In the course of visiting 18 countries and more than 60 cities, we've encountered a wide variety of food.   We've had some great meals, some good meals and some lousy meals.  We've had some cheap meals, mostly in Asia, and some expensive meals, mostly in New Zealand and Australia.  One of the best meals we had was in Valencia, Spain, which would be a taste (sorry) of things to come in our final stop in another Spanish city before heading for Paris.

San Sebastian was at the top of my list of places I wanted to visit on the trip.  I think I first noticed it in an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations when we were obsessively watching pretty much every travel show on TV.  It's on the northwestern coast of Spain, in the Basque region.

During our time ensconced in labradoodle puppies on a house-sit in the Pyrenees, we spent much of our time (when we weren't scooping poop) planning our next stop.  A house-sitting job outside of Paris began on July 20th, giving us about eight days between the pups and Paris.  The high cost of flying from anywhere in the south of France or northern Spain to Paris resulted in the decision to keep our rental car and drive to Paris, especially since the cost of returning the car to where we picked it up was the same as dropping it in Paris.  So we said so long to the dogs and the cat (au revoir!) and drove east toward the Atlantic Coast and the town of Biarritz.

Biarritz is an old-school French holiday destination.  It dates back to the 12th century where it flourished as a fishing village.  It was also the site of some important battles in the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s, but gained prominence about fifty years later when Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, built a palace on the beautiful beach there.  Biarritz has also been a favorite vacation spot of the British Royal family.  Plus it's got some great waves and attracts a lot of surfers, so it's got an interesting mix of haute couture and hippy.

It was definitely more on the hippy side of things our first couple of days there as we stumbled onto a surfing competition.  The weather wasn't cooperating from a spectator standpoint as a strong wind was coming in off the Atlantic, and the gray skies did nothing to ease the chill.

Plus, when the tide comes in, the water goes all the way to the rock walls, making it unsuitable for surfers to surf, so the competition was timed to the tide being out.  We had seen surfers compete when we stayed in Manly Beach, just north of Sydney and really enjoyed that.  So, we hoped to catch some of the action in Biarritz.

The apartment we booked was in a decent location, about a ten-minute walk to the beach and a fifteen-minute walk into the part of town teeming with restaurants and shops.  The second day of our stay happened to come on Bastille Day,  July 14th.  We expected to be awash in a sea of French flags and banners, much like you see nothing but the Stars and Stripes in the US around July 4th, but we saw nothing of that.  There were some impressive sounding fireworks shot off at eleven that night, but that was about it.  Seems outside of Paris, where a military parade is held on the Champs Elysees, La Fete National is not that big of a deal.

The biggest attraction for us was the strikingly beautiful coastline.  The city sits on a series of rocky bluffs, with a peninsula of stone knifing into the ocean and separating the two beaches.  The one closest to our apartment was accessible by some steep stairs.

The beach on the other side of the rocky peninsula is the one that is famously depicted in paintings and on postcards.  It's where Napoleon's wife built her palace and you can see why.  The beach is gorgeous and long.  Unlike her husband apparently.

Most of our stops along the way have not been in resort-areas, so it was kind of fun to soak in the "we're on a holiday" vibe of the people on the streets of Biarritz. 

By the time we figured out that the surfing competition ended on Saturday, it was Sunday, so we missed out on that.  Just like in Australia, the buzz from the surfers washed well ashore, with cafes and bars filled with surfers and their followers.

Some of our time in Biarritz was spent trying to figure out how to fill in the four or five days we had before we headed to Paris.  My first attempt at finding a place to stay in San Sebastian had come up empty.  Everything seemed to be booked up.  So we briefly thought of heading there for lunch one day, before turning back around and driving north to some city on the way to Paris for a couple of days.  That didn't seem like a very exciting plan so I dug a little more deeply into the interwebs, and finally found what turned out to be a great place in a great city.

The location of the apartment we rented was perfect.  Like many European cities, San Sebastian has an "old town", and our place was on a tree-lined plaza in the old town.  The front windows of the apartment overlooked the plaza, which was also lined with restaurants and cafes.  It could get a little noisy at times, but for our four nights there, we were fine with the atmosphere and the noise died down by the time we were ready to call it a night.   

One evening, we heard what those of us over the age of 50 would call a ruckus.  People started gathering in the square, banging pots and pans and blowing whistles.  There were well over one hundred of them, and some local TV stations showed up to cover the protest.

The signs and banners they carried were all written in Basque, and the best I could tell was that they were upset over the governments financial policies. (Occupy Madrid anyone?) The protests attracted demonstrators of all ages, including a few kids in strollers who were very happy to be encouraged to make noise for a change.

The protestors certainly couldn't have been upset over the food in San Sebastian.  Pintxos are the local specialty.  They are basically tapas, small servings that can be down in a bite or two, and pretty much every restaurant we saw offered up a menu of pintxos. 

It took us one brave attempt at lunch our second day there to get the handle of how the ordering process goes.  In some places, you order off the chalk board menu on the wall, while in others you grab a plate off the bar and just pick something from the different offerings and show the server who keeps track of what you've taken.

