Last year, Diane and I got our first taste of the week-long skiing holiday, and it wasn’t a secret that we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. So we were excited about returning to the Austrian mountains for another go. Extensive ski terrain, weiss beer, mulled wine, apres ski, schnitzel, and four course gourmet meals awaited us! We departed Dublin early in the morning on January 15th on Austrian airlines. Like last year, there was free food and drinks on our three hour flight to Innsbruck airport. We were greeted by our ski rep there, who introduced us to our driver: a profusely apologetic gentleman who arrived late in a too-small vehicle to fit the five of us who were going to St Anton. He was very friendly, and we squished our group into the little car for the one-hour transfer to the resort.
On the Mountain
We arrived at the resort with plenty of time to sort out picking up our lift tickets and ski rentals. We could hit the hill first thing the next morning! So after sorting all that out, our group of 5 (Jay, Bryce, Jeremy, and Diane and I) hit the pub to kick off our trip! A few weiss beer later we stumbled back up to our hotel for our first dinner of the trip. The three others were staying in a hotel in the town center, but it had filled up before we booked so we ended up in a hotel that was a 15 minute walk up a steep hill. The hotel was lovely, just not the most convenient place to get to every evening after hanging in town. Fortunately, the hotel had a deal with one of the rental shops where we could store our gear, so a few walks up and down the hill was actually just good exercise rather than painful at the end of a long day of skiing.
The first full day there was a gorgeous sunny day — which was just a tad too warm even for skiing. The temperature in town was something like 7-8 degrees, with the temperature higher up the mountain still above zero. One of the immediately apparent things that differed from our trip to Mayrhofen was that the bottom of the actual skiing terrain was the town. That meant that there wasn’t a giant gondola queue both first thing in the morning and last thing on the way down, and it made for a more pleasant experience. Speaking of queues … we didn’t wait in one longer than about 5minutes for the whole week, and there were no queues to speak of at most of the lifts. It was a remarkably smooth operation with an incredible 85 gondolas and lifts – many being high speed quads or better!
Our week there coincided with Interski, which is a conference of ski instructors that only happens every four years. So our first day there we quite enjoyed seeing the various teams walking or skiing in matching bright coloured jackets of their respective countries. Of particular note was the Finnish blue jackets that were *everywhere*. Contingents from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Romania, Norway, Japan, Korea, and Montenegro were just some of the flashy teams we saw. Canada had a team there, we understand, but we didn’t actually see any of them on the parts of the hill we were on during the week. Our second night there marked the opening ceremonies so we headed down to see a bunch of cool synchronized skiing demonstrations and were treated to a lengthy fireworks display.
Schindler Spitze View
The second day of skiing took us up, in particular, Schindler’s Spitze which reaches 2660m elevation. This peak is accessible using one of the few triple chairs on the mountain, and featured a trippy moment when you go over a local maximum in the mountain and the left side right underneath your chair cuts away to a several hundred meter drop. The view from that peak was incredible (as you can see in the picture above), and the skiing was pretty good too (although a bit icy). We met for lunch with everyone at the top of the Galzigbahn, which is the first main gondola you can take from town, and had our first schnitzel of the trip (but not the last!) After our day on the slopes, we skiied down to Mooserwirtz – one of several on-hill apres ski places pumping loud German oktoberfest-favourite songs both in and outside. We found some spots to sit down on the crowded benches and were promptly our choice of beer (lager or weiss), warm beverages (mulled wine or jagertee), or even ready to go jagerbombs (small jagermeister glass bottles uncapped and sitting in a glass with red bull). The waiters carried something like 30 drinks on large trays through the crowded atmosphere and somehow still managed to not spill or break anything. I was impressed! Diane and I fled apres ski early to make sure we stowed our gear in the storage area before they locked up for the night, and climbed back up our hill to have some dinner. The rest of the guys kept going pretty late into the night!
Foggy Gondola Ride
The next morning, Diane and I were up early in relation to the other guys, so we headed up the mountain on our own — this time taking two large gondolas and then a third 6-man viewpoint gondola all the way to the top of Valluga. This is the highest mountain in the resort at 2811m, and offers an incredible 360 degree panoramic view of the Austrian alps! It was pretty breathtaking. After viewing there, we started a long ski down all the way back to town. We hopped on Rendelbahn, which is the other main gondola from St Anton going to a peak opposite the main skiing area — and met the other guys there for a late lunch. It was an enjoyable long skiout from that peak back down to town.
That night we ended up at Arl Rock: a multi-sport facility offering bowling, rock climbing (both indoor and out), squash, indoor tennis, and ping pong. We spent some time bowling a bit. Bowling in Austria is a bit different from what we’re used to: there are 9 pins arranged in a diamond configuration. It made knocking them all down in one go quite a bit tougher than 10-pin bowling in my experience. The bartender there was a girl from Canada who met her heli-skiing boyfriend/fiance in the Yukon and moved over with him … so it was kind of cool to meet a random Canadian there. We were slightly jealous of her chance to live and ski in the Austrian alps!
