Bob's your uncle

Friedburg 28/08/2016 - 05/09/16

Having somewhat neglected my duty as uncle and brother over the past few years while studying and working in Cardiff it was now time to make up for that and as such Sarah and I spent the week at Riffy's playing games with both the grown ups and the children whilst desparately trying to hold back the urge to say "my, haven't they grown" in regards to Lara and Nico my neice and nephew who I hadn't seen in far too long.

As Riffy was back at work and the little ones were at kindergarten our week in Friedburg also gave us a chance to sleep in late without feeling too guilty following on from the previous chaotic week. I mean people who know us also know that we never need an excuse to sleep in but we did so anyway. Left to our own devices until the afternoons we took the chance to do some serious mosying around. We mosied around the house. We mosied around the town. We mosied in and out of various bakeries filling our mouths with excellent German pastries and cakes which never disappoint. It was chilled and relaxed, exactly what we like. On a side note I discovered this week quite how strong Sarah's hatred for fizzy water is; the answer, incredibly strong.

In the afternoon we played with Lara, and Nico (who insisted on calling me Poots), building castles from wooden blocks then quickly knocking those blocks over in the most spectacularly violent way possible, throwing them around the trampoline and watching Peeepppper Pig *snort*. It was the first time I properly bonded with the two little ones as I'd only really had the opportunity to see them both for only ever a few days at a time before this week. I have to say, it's good fun being an uncle.

After playing with the kids and after they were put to bed it was time to play some proper games. I've always loved visiting Riffy and Fritjof because it guarantees that we'll play board games (probably in part through my own insistence) and this time was no different. Having visited the Alhambra in Granada I insisted on playing at least a few rounds of the game based on the palace complex. Dominion is another great game which Riffy bought for Sarah and me as a present when we lived in Cardiff and so naturally we had to play that as well. Our success at these games were......varied; we were competing with board game champions afterall.

Come the weekend F, Nico, Lara and us two packed up in the car ready with a picnic and headed into the countryside around Friedburg where we visited a couple of beautiful old medieval castles,  incidentally giving Riffy the rest she needed from the previous week as well. The castles were beautiful old moments rising up from the ground and the kids had a great time running around the old ruins and admiring the views from the tops of the tallest towers. I also definitely didn´t secretly pretend to be a king or lord roaming around the halls of my castle...definitely didn´t! Lara was also lucky enough to have a donkey around the grounds of the second castle which judging by her smiles she enjoyed thoroughly.

The week went by as quick as that and sadly it was time to leave again. We were heading back to Aachen which meant I was doubling back on the route I'd used to get to Friedburg but this time round Sarah was with me too. Car, train and coach.


Thank you so much for an awesome week, Riffy, F, Lara and Nico hopefully we'll be back soon enough :)

Until next,
      Bob

Country #2 - Germany (Dusseldorf and Hoeve de Linde)

Germany 24th August - 10th September 2016

Catching up with family in Germany

Dusseldorf: We departed Madrid early. We arrived in Dusseldorf early. When we booked our flights we had two options, an early morning flight or a late afternoon one. Since we planned to meet the Mum, Dad and Hannah in Dusseldorf airport we figured we should book the early flight so we wouldn't keep them waiting. Instead the opposite happened. Shortly after we booked the flight which was due to get in around 11:30am we found out the family would be arriving at 5pm. We therefore spent the entire afternoon cosied up in our blankets on a bench outside of Arrivals playing chess, trying to nap and using it as an excuse to eat McDonalds. There should have been plenty of time to visit and explore the city for the day and be back in time to meet them but with our big old bags it wasn't really a possibility, or at least we didn't fancy it, we were knackered having got up at 4am to get to Madrid airport.

Tired airport faces

In any case eventually the time passed at it is prone to do and we successfully met them and everyone was happy to see each other. We hopped on the train heading for Bielefeld, dad insisted we have a beer or two and we all had a good catch up.
Never having been particularly confident with people meeting extended family is always a bit of an awkward business for me (imagine my shock when on the first time meeting Sarah's parents I also met her grandparents, great aunty and family friends on the same day) and arriving at our hotel was no exception. Thankfully Mum and Dad made for a good encyclopedia of the extended Wellmer family and friends. Once my initial awkwardness had started to subside and things became a little more relaxed it was good to see everyone again. Time for schnitzel and more beer.

