Tossa De Mar, Spain:
For the first time ever during our international travels, we rented a car! We were both so nervous (I might have had a mini breakdown when we picked it up...) about how we would handle driving in a foreign country. Barcelona was a little nerve wracking, but as soon as we made it out of the city, we loved it! We rented a little mint green Fiat, and it was SO fun to drive a standard again.
From Barcelona, we drove up the coast to a beach town right on the Mediterranean Sea. Although we were only there for one night, it was very much worth the stop.
The beach itself was beautiful, but the best part was the surrounding scenery. There were actually two beaches, split up by a hill with cliffs on either side. On top of the hill was an old castle overlooking everything. The views from the cliffs were unreal!
When we initially got to the beach, I wasn't sure if I wanted to swim or not. It looked cold, and we all know I don't do cold. Naturally, Don had no reservations and immediately jumped in. I'm embarrassed to even say that it took coaxing to get me in the water because once I got in, I couldn't believe I ever thought about not swimming.
I still remember what it felt like looking around...there we were, just swimming in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with a castle to our left, the sea behind us, and hillside cliffs down the coast for miles. It was an incredible experience and a memory I won't soon forget!
Can you spot Don?!
We spent part of the day exploring the castle and climbing up to the top of the cliffs.
For pretty much every meal, we ate fish and chips at the local English pub, because why not? In truth, it was nice to have a menu in English. My Spanish is decent, but sometimes not good enough to know exactly what we're ordering...oops. We met the owner of the pub, and apparently he was a truck driver who drove the route from England to Tossa De Mar quite frequently. Eventually, he just moved down there and opened his own restaurant.
We took a break from tradition in the evening and enjoyed a nice tapas dinner on the beach. The panorama picture is the view from our table.
The next day, we went swimming at the other beach. We actually liked the second beach better because it was just sooo beautiful. It was more of a cove, and it made me feel like an explorer who had discovered some secret island or something.
Tossa De Mar gave us a lot of great memories, and we definitely want to go back someday. (Although next time, let's hope we have a/c at our hotel. I'd rather not have to put wet towels on ourselves all night long and take turns in front of the fan. Ugh.)
Andorra La Vella, Andorra:
From Tossa De Mar, we drove through the Girona countryside (a lot of cyclists live and train there) and up up up into the mountains of Andorra. It's pretty amazing that you can go from sunny coastline to snowy mountains in three hours. I'm sensing a theme in Spain...the terrain changes quickly.
The drive was beautiful and really fun. Don drove most of the way because I get nervous on the winding canyon roads. He's an expert winding-canyon-road-driver though, so that's good.
One of our biggest regrets from the entire trip was not staying in Andorra longer. We only had time to do one hike in the morning but could have done so many more! The receptionist at the hotel recommended that we hike the Tristaina Lake Trail, and it was an excellent recommendation. I've been on a lot of hikes, but I've never seen anything like this before.
Views for daaaaays.
I love this picture of Don so much. He's so photogenic it kills me.
Andorra is also a big cycling country, and they've held stages of the Tour de France three times. We drove the route from the tour and found one of the tunnels the cyclists rode through.
One tradition from the road races is to write the names of the cyclists along the route. As we were driving along, we spotted Nairo Quintana's name! He's a Columbian cyclist for one of the big name teams.
We were dying at the size of the cows in Andorra! Look at that guy! I mean, he's legitimately larger than the cars. 😂
This was the last and final stop on our vacation. Montpellier is a town in the south of France, although not directly on the coast. It has a university there, so it feels kind of like a college town. We met Harald and Elke there and spent a couple of days seeing the city.
{Porte du Peyrou}
This arch was built to glorify King Louis the XIV. It is much smaller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but it was still cool to see.
{Saint Clemente Aqueduct}
I have no idea why, but I'm obsessed with aqueducts! I just think they are the most ingenious. This one was built in the 18th century and still functions to bring water to the city from over 14km away. To this day, it supplies water to many of the fountains in and around the city.
{Les Jardin Des Plantes}
This is one of the oldest botanical gardens in France. It was built by Henry IV in 1593. One of my favorite areas of the gardens was the bamboo forest. I have never seen bamboo growing in real life, and it's pretty neat. It's so perfectly tall and straight.
For me, the best part about the gardens were all of the stray cats that live there. We easily saw six or seven different cats just roaming around. At first we were worried (as one would worry for a stray cat), but then we noticed that there were feeding stations all around the park. I guess the city takes care of them!?
We were laughing that only in France would the stray cats be treated so well...like this fancy little guy, who is no doubt an important member of the "Lions Club".
I didn't know we could do so much in ten days, but we did it! These international vacations are always so full of adventure. I hope we can forever be explorers.
1 comment:
Beautiful! Looks like great fun...Well written, I felt like I was om the trip with you!
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