The first place we had pintxos was very creative in its presentation.  One of the items we ordered was a dish involving rabbit, and the chef had formed something possibly out of a turnip or rice paper in the shape of a Playboy bunny head.  It didn't add anything to the flavor but did add something to the key ingredient in the experience: fun, and you can't get enough of that, can you?

Once the trepidation about being unfamiliar with the ordering process was eliminated, we dove in head-first.  We couldn't get enough of pintxos and the entire experience.

Luckily, our apartment was within walking distance of dozens of restaurants featuring pintxos, so we left the kids at home with some pasta and wi-fi our final night there and Annie and I went on a pintxos crawl.  Most of the places were fairly crowded, but that just gave us a better chance to get to meet some people and share some fantastic food!

As we stood elbow-to-elbow with other pintxos enthusiasts at the bar, we struck up a conversation with a woman from Japan.  Hitomi was traveling by herself, on something of a foodie tour.  She left her husband at home and was traveling for a few weeks, just sampling the local food offerings along the way.

We shared travel stories and chatted about food of course.  Plus Annie and I now have an awesome photo to enter into a Biggest Noses Contest (couple's division).

The atmosphere in the cafes and bars selling pintxos was electric and eclectic, with people enjoying the food and drink and the experience.  

Besides great food, San Sebastian also offers a nice menu of natural beauty.  The older part of the city sits on a peninsula that has two bays on either side.  Those bays both feature gorgeous beaches.  

The sand is beautiful enough to distract a male observer from staring too long at the many women who sunbathe topless.  It's a pretty good bet that in the picture above there are at least a dozen or so women with their tops off.  Being a healthy red-blooded male from the States unaccustomed to seeing such displays on a public beach, at first the spectacle really grabs one's, shall we say, attention.  But after a while, uncovered breasts are so commonplace that they just blend in with the rest of the bronzed skin and colorful swimwear.  And I ensure you that the prevalence of topless sunbathing has NOTHING to do with the fact that I agreed with Annie as we headed north toward Paris that San Sebastian was our favorite stop thus far in the trip.  It's just another delightful ingredient in the many delicacies that the city has to offer!

Puppypalooza

About six months before leaving on our journey in December of 2011, I signed up for a website called Caretakers Gazette.  It featured ads from people looking for house-sitters, usually to take care of a variety of pets/animals.  That site sent out weekly emails showing available house-sitting jobs, and each time the email arrived, I scoured it for something that might fit with our schedule and needs, but nothing really ever came close.

Once we launched the trip and started sharing tales of adventure with other world travelers, (we’re not the only ones!) we found out about a site called trustedhousesitters.com.  It had a much greater variety of house sitting gigs, mostly in the UK and Australia and New Zealand, but also some in Europe.

We applied for a few jobs starting around mid-May, and got a few nibbles but no serious offers.  Then when we were in Greece in late May, a listing really caught our eye.  It was a property in theFrench Pyrenees just across the border from Spain that needed someone to house-sit for a cat and 7 labradoodle puppies and their mother for a week in Early July.  The property featured a pool, wi-fi and plenty of space along with gorgeous landscape.  I applied and was very excited to get an email back that we were one of two finalists. 

Our excitement was due to a number of factors.  We loved the idea of being around so many dogs, plus it was a couple of weeks away from a month-long house-sitting assignment we had lined up outside Paris, and it was free accommodation for a week.  Being on the road with two 12-year olds for six months was very expensive and we needed to save cash wherever and when ever possible.  If we got this job, we would have a period of five out of six weeks where we would be staying for free.  That would be big as this stage of the trip.

I exchanged emails with the owner of the puppy property and we set up a time to talk on the phone one night.  Doing my best to display my responsible nature, (I was after all, president of Luther League at my church in high school for an unprecedented two terms!) I called him precisely at the appointed time and we had a nice chat for about ten minutes.  He asked some basic questions and I told him our story, and how we had pets back in the states, plus a house with a pool, so we were experienced in handling those duties.  We had posted a profile on the website, with pictures of us and the four Pomeranians we spent time with in Thailand, plus a couple of references from back home.  As we ended the call, he promised to have a decision within an hour or so and would be sending me an email informing me of his decision.

In part because I’m pretty competitive, I really wanted to win, and beat out who ever else the owner of the puppy property was considering.  It was with great disappointment that I read the email that said they were going with the other candidates, in part because they had been to the area a few times and knew the lay of the land better than we did.  The news hit me harder than I thought it would.  I really, really wanted that job, and was crushed that we didn’t get it and concerned about the financial implications of what it meant to the trip.  In addition, the house-sitting jobs on trustedhousesitter.com rely a lot on referrals, so to get more jobs down the road, we needed to get our first and do a good job.

