Getting Lost in Barcelona

Our intention today was to go and see the Picasso Museum. Unfortunately a couple of days ago we lost the index booklet that went with our map, and so it proved to be a bit of an issue trying to find the street. Finally I saw on the map that Montcada was served by a Metro station and a bus. But when we got to the Metro station itself there was no sign of Montcada. So we deduced that the bus 96 must take us to it. Twenty minutes later we arrived at a outskirts suburb called Montcada. Celia didn´t want to get off there as it looked as though we might be in the middle of nowhere. And there was no sign of any museum - she said it was unlikely that it would be way out there anyway.
So in the end we gave up on Picasso.
We came back into La Rambla via the Metro planning on walking quietly along the seafront. However, I needed a loo (what´s new?) and there was a boat sitting there waiting to go for a tour round the harbour and beach.....
So on we got, into the loo I went, and we spent an hour and a half on the sea. It was very pleasant actually, although the water was quite rough outside the harbour basin (one woman was sick on the way back). Anyway, we saw Barcelona from the water....
When we got back to shore, we decided to have a cuppa from our faithful flask (the one we bought in Hamburg after our English one broke only a couple of weeks after we bought it. And because we weren´t sure where the train station is in Barcelona, we decided to have a recce and find it, so as to save ourselves hassle tomorrow, when we leave for Valencia.
It was just as well we did. The station at Arc de Triomphe (sorry, can´t remember how the Spaniards spell it) someone had told us served the trains doesn´t. There´s only a very large bus station there. We got back on the Metro and headed for the station called Espana, where the real train station is.
After getting on a suburban train instead of the Metro, and going three or so long stops before we realised something was drastically wrong (none of the stations were named on our Metro map), we got off and went back to where we started - almost. We were able to save one train stop by getting out a stop early. Eventually we found the Metro to Espana only to arrive there and be told that the train is kaput (as one non-English-speaking official told us). It turns out that the line is ´broken´ as another official charmingly put it, and we could either get a bus from Espana to Sants Estacio or get the Metro to it.
I´d read something to this effect in the Metro newspaper, one of the freebie papers that turn up on the underground, but hadn´t quite been able to figure out from the Spanish when the train was going to be kaput. I´m still not sure how long, but hopefully, when we go to Sants Estacio tomorrow, we´ll be able to get the mainline train to Valencia without difficulty. If not, we´re in trouble!

Sailing away

We went for a boat ride on the Lake of Thun today. We thought we’d have to pay part of the cost, but for some reason which we didn’t quite understand, the trip was free today only, via our Eurail pass. The boat took us to Interlaken, which I’d heard about from some source - can’t remember which - as being a special place, but it struck me as Switzerland’s equivalent of Queenstown, that is, all tourist shops, and lots of things to do if you’re an outdoors person. (There were several people paragliding when we arrived, for instance.) The buildings are a delight, however, and speak of a time when people paid big money to build in Interlaken.
In spite of my misgivings about Interlaken, the trip itself was lovely, the lake calm, the mountains a little misty but still reasonably well-defined, and the air warm. We sat outside on the boat for most of the trip. At the end of it, the ferry navigates its way down a narrow channel, with only a few metres to spare on either side.
Though we could have gone back on the boat, we decided to have a look around Interlaken for an hour or so, and get the train back to Spiez, and then the bus to Einigen. The train, of course, was covered by our Eurail pass anyway, so the trip only cost us the bus fare. (Though no one actually came to check our pass on the quarter hour trip from Interlaken to Spiez, so some people might well have got on for free!)
I didn’t mention yesterday that we had a mini crisis. By mistake I put my debit card (Eftpos, in other words) into a ticket machine at Spiez railway station, thinking it was a money machine. I tried to cancel the operation but no card appeared. Nothing worked, and suddenly we began to think we’d have to face the next week or two unable to get money. (We have quite a bit of cash with us, but we hadn’t got any Swiss francs before we arrived in Switzerland.)
In the end I went up to the ticket office, and explained the situation to the man behind the counter - who fortunately spoke good English. (The Swiss don’t seem to be quite as strong on the English as the Germans are, and some of them don't care!) He came down with a tool, opened the machine, pulled out the part that had the card in it, dug around at it, pried at it, worked on it - all to no avail. We stood there chatting, trying to feel confident that he was going to achieve something! Finally he went back upstairs, called the office in Bern, and they told him on the phone what to do. Voila! one returned debit card - and considerable relief.

