May 27 - In Transit to Barcelona

Au revoir à Paris.  After a great week in Paris we went to Barcelona to meet up with John and Heather.  We took a cab from our apartment to Gare d’Lyon to catch our train south.  We had been told that it was impossible to catch a cab during rush hour, so we left earlier than was necessary.  Wouldn't you know it, there was a cab at the taxi standing waiting for us, so we were two hours early.  The ride was really exciting as the driver did his best to cut off all traffic in his way.   Several times we both thought he was going to drive up on the sidewalk to gain same ground on the traffic.

The first leg of our trip took us from Paris to Perpignan on the TVG, which is a high speed train.  This train travelled at speeds up to 260 km/hr.  The ride was so smooth that we didn't even feel the speed. You can watch the video below to get a feel of the ride at this top speed.

Train trip on TVG

As we left Paris, the scenery was very flat and rural.  There seemed to be a lot of cattle farms along this route.  After Lyon the terrain became much more hilly as we entered the Rhone/Alps region.  Here we started to see some vineyards.  I expected to see chateaux and old abbeys but that was not the case.  The villages seemed to be a mix of old red tiled roofed houses and modern block apartments.  As we approached the Mediterranean, the landscape became flat again.  Along the way we saw a large number of wild bushes with yellow flowers.  We believe they are called Broom.  Apparently they are very toxic.

We transferred at Perpignan to a Spanish train.  It was slower than the TVG but it was still a very smooth ride.  Wouldn't you know it, once we got into Spain the train broke down at the first station inside the border and we had to wait for forty minutes for another train to arrive.  It turned out that this train was another high speed train going to Madrid with a stop in Barcelona. Even with the delay we still arrived in Barcelona fairly close to our expected time of arrival. This is the advantage of trains in Europe.  Had this been in Canada, we all would have been transferred to a cramped school bus to continue the journey.

During this last leg of this trip we had an interesting conversation with a couple from Norway.  They have a farm north of Oslo and another home in Lyon.  They were going to Barcelona to visit their son and their grandchildren. Although they had taken a train from Lyon to Perpignan, they told us that they had been stopped and transferred to a bus for a section of the route because the railway workers were on strike. I guess we lucked out because we had no problems.

Being on the train and seeing all the young people backpacking, reminded me of my first trip to Europe in 1976 with John.  I have lots of fond memories from that trip. Somehow I think I packed fewer clothes for that four month vacation than I have for this trip.

We booked into the Alexandra Hotel for the night as we won’t take possession of the Barcelona apartment until tomorrow.  Rocky had booked this Hilton hotel before his heart attack. It is a wonderful hotel with many modern amenities.

The cabbie, who drove us from the train station to the hotel, was an interesting gentleman from Columbia.  He is learning English in order to come to Canada and get a job.  We wished him all the best in his efforts.

You would think that with all our travels that we would have known what to expect in a high end hotel.  We got into the elevator and it didn't work.  Only after standing there and looking dumb, did we realize that you needed to insert your room key to activate the elevator.  Once in the room, we couldn't get the lights on. Again you needed to insert you room key into a reader to turn on the lights.

For dinner we went to the Ramblus. The Ramblus is a street that runs through central Barcelona and is the main corridor for the entertainment district.  The dinner menus are filled with sandwiches instead of the normal type of meals that we are used to.  We went to a place called Mas Q Menos and I had Melon soup and a turkey sandwich.  Marg had a veal sandwich with lemon pie for dessert.