get into Spain. (I’m not sure I would have realized that either. I’ve crossed many an EU border and have never had my passport examined before unless I was entering or exiting the U.K.) I arrived in Valencia and another post will pick it up from there, after an earlier one talks about my time in Montpellier. I’m being productive on the train from Valencia to Madrid.

Monte Carlo: Rolls Your Dice and Takes Your Chances

Okay, where was I? Okay, that’s right, the Cote d’Azur. On my second full day in Nice wasn’t actually in Nice. The night before, I was on the internet and I saw that there was an ATP tennis tournament going on in Monte Carlo, which is only a three euro train ride away from Nice. I took a look at the schedule and saw that the top three seeds were all playing second-round matches on Court Central, including Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. Trains in the area were sporadic, at best, but I thought that if I could catch a train in the morning, I would go to Monte Carlo and try to get a ticket.

The train was getting ready to take off as soon as I got to the station at 8:30 in the morning. I hurriedly got on and took a seat. During the tournament, the trains are making two stops instead of one in Monaco, the second being at the Monte Carlo Country Club, which is the site of the tournament. I got off the train there and went to the Country Club to see if they were selling tickets. (I’ve learned in my trips to other sports venues that sometimes you can’t get tickets at the stadium in Europe.) Sure enough tickets were available, but the cheapest sections were sold out. I bought the cheapest ticket available (58 Euros) and walked around the grounds. By noon, the entire Court Central was sold out, which surprised me a little bit for second-round matches on a Wednesday.

I think that it is probably fair to say that Court Central at the Monte Carlo Country Club is one of the most beautifully sited sports venues in the world. From the side that I was sitting on, we had views of multi-million dollar homes on high cliffs overlooking the beaches. To my back was the Mediterranean and some of the bluest water I have ever seen in my life. Even if there were no sports events taking place, MCCC is worth a trip just to take in the views – but then much of Monte Carlo is like that.

The first two matches of the day were quick victories by Juan-Carlos Ferrero and Novak Djokovic, the second-ranked player in the world. The third match, and the one in which I was most interested, was Rafael Nadal against a qualifier from the Netherlands. In a tournament that Nadal has won each of the last five years, it was no surprise to see him defeat the Dutchman in convincing fashion. The next match, between Andy Murray and Philipp Kohlschreiber was just as one-sided, but was more surprising because it was Andy Murray who got stomped like a roach on a bathroom floor.

There was a doubles match following the singles matches, but I didn’t stick around for that. I knew (hoped) that I was leaving the area the next day, so I wanted to take the opportunity to see a little bit of Monte Carlo while I was around. I thought that a good way to do that would be to walk to the main Monte Carlo station and catch the train there. I left the country club and walked along the beach. Unlike the previous day in Nice, the temperature was warm and people were enjoying the beaches. Also, unlike Nice, the beaches are sandy, not rocky. I saw signs pointing to Le Casino, and I figured that if I was a train station, I’d want to hang out around a casino, so I headed there.

I followed the signs to Le Casino and it was fancy. They made me take my hat off. I went in and played Baccarat. I broke the bank. I bought a café crème and a croissant and I was even. I guess it’s true that you come to the Cote d’Azur to spend money, not to make money.

Okay, I didn’t actually do any gambling, I just walked around Le Casino and went outside to the square and took some pictures of the casino and the nearby hotels. I was starting to get nervous because I still hadn’t seen a single sign for the train station and with the train strike, I knew there wouldn’t be many trains. I went back to Le Casino and asked one of the guys working the door. He gave me a map and pointed me in the right direction. I headed towards the station and I saw the first sign saying “SNCF Gare” around 15 feet in front of the escalator down to the station. Thanks, Monaco.

I hit the only train going from Monte Carlo to Nice for several hours. I felt extremely fortunate. This is a feeling I would not feel in France with respect to transportation for many days to come, but we’ll deal with that in future posts. The thesis of this one is that Monte Carlo is awesome!!!

Nice - The Name Says It All

While I’m stuck in Montpellier, I might as well accomplish something, huh? Yeah, I agree. I’ll write more later about being trapped here in southern France, but first I’ll do this entry about my one full day in Nice.

Actually, I stayed for three nights in Nice, but only really spent one full day there. The first day was a mix of travel and exploring the neighborhood and the final full day was spent in Monte Carlo, so Nice didn’t get my full attention.

When I think of Nice, I always think of the beach. So, I picked up a map at my hotel and got myself oriented with respect to which direction I needed to go to see some water. I could tell from the map that if I headed south, I could pick up the Promenade d’Anglais and the Promenade des Etats-Unis and could walk along the beach from there. Also, the promenades led to Nice’s Old Town, so I figured that if I was diligent, I could get much of my Nice sightseeing done at once.

I headed towards the Mediterranean and the walk was very nice. Nice is a very clean city. It only took me around fifteen minutes to get from midtown to the shore. On the way, there were numerous fountains and hotels and restaurants. There was no question that I was in a big tourist town, slightly off-season.

I got down to the shore and looked at the beach. Unlike Monte Carlo and Cannes, which I saw at other points, the beaches of Nice aren’t the most picturesque. Rather than being sand beaches, they would be better described as rock beaches. I don’t think a beach towel would have been enough to make one feel comfortable. At a minimum, a chair would be necessary. And forget about sand castles. Real castles, maybe. Sand castles, no.

Even though there was a little nip in the air, some people were out in the water. I suppose it is difficult to go to the Cote d’Azur and not get into the water, though I managed. Perhaps if it was a little warmer and I was at a sandier beach. But anyway.

I walked along the Promenade des Etas-Unis and it led me to the harbor. Here, the harbor was full of sailboats and huge yachts. It was cool to see, but not very interesting, so I moved on to Old Town. What’s in Old Town, you ask? Old buildings and stuff. There really wasn’t anything too interesting, as far as I could see. I know that there are some nice art museums in Nice, but I wasn’t in the right area for that. I took some pictures and moved on.

One of the nicer landmarks in Nice probably was Cathedral of Notre Dame. No, not that one. A different one. I say probably, though, because I couldn’t see it because it was covered for renovations. The most prominent landmarks, however, appeared to be the nice, expensive, and older hotels along the beach on the Promenade d’Anglais. At least they featured prominently on a lot of the souvenirs that were sold here and there.

I was a little confused about how to find landmarks in Nice. In Old Town, I kept seeing signs pointing to the Acropolis. Since this was old town, I figured maybe there were some old buildings or at least something of interest. Nope. It was a modern sports complex or convention center or something like that. Similarly, I followed signs downtown pointing to a building that ended up being a shopping mall. Well, fine. I guess I needed socks.

That’s really all I have for Nice. It’s an expensive (though not as expensive) spot on the Cote d’Azur between Monte Carlo and Cannes that has some of the charm and some of the fame as its neighbors, but really is the least attractive of the sibling cities. I spent most of the next day in Monte Carlo and I’ll write about that visit next.