We continued on our trip, checking the house-sitting website on a daily basis, but had no other offers as we went through Hungary and then into Croatia.  Then, a few days into our stay in Croatia, I got an email from the owner of the puppy property with Change of Plans in the subject line. Turns out the people they had chosen over us had gone dark on them, and they hadn’t heard from them for more than a week despite several phone calls and emails.  The owner said he was thinking we had already made plans for early July, but if we hadn’t he was hoping we could be their house sitters.  We were thrilled and wagged our little pet-loving tails at the prospect of being ensconced in puppiness for a week!

After more than a week in Valencia and Barcelona, we left Spain on a Renfe regional train that took us from Barcelona just across the border into France to a town called Latour De Carol.  We had to change trains there because the regional trains in France run on a different sized track than the regional trains in Spain. 

Our train trip from Barcelona to the town of Foix in France was the first time we had taken a major train trip by buying tickets the day of.  I don’t like leaving things to chance or the last minute when we have a major location change, and always bought tickets ahead of time and printed out the tickets, usually at an internet café.  In our final full day in Barcelona, we went to the train station where we would be taking the train the next day and learned that we didn’t need to buy tickets ahead of time, we could buy them when we got there shortly before the train was due to depart.   I also found out through a very good website on traveling by rail in Europe that you didn’t need to buy tickets ahead of time on the segment of our trip in France, either. 

Everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped as we left Barcelona to head to France.  We got to the train station in plenty of time and got decent if somewhat uncomfortable seats on the train for the first of our two segments.  We left Barcelona around 9:45 and got to LaTour de Carol around 12:30.  The train from there to our destination of Foix didn’t leave until 1:21, giving us plenty of time to buy tickets at the train station there. 

It’s interesting that if you go to the French rail website for their train system, SCNF, you get a variety of options for stating your home country.  If you choose the USA, you get re-directed to the Rail Europe website, where fares are almost always more expensive than if you try to navigate the SCNF website as someone who says they are from Europe.  For instance, the trip we were taking from LaTour De Carol was 18 Euros a person on the Rail Europe website, but only 13 Euros a person on the SCNF website.  And by purchasing our tickets at the train station in LaTour De Carol, we paid the local rate of 13 Euro.  So know you now.  You’re welcome.

The SNCF train was very nice, with comfortable seats, much more so than the Renfe train from Barcelona.  When we got on the train in Barcelona, we had plenty of room and the pick of where to sit.  We chose to go to the left and up a couple of steps into an unoccupied section of about 24 seats, that led to a similar-sized area that was separated from the rest of the train car by a sliding glass door. It was a very peaceful and pleasant experience, at least for the first half hour or so.

After a couple of stops, several people who seemed to be traveling together got on board and headed into the enclosed area.  They were armed with a decent amount of beer and seemed to be enjoying themselves and for the most part were not annoying.  One guy in a white t-shirt that clung to his belly which was clearly a safe haven for beer, seemed to be enjoying himself just a bit more than the dozen or so other people who were in the enclosed area.  He would emerge through the sliding glass door every fifteen minutes or so, apparently heading to the bathroom. 

Annie and the kids were in a four-seat area with a table in between them, and I was across the aisle in a similar area, using the table to do some writing and look at the map and try to follow the progress of the train as we headed north from Spain through the Pyrenees.  On what was probably his third excursion from the drinking cabin, white t-shirt guy (WTG) paused as he headed out, and barked something at me in French. I had no idea what he was saying, even when he repeated it.  So I cleverly responded with a brusque “bonjour!” which he repeated back to me with a minimum of menace and then stumbled toward the bathroom.  WTG paused before he went down the stairs and barked the same words to a teenage boy who was traveling by himself and clearly had no more of an idea of what this guy was saying than I did.  He then moved on to complete whatever task he felt he needed to complete. 

At one stop toward the end of the trip, several of the people from the drinking cabin got off the train and took advantage of the five-minute pause in the trip to have a smoke.  Which was fine with me, but I was looking forward to getting to Foix as the group was giving off something of a weird vibe.  They would occasionally exchange some loud words and the sliding door kept being opened as traffic in and out of the drinking cabin increased.

As we got into Foix and were about five minutes from the station, things had gotten oddly quiet in the drinking cabin.  That quiet was shattered by a woman who burst through the sliding door, coughing as though she wanted to find out how her lungs would function outside of her body.  There was a cacophony of voices and coughing from the drinking cabin and a chemical smell.  Annie said she saw one man holding a small canister and saying something that sounded like Le Securitad!  Perhaps they were re-creating a scene from a traveling show of Les Miserables, but things were escalating at that point to an uncomfortable level.  Fortunately, right then the train was pulling into the station, and your faithful world travelers deftly grabbed their backpacks and pulled their luggage down from the racks above them and positioned them by the doors.  We made a speedy exit, and informed one of the workers outside the train what had happened.  The train pulled out of the station before anyone in a position of authority could get on board, but she said they would call ahead to have someone waiting at the next stop. 

After that weirdness, it was great to get to the peaceful house near the village of Nescus and have a tail-wagging welcome.  Sean and Laura were the homeowners who were leaving the next day on a holiday to Spain, and they had a Labradoodle, Polly who had given birth to seven puppies.  Two of them had already found homes, but we still had five to take care of and enjoy.