Nature calls...rather too often!

Second day in Köln and the weather was a bit cooler. Unfortunately I’d got it into my head that summer had returned and went out in short sleeves again without taking a jacket or jersey. Froze. We decided not to get one of the tour buses around the city because a number of the places were within walking distance anyway. Headed for the river - the mighty Rhein - and because I had a bit of an upset stomach, I needed to find a loo quickly. No such luck. There were three portaloos along the bank of the river, but each one of them had a hefty padlock on the door. The last public WC we’d seen (and used) had been quite a way back.

Things haven’t changed by the way, in terms of needing loos. When Celia and I were on our honeymoon in Rome some 33 years ago, searching for public toilets was an issue even then.
Anyway, there were a number of large river boats alongside the bank, and in the end, in desperation, we paid to go on a trip up the river so that I could be sure of finding a loo in a great hurry. Most expensive loo we’ve had to pay for yet!

Anyway the river trip was pleasant, and worth relaxing for an hour or so on.

We’ve both been very tired today. Came back home after the river trip and slept - again. Think it’s probably all the sights and sounds and noise and travel. Whether we’ll get any better at it or not remains to be seen. How these old people who go on fourteen days on the continent type tours cope, I have no idea. Up at the crack of dawn, five hours in a bus, tramping round a city for another couple of hours, off again and then finally kipping down in a strange bed for the night. We like to take our trips a bit more easy.

Potter Heigham

Yesterday we went to Potter Heigham, which is famous for two things. Firstly, it’s on the Norfolk Broads, so that makes it special to Celia, and secondly, there’s a bridge over the River Thurne at Potter Heigham beside which Celia fell in the water when she was a schoolgirl. (We have a photo of this bridge, but on the laptop, and I can’t upload from there at the moment. However, the link I've just given has a very good picture of the bridge on it.)

Why did she fall in the water? She was on a week’s boating experience with her school, and when you get to the bridge at PH (there are now two of them, in fact) you have to lower the mast on your boat because the bridge isn’t very high above the water. In lowering her mast she knocked herself into the water. Historic.

Potter Heigham isn’t pronounced Potter Heigham, by the way. Try something along the lines of Potterhyam? I put the question mark there because Celia always gives it a kind of upward lift at the end of the word.

It was packed with people having a day out yesterday, (although not so much as Wroxham, which is further along the road). We went for a walk along the bank of the particular arm of the Broads that comes into the village, and walked, and walked – and walked. Our intention was eventually to cross a bridge and walk back on the other side, but the bridge proved to be over yet another arm of the Broads, and there was a considerable body of water between us and the other bank, so we didn’t try to cross it. In the distance we could see the boats sailing through what appeared to be fields, with cows munching away. It’s an odd visual thing because it’s only as you get up close to some of the waterways that you can see they’re there. If it wasn’t for the boats on them you wouldn’t realize they existed.

Our long walk took us past a now disused (and dis-sailed) windmill, one of about half a dozen in the vicinity, past the backs of dozens of little holiday houses (virtually cribs or baches as we’d call them at home) parked right on the bank of the water, past marshes and smelling ditches where the water had become green and stagnant, past odours whose origins we didn’t want to think about, past brambles and stinging nettles and reeds and, best of all, wild blackberries. Which were ready to pick and exceptionally delicious. One of my great regrets in New Zealand is that the blackberry is considered noxious; here it grows where it pleases and passersby can pick as they please.

Most of the holiday homes were for rent, I presume, or were owned by people who came year after year. One of them was up for sale: £120,000 was the asking price. £120,000! The building was in a pleasant spot, but it was also run-down, and would need repairs to the walls, the roof, and probably things we couldn't see. The notice on the window did admit it needed a bit of a sorting out. That didn't apparently stop them asking what seems to me to be a phenomenal amount of money for what would be a crib back home.