¡Hola!

Thanks for following along from home. This is the fifth edition of our travel blog that we want to share with all of you, and in turn go back and read when we’re eventually back home.

Since we last shared an update on our travels, we have made our way through Spain, bringing an end to our time in the Mediterranean - for now anyway!

Montpellier and Perpignan

We ended our last travel blog in Aix-en-Provence (one of our favourite places in France so far), after which we made a couple more stops along the main train line in France before we crossed over into Spain.

The first was Montpellier, another pretty and walkable city in the South of France that we spent a few days wandering through. We visited during the heatwave that was sweeping the Mediterranean and it was often pretty unbearable to be out in the sun, but we still managed to see some the city park and botanical garden - countered by a few drinks in air conditioned pubs in the medieval precinct!

Following Montpellier, we took another train a few more hours down the line and spent our final days in France in a small city called Perpignan. This was an interesting place to visit with a clearly Catalonian influence, as it is so close to the Spanish border. We visited a castle that was once the palace for the Kingdom of Majorca, many more people could be heard speaking Catalan/Spanish and we even started seeing Sangria on the menus.

Barcelona

After spending our final day in France, we took a quick train across the border to Spain, arriving in Barcelona in the early evening. As soon as we hopped off, we were swept up by the crowded Barcelona train station and had the chaotic job of trying to figure out the underground metro system that would take us from the station to the city. Google maps gave us some pretty average suggestions and had us walk 15mins to another metro station instead for some reason, but we made it to the city eventually!

The next day was our only full day in Barcelona, so we tried to pack alot in. We started the day early with a decent breakfast at one of the few local cafes open at 7am on a Sunday, with the streets very quiet in contrast to the evening before. We then headed over to Park Güell and entered as it first opened, hoping to beat the crowds but incredibly there were still heaps of people! This was a cool architectural park designed by Antoni Gaudí (who also designed many other buildings in Barcelona) which featured quirky mosaic buildings, sculptures and walkways. Following this we headed to the Sagrada Familia, an incredible cathedral also designed by Gaudí which began construction in 1882 and is still ongoing to this day! Although it is mostly finished and we were really blown away with shear size of the cathedral and the magnificent stained glass windows, our photos don’t do it justice.

We finished the day walking through to the harbour and then back into the city via the Gothic Quarter - an old but cute part of the city. We finished up the day with a few tapas and a beer then hit the hay, thankful we hadn’t been pickpocketed after many warnings about how bad it is in Barcelona.

Cambrils

The next morning we went to get the train further down the coast to a beach town called Cambrils. Unknown to us beforehand, this train was the standard regional line between Barcelona and Valencia and didn’t assign seats so had a tendency to get pretty full during peak season. Before we even knew what was happening, we hopped on only to realise the train was over full and we were stuck having to stand in the aisle in the middle of the carriage, along with heaps of other people packed in like sardines. We had a 2 hour journey like this until our stop and hardly anyone had hopped off yet, so we had to awkwardly squish past with our backpacks and finally we were free! That was certainly a character building moment, but also a good indicator to maybe spend a bit more and use the high speed/flasher trains when in Spain!

Cambrils was a relaxed beach town which was a great place to chill out in after the chaos of the past few days. Although there was not much to see, we spent our time at the beach, doing some planning for upcoming travel and we also tried some seafood paella - so yum! After this quick break, we took a train down to Valencia and had a much nicer experience this time in assigned seats.

Valencia

Valencia was a much nicer city than Barcelona, although it was still huge it felt much cosier to walk around and had more culture and history to discover. We toured through the Cathedral of Valencia which holds a chalice that is supposedly the Holy Grail, we also walked around central market - a huge indoor building with stalls of fruit, veges, meats, seafood and bakery items. It was pretty incredible, and although we didn’t need any groceries, we tried a local chocolate pastry thing called a Lazos which was yum. At a nearby lunch spot we tried Valencian paella, which doesn’t have any seafood and instead is either chicken or rabbit with a saffron rice base.

Our time in Valencia ended up being a bit of a culinary experience, with the next day involving a ‘tapas tour’. The tour started with a walk through the old town where our guide shared a lot of history about stuff we had unknowingly walked straight past the day before, followed by a lunch of traditional and modern tapas paired with local wines. It was super interesting and the tapas were all really good, it was certainly worth doing a tour! Our guide even told us about where we should go to try a local drink called Agua de Valencia, which was fresh orange juice, vodka and gin mixed in a jug - potent but delicious.

Madrid

Although we didn’t really want to leave Valencia yet, we had already made a plan to take the high speed train inland to Madrid, our last stop in Spain. This train was pretty quick, covering a journey of about 360km in less than 2 hours, and before we knew it we were there.

Madrid felt a bit like Auckland, in that it had a huge shopping district and business district, and felt a bit more modern and industrial compared to Valencia or Barcelona. Although the heatwave had passed by now, temperatures were still about 35-37 degrees at the peak of the day and it was a struggle to walk around for much more than an hour at a time. We still wandered over to the city park and passed the government buildings, we also spent a morning in the National Art Museum which held many pieces by Spanish artists such as Goya and Velazquez, as well as an incredible Bosch exhibition.

Our time in Madrid finished on a high with a final selection of tapas that included the best Tortillas de Patatas (basically a Spanish Omelette) we had while in Spain. We then had a night at a different hotel near to the airport, as we had a nice and early 7am flight to Dublin the next morning.

Next time

Our trip through Spain was a quick trip through the main spots in the north but we loved the atmosphere and pace of the country, and will hopefully be back to explore the southern part one day. We have now traded the warm Mediterranean summer for the drizzly, cold summer in Ireland, but the need for jeans and puffer jackets instead of shorts and singlets has been made slightly easier with the addition of a few Guinness and a lamb stew.

We are a few days into our trip through Ireland and it certainly feels more like home here, we will leave it there and share what we get up to with you soon!

Hope you enjoyed the read!

Baylee & Jamie