Sean and Laura were from Sheffield, England and had decided about five years ago that they were looking for something different and they found it in the French Pyrenees.  It was a large old house that they had renovated about a third of into living quarters for themselves and their two kids.

A separate part of the building was converted into what's called a gite, which is pronounced "jeet".  They are vacation getaways that Europeans rent out on holidays.  Sean is a professional remodeler and had done a nice job of making a very nice two-bedroom gite, with a modern kitchen and large living area.  

The puppies were kept in the barn, and one of our first duties of the day was to get up by around 7:30 and feed them and let them run around.  Ben and/or Marley did that most of the days and they will have more to report in their own blog posting.

The puppies were the highlight of our stay in the south of France, but not the only aspect of our time there that we enjoyed.  We arrived on a Thursday and Sean and Laura had told us about a weekly market on Saturday in the town of St. Girons.  The picturesque village was about a 20-minute drive away.  We got there around mid-day and some of the vendors were winding down their activity, but there was still plenty to see.  

The market attracts an interesting variety of people.  Sean had said before we went that it would be like visiting middle earth, and he was spot on.  A group of traveling troubadours had put on a show earlier in the day and some of them were still hanging around in costume that they seemed to be on no hurry to get out of.

It was a great atmosphere and the most unique open-air market we had been to on the trip.

The drive to St. Girons and back also gave us the chance to see some of the gorgeous countryside in the region.  The Pyrenees are beautiful, rising as high as 11,100 feet.  Even a few weeks into summer, some of the peaks had snow remaining in the higher valleys.  

On Sean's recommendation, we took a drive into the mountains just south of his property.  The narrow, twisty road brought to an overlook that gave us a view that went for miles.  

Two days before the end of our stay, we took a slightly longer but easier drive to see the castle at Carcassonne.  We had heard and read a lot about it, and having a few days on our hands, plus a rental car we decided to make the 90-minute drive to see the ancient walled city.  

The ancient castle towers about the even older city below, perched on the hill giving a sense of protection.  And for your benefit, I'll cut to the chase.  We didn't like it all that much.  It's impressive and beautiful, but once inside, it's elbow-to-elbow tourists.  

The streets are crowded with all kinds of shops and restaurants and there wasn't much room to move around.  It's kind of like Gatlinburg in July but without the fudge shops.  We walked around a bit, decided not to stand in the long lines to get access to some of the areas of the castle, grabbed some gelato and a meringue and hit the road.  

That was the best part of the day: the drive.  The road takes you through the foothills of the Pyrenees which happen to feature field after field of sunflowers.  Annie became Van Gogh like in her obsession with them, and we stopped to take several pictures.

They are beautiful, especially when you see this many spread out over so many fields and hillsides. 

On our last day, Sean and Laura returned home and the following day two more of the puppies were taken to their new homes.  We were sad to see them go, but it was time to say goodbye to them and say hello to the Basque region of France and Spain as we continued our trek toward Paris.

Barcelona

As we made Spain a major target in planning the trip, I had forgotten that my arrival in Barcelona would be 20 years later than first planned.  The 1992 Summer Olympics were held in the capital of Catalunya, and the radio station I was working for at the time told me a few months ahead of the games that I would be going.  I’m not sure why I got the call, perhaps because I had proven myself as an international traveler in 1989 when I got to go to Paris for about five days.  That was my first time in Europe and just like the first time I had a tater tot, I was in love immediately. 

I’ll never forget how I found out I was going to Paris.  The program director at Magic 96 in Charlotte, Don Schaeffer, was also the morning man, and I was the morning news guy/side kick.  It was on my birthday, June 9^th, that he told me live on the air.  American Airlines had just started up a non-stop flight to Paris from Raleigh-Durham and to help promote the flight, they sent radio shows from around the region to Paris for a few days, to broadcast back to the states the magic and allure of the City of Lights.  I would be going with another air personality,  Bill Young, (who had the on-air nickname Magic Man) and we each got to take our significant other.  I was just about speechless on the air, it took me completely by surprise, and I had been watching the French Open on TV and thinking about how wonderful Paris looked. 

Then came the hard part.  My first wife (we’ll call her Mulligan) and I needed passports within about two weeks. That meant going through the expediting process, which added to the cost and the stress of not knowing if we would get them in time.  We got them with about a day to spare, took the trip and had a great time in Paris.  The dates of the trip included Mulligan’s birthday, June 27^th, so for the rest of our time together I could say, "hey I took you to Paris for your birthday, now leave me alone and let me watch the golf!"

I’m not exactly sure what happened three years later, but about a month ahead of the trip, all of the sudden I wasn’t going to Barcelona anymore.  I think someone complained/whined that Bangert already got a free trip to Paris, how come he gets to Barcelona?  So for me it was Paris oui, Barcelona no!  (That’s the Spanish “no” by the way in case you couldn’t tell.)