There was of course an entire role reversal for Sarah and I. For the past 2 months every time someone had spoken to us I'd helplessly turned to Sarah for an explanation and translation of what had been said but now it was the other way round. The problem was that I was not used to being in the role of translator and I still turned to her with the same motion as before expecting her to have understood everything. Much to her understandable annoyance. I got better at it eventually.
Also swapping from Hola to Hallo is a absolute dyslexic nightmare.

The evening after the funeral service bit by bit people started heading their separate ways again and we prepared for a weekend with the Koepps (sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew) and the Aacheners (uncle, aunty and cousins) on the German-Dutch border at a small collection of guesthouses/converted farm houses in the countryside. We spent the next couple of days going on walks through the fields, BBQing, sleeping, playing games and fighting mosquitoes. It was an excellent weekend and a proper chance to unwind and have a catch up with everyone.

We spent one of the days at a lake an hour or so drive from Hoeve de Linde. Uncle Micha said I could drive his car there (with Mum, Dad and Sarah as passengers). I figured he must be joking, entrusting me with such a nice new car. There are certain times, especially when I'm surrounded by family that I forget that I'm actually (supposedly) an adult rather than still a child and am therefore confused when people treat me like a grown up. I think by default I asked mum and dad's permission if I was allowed to drive the car. In any case Micha very generously wasn't joking and he was quite happy for me to drive; thank you, uncle. Fortunately with him leading the way in their car and mum helping me navigate I didn't have to think too hard and the trip went smoothly, even if I did occasionally slam my left hand expecting to find the gear stick and but instead being greeted by the door handle. But anyway not bad for my first time driving on the wrong right side of the road. Sarah and Dad's white knuckles however told a different story.

A successful drive, a day at a beautiful lake and finished with a Spaghetti Eis. What's better?


(A note to myself, Phase 10, which Sarah and I played with Lena and Kolja is a game I definitely want to remember and play again).

Soon enough it was time to leave again and say goodbye to the family once more, this time for more than 7 weeks. For us we were heading to Friedburg for a week with the Koepps. Sarah took the car with them and I waited for the bus to Frankfurt and train to Frieburg as the car was full. It was strange, this was the first time in 7 weeks that we had spent more than a few minutes apart from one another. I would like to have joked that it was pure bliss but it ended up being quite a boring journey instead. Probably a good sign of things to come I guess.



Until then,
Bob

One crazy week: Seville and Madrid

Seville: 16th - 22nd August 2016

Burning up in Southern Spain:

There are only so many different ways I can describe how hot a Spanish summer is and yet Seville was still hotter than that. If you visit a place where even the locals struggle with the heat then you stand no chance. What are you meant to do when it's 40degrees at 4 in the afternoon? Well, hide I guess, which is pretty much what we did.

Beautiful streets of Seville

Fortunately our tiny little room in our new Bnb had along with its tiny desk and tiny old rickety wooden bunkbed a tiny little balcony just big enough for 2 child sized stools. Shaded from the sun by the blocks of flats on either side it made a perfect place to sit in the mornings and eat our breakfast, which for most of the week consisted of Lidl's pastries. The balcony also helped cool the room down from unbearably hot to just incredible hot but on the plus side at least there were no fake satin sheets on this bed.
Our friendly and chatty hosts, Fatima and her mum  were also hosting Pat a Bostonian who had just moved to Seville with a marketing job. Although he was learning his Spanish by this point was not hugely better than mine and our hosts spoke no English either so fair play to the guy for sticking it out. For us it was quite a nice break as it gave us someone else to talk to. Sarah could communicate well with everyone we came across whereas I could only understand some basic Spanish and ask some rudimentary questions, beyond this I hadn't had a conversation with anyone but Sarah since first arriving in Spain a month before hand and so talking with a native English speaker was very refreshing.

With two people on one budget double rooms are almost always cheaper than the cost of 2 beds in a dormitory. The result is that we almost always stay at hotels and guesthouses over hostels which is nicer as it gives us privacy but you never really end up meeting anyone.Unlike in previous cities on our trip so far this time round we didn't visit museums and such attractions but spent most of our time walking the streets of the beautiful old town with its winding roads, large stone buildings, expansive parks while dodging the bikes, trams and horse drawn carriages. The discovery of an unexpected and poorly advertised Hard Rock Cafe (#2 of the trip) gave us the perfect excuse to have a Sundae.

