Sur le pont d`Avignon...

Hello from southern France! It`s been a while since the last update - indeed we have stayed in three different places these last four nights - so I better start off where we finished from in our last post.

The three hour bus to Andorra was not too nauseating for either of us and the scenery was nice. The capital itself was as implausible as I remembered it to be - far too much squeezed into a tiny valley - a very unique place. However a surprise awaited us when we went to our hotel - our room stank of cigarette smoke, and when we asked for a no smoking room we were told that no such thing existed in Andorra! You see, Andorra is not part of the EU so is not subject to the anti-smoking rules prevalent across the rest of Europe. As we walked around, we found many people smoking, vending machines everywhere, huge boxes of cigarettes available at cheap prices and smoking products being advertised (which has been banned in the UK for many years). We didn`t spend too much time in our room because of this.

On our full day in Andorra we went to the village of Ordino, which was quite pretty and had loads of museums... we went to the Postal Museum, the only stately home in Andorra, the iconography museum and the museum of miniatures all in the space of 3 hours and all for the cost of €10 total. They were of varying quality but we enjoyed and giggled our way through them :) After that, we went up a cable car for some lovely views of this mountain country. One place we didn`t go to but nonetheless provided us with much amusement was the pin museum - we speculated on what exciting exhibits could be found there and made up lame jokes, eg I can`t quite pin down what is so exciting about the pin museum...

Then it was back to our smelly room for an early night as we had to catch a 5:45 bus the next morning! This was followed by a 40 minute wait for the train station in France, during which we both got VERY cold... eventually though we made it to our next destination, Carcassonne, some 7 hours after leaving Andorra. It`s not that it was a terribly long way away, just that it takes a while to get down from the hills.

Carcassonne is home to a beautifully restored large medieval castle, which dates back mainly to the 12th century, but the place has been inhabited since Roman times. Entry was free for us, because we are aged 25 or under and are EU citizens, yay! We invested in an audio guide which was fun, and took many lovely pictures. The day worked out quite well as we didn`t feel rushed despite the early start but still felt we had done all we wanted to in Carcassonne.

(I have 8 minutes left on the internet now so the rest may seem a bit rushed!)

Unfortunately, after that early start the next day entailed an early-ish start as we got the 7:42 train to Avignon. All went well and we enjoyed a lovely (dopey) day in this historic old walled town. It is home to a famous bridge, built some 800 years ago at a length of over 900m. However only 4 of the original 22 arches remain now but the history was interesting. We also went to the Papal palace - the popes took up residence here for a while in the 13th and 14th centuries (from what we can recall) due to instability in Rome. It`s a big place and quite interesting though I was quite tired!

In less than 2 hours we are off on our high speed TGV train to Paris where we shall be meeting up with a friend from home and spending the following 3 days with her before heading home. Of course the end of a holiday is sad but we are looking forwards to some our creature comforts again.

Country Number 8

The Glacier Express was as good as we´d hoped for. To get to the station, we took a local train from the bottom of the mountain where we were staying (incidentally, Benjamin had a much better second night on the mountain :) ). The station contained nothing more than a bench and a list of the train times and we had to flag down the train ourselves which was fun. The views from the Glacier Express were superb, even though it was overcast in places, and the engineering was spectacular, with an endless stream of viaducts, bridges and tunnels. We had a three course lunch on the train which finished with a magnificantly rich chocolate tart. Mmm...

We left the Glacier Express at Brig and caught a train up to Bern after a brief wander around Brig on a (successful) mission to buy a bottle of water. We then had a couple of hours wandering around Bern before our overnight train to Barcelona left at 9pm. We saw several interesting looking buildings and grabbed some food before the excitement of our sleeper train. We had splashed out on a compartment for two and, given the ultimate epicness of the trip, we were glad that we did. It was a very ricketty ride and both of us felt somewhat nauseous though I managed a decent night´s sleep - lying down evidently wasn´t as bad as sitting up! I woke up about 7 and we were at Narbonne in southern France. At 8.30, we were still at Narbonne and it was obvious we were never going to make Barcelona by the scheduled time of 9.43. In the end, it was about 1.30pm when we arrived. Benjamin wasn´t feeling great so we spent the rest of the day pretty quietly - so much for our plan of arriving in Barcelona and getting almost a full day of sightseeing in! However, we got our laundry done and walked to La Sagreda Familia to look around the outside in the evening so it wasn´t a completely wasted day.

Benjamin felt much better the following day so we were set for heading out. First we went to La Pedrena, an apartment block designed by Gaudi which had really distinctive architecture, different from anything we´d seen before. We really enjoyed that. Then we walked into the centre of town and looked around the older buildings, though it was about at this point that everywhere started to shut for lunch so we didn´t go inside anywhere. So we carried on down to the sea and indulged in some Haagen Dazs ice-cream, which was delicious. We also met up with Benjamin´s uncle, Chris, and his friends who were, coincidentally, on holiday in Barcelona at the same time! Afterwards, we headed up to Montjuic by means of a funicular railway and cable car. There were stunning views up there and a castle to look around. We also walked towards the Olympic Stadium which is there too. Afterwards, we headed back into town to eat at a Catalan restaurant and then bed it was.

We´re heading off to Andorra in a matter of minutes. It´s a three hour bus ride and neither of us is always comfortable on buses so I hope it isn´t too nauseating!

Venezia!

Our train was every bit as painfully early as expected. Due to a certain amount of paranoia about missing it, we reached the station some time before it left and tea and hot chocolate didn't entirely wake us up. Still, the train ride itself was fine. We were in a compartment with four others (one of whom was definitely on the scatty side) and there was lots of beautiful scenery as we crossed the Alps into Italy. We had lunch on the train in the restaurant which was a new experience and quite tasty. We arrived in Venice at 2 and were greeted by a wave of heat. There's a noticeable difference now we're further south.

Venice itself is mad. Crammed full of people, bridges, narrow streets, gondolas, souvenir shops... We've been taking it slowly because of the heat and doing a lot of sitting around watching the world go by from the shade. However, we've made it to Murano and the glass museum there, and to St Mark's Square as well as Rialto and been on several water buses (vaporetto).

We're staying on the mainland in Mestre (it's cheaper) and are getting a bus in every day from just outside our hotel which is very handy. It's also very crowded as everyone else does exactly the same thing so we've had several sardine-esque situations!

Benjamin's Italian is proving its worth though fortunately, for the more complex things in life, most people speak some English so we're getting by just fine. Tomorrow we leave for Rome, which is slightly cheaper than we thought as there doesn't seem to be a huge supplement to pay. It is a slower train but that means we spend the hot part of the day on it rather than out in the sun!