My next trip to Europe would be to Spain in 1997 with my keeper wife Annie.  To celebrate her graduating from the MBA program at Xavier, we decided to take a trip, using our newly-acquired time share.  It was May and all the resorts in the Carribean were booked up.  However, the time-share company offered us a deal—if we booked one week in the Canary Islands, we would get a second week for free.  Having no children at the time, we decided to jump at the chance for two weeks in the islands that belong to Spain but are close to the coast of Morocco.  We enjoyed our two weeks there and were on our way back to the States when we got our first taste of Spain. 

When we got to the airport in Madrid on the way back home, the flight to Cincinnati was over-booked.  The airline offered to put us up for the night, buy us dinner, and give us 400 Delta Dollars a piece if we would change our plans.  Again, not having children, we jumped at the chance.  We only spent about 18 hours there, but really enjoyed the city of Madrid, and pretending for some reason that we were Basque Separatists.  I think that helped plant the seed of attraction to Spain that took root in my head, and contributed to my desire to go to Spain with my wife and kids in 2012. 

The pain of leaving my favorite city so far on the trip was eased a bit by departing from the gorgeous Estacio De Nord in Valencia.  Three hours later, we were getting off the train at the main station in Barcelona, and taking a taxi to our apartment. 

After being in the periphery of the action in Bologna, we decided to stay right in the heart of things in both Valencia and Barcelona.  In Barcelona, that meant booking a surprisingly affordable place a half a block away from Sagrada Familia.  That’s the iconic church designed by Antoni Gaudi.  Seeing photos of the tall spires gave me the impression that we would see them from quite a distance away.  But due to the congested nature of the city, we didn’t see the amazing structure until our taxi turned the corner and there it was!

We had all seen plenty of photos of Sagrada Familia, but those didn’t come close to preparing us for how breathtaking it is in person.  Construction started in 1882 and is still going on and is scheduled to continue until 2026.  The tallest towers have the appearance of the kind of sand castle you make in wet sand on the beach when you let the soggy grains drip out of your hand at a slow pace. 

Up close, you can really see the details of the complex design which has been continued by other architects following the general plans of Gaudi, who knew he would not live long enough to see his masterpiece completed.  You could stand and look at it for days from every direction and see something new every minute. 

We enjoyed taking in the exterior view our first day and night there, and didn’t waste any time the following day by going inside. 

The interior of Sagrada Familia is stunning.  The outside appears somewhat dark and imposing, but the inside is filled with light that splash over very welcoming wide-open spaces.  Gaudi's primary design principle is to incorporate nature into his architecture, and as you can see, the main columns on the inside rise to the ceiling and branch out like trees.  

Some of the windows are filled with stained glass, while many others are not, evidence of the ongoing work inside and outside of the building. The work is being continued by architects who are trying to be truthful to Gaudi's vision while leaving their own design styles.  One of the most distinct examples of that is the exterior portion of the church depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The sharp angles and edges and non-traditional image of Jesus have created a certain amount of controversy.  But I think that's what the best art does--it challenges conventional wisdom and ideas, and makes the viewer think, perhaps in ways they never imagined.  Sagrada Familia certainly had our complete attention for the three or four days we were around it.  I've put it at the top of the list of man-made things we have seen on the trip.  I just absolutely love it.

The work of Antoni Gaudi is prevalent throughout Barcelona.  A handful of buildings display his distinctive style.

Guell Park which provides a gorgeous view of the city is also home to several works of Gaudi.  It's actually a failed housing development from the early 20th Century that is now a park.  And yes, I borrowed this photo from the internet because for some reason the ones we took disappeared from our camera.

If the only personal items we lost in Barcelona were some digital photos, that's probably not a bad thing.  We had gotten more than one warning about pickpockets targeting tourists but never saw any in action and never felt threatened at all.  And we walked around plenty.

Like Valencia,  Barcelona has great architecture, with many buildings featuring beautiful iron work on balconies everywhere you look.  We saw a lot of the city on foot, as we had to visit the property management office on Monday and sign a contract and arrange payment since we arrived on Saturday when the office was closed. 

Barcelona is very pedestrian-friendly, with wide sidewalks leading to plazas and boulevards.  The city's bull-fighting ring is beautiful on the outside, giving no hint of the carnage that goes on inside.

While strolling the streets, we saw several posters advertising concerts coming in the coming weeks and months.  They must have the same booking agent as Riverbend, with exciting acts like the Beach Boys on the way!

We finished off our stay in Barcelona in style by taking a Segway tour.  We had seen them offered in other cities and did some research and found that in some places, like Rome, they were more than 100 Euros a piece.  That was a little steep for our tastes, so when we got to Barcelona and found the Segway tour there cost less than 60 Euro a piece, we took the plunge. 

We had originally planned to take the tour on Monday, but some miscommunication between us and the tour company resulted is going two nights later.  It worked out quite nicely that we did the Segway tour on our final night in Barcelona.  It happened to be July 4^th, and we hadn’t made any plans to celebrate the 236^th birthday of our homeland.  And in keeping with the true “melting pot” nature of the USA, we rode Segways in Barcelona with a German tour guide. 