As far as I'm aware Seville is known for 2 things: oranges and flamenco. Sadly we were there the wrong time of year to see any actual oranges in bloom on the numerous oranges trees which lined most streets but thankfully flamenco isn't so seasonal. Thanks to excellent detective work by Sarah we found a cosy little venue - half bar half builders yard - which had a free nightly flamenco performance. From what we could find this was the only free show in the city as every other bar which had a flamenco dances in the evening required tickets for entry. The result was a very fun (and cheap) evening watching Flamenco and drinking beers and wine which ended with what Sarah believes to be the best Kebab she's ever eaten and I'm not sure I disagree with her either.

Sarah's added: The most important part of our trip to Seville was when I came across the biggest cockroach I've ever seen. It was the same colour as my bag so I managed to nearly touch it, scream, run out the room and nearly lock Bob in with it. We then spent the afternoon with our host shouting a lot of 'cucarachaaaaa', spraying a lot of bug killer and smacking it with shoes. It's OK - we survived to tell the tale. 

Bad news and sad news:
During this week we found out after over a month of waiting that our landlady from our Cardiff flat wanted to take 715 pounds from our 725pounds deposit. This news followed the estate agent's review of our flat which found nothing wrong and only 2 incidences where the extra cleaning might be needed. Having quit our jobs either of us an income so this quantity of money was hugely important to us, needless to say it made our hearts sink and infuriated us beyond belief, especially considering the effort that had gone into cleaning the place before we left (thank you again Malcolm and Sharon for helping us out there). This email started a process which didn't get resolved until November after 100 of emails, facebook messages and phone calls. Thankfully in the end *spoiler* we got it all back.

The following day I received far worse news from mum and dad. Sadly my Opa Hans had passed away which came as quite a shock. Wishing not to dwell on this, we cut short our trip to Seville and headed to Madrid to catch a flight to Germany for the funeral.

We ended our week in Seville with a few beers with Pat in TGI Fridays. It's disappointing how easily I get hangovers these days...Before our flight to Germany we had given ourselves one full day to explore Madrid and so that's what we did. At very high speed.

Madrid - 22nd - 24th August

After a long bus journey from Seville to Madrid with a hangover from hell we spent the afternoon around our Bnb chilling and planning the next day:

Madrid in a day: All things considered I think we did pretty well. Madrid is big and I'm fairly sure we managed a decent chunk of it. Gardens, palaces, ramblas, squares, a viewpoint/tower and of course a Sundae in Hard Rock (#3 of the trip). We even treated ourselves to a metro pass for the day so we didn't have to travel everywhere on foot; absolute luxury. In the evening we headed back to the royal palace where we had started the day since we had found out that for an hour or so before the palace closed entry was totally free instead of costing the normal 11Euros per person. We thought it was a good idea but apparently so did everyone one else visiting and living in Madrid. The queue for Palace stretched out of the box office, across the plaza then over and around the step of the cathedral opposite, but living up to our cultural stereotype we stood in line and stoically queued despite the heat and our tiredness until we were let in. For a free tour the queue was definitely worth it. Decadent and ostentatious are the two words that came to mind when walking around the palace, with every consecutive room the chandeliers seemed to grow larger and the clocks more numerous.

After a while our empty stomachs, dry mouths and London feet begged for us to quit the palace and head home. Madrid is a big beautiful city, so different from Pamplona where we'd started our travels seemingly so long before, but now it was time to move on, Time for Germany.

Until then,
                 Bob

If you ever needed proof of the heat

Alhambra, heat and not much else.

Granada 9th-16th August 2016

How we discovered that you don't want to stay long in Granada...

Having finally spotted a reasonably priced (for our budget) AirBnb at only 10GBP a night we jumped at the chance and following the pattern we had created for ourselves we went ahead and booked a week in Granada. Considering the price the place turned out to be excellent, it was a 2 bedroom student-like flat with kitchen and living about 20 minutes walk from the centre and as an added bonus the second bedroom which was also rented out to Airbnb'ers was empty for most of the week. The flat did however have a couple of major downfalls, things that would have been manageable had we been staying for a night or so but after a week it started to grow old. The entire flat had one desk fan to cool it down meaning there wasn't much stopping the 38degrees+ heat outside from coming within and to top it off the owner had decided on using fake satin sheets for the bed; the result was a bed that rather than absorbing your sweat during the night instead irradiated it back at us leaving us stewing in a puddle of our sweat by morning...noice. The other drawback was the lack of Wi-Fi. Now admittedly this shouldn't really be an issue; we had just arrived at a new city and were only there for a week, surely there should be plenty of things to do and see to take up our time. You would think so, but sadly not.

