Beyond the Sea: Day 4 - from DLP to Barcelona

[Gill H]

<<<Day 3


And so we come to what I think of as the ‘hinge day’ which joins the two parts of the trip. Or if you prefer, the interval between the two acts of the show. Or … well, basically, a day when we spend a lot of time travelling!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with us still in our lovely hotel room at the Newport Bay Club, on the day we are due to check out. Our alarm is set for 6 am but I’m awake by 5.30 and go to get ready. Over our last cup of coffee in the room, we finish packing and leave our luggage ready to pick up after breakfast. And by 7am we are walking into the beautiful Cape Cod restaurant, and asking to upgrade our ‘grab and go’ breakfast vouchers for a full buffet breakfast in the hotel. We’re told this will be 13 Euros each and we should pay when we’ve finished our meal. Meanwhile we are shown to a table and told to help ourselves, which we have no hesitation in doing!

There are so many options available for breakfast, we’re spoilt for choice. There are the usual cereals, yoghurt and fruit; then there are breads, meats and cheeses – a much wider selection than most of the hotels.

There are hot waffles and pancakes, with fruit, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce or maple syrup; and also bacon, sausage, eggs and so on. This is really impressive, and perhaps even on a par with the Disneyland Hotel breakfast. However, there is one problem – the hot food really isn’t hot. Not a major issue, but I wonder yet again why so many places just can’t get this right!

Still, we eat our fill and then prepare to settle up. But our server is nowhere to be seen, and neither is the manager she told us would be able to sort out upgrading our vouchers. After a long wait we finally flag someone down, and go over to a till to pay. She asks whether we enjoyed our breakfast, and we say yes, but do feed back that the hot food should be kept much hotter. Still, overall it was a lovely breakfast and hopefully means we won’t need to spend much on the journey.

We nip back to our room to get our cases and take them downstairs, and drop off our room keys. I mention at the desk that I’m a little disappointed nothing ever happened about celebrating Peter’s birthday. They had mentioned it every time we phoned up to book, and even though they seemed to have forgotten at check-in, they made a point of writing it down – but no card or chocolate coins ever appeared, and he wasn’t given any voucher to spend as I had been on the previous trip. We don’t want to make a big fuss about it, because after all, both our actual 50th birthdays had already happened – but it would have been nice to have had some sort of acknowledgement.

[Gill H]

Because of the delay in getting the bill, we’re a little behind time on our schedule. However, as soon as we exit the hotel, we see a shuttle bus pulling up, so we jump on, in the hope that this will save us a little time getting to the station.

Oh, how wrong we were. The traffic is bumper to bumper, every set of traffic lights is against us, and we crawl to Marne la Vallee station at an agonisingly slow pace. It would have been so much quicker to walk, even with luggage. Oh well, we’re here now, so we go over to the ticket machine and sort out two RER tickets to Paris Gare de Lyon, and then go down in the lift to the platform.

Annoyingly, we’ve just missed a train, and have to wait a few minutes for the next one. We’re discussing the platform indicator and trying to ensure that the train about to arrive is the one we want. A man sitting on a bench overhears us, and confirms that this is the train for Gare de Lyon. We thank him with a smile, thinking that it’s nice to meet a helpful fellow passenger. He hands us a card saying ‘homeless, please give 1 Euro or restaurant voucher’. This takes us by surprise a bit, but he has given us advice, and done so in a friendly manner, so I give him the loose change I have on me, and he thanks me and wishes us a pleasant journey.

The journey to Gare de Lyon takes about 40 minutes and the train is crowded with commuters. As a regular London tube traveller I have to smile at the thought that today we are ‘those people’. You know, ‘those people’ who are trying to take bulky luggage on a crowded train during rush hour!

We pull into Gare de Lyon at 9.30, which is much later than we’d intended. The delays at breakfast, with the shuttle bus and missing the train have all taken their toll on our schedule. Our train is 10.07 which should be OK, but doesn’t leave us much time to get our bearings. And our first sight of Gare de Lyon is not very helpful. We come up from the RER platform into a central hall where there are ticket offices and places to wait, but no trains and not much indication of where to get them! Added to that, we’re not sure if we need to exchange our printed e-tickets or whether we can use them as they are. The departure board isn’t indicating anything helpful, which adds to the stress. I go and queue at the ticket desk hoping for some advice and wishing fervently that the people ahead would hurry up so I can be served! Eventually I get to a window and the lady serving tells me that the tickets are fine as they are, and we need to go to Hall 1 where our platform will be shown 10 minutes before the train is due to leave.