Vincent was from Hanover, Germany and had lived in Barcelona for about two years.  He was patient with us as we spent about 20 minutes getting the feel for controlling the Segways.  They are a product of how you move your center of gravity.  Lean forward, and you go forward.  Lean backward, and you go in the other direction.  

The machines are very intuitive and after about 15 minutes it's really like walking.  You learn to lean in the direction you want to turn, you can speed up and most importantly slow down exactly the way you want to.   

The route that Vincent took us on was perfect, hitting areas of the city we hadn't seen yet.  We wound through some of the older parts of town, which meant navigating some crowded, narrow streets.  All four of us managed to do that without incident or injury to ourselves or anyone else.  

It was a bit of a relief to get to a less crowded area along the water front.  By this point, about a half an hour into the 90-minute tour, we all felt confident enough on our Segways to do a little manuevering, which was a blast.  

Docked on the waterfront was the largest yacht we had ever seen, on this trip or anywhere else.  Victor informed us that it was owned by Roman Abramovich, a Russian tycoon (who also owns the Chelsea football club) who made his billions like many of the other super-wealthy:  through illegal and shady business dealings.  We didn't get close enough to get a good photo of the boat, but it was impressive to see even as far away as we were.  

The Segway tour was a blast and a perfect ending to a great stay in a great city.  As much as we loved Barcelona, we had smiles on our faces as we boarded the train heading toward our next destination the next day and for five good reasons:  Puppies! 

Great Expectations

Enjoying the moment is one thing I'm not very good at (among many things, including like right there, grammar).  I'm always thinking ahead to whatever event is coming up, and my expectations of that event impact my enjoyment of it.  Too many times I get really amped up about something and it doesn't live up to what I hoped it would be and I come away disappointed.  On the other hand, if I go into something with low expectations and have a great time, the enjoyment of that event is greatly heightened.  I had really been looking forward to getting to Spain almost throughout the entire seven months leading to our arrival there, and I was hoping it would live up to my great expectations. 

In the winter of 2011, when we first started planning the trip, Marley wrote all our names on a white board and made columns under our names, listing the five places we each wanted to go.  Over the next few months, after doing some research on the internet or seeing something on TV about a particular spot, the list of desired destinations would change some.  One of the constants on my list was Spain.  I felt a very strong draw towards the Iberian Peninsula and wanted to make sure we spent some time there.

In researching where to go next from Bologna, we found that one of the cheapest places to fly to was Valencia, Spain.  Valencia is on the southeastern coast of Spain, and is about a three-hour train ride to Barcelona, which is not that far from the French border.  We had a house-sitting obligation in the French Pyrenees which separate France from Spain, so it seemed like a logical progression to hit Valencia for a few days, then head toward Barcelona leading up to our much-anticipated stay with seven labradoodle puppies.

The trip from Italy to Spain would be our first experience with Ryan Air.  That's a somewhat infamous low-cost airline based in Ireland that offers what look like at first unbelievably low fares, like 20 dollars to fly to Paris.  That's before you add on fees for luggage (15 Euros per person for one bag each).  There's a 40 Euro fee for online booking, there are fees for choosing your seat ahead of time. I think they even have a fee for all the fees you ring up.  By the time you get through all that, the fare winds up being about double what the initial advertised price was.  Still, it's more affordable than any other airline.

We had also heard complaints about rude service and constant selling of products once the plane was airborne.  The flight attendants did try to pitch a few items, including smokeless cigarettes, but it wasn't annoying at all.  The plane was clean, the flight crew friendly enough, and we got there at a decent price.  Our expectations were low and we ended up being pleasantly surprised.

The only thing I really knew about Valencia before we got there was that it was the site of a Franz Ferdinand concert from 2009 that MTV would show from time to time.  Not that I watch MTV much if at all, but I like live shows and Franz Ferdinand has some good tunes, plus the setting for the concert was at the City of Arts and Sciences complex.  It's a very modernistic series of buildings and gave the show a very unique backdrop. 

Our love affair with Valencia started pretty much from the moment we arrived at our apartment.  It helped that the place we booked had some great spaces inside, and was overlooking the Plaza de Napole y Sicilia.

The apartment was located inside the old city, giving us another experience of being taken back in time.  One of our discoveries on our first walk around the city on foot was the Mercat Central.  It's a gorgeous building that dates back to 1914, but is in fantastic condition, and roomy and airy inside.

The market stalls offer up a wide variety of meats, fish, cheeses, vegetables, bread--pretty much anything you want to eat.

The atmosphere is buzzing with chatter between customers and merchants, and gives you a great feel of what local life is like.  We've tried to check out the local markets in our various stops along the way, and this was by far our favorite.

Our apartment was in a great location, just a short walk away from a broad plaza called the Plaza de la Reina, or Plaza of the Queen.  That just happens to be Annie's nickname, so she was feeling appropriately regal as we checked out some of the shops and restaurants and cafes that ring the perimeter of the square.