Dance Party on Vallugabahn Gondola
The next day we decided to catch a bus to the ski region that was only accessible via lifts from the neighbouring towns of Zurs and Lech. The sunny weather came to an end that morning and was replaced fog and clouds. On the one hand it was a pity to see the beautiful sunny weather end, but the slopes badly needed some new snow so it was good to get some again! Anyways, we hopped on a bus and ended up in Lech. Our first couple runs of the day weren’t very enjoyable as we couldn’t see where we were going … so Diane and I, having been separated from the rest of the group, stopped for a quick bite to eat at one of the mid-mountain hotel/chalets. Fortunately, while the snow continued, the fog cleared enough to offer some visibility and we got some excellent skiing back in that area. In fact, I would go as far as saying it was some of the best powder I’ve ever skiied on an on-piste run! Deep fresh powder, and for some reason, there was a high speed octa-chair way in the back corner of the resort. Yeesh.
Our skiout from Lech after meeting up with Jeremy and Jay for lunch (and yet another different gondola ride) was unfortunately through fog, which made the skiout pretty tough. But we made it down to the bus station safely and returned to St Anton happy with a pretty successful day trip in the books.
Thursday was deemed a non-ski day. I had some significant bruises on my legs that I wanted to give some time to heal, so we spent the day wandering around town a bit and doing some shopping before going back up the three gondolas to the top of Valluga with the SLR camera to get some more pictures of the panoramic scenery.
Lighted Tree at Mooserwirtz Apres Ski
Our final day there I was determined to get some more skiing in, but we started a bit late and did some of our favourite runs of the week on the main hill before turning our equipment in to the rental shop. We then took a bus back up to moosers for another go at apres ski. The temperature had dropped quite a bit, so we ended up sneaking inside and finding ourselves a table there next to some Irish skiers from Cork. Much merriment ensued – including some weird shots that involved a layer of whipped cream above some sort of warm liqueur.
The flight out the next morning was entirely too early (an 8am flight, with a one hour drive prior to that …), but it got us home in good time. It was a magnificent trip, and quite fun. More pictures will be on flickr when I catchup in my backlog. I’ve got several events to catchup with here though, so it might be a little while before they’re up!
Morgan
So … it has been quite awhile since we last posted here. Life has been insanely busy in the last couple months, and sadly this blog has been forgotten about.
Let’s try to catch you up on what we’ve been up to, shall we? After our Prague trip, we spent a weekend in London with my mom and dad. This might come as a surprise, but despite living just a one-hour plane trip from London for almost two years, we hadn’t yet spent any time there that wasn’t spent in the airport. So this was our first trip there to actually see anything there. We spent most of Saturday visiting the Hampton Court palace. It was a nice place to visit with a mix of architecture, art, history, and gardens.
The other day in London we mostly spent walking around central london. We walked around St. James Park, saw Buckingham Palace from the outside, saw the London eye, walked around in China town for awhile. It was a pretty nice weekend — not too fast paced but we still saw a bunch. On the way home, we almost missed our flight by slightly underestimating the time it would take to train it to Gatwick airport. Luckily, we didn’t need to check any bags, and a bit of stressful running through the airport found us at our gate before anyone had boarded yet.
The weekend after London we went up to Bundoran for surfing classes. That weekend, there was a big music festival on called “Sea Sessions”. So our weekend involved going to surfing lessons in the morning, and then heading to the festival to listen to some live music and enjoy some tasty beverages. The festival itself was kind of fun, although I didn’t really know any of the bands. Probably the highlight was the battle of the bands. There was some pretty talented bands there and I enjoyed most of their sets. It was also the second time we’d been up to Bundoran for surfing, and our 3rd and 4th lessons went pretty well. By partway through the last one, we were starting to figure out turning. Maybe with a few more lessons we’ll be pro surfers!
On Canada Day, a pub in town called the Woolshed threw a party that we decided to attend. They served molson canadian, moosehead, and sleemans at the bar (in bottles and cans), played the men’s and women’s gold medal hockey games from the most recent olympics on the televisions, and had a Canadian DJ playing tunes from Canadian bands like Great Big Sea, The Tragically Hip, Our Lady Peace, etc etc. It was pretty fun.
One of our friends, Jess, arrived in Dublin for a few days. On the weekend, we went up to Howth to walk along the cliffs and see the market up there. We had a nice lunch there and watched the seals being fed in the harbour. It was a nice little visit.
The summer really flew by in a hurry!
Morgan
On our May long weekend (May 8-10th), Diane and I decided that it had been too long since our last trip, and since it was a long weekend it was an opportune moment to hop in the car and check out an area of the Irish countryside we hadn’t yet gotten to. One of the main touristy areas we hadn’t gotten to yet was the Ring of Kerry, in South-West Ireland.