So we rush off at speed and eventually, after a confusing few minutes following unclear signs, we find Hall 1. The platform isn’t up yet, and so we have about 10 minutes to spare, so I pop over to a nearby Relay shop. We haven’t yet been able to get the promised souvenir pen for my sister-in-law, as all the ones we saw in DLP were quite expensive. Not that I begrudge the money, but if we are to get her one from each of our destinations, I don’t want to spend all the budget on a DLP one. So instead I search for a Paris pen. But as luck would have it, the only ones in this shop are 10 Euros – we might just as well have bought one at DLP! Still, it will be the only chance to get one from Paris now, and it is at least a nice glittery one, so I buy it, along with some packets of mints for the journey.

At long last the platform is announced – platform i (for some reason the platforms have letters rather than numbers!) and a huge crowd of people all surge forward and make their way to the platform and then to their carriage. The train is made of two trains joined together, the back one of which will split off from us at Perpignan. So we have to walk the length of the first train, and then our own train too. We are in carriage 11, which turns out to be furthest carriage, and it feels like we’ve walked half way to Barcelona by the time we get on! It’s a mad rush, particularly with our cases, and by the time we get on board we’re pretty frazzled. Our seats are upstairs (this being one of those double-decker trains which seem so popular on the continent) so we have to take our cases up the narrow stairs and along the corridor. There’s very little luggage space at the end of the carriage, and it’s already piled high with cases, so we just have to sling ours on top of the others and hope everything survives. And with that we find our seats – 65 and 66, about half way down the carriage – and sink gratefully into them just as the train departs.

The next six and a half hours are much more relaxing. Our seats are wide and comfortable (we’ve paid a little extra for first class, but it’s still cheaper than flying). We doze for a bit while we go through the grey concrete Paris suburbs, and before long a lady comes by with a trolley selling hot and cold drinks – a surprise, because we were told there was no at-seat service! Peter has his usual can of Coke, and I choose an Orangina. Our server isn’t sure whether, as a Brit, I would know what Orangina is, so she tells me “It’s like orange … with gas”. Hmm, sounds like a failed advertising slogan there.

After a bit more sleep, I go for a walk to stretch my legs, and take the opportunity to use the rather cramped loo (to quote Vector in Despicable Me “curse you tiny toilet!”) before venturing through a few carriages to the buffet car. I return shortly with two coffees in ridiculously small cups (hence the tiny toilet, presumably!) and a small tub of Pringles to share.

Meanwhile the view outside is starting to get interesting, leaving behind the grey suburbs and passing through beautiful countryside and lakes.

There’s an imposing hill fort, plenty of vineyards and even at one point a glimpse of the Pyrennees. Eventually we even get our first look at the Mediterranean Sea.

My photos can’t possibly do it justice, particularly as I wasn't the one sat by the window, but check out Peter’s video:





(If you like this, check out his other ones - there's a link to them in the index.)

It’s truly a beautiful journey, and a very relaxing way to travel. Later on Peter goes to the buffet car for another Coke, and we share a Twix and a packet of chocolate covered biscuits with the rather odd name of ‘Filipinos’! (I know the word ‘negro’ is just Spanish for ‘black’, and the phrase here means ‘with real dark chocolate’ but I still wince a little at something which looks like it contains ‘authentic chocolate negroes’!)

[Gill H]

Eventually the train pulls into Barcelona Sants station. After the jaw-dropping scenery we’ve enjoyed over the last few hours, it’s a bit of a come-down to arrive somewhere that looks pretty much like the platforms at Birmingham New Street station. Still, we soon find our way upstairs and follow the signs to the taxi pickup point.

This is when we realise we’ve had no communication from Suntransfers regarding our pickup at Barcelona. It’s the first time we have used this company but we know many Dibbers have recommended them. We have booked all our transfers a few weeks ago, and have noted down the reference number for each. And so we wait, and look round for anything which might be our taxi.

After about 15 minutes with no sign of anyone, we look up the original email for our booking and give Suntransfers a ring. The first number we phone gets a torrent of Spanish, with no English seemingly available. So we ring the UK number. The lady I speak to checks the system, and says that our driver is waiting in the station, outside McDonalds. It would have been really useful to have had that information before we got here! So we grab all our luggage and hare across the station concourse until we find McDonalds – where indeed our driver is waiting to whisk us off to the Ibis Barcelona Centro.

Now I’m sure Barcelona is a beautiful place in some areas. But frankly, the route between the station and our hotel is pretty boring. Our view is basically anonymous office buildings, run-down shops and lots of lots of traffic. And the area around our hotel is not much different – featureless and bland. But we are only here for one night and we’ve chosen this location for two reasons. Firstly, the Ibis, while a no-frills budget hotel, gets decent reviews and is in the area we wanted. And secondly, the one place we want to visit tonight, the Sagrada Familia, is five minutes walk away.