One thing we didn't notice anywhere there was a place to watch the upcoming Germany/Italy game outside.  Watching the football on TVs placed outside at restaurants was something we really enjoyed in Perugia and we wanted to re-create that there in Valencia.  Another thing we needed to do was go to the train station to buy tickets for our next travel segment, going to Barcelona in a few days.

As we headed south from the Plaza de la Reina toward the train station, we started to see a little more evidence of excitement for the football game.  More cafes and restaurants had chalkboard signs out front advertising the game, and we found one spot that already had a TV outside, and offered a menu that would suit everyone's appetite, including Marley's.

There were more bars along this stretch of the street leading to the train station, and a few were flying the German and Italian colors.

After a walk of about 30 minutes, we made it to Estacio Nord, the main train station in Valencia. Besides having the most beautiful market we've seen so far on the trip, Valencia also has the prettiest train station of the handful we've seen.

Just like with the market, it's beautiful on the outside, and clean, light and airy on the inside.  The architectural details are fabulous, and evoke elements of Art Nouveau, as well as the Arts and Crafts movement, especially the design work of Charles Mackintosh.

It doesn't quite have the hustle and bustle of some of the other train stations we've been in, but that's kind of the way Valencia is as a whole.  The streets between Plaza Del Reina and the train station are lined by buildings that are about five or six stories tall and the majority have wonderful ironwork on the sides.

One other thing we liked about Valencia is that it's not stuck in the past.  It became the first European city to host the America's Cup in 2007, and apparently did a good enough job that the Cup races returned in 2010. 

Partially as the result of hosting the Cup twice, the harbor area was revitalized and is home to an impressive stretch of sand, and a long line of restaurants.  The harbor area is also home to the course where a Formula 1 race is held each year and we missed it by just a couple of days.

Crews were still in the process of tearing down stands and concessions from the race, but you could still see where the cars came through, making a very sharp turn right by the port.

We spent an entire afternoon at the aforementioned Ciudad de La Artes y Ciancias. The complex was built in the mid 90s by a pair of architects who certainly weren't shy about making bold design statements. 

The Science Museum was our first stop and was very engaging for both adults and children.  It featured a wide variety of hands-on displays, some of which tested your balance and equilibrium, while others tested how far and how high you could jump.  There were also displays on weather, including a machine that made a mini-tornado.

There truly was something for everyone, including those who wanted to see baby chicks hatch live, and really who doesn't want to see that? 

The complex also includes the Oceanografic, which is described as the largest aquarium in Europe.  The design reminded us of the science museum we had seen in Singapore, as well as a temple in India and the Sydney Opera House.

The Lotus Flower design seems to be something of a worldwide trend, so we're hoping that by the time we get back to Cincinnati, there will be a restaurant or hotel at The Banks with this type of architecture.

After a few hours of getting our Arts and Sciences fix, we were ready for some football!  When we got to the restaurant we had scouted out earlier, there was only one table left outside with a view of the TV.  Just after sitting down right before the start of the Germany-Italy game, we looked around to see if there were any other German fans.  That's when we noticed some people wearing Italy's team colors.  And that's when we realized we were watching the Germany-Italy game at an ITALIAN restaurant.  Ach Du Lieber!

The situation deteriorated quickly when Italy scored a goal and people at all the other tables jumped up and cheered, with a view chairs knocked over and forks and knives scattered about.  A few minutes later, that distasteful scene was repeated when Italy scored a second goal.  Fortunately, we finished our meal right about halftime, so we paid our bill and quietly slipped away toward our apartment, hoping to avoid any jeers from the Italians.

Germany was unable to rally in the second half, scoring a fairly meaningless goal very late in the game, which ended in a 2-1 win for Italy.  The German players seemed to lose their focus and patience when they got behind and played their worst game of the Euro 2012 tournament.  But after seeing what Spain did to Italy in the title game a few nights later, (a 4-0 win for Spain) maybe going out in a one-goal loss in the semi-finals wasn't such a bad thing. 

Our expectations of Valencia were exceeded by our fabulous experience there.  The next stop was Barcelona and we had high expectations there, especially after finding a reasonably priced apartment a half a block away from the most iconic structure in the entire city.  Let's go!

I started liking sports cars when I was ten and went to an ice skating rink with my friend Will.  He already liked sports cars and he saw a Porsche in the parking lot of the ice rink, and I thought it was cool too. I also had a lot of racing video games and I really liked the cars they had in the games. Then I started to watch Top Gear on TV (top gear is a show that sort of reviews/test sports cars and they do cool challenges) and I thought all the cars were really fascinating.

There was one sports car company that I really liked and still do, it is Pagani.   They have always made amazing cars and they are all made by hand, unlike Ferrari and Lamborghini which are partly made by machine. Also they aren't as big as a company as Ferrari or Lamborghini.

One thing I was really looking forward to on this trip was seeing exotic super cars all over the world. During the trip,  I have seen many cars that I have never seen before like: many Ferraris, a Bugatti Veyron, two Mclaren Mp4-12c's, Maseratis, a Lamborghini Aventador and other Lamborghinis, a few Bentleys and a Pagani Zonda F, Zonda R, and Huayra. I still would like to see cars like: a Gumpert Apollo, a Bugatti Veyron SS (the world's fastest/most expensive production car), an SSC Ultimate aero and Tuatara, and a Pagani Zonda Cinque.

