Thursday May 25

Cool and rainy today. Dad is here visiting and we will visit Mike at his new job today at Woodlane Industries. The gardens are pretty well all planted and golf will be the next major activity for the next few months. Looking forward to Steve's 50th high school reunion in June with the group. I have to do a little house upkeep which will be good. Life is good!

Avignon, France

We took the train from Barcelona, Spain on Thursday to Montpelier, France. We picked up a rental car and began our Provence adventure. The apartment in the walled city of Avignon is everything we expected however driving the narrow streets and parking garage is a challenge for the boys.

Train passengers

Scenic France from the train

First adventure was a drive to the town of Nimes and a visit to the arena there. It is very well preserved and obviously there was to be an event there later as they were setting up the tents and tables and chairs. From there we drove up to Pont du Gard and learned all about the Roman aqua ducts. Truly a feat of engineering. The day couldn't have been better. 

Barcelona Day 3

Las Ramblas is the street where all of the action takes place. A huge boulevard full of shops, restaurants and street vendors. And tourists! Another fun day walking around the city.

Barcelona Day 2

Today we were on the tourist hop on/hop off bus and we saw all of the highlights of Barcelona. The unfinished Sagrada Familia was certainly an unusual sight. So much fun to see all of the Gaudi architectural influences around the city. The 1992 Olympic Stadium and arenas, the marina areas, and so much more. The stairways and fountains at Placa  d'espanya were beautiful. And we ended the day  shopping in the former bull fighting arena that has been converted into a major indoor shopping mall.

Barcelona, Spain

Today we arrived in Barcelona and departed from the cruise ship. Sad for this part of the journey to end but happy to start the land part of our adventure. We had scheduled a day tour for Monday because we had all of our luggage and could not into the VRBO apartment until 5 PM.

We visited Montserrat, a cathedral on the mountain top just outside of Barcelona , and a Cava winery. 

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