So on Saturday morning, we hopped in our car and started down in the direction of Killarney. It’s a pretty long drive! It probably took us well in excess of 4 hours to get there, and since we slept in and packed that morning we didn’t actually get on the road until almost noon. The roads in Ireland are pretty high variance: there are now quite a few fancy new motorways available, but once you get off of those the road quality can quickly degrade into roads that you really can’t drive very fast on. Most of the way out though, the roads were pretty good, so that was good.
We stopped to check in at our B&B – a little house a few minutes drive outside of Killarney. Our host kindly informed us that Killarney was particularly busy that weekend due to a motor rally happening nearby. Forewarned, we headed into town and took a quick pre-dinner walk into Killarney National park before heading off to find some food. Not sure where to eat, we consulted our handy Ireland lonely planet guide and it recommended a restaurant called Bricín which we were fortunate to get a table at since it was booked up later that evening. The food was absolutely delicious! A great way to start off our trip.
We returned to our B&B early since we wanted to get an early start on the next day. The day was a bit rainy and windy at the start, but after being on the road for a little bit the sun came out and the day was absolutely gorgeous. We started the day by stopping off at Muckross house which is part of Killarney national park. The house has some really nice gardens including an extensive arboretum which was quite pretty. Lots of mossy trees and flowering trees!
Our next stop along the ring of Kerry was the Torc waterfall, which conveniently enough is just a few minutes walk from the road. The waterfall is just part of a larger hike which we might need to go back and do at a later time. But we had a lot to see that day, so we didn’t really have time to spend a couple hours hiking. So on we went, next taking a quick stop at “the ladies view” which is a nice viewpoint from the road over the hills and lakes. The place gets its name because of the “pleasure expressed by Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting on their visit in 1861 in that spot”. It is indeed a very pretty view.
Not too far from there, we stopped at Molls’ gap and the Avoca cafe stationed there for a small lunch. From there, it was a fairly short drive to Kenmare which the guidebook said had a stone circle to see, so we did! We also made stops at the Staigue Stone fort (an old ring fort overlooking some stunning scenery) and at the viewpoint at Coomakeesta pass which offers an absolutely incredible view from the road. The road is up high with green rolling hills dropping below us and spreading out dramatically right out to eh rugged coastline. For us, this was probably the highlight of the very scenic ring of kerry drive.
Our stop for the night was a town called Cahersiveen, which is a lovely little town. We got there pretty early so instead of going to dinner right away we wandered around the town a bit, finding not only the giant Daniel O’ Connell memorial church but also an old abbey that had long since fallen into disrepair. So much so that there was a whole bunch of vines growing in and through the bricks. Pretty neat … Dinner that night was at the seafood restaurant QC’s. Another really good meal!
On the Sunday we decided to call and see if there was any space left on a boat headed to the Skelligs: two craggy rocky islands shooting out from the ocean off the coast of Ireland. Apparently, getting on one of the boats in the summer is pretty tough, but they were just getting going for the season so we got a spot. Nice! So on Monday morning we found ourselves on a boat at 10am heading on a 50 minute boat ride to Skellig Michael. The water was calm and lovely, and we were soon climbing the hundreds of steps up to the top.
The skellig’s stairs were numerous and it took quite awhile to climb them. The view from the top was sure worth it though! Near the top there is some beehive style huts set up – apparently there was a small group of people who used to live there a long time ago. I can’t imagine it though.
After a couple of hours climbing around, we got back on the boat. The boat operator took us by the other skellig which no one is allowed to land on — it is reserved as a bird sanctuary … and my oh my there were a lot of birds!!! We didn’t just see the birds though – there were also some spotted seals sunning themselves on the rocks! The waves were pretty choppy on the way back, so we were given yellow raincoats to prevent us from getting soaked.
Having made it back to port safely, we were now facing a multi-hour drive back to Dublin, so we started high tailing it back. We stopped in Limerick on the way for dinner at a pub recommended from our handy tour guide… and the food was pretty awesome for pub food.
Not much else to say about our trip. We got back to Dublin pretty late and basically fell into bed after a good long weekend trip! We’re going to have to do another one of these trips in the near future — there’s so much to see down there.
Morgan
Wednesday was particularly awesome because all of us went up Ahorn together.
Lemme backtrack for a sec though. Morgan wasn’t kidding about those first few days making you stiff and sore, so my Tuesday (or Day 3) was spent at my own pace on familiar Penken runs in the morning and in town with Bea in the afternoon. We strolled through the village, grabbed a snack – oh weißwurst, how I love you! – and read in the hotel solarium until it was time to soak, eat and bowl!
But Wednesday was good because the sun was shining (again!) and the Glüwien was flowing and Christine gave lessons to whoever wanted. (Pick me! Pick me!) And I got to see the ski-out, which had some very lovely scenery and more après-ski at the end. We caught a somewhat fortuitous/somewhat unfortunate bus, which left right away and passed very near our hotel, but which did not pass our way again after we missed our stop.