Granada does look lovely from the Alhambra though

One of the reasons I've spent so much time complaining about the flat in this entry is because there isn't much else to write about our time in Granada and anyone who's been to the city can attest to the lack of things to do there, especially over the period of the week. This was why having no Wi-Fi was a pain in the ass. Consequently we are a little ashamed to admit we ended up spending far too many ours in the local supermarket and burger king stealing the free internet (and of course playing lots of chess) - there is a limit to the amount of time you can spend in bars (apparently). Not our most productive week, but hey we learned a lesson: don't book a whole week in advance, book a few days and extended if need be. Kind of obvious advice in retrospect.

There is of course the one big attraction in Granada and the reason why we headed there in the first place: Alhambra, a place we were actually pretty lucky to get into. It never occurred to us to check the ticket situation for Alhambra as we figured we would be able to buy them no the door. Nope. They need to be booked in advance and are only valid on a specific day, for a specific time slot and every single ticket was sold out for the week we were there. Bugger. Fortunately for ask after inquiring at the tourist information centre we were told that across town there was a ticket office for Alhambra which re-sold previously cancelled tickets meaning there was still a chance however limited. With the office scheduled to close soon after we headed across town at speed, found the office which was recognisable by the line of tourists doing exactly the same as us and after a moment of queuing we were luckily presented with 2 tickets for the next morning. 
And so the next morning we were up and out the house by 6:30, for once we were outside before the sun was hot enough to melt our faces off and we began our trek up to Alhambra.

The Alhambra was incredible. A myriad of cool buildings and structures with intricate details on every surface imaginable. Everything had we planned and built to a T, even the conservation effort that has gone into preserving the medieval complex is fantastic. There are only so many ways I can describe these cool Arabic buildings so instead I will just show you the photos. After 3 hours of wondering around our eyes had had their fill, our feet were knackered and our stomachs were empty so we did the only thing we knew to do: Pub.

Infamous Piononos

Piononos. This strange sounding word was Granadas signature food, where Valencia had Horchata and Catalonia had Fartons Granada had Piononos. After seeing them advertised everywhere by every baker in town we finally tried one and despite this little dessert being utterly delicious I still to this day have no idea what it is. They are some sort of cakey dough rolled up like a cinnamon bun, dripping in some sort of juice or sauce and a type of icing on top. Strange but delicious.

According to Wikipedia: Piononos have two parts: a thin layer of pastry rolled into a cylinder, fermented with different kinds of syrup which give the pionono a sweet and pleasant texture, crowned with toasted cream. It is typically eaten in one or two bites." ...If that is any less ambigous.

With Einstein outside the planetarium

The Planetarium was the only other thing of note we did during the week, supposing that visiting lots of bars doesn't count. It was a simple planetarium screen attached to a science museum at the far end of town where we watched an interesting short film about MC Escher, his creations and how we was influenced by the designs found at the Alhambra. Of course it was all in Spanish so I understood an unsurprisingly little amount but it was very visually interesting nonetheless.

Finally the week was over and at least we had had a chance to do some planning for the future during our 4 hour Burger King session and next up on the agenda was Seville.

Until then,

                     Bob

Back to the beach: Valencia

Valencia: 2/08/16-9/08/16

Following an incredible time in Castellar del Valles, where we experienced hospitality like we'd never known before, we headed to Valencia via Barcelona. Like in every other public transport station we'd been to in Spain nobody in Barcelona train station seemed to have any clue as where and when to wait and go and so by standing and staring at the departures board in total confusion we incidentally formed a long queue of other confused passengers behind us. The journey itself was magnificent, a smooth quiet high speed train journey that hugged the Mediterranean coastline almost the entire way, what a view!

Forming an orderly queue

Valencia as a city has an excellent combination new and old with (more) sprawling, narrow streets in the old town walls and a riverbed converted into a garden which runs the length of the city towards a very modern attraction park and harbour and thanks to Alberto, my friend and former housemate, who comes from Valencia and as such gave us an extensive list of things to see and places to visit.