I saw many sports cars during the very first stop on our trip when we were in Los Angeles for a few days, then some in other countries. I would usually see them in showrooms but every once in a while I would see one driving on the street.

One day during the trip I searched "Pagani factory tour" on Google and I saw one that was from a company called Motorstars and they also do Ferrari and Lamborghini factory tours. So when we were in Italy (where Paganis/Ferraris/Lamborghinis are made) we booked a tour that would take us to the Pagani factory, Ferrari factory and museum and a Lamborghini collection (a collection of the first cars Lamborghini made).  I was pretty excited.

On the day of the tour my mom and I went to the Bologna Central Railway Station and met a man named Francesco, and the other people who where taking the tour. Francesco was really nice and I got to sit up front with my mom (there were 3 seats in the front of the van). On the drive there when we got near the Ferrari factory we saw a few Ferraris driving down the road, I was really excited to see them, then when we got there we saw several of Ferraris and 2 Lamborghinis in a parking lot of a place where you could test drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

When we were dropped of I went to look at the Ferraris and Lamborghinis. They asked if I wanted look inside one of the cars and I chose the Lamborghini Aventador, so Francesco asked someone to open the door.

After a while they opened it but Francesco told me to go to him and he was standing next to a Ferrari California and he asked if I have ever sat in one and I said no.  Then he pulled my mom aside and he asked her quietly if it was ok if someone could take me for a ride in the Ferrari! I couldn't hear them but I was already pretty sure they would, but then he asked if I ever heard the noise of a Ferrari engine starting up, which I have just not while sitting in one. I was so excited.

The driver started up the engine and it roared. He took me on a 3 minute ride on a freeway, which was awesome!! I still can't believe that I got to ride in a Ferrari.

 

Then we looked in the gift shop next door and they had a wide range of diecast model cars, but we got some post cards. Then we went to the Ferrari museum and we learned a lot about the history of Ferrari. We saw the first cars they made and that they were owned by Fiat, and that the factory was bombed in WW2 then repaired at the end of the war. 

We saw a lot of F1 cars and also learned that the current F1 engine ways as much as me 80 lbs (42 kilos). We saw many trophies that Ferrari won in F1 races. 

My favorite F1 driver (Micheal Schumacher, who actually is the guy who races cars on Top Gear's track they call him the Stig) used to race for Ferrari and won the most races out of any Ferrari driver ever.

Then we were waiting outside the museum for Francesco and we saw three Ferraris drive by in about 5 minutes! After Francesco picked us and the rest of the group up he drove us over to a place to eat lunch, which was only okay but still food is food. After we ate lunch we went to the Ferrari factory which I saw several Ferraris on the way there, we weren't able to go in the factory we only saw the outside if it, we did see the test track and a red plane (which was the plane that a Ferrari beat in a race and it was the first time a car was faster than a jet, the Italian air force donated it to Ferrari then Ferrari painted it red). Then we went to the place where I wish I lived, the Pagani factory which is a two story about 7 roomed building and when we went inside there was a Pagani Zonda R in the showroom!

We saw some drawings Horacio Pagani (the founder of Pagani) drew of some sports cars. Then we saw the first model cars he made when he was only my age (12 years old)! We also saw the first race car he made when he was 20, it was more like a go-cart. Then we went into the factory which is only three rooms! I don't want to give too much information about the factory but I saw, for the first time ever, a Pagani Huayra!

I was out of my head at this point. I also got to feel some carbon fiber, and I learned that every Pagani is made completely by hand. I bought a Pagani shirt. Next we walked outside and I heard the noise of an engine, but it sounded like a powerful engine. I turned my head and I saw a Pagani Huayra driving down the road!!! 

I got a quick video, then it drove off and turned around and stopped right in front of us to get into the gate to get to the garage of the factory.  I got pictures and a video, and also admired the car a lot--I can't explain how awesome it was to be there in front of a Pagani Huayra, in front of the Pagani factory.

After we got some drinks we went to the Lamborghini collection which had over 1,000 pictures of Lamborghini's history. I saw the legendary cars, the Countach and Miura, the Miura is considered the world's first supercar.

I also got to see some old concept cars, and learned that Lamborghini was a tractor company before they were a car company. 

I met the nephew of the founder of Lamborghini, the nephew's name is Fabio Lamborghini.

There was a helicopter that Lamborghini made and it actually flew, which is hard to believe once you take a look at it.

On the way home we stopped at the Ducati store, but we didn't get anything because we aren't into motorcycles. We were heading home and Francesco dropped everyone off except for my mom and me because we didn't get to our apartment yet. Francesco was about to drop us off at the railway station but we reached our apartment first and it was just sort of cool 'cause we didn't think we would. At the end of the day I was really happy to see so many amazing cars and would do the tour again.