We ended up taking a taxi from the train station, where the bus route terminated. Then more sauna/swimming/steaming and more wonderful soup with supper. By this point the stiffness of the first days was leaving. Three cheers for the steam room and sauna!
Evening… lemme see… probably spent at Mo’s. That was the bar on the corner closest to our hotel. We discovered a few beers and mixes that were new to me at least. Would you believe I had my first Jäger bomb at Mo’s?
Thursday was a “ski-away day” at Hintertux, half an hour away. We got on a bus that wound it’s way past dwellings with stacks of firewood to the first of three gondolas that get you up to a snow-covered glacier. Included with this were three guided groups (slow, medium, fast) you could join. Morgan and most of the rest went down all the runs they could, including an absolutely epic T-bar (I saw a shorter one that disappeared into the distance) that they agreed led to their favorite run of the day. I joined the slow group and skied over the glacier in the morning, and then in the afternoon, took a tour under the snow and inside the ice itself. The layers and ice formations were quite pretty, and it was neat to see it from above and below. In the cafeteria, we discovered the tasty Tyrolean gröstl – pan-fried potatoes and onions and sausage with a fried egg on top.
As night fell we were to be found once again at Mo’s, where salsa night was going strong. It was a fairly early night for me, as we had one more day left and had to make the most of it on the hill. Morgan stayed up late to watch the women’s gold medal hockey game.
Friday came so fast. The last day. So sad! And yet so good because even though it was raining in town and visibility was a bit poor on the mountain in the morning, there was fresh snow just for us – what Christine calls “freshies”. In fact, it appeared that lots of people were dissuaded by the vis and came down early, leaving more mountain for those of us without hangovers. Morgan, Christine, Aaron, and Breece took down the “Hara-kiri” – advertised as a groomed run of 78 degree average pitch (I hear they use cables and winches to groom it.) – just to say they did. Apparently they didn’t find it terribly vertical, but the morning mist and snow made it less fun than it might have been. Just as well I met up with them at lunch. And lunch at the Schneekarhütte (top of the Shcneekar lift) was pretty posh. There was this bacon `n’ egg pizza with a super tasty hollandaise-esque sauce. Mmm! (We want to go back!) I spent the afternoon with Morgan and he showed me some runs he had enjoyed. All too soon we were on the last run home, but we were tired, it had been a good week, and it wasn’t too crowded on the gondola. We watched as we descended down through the mist, toward an invisible base.
One last dip in the pool, one more sauna session… I totally miss having steam rooms, pools, saunas, and plated dinners brought to me whenever I show up in the dining room. Friday’s dinner was just the two of us. So romantic! Everyone else fancied steak that night, so the dessert buffet was ours! We went to Mo’s with everyone for a few nightcaps and then we called it a night, though some of the lads stayed out über late. Well, I called it a night for a while. Morgan stayed up to watch semi-final Olympic men’s hockey (Canada v. Slovakia), and I woke up at the end of the first period of a game that could have gone either way and was really exciting. Plus, between the periods, there was coverage of speed skating events that worked out for a bunch of Kanadischens (that’s us) as well. Totally worth not going to sleep until 4 or 5 or whatever it was. Kind of cool, actually, to watch the Olympics from an area that’s hosted so many competitions and Olympic events.
And the next day we got our sorry (yet vicariously victorious) selves up and breakfasted and checked out. Going home is always a bit sad, but it was mid-day on the way back to the airport, so we got to admire the mountain scenery. And be served another meal on good ol’ Austrian Air even though it was only a few hours back to Dublin. We made sure to get together later that weekend and watch the men’s gold medal hockey game. (I actually forgot about rugby while anticipating hockey, but we (we of Ireland now) were busy beating England on their home turf while I was occupied with pre-game snacks. I’m such a bad immigrant! I hear it was a great game too.) And now we are home! Morgan has a bit of a helmet tan still and I just feel great. Spring is allowed to begin now.
Diane
A couple weeks ago, we joined a group of friends heading to Mayrhofen, Austria to go on a weeklong ski trip. The week was incredibly fun. We benefited from some awesome weather which certainly helped make our trip a success.
Our flight left Dublin on Saturday afternoon. The group of us included Diane and I, Aaron and Christine, Diarmuid and Bea, Jeremy, and Bryce. Half the group had the earlier flight, with Aaron and Christine being on the later flight with us. Our first surprise on the trip: our 2.5 hour flight to Innsbruck with Austrian Airlines included a meal! I don’t think I had ever had a free meal on a sub 5 hour flight before. So it was a pretty pleasant flight over (although Aaron had an incident with a glass of red wine during the meal).