Excited to be here

Having had my first taste of swimming in the Med in Tarragona before being pulled away from it for a few weeks I was eager to get back to it now that we were once more on the coast. We were also aware that this would be our last chance to swim before Goa in India which was well over a month away. However getting to the beach from our cosy little BnB was no easy task. Not wanting to get the metro and a tram into the city (something we did on the following occasion) we set out to walk the distance. By google maps' reckoning the journey was a chilled 2km walk down a small country road which lead right to the beach. The realty however found us being beaten into the tarmac by the midday sun while attempting to navigate and dodge speeding Spanish drivers who had just veered off a motorway and onto our narrow pavement-less country path lined on either side by irrigation ditches. After much hesitation we reached our sandy destination just about in one piece and it was without doubt worth it. The soft sandy beach ran for miles in either direction and despite us arriving near a hotel resort it was surprisingly bereft of people. What more could you want? We sat, we swam, we slept, we sizzled.
Mum and Dad who had visited Valencia a few years before us had insisted that we should explore the city by bike and they were right to be so insistent. We hired a couple of (very hard saddled) bikes for the day and set off. We started in the park to the north of the city and followed it round to the south stopping at various points to admires the sites. Coasting along the paths, weaving through trees, other cyclists and kids playing football

Science museum or Trumps hair?

with the breeze on our faces...whilst still sweating bollocks buckets! We reached a complex of very modern buildings including an aquarium, science museum and an empty opera house which I still think looks like caricature of Donald Trump's head and hair (in fact that's probably why it's empty). It was when we were exploring this area that we encountered our first hoard.

Up until this point in time we had seen a few of them roaming about the streets of Spain, Pamplona, Tarragona, Barcelona, everywhere we'd been we'd spotted them. You could tell them a mile off by how they moved but it had only ever been one of two of them at a time, not this like. Never like this. Wondering around this complex of building we came across the hoard, a huge mass of children, teenagers and young adults. At first it looked like a school trip until we got nearer to them. Standing completely still and in dead silence, failing to look forward or communicate at all with their surroundings. Pokemon Go really was popular!!

We headed for the beach and spent a few more hours swimming and sunbathing before going in search of a cafe which Mum and Dad fond memories of. All we had to go on was a photo of the place and doing so our best Sherlock Holmes impressions we cycled around the port matching clues from the photo to our surroundings. Eventually finding the location of this cafe, we were gutted to find it a shell of it's former self. The entire place had been gutted; all that remained was it's shell.

We've come across a few towns with canals and waterways running through them and attached to these towns we've invariable heard someone dub them "Venice of the North/East/South/West". Port Saplaya was no different. The little beach and port area along the coast to the north of the city had a small series of canals forming the boat park for the local residence. Calling it Little Venice is perhaps a little grandiose but it was admittedly very beautiful; terraced rows of brightly coloured houses all crammed in and sitting just metres from the water's edge.

Everything we had encountered in Valencia and Spain in general - from food to people - had been excellent that was until we encountered Horchata. We had had a quick taste of this whilst in Castellar and our memories from that sample were fond ones. We were however horrified to discover that Horchata, the drink local to Valencia (made from tiger nuts) was in it's true original form utterly nasty, the taste of which still haunts Sarah's palette to this very day. From our arrival in the city we had been meaning to sit down and have a glass from a Horchateria and it wasn't until the morning of our final day in Valencia (before we left for the bus) that we sat down and bought ourselves some. Needless to say we couldn't empty our glasses and the taste stayed, cloying in our throats all the way to Granada.

Until then,

      Bob

Ginebra, Vino Tinto y más Jamón!

Castellar des Valles: 20/07/16 - 02/08/16

Getting very spoiled in the beautiful Castellar...

So although Bob's written most of the blogs about Spain, I thought I'd write this one as for 2 weeks we stayed with my ex-colleagues (Montse) parents (who didn't speak English, so it was me mainly translating for Bob - although he did practice some Spanish with them). It was so nice of them to let us stay, as I'd only known Montse in work for a few months. We were originally going to help out in their shop/rotisserie but they said they were OK for help but we could still stay. 

With Montse overlooking the Costa Brava

They had a lovely house in a small town about an hour from Barcelona. Montse and Pablo, our hosts, were so welcoming and we felt so at home with them. They wouldn't let us pay for anything and in true Spanish style had a constant stream of food and drink for us. We started the two weeks by being taken to Montse and Pablo's food stall in the local supermarket, and being bought wine and jamon - not a bad start!! 