(For those who are saying ‘the what?’ – don’t worry, I will explain and it will be worth the wait!)

Eventually we pull up outside the hotel and our driver helps us with our cases. We’ve already paid but I give him a couple of Euros as a tip, and he wishes us a good stay. And with that we rock up to the reception desk at the Ibis and say hello to the receptionist - a friendly lady with excellent English, who checks us in. It turns out she lived for several years in Shepherds Bush, just up the road from us! Our room is through a door just to the left of the reception desk, on the ground floor. It must once have been a storage room, and you certainly wouldn’t book it for the view. But it’s quite roomy, and despite being very bare and functional, it has a large double bed which looks quite comfortable. However, at the moment it doesn’t have a duvet, which is odd, and we wonder if they haven’t quite finished making up the room. So after a few minutes sorting out our stuff, I pop round to reception (all of 10 steps away) and ask about the duvet. The receptionist comes into the room and shows us where it is – in a plastic wrapping on top of the storage unit. She explains that since the weather is still very warm, many people don’t bother with the duvet, but that we can open the bag and use one if we want. In the end we don’t bother as it’s warm enough for just a sheet.

We phone our parents to tell them we have arrived in Barcelona, and then head out to our destination – the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, or the Basilica of the Holy Family. It’s often mistakenly described as a cathedral (there is a cathedral in Barcelona, but whereas a cathedral is the seat of a Bishop, a Basilica has to be designated as such by the Pope himself). So it’s kind of a cathedral ‘plus’! It was mainly designed by Barcelona’s favourite architect, the wildly creative and occasionally frankly bonkers Antonio Gaudi. It was actually begun before Gaudi’s time, having its origins in 1866, with the first stone being laid in 1882. The original architect, Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano, drew up the plans and construction began, but he resigned after various disagreements (perhaps no one could find a name badge big enough…?) and Gaudi took over. Gaudi worked on the building for over 40 years, introducing flamboyant and fantastical designs, many based on nature. Gaudi died in 1926 from injuries sustained after he was knocked down by a tram; but the work on the building goes on, and completion is not expected until 2022. This year marks the 135th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone, and the building is still only 70% complete.

The basilica is easy to find from our hotel, and can be seen long before we get there. On the way we stop to buy some churros and a cold drink from a little café, which we sit at a roadside table to enjoy.

The churros are OK but not great – they’ve been sitting around a while and would be a lot nicer hot and fresh. But for now, they’ll keep us going. One is filled with apple and blackcurrant and the other with chocolate hazelnut.

While we eat, we notice that many buildings around us have what we assume is the Catalan flag hung from many of their windows – it certainly isn’t the Spanish one, and combined with the large number of posters around saying ‘Si’ (yes), it looks like there is a thirst for independence from Spain here. This will be reinforced by an item on the news tomorrow morning!

Once we reach the basilica we have to walk all the way round to find the entrance. There are several queues outside, but fortunately we have already bought entry tickets, with a time of 6.45, so we can go straight in once we are through security.

[Gill H]

Having been impressed by the outside of the building, our jaws practically hit the floor when we get inside. This place is like nowhere else we’ve ever seen. It blazes with light and colour due to the incredible stained glass windows, many depicting elements of the natural world. At every turn there is something new to discover. There are winding staircases shaped like spiralling seashells or leafy trees, as well as a huge set of doors where the words of the Lord’s Prayer are cast in bronze, with the phrase ‘give us this day our daily bread’ in many languages as a background. Here are some (sadly rather blurry) photos of the plaques of the four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – depicted by the animals which often represent them in church architecture. And despite the colours, no, these are not Hogwarts houses!

To one side there is a small seating area with a screen, which shows a short film about the history of Gaudi and his work on the basilica. We sit down to wait for it to start, and when they hear us talking, some helpful fellow visitors tell us that this film will be in Spanish and we need to go to the one behind for an English version! Which we do – and it’s well worth it. The film is only 15 minutes or so, but gives us a real insight into the man whose work is so representative of Barcelona, and this, his greatest enterprise.

Looking down through some windows around the altar, you can see the crypt and the original altar from when the church was first built. Its relative simplicity is a marked contrast to the extravagant ceiling above us, which depicts various kinds of trees.

Of course, the building is busy, and not everyone is interested in either the spiritual or artistic elements of this place. Many have their heads so deep in their guidebooks they don’t even look up to see the details they are reading about. Others just want to take selfies – seriously, you are surrounded by some of the most beautiful sights you’ll see anywhere, and you want to take a picture of your own face? Well, whatever floats your boat I guess.