We arrived at Innsbruck airport, and met our tour operators who directed us to some buses taking us the hour or so drive to Mayrhofen. The procedure was swift and well organized which meant that we were soon at our hotel all settled in and being served our first multi-course meal of the week. Having purchased the package that we did, the flights, accommodation, breakfast, and dinner were all included leaving just lift tickets, rentals, and lunches as the necessary costs of the trip. So despite arriving at the hotel relatively late for dinner, we were promptly served a two-course “snack”.
The next morning, we got up relatively early to get in the queue for ski rentals for the week. Our hotel had a ski rental shop next door so that was nice and convenient. Having got our gear, we joined the giant queue for the main gondola up to the Penken mountain. The queue formed a multi-level spiral which you had to shuffle along slowly. Not a very comfortable way to start the day, particularly in a pair of ski boots, but hey … we’re here to ski right? The Penkenbahn gondola is ridiculous. Between the start and end points, you gain 1200 meters of elevation, and between those two points, there are just two structural towers supporting the cables that carry the gondola cars up that far. The amazement didn’t really leave me throughout, despite several rides in that gondola on the way up and down over the week. It was … well … ridiculous.
The sky was cloud-free and the sun shone down on us all day. It was a gorgeous first day for skiing. Apart from an hour or so stopping for lunch, we hit the slopes pretty hard – exploring various parts of the mountain. The area is pretty vast, but there were also a lot of people in the common areas, causing there to be some pretty massive queues at the numerous chairs around the hill. So in the afternoon, we ventured a little farther away which helped with the queues.
One thing that was pretty amazing about this hill. In Canada, the best chair lifts I’ve been on were the high speed quad chairs. For me, high speed quad was what they were — but at this hill, there was a couple of quad chairs, but they mostly had 6 or 8-man high speed chairs. Woah! Not only that, a lot of the chairs had conveyer belts which helped get everyone to the line where the chair would pick people up. At first I thought it was weird, but the conveyer belts really helped ease the process of getting on the chair which meant less stoppages for people who failed to get on the chair properly. So all in all a pretty solid improvement.
One of the downsides to skiing on Penken is there isn’t a skiout from the mountain to the Mayrhofen townsite. There are two skiouts to neighbouring towns, but this didn’t seem like a palatable choice so at the end of the day we shuffled back into a giant queue for the gondola on the way back down. Of the things that went on that week, the lineup for the gondola on the way down was the most miserable. You don’t really have much to do except deal with a bazillion other people in the line all shuffling along. At the end of a lengthy day of skiing, this wasn’t all that fun. But if that’s the worst part of the trip, that’s a pretty good trip, I think!
Having made it back to our hotel, we returned back to the gondola area where we entered the “Ice Bar”. The bar didn’t really have anything to do with ice besides being next to the gondola, but it was a pretty hopping place. We tried our first mulled wine (or Glüwein) on the trip there while listening to catchy german songs — many of which we had heard at Oktoberfest, and other singable well known songs. Partway through our visit, a guy dressed in a polar bear costume jumped up on one of the stands and started dancing. A few minutes later a girl jumped up on another one and started dancing as well. This was apparently one of the features of this particular establishment since on ensuing nights we would see various people dancing above the crowd of people in the bar.
Having polished off our Glüwein, we returned back to our hotel where we enjoyed its rooftop pool (an event that would be a nightly occurrence all week). The hot tub there would’ve been awesome if it was actually hot … but the pool was pretty nice and warm, and having a rooftop pool with the mountains all around was a pretty awesome experience!
A fairly late dinner followed the pool. The food at our hotel was pretty good in general. There was a few misses, but there was some pretty darn good food — and the soup every night was fantastic.
The next day we got started a little later without the need to beat the lineup at the rental store. The queue at the Penken gondola was still ridiculous, but after making it up that, we got started skiing. I’ve always found that the second day skiing was really rough. My knees take a beating when skiing, and after one full day of skiing my muscles really have a hard time getting going. But we were there to ski, so I pushed pretty hard to keep going. It wasn’t easy though!
That night, the Crystal Ski tour operator put on a pub crawl touring some of the bars in Mayrhofen. So we started at the “Movie Bar” and proceeded to visit half a dozen or so bars. Each was a bit more hopping than the last, and after a shot of (terrible) Schnaps at the first 3 bars and a few rounds of beer … well lets just say we were pretty buzzed. Before leaving from the airport in Dublin, a set of funny Irish hats were purchased, and they made their appearance on the pub crawl. They were pretty popular, and got a fair amount of attention! Some of our party even went so far as to start doing the leprechaun heel click. At one of the bars, we even got the security guard to do a heel click!
The next morning we were in no great shape to get up early. Diane and I were the only ones to make it to breakfast, and it wasn’t until after noon before we made it to the gondola. On this particular day, we decided to go check out a neighbouring mountain called Ahorn accessible by another ridiculous gondola. This particular one was much newer and only had two cars: each holding between 120 and 160 people! Ahorn is a pretty friendly mountain for beginner skiers with a beautiful long-ish gradual slope heading down to an octachair. There’s a bit more advanced skiing from there, but not a huge amount of it and its basically all serviced by a single double chair.