Castellar is a sweet little town - it has a small town centre which we walked around a couple of towns, with a few shops, supermarket and cafes. We enjoyed some pastries for breakfast and generally just soaked up the sun. They also had a small inflatable pool that they'd just bought so we used that quite a lot as well, to try to escape the insane midday sun. We also enjoyed their lovely food most days, and were taken to visit their weekend shop a couple blocks away, where they sell rotisserie chickens and side dishes for people's Sunday lunches. We were lucky enough to try this one day and yup, it was delicious! 

Gin!

Pablo was also, like us (but maybe to a bit more of a higher level), a gin (or 'ginebra') enthusiast. It was amazing to see his impressive gin collection and even get to try some with him. He had maybe 5 or 6 different types of gin, and some interesting flavourings to go with them. I think I had red berry, and it was so good!! It was pretty nice to sit out on their balcony, sipping gin and watching the sunset (not a bad life really). 

I think the food and drink was one of the main highlights of this part of our trip (except for their amazing hospitality, of course). Most nights they drove us to a town about half an hour outside, either Sabadell or Terrassa, where we had a walk around the main plaza or park and then sat down for some tapas and drinks. We had so much sangria in our time there, we had to have a detox whilst in India!! The food they also gave us was amazing, all the side dishes (like fried potatoes, croquettes and pasta) that Montse made were delicious. We ate way too much but it was all so good, and so kind of them to treat us. 

They also took us on a few day trips whilst we were there:

Montserrat Mountain:

View from Montserrat

We took the windy road (cue my car sickness) up to the top of Montserrat (meaning Mount Saw/Serrated - due to the teeth like jagged mountain top), which is Montse and her mum's name sake, as well as the name sake of a lot of the girls in the region. It was beautiful, and there is a monastery you can visit which is built into the side of this mountain. The views were incredible, and if you have more time I think you can also do a hike around, or take the vernacular up and down. Pablo wasn't a fan of heights though, so we drove. 

Parque Tibidabo:

We met Montse and Pablo's other daughter, Sonia and her husband and daughter (Emma) when we were there, and they were also really nice. They had a couple spare tickets to a big themepark on the top of Mount Tibidabo (made famous by the show Friends and which I didn't think actually existed), which came packed with rollercoasters and waterslides. We had a really fun day going on all the rides (and me screaming a lot) and were very grateful that they took us with them. The top of the park has a huge viewpoint, which is pretty much a box which moves up and looks over Barcelona - it was so incredibly high. I think this is where I developed my fear of heights, as I hung onto Bob the whole way up, only peeking to see the view! I've added a photo for clarification...

Barcelona:

We did our own day trip to Barca from M&P's house, to do some more touristy things. We went to the Parque Guell again and actually got in this time, which was cool. We did the long walk up the hill to the top so we saw the beautiful views. We also went up on the cable car which takes you to the top of another hill, where again you can see the city. We walked around a lot, as we normally do in cities to save money on transport, and it's also always nice to see different parts of a city. It was a long day (city days usually are), and we spent waaay too much money, but it was fun to be a tourist! 

Costa Brava and Girona:

M&P also took us for a day trip up north, to the incredible Costa Brava, and to the city of Girona. The city is beautiful - still full of classic old buildings and cobbled streets that run along the river. It's also the set for some scenes in Game of Thrones which was cool for us to see! We had some more tapas in a cafe and Pablo told us some stories about the city. The cathedral and churches were so pretty, I'd love to go back some day. 

On the way home we visited an old village, which still looked very medieval. It was all brick, and covered in beautiful flowers, and overlooked some really nice countryside. It was peaceful just walking around and taking in the views. 

We also saw some of the coast during the day. It was amazing - tiny little streets leading down to the white beaches, and restaurants sat right on the coast. They took us for a delicious (and classic) paella, which was amazing, and even Bob (seafood hater) had some and maybe even enjoyed it a bit?! The views here were crazy, and it's like something out of a film. We walked up and down the beach and went for an icecream, and I may have fallen asleep in the car on the way back!  

All in all we really enjoyed our time in Castellar - relaxing in the pool, filling up on food/drinks and exploring the region. We are so grateful to Montse and Pablo for having us and can't thank them enough for their hospitality - we hope to see them again when they visit Montse in Cardiff!! Gracias!! 

Ciao, Sarah

PS: Here is the classic quote from Friends about Mount Tibidabo ...