After about an hour and a half we decide we have seen all we need to for today. We deliberately didn’t go for an audioguide or a guided tour as our time was limited, but you could easily spend half a day here if you wanted to. And I would recommend it, whether or not you have any interest in churches, history or architecture. It is a unique experience and I’m so glad we made time for it.

Eventually we decide we’ve had enough time here, and make a move to leave. Peter goes to find a loo while I pop into the shop to get some souvenirs. I find a nice pen for my sister-in-law’s collection, plus an English guide book to the basilica which my dad will love. I also get a nice little magnetic bookmark with the pattern of some of the amazing stained glass.

While I am waiting to pay, I can hear Peter calling to me from outside. Because the shop is closing, they are refusing to let him in – even though it’s quite obvious that I’m right there! Fortunately I soon get to the counter and we can leave. I know they have to limit visitors but I do think they were a bit heavy handed about it. Wonder what the Catalan for ‘jobsworth’ is?

[Gill H]

Our plan for dinner tonight is to go to a restaurant we found on TripAdvisor which is near the basilica. After a few false starts we find it – Restaurante Jamon y Vino. It doesn’t look like much – basically a dingy café – but it’s got some decent reviews, so we go in.

We are served by a rather offhand woman who doesn’t exactly turn on the charm for the tourists. She gives us the menus and we go for a jug of sangria and a couple of tapas options. The sangria is nice enough, but the tapas are distinctly underwhelming.

The iberico ham is good (sorry but we had better in Madrid!) but the tomato-drenched toast – apparently a local speciality – tastes like, well, cold toast dipped in tinned tomatoes.

The chicken dish (I can’t even remember what it’s called now) is just OK.

Nothing is awful, but it’s all just meh. The nicest thing about this place is the little wooden box the bill comes in!

We pay up and leave, realising as we do that across the road is another place we considered – and looking at their menu and the cosy surroundings, we really should have gone there instead. Oh well, we have 7 nights of gourmet delights to look forward to, we’ll let this one go. So we stroll back round the corner to our hotel, and decide to have a dessert and coffee in their little restaurant area. The only options are ice cream or tiramisu (no crema catalana?) so we have a coffee each and some tiramisu. It’s plainly not made on the premises but it’s fine, and at least the staff here are friendly.

Here's my steps for today - not bad considering so much of the day was spent on a train! Sadly it will be the last time I track my steps, as there's no free wifi on the ship and I couldn't get my tracker to sync, so I didn't bother.

And while I'm on my phone - ooh...!

And with that we head to our room and wind down with some channel hopping. As usual the only English language channels are news channels, but eventually we find an Austrian channel showing the show ‘Dance Dance Dance’ (where celebs with some dance experience and their other halves recreate famous dance routines). Obviously we have no idea who anyone is, but we just settle back and enjoy the dancing. It goes on a very long time, and it’s almost midnight by the time it finishes, but then we retreat to our lovely comfy bed and enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep before tomorrow’s big adventure.

>>>Day 5

INDEX

[Melanie R]

Nice travel day Gill - sounds like a lovely way to travel to the cruise from DLP

[jandlsmum]

What a wonderful holiday you are having I am
loving reading your trippie

[Guest]

Bet you wish you could have gotten your breakfast bill "schooner", Gill.



Lol..."those people". We once got on a train at Gatwick (NOT the GE) with three hold bags and four carry-ons. "Death stares" do not describe some of the looks we got that rush hour!


Filipinos! Now I'm even MORE cross we missed getting to look around/shop in Barcelona!


That reminds me - do you remember when they launched Doritos here in England, and one could buy "Doritos LATINOS"?!

I bought one bag each for all my Nicaraguan cousins. Because this is a family site, I can't list ANY of the jokes that flew back and forth via email following the chips' arrival in the New World.

[Cazzius]

That upgraded breakfast sounds delicious - though I agree hot food really should be hot!

I do love the double decker trains that you get abroad, so much more exciting than boring old single deckers we get here.

I read the Filipino chocolate label and was surprised too, but of course it makes sense when you think of the Spanish translation were they good?

We often use Ibis for our short rugby trips as they are often well located and a good price. Their breakfasts tend to be good and there is always one English channel - though I did watch some of Hairspray with Flemish subtitles in an Ibis in Belgium once!

The Basillica looks amazing, so many details to see. I like that you noted the saints were in the Hogwarts house colours too - looks like Mark is Hufflepuff like me

Such a shame about the disappointing dinner. I love tapas and it is a shame the place you chose was not as good as you would have liked. That toast does look a little soggy!

Considering you began the day at Disneyland paris and ended with Tapas and Barcelona I would say you did very well.

Looking forward to reading about the cruise.

[Gill H]

Yes, the 'Filipinos' were quite nice!