It’s a good mountain though. One of the cool features of it is the White Lounge at the top which is a big igloo with a bar inside. On that particular day, it was absolutely gorgeous out and we spend a fair amount of time at the top lounging on beach chairs/bean bags enjoying the sunshine with a beer. We did a little bit of skiing, but there was a lot of time spent relaxing in the sunshine too. The other cool feature of Ahorn is that there is a ski run right back into town. It was a bit icy in spots, but it made for an excellent way to get back to the town without waiting in a lineup for the gondola.
That was our first three full days in Mayrhofen, Austria. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting about our last three days soon.
Morgan
On Boxing/Stephen’s Day, we stopped in to two churches, La Seu (Barcelona’s catherdral), and Santa Maria del Mar. The cathedral is large and formal, with lots of arches, gold and gated chapels inside. It’s kind of cool that the crypt is visible from the main floor. I’m pretty sure I saw a black madonna in one of the chapels that looked pretty familiar as we had just seen the Virgin of Montserrat at the monastery. Of the two we liked the feel of the smaller Maria del Mar, with its simple columns and open alcoves. Mass was due to begin, so we had a quick look around and escaped back into the streets.
We had previously found the aquarium and taken silly pictures outside it, and we succumbed to advertizing and went to see the captive creatures of the sea. There were fish in the marina beside the aquarium, so we got to see a preview before we got our tix and had our picture taken, cruise-style, as we entered. It was actually pretty cool, very kid-oriented and family friendly as well. After viewing the bulk of the exhibition tanks (which includes the obligatory “Nemo” tank), there are more kid-sized tanks and interactive play places that we enjoyed too. Because we’re big kids. We always love the sea horses, who look so mopey as they look around for edible tidbits. Tiny Eeyores all. There were also sea dragons whose leafy appendages made them look like different kelps. One of the most mesmerizing little fellows for me was what I now call a “nose fish” (spotted unicorn fish, actually) – it looks very cartoonish, just like you’d draw if you anthropomorphized a fish – y’know, like I draw after years of biology. I should explain that, sophisticated lady that I am, I spent most of my visit making fun of everyone else – the rays with their eyes above and smilie-faces beneath, the unfortunate looks of the frogfishes, the way snails steadily nom…nom…nom, crabs wearing other people’s shells. We watched feeding time in one tank. At first it was just lazy swimming and the anemones swaying their tentacles; eels were hiding in plain sight. Then the first bits of food dropped – mussels and bits of other fish, I want to say? – and it was a feeding frenzy! Anyway, it was good to get out of the rain and see those who might otherwise eat me if I were to go where they live, or who I can’t visit because it’s a little deep and cold for me. The main tank has lots of viewing space and a glass tunnel so you can watch sharks and stingrays swim overhead. I got a little obsessed trying to take pictures with the battle-scarred sunfish.
We wandered back across the Rambla del Mar and Passeig de Colom with Columbus atop his pillar pointing out to sea, and back on to La Rambla once again. By this time it had really become our familiar street. It was still spitting, but there were covered market tables set up, and we browsed the stalls and discovered a new wallet for Morgan and all kinds of baubles and bags and handicrafts. The buskers were setting up for the rush, and we passed our painting guy as we made our way along. I definitely <3 our little picture of la rambla!
Back at Hotel Principal, we formulated our plan of attack and headed back to Maria del Mar’s hood to check out a tapas place some friends had been. But we were too lazy to stand at the bar or around high tables to drink and chat as everyone was doing, so we went to dine in the fancy back restaurant. If you just want good food, you’ll get better value at Carmelita’s or Los Caracoles, but I must say the service here was the finest I’ve experienced anywhere in recollection. The wine list looked really tantalizing, and they served cider from a spigot that was run through a huge decorative cask set into the wall. That looked really good too. Our serving gal was good at pouring the cider from a long way away and making it look artistic.
By the time we were released back into the wild, it was the end of our trip. The next morning we got up early and grabbed the first croissants and juice of the day, checked out and caught the train, as Spanish-less and Catalan-less as we came.
Our 5th day in Barcelona was Christmas day, and since not a lot was going to be open, we decided to sleep in a bit. After a bit of breakfast at the hotel, we wandered out in to the … sunshine! Yup, the clouds finally broke for us and we had a chance to wander around in the sunshine for once. Our plan for the day was to head over to Montjüic, which is a large hill overlooking the city and is the site of several of the venues from the 1992 summer olympics.
The first part of that plan was trying to find the funicular station to take us up, but we missed that which ended up being a good thing since the walk up wasn’t really that taxing, and if we had taken the funicular up we probably would’ve missed some of the views we did get. So as we climbed up, the city fell below us and we got a pretty good look at the city itself — primarily white and beige coloured buildings stretching out before us. Our wandering took us to one end of the closed-for-the-holidays cable car that takes people across the harbour for what I’m sure would be very nice views.
After wandering around a bit more, we took a gondola up to the very top of the mountain where there is a fortress called “Castell de Montjuïc”. This fortress offered some great views of the surrounding countryside, and conveniently for us had a restaurant in the fortress courtyard that was actually open for Christmas day. So we stopped for some food before continuing our exploration and picture taking from the top of the fortress.
Instead of taking the gondola back down, we decided to walk down through some of the olympic venues. This turned out to get us a little lost since there wasn’t a simple route back to the main road so we wandered in between the Stadi Olímpic and the Palau Sant Jordi before finally finding our way out to in front of the Palau Nacional which overlooks a large stairway heading back down into the city. There was quite a few people out on that beautiful day to enjoy the weather.
We headed back to our hotel via metro to have a nap and figure out where a good place to go for dinner was. Once again consulting wikitravel, we eventually ended up at Los Caracoles, which translates to “The Snails” — which also happens to be the restaurant’s signature dish. The restaurant’s exterior features a window where chickens are being roasted on spits, and when you walk into the restaurant, you first walk through the bar to the front desk where you ask for your table. From there you walk through the kitchen to the dining area. Our table was right next to the kitchen so we could see the cooks working away and the delicious dishes being whisked into the extensive dining area behind us. The inside of the restaurant was extensively decorated and felt quite comfortable. To add to the snail theme, not only were there some decorative snails everywhere, but the bread that came with our dinner was curled up to look like a snail! The food was excellent, and it turned out to be a great place to have our Christmas day dinner.
Our last day in Barcelona is up next …
Morgan
The forecast for our 4th day didn’t look any better with respect to the ever falling precipitation. So we decided to head out of town for the second friend recommendation: The Salvador Dali museum in a small town called Figueres. The train ride is about two hours out of Barcelona, but we got on a nice comfy train so it was actually a nice relaxing trip.
It was cloudy, but not raining when we arrived in Figueres. Our first order of business upon arriving was to find something to eat, and we found that in the form of a Kebab from a nearby stand. One of the travel materials I read somewhere said that the donair meat found in Barcelona is quite a bit different from what we’d be used to from North America, and we found that that was indeed the case. It was definitely tasty.
While we enjoyed our kebabs, we walked towards the Dali museum through the streets of Figueres. On the way, we found ourselves walking through their version of an open air market — not nearly as large as the one in Barcelona of course, but still bustling with activity.
The Dali museum is … interesting. Before we went, I wasn’t all that familiar with his work, aside from the odd warped clock image. After going through the museum, my main impression was that the artwork in his collection was incredibly varied. Dali has quite a few more normal sorts of artwork: portraits and scenery and that sort of thing, but then there’s also a lot of pieces where the only way to describe them is: WTF?
The museum itself used to be a theatre that Dali himself converted into a gallery for his work, so you get a pretty consistent experience throughout the thing. One of the coolest moments is early on in the museum — in a large hall where the big globe of the museum is attached, on one end there is a painting called “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea”. The painting up close is a nude woman looking out a window onto the sea. But if you make the picture smaller (or in the museum pay 20 cents to use a device to make the picture smaller) the picture becomes a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. That was a pretty cool little trick.
Its a little hard to describe the sights in that museum, but I would suggest that if you have a chance you go see it. It was definitely an interesting experience.
With our admission, we also got admission to the Dali Jewel collection, which is co-located in the same building. The items on display in this collection are … odd. Dali wasn’t shy about his use of valuable raw materials, and some of the items on display are neat: like the jeweled eye shape where the center is a clock, some of the items are punny: like the pearls making pearly white teeth in ruby lips, and some are down right disturbing: like the gold heart with a cut away showing red jewels and a motor to make the red part “beat”.
After our tour of the Dali museum, we wandered around the town a little bit since it was still early on and we thought we might as well explore a bit. On our walk, we found an awesome playground that had a lot of really fun playground equipment. So we played on some of the equipment, including a zipline!
On our way back to the train station, we got a little bit lost, but that wasn’t really a problem: there was plenty of trains heading back to Barcelona. Eventually we found ourselves back at the market we had walked through earlier — now vacant. The next train back was right away, so we scurried back to the train station and arrived just in time for the train back.
When we got back to our hotel, we were too tired to go far looking for food so we ended up across the street from our hotel at a restaurant called Organic. This vegetarian restaurant had a pretty extensive menu and actually was pretty good!
Next up: Christmas day – the one day of nice weather on our trip!
Our third day in Barcelona started out with cloudy skies, but it wasn’t raining. Given that the weather was the best we’d seen so far, we decided to head out of town on one of two day trips that our friends had recommended. Earlier in the week at a visit to the tourism information center, the lady told us that one of the trips, Montserrat, had been closed due to snow. So we decided to check and see if would be open on this particular day and it was. Montserrat is a monastery built on the top of a mountain, offering very nice views of the surrounding country side as well as an impressive church.
So we bought tickets for the train out there and the cable car to take us to the mountain, and headed right down to the train station to catch our train. The trip is about an hour and a half or so out of Barcelona, and the cable car was right by the train station when you get there. On our way, we met a newly married couple from the states who sat across from us on the train who were quite nice. They were honeymooning in Spain over Christmas. We chatted with them most of the way there.
The weather didn’t hold out for us, unfortunately. When we got off the train, the drizzly rain had already started up, and mist was starting to rise up around the mountain. Oops. Oh well, too late to turn back! So we boarded the cable car and were quickly whisked up to the top of the mountain. By the time we made it to the top, it had started to seriously rain, and the growing mist was making it hard to see anything from the top of the mountain. Doh!
We walked around a bit in the rain, before deciding to stop at the cafeteria there for a quick bite to eat hoping that the rain might stop. That was a bit optimistic, and it didn’t work, but it was good to get a bit to eat anyways. So from there we headed over to check out the church itself. While the mist was unfortunate for the views, the positive benefit was the area was extremely peaceful. It made experiencing the church and its surrounding area that much more special. Its kind of hard to describe, but because there weren’t that many people around, and the mist reduced the visual distractions, it made the experience more intimate (if that’s the right word).
So we wandered around the church and the surrounding area and took in the peace and quiet. Some of the pictures turned out great as well, so I’m pretty excited about sharing those when I finally get around to it.
We headed back to the cable car and took that back to the train station and headed back to Barcelona. We might’ve not gotten the weather we wanted, but we thought we had a good day regardless!
For dinner, we decided to consult wikitravel again, and ended up at an Indonesian restaurant called Betawi. Our waiter was almost overly helpful in helping us get our meal, but it didn’t take long before we were enjoying satay chicken skewers and spicy prawns.
Up next, another day trip to Figueres to see the Dali museum.
Morgan
Our second day was drizzly again, but we weren’t going to let that stop us. After having our hotel breakfast, we headed out and caught the metro in the general direction of Park Güell. Remember that Gaudí guy I mentioned in the last post? Yeah, he was at work again, this time on a giant public park with large gingerbread-looking houses at the main gates, big staircases with mosaic tiled sides, a large mosaic lizard, a large terrace with mosaic tile seating, and underneath a large shelter with columns and mosaic tiled ceilings. Seriously, this place was full of wonders. Outside of this specific area, there was several sheltered walkways with built with arched supports that, well, I find really hard to describe. They’re just cool!
So Diane and I spent a few hours walking around in the rain, discovering many of the little details of this amazing art and architectural installation. The park is quite extensive, and we wandered a lot taking pictures. Despite the weather, tourists were out in droves, but everyone waited their turn for a picture with the lizard, and it was a pretty nice atmosphere. I wonder what the park was like in good weather! On our way back out, we climbed to the top of a 3-cross monument, which also offered a nice view of the surrounding cityscape.
The next destination we had was back to La Sagrada Família, which we got to by the metro. This time we were going to take the tour, so we got ourselves the audio guide and headed inside. I was very glad we did get the audio guide, because it spent a bunch of time walking us through the various features of the church and some of the symbolism that Gaudí was going for in the incredibly ornate artwork. The church has been under construction for over a hundred years, and the audio guide claimed that they projected it to be done in another two decades. I don’t know about that … despite its already impressive appearance and structure, the final plans still call for something like 7 additional towers to be built. Maybe they know how long it’ll take, but I suspect they’ve got a long ways to go.
Still, it is a fascinating place. Inside the church, giant columns push vaulted ceilings extremely high, and then branch out resembling trees. The ceiling itself looks like large leaves to these trees, which gives you the unsettling feeling of being in some sort of stone forest. The columns themselves start as 8 pointed stars at the bottom and gradually double the number of points until they become almost circles at the top. It is going to be one crazy awesome place to go see when it is all done. I think we’ll have to make a point of going back when it is all done just to see it all. Hopefully it doesn’t take another hundred years!
After finishing the tour, the cold damp was starting to get to us, so we headed back to our hotel where we warmed up and washed up and once again took up the hunt for a place for dinner. We ended up choosing a place called Carmelitas, which we found on wikitravel. For anyone interested in checking out a city and who need some advice, wikitravel is a really good default place to look. It really hasn’t let us down so far, and we used it a lot on this trip.
At any rate, we waited around until 8:00 which was when the restaurant opened (the restaurants open late in Barcelona, and the clubs stay open real late, from what I understand). The restaurant was quiet, but the waiters were friendly so we sat down and enjoyed quite an enjoyable meal. At this dinner, I learned that Entrecôte is a particular cut of beef … which in this case was quite delicious. Diane’s duck confit was also entirely too delicious. As was our wine, and dessert! Let’s just say we ate well.
Up next, our first day trip out of Barcelona … which was perhaps not the greatest idea, but cool nonetheless.
Morgan
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