Zaragoza

 Stopped for lunch at a town called Zaragoza. 

They have a quant little church. 

Nice

A Touch of Gaudi

 Took a wee tiki tour into town to walk around arguably the most famous tourist spot in Spain. 

When we get back to Barcelona in a couple of weeks, we have tickets to go inside. 

So watch this space.

Well, not THIS. Space. It’ll have its own space. Later. 

You know what I mean…

Montserrat

Went to a mountain monastery outside Barcelona called Montserrat. So named because of the serrated silhouette of the mountain.

And for the observant, yes that is a tram track climbing the cliff face. Or as they call it on the Iberian Peninsula, a funicular. 

There’s even a passing lane. Nuts  

There is something here called the Black Madonna, in a beautiful church. Yes, another one.

Apparently there’s an abbreviation in relation to seeing churches and castles on a tour:

ABC, which means another beautiful castle,

Or another beautiful church.

By the end of the tour it means another bloody castle

Or another bloody church  

There are a lot of castles in this part of the world. 

And there are even more churches. I’m now calling them Cellphone towers for the God Network.

Powered by the OG solar power: in the biblical sense. 

The Sun of God, obv…

Sarah thinks it’s silly, too.

In case you’re interested

There’s a LIDL about 100m from our hotel.

We saw both LIDL and ALDI  in Germany, and they were both crappy.

Saw an ALDI in Lisbon which was very average. 

This LIDL is the best we’ve seen. And that comes from Sarah, who does a PhD on local supermarkets in every city. 

I saw this genius packaging idea in this LIDL

The necks from the bottles below come through holes the carton on top. Not only does it compress the stacking height, but it locks the stack together. 

Now look at the price of wine over here!!! An alcoholic’s utopia.

200m in the other direction is a Rossmans, a kind of Clayton’s chemist. They cater to all ages. 

Now THIS is an industrial roll of paper towels.

 

Joining Another Tour

We're in Barcelona at the moment.

Tomorrow we join the next collection of reprobates.

Here's our next 11 days.

 

Another big airport

For anybody who hasn’t been to Barcelona airport, it’s fucking huge. Dubai scale huge. 

We must have walked a couple of k’s just following the signs before going downstairs to get our bags.

We found our driver without incident, and were off.

The first thing he said to us about Barcelona, was to watch out for pickpockets. The advance marketing for these guys is impressive, because EVERYONE has been warning us about them. 

I asked why, if this is such a big problem, is the government or the police doing more to shut it down.

He said it was the legal system. If they are caught stealing less than about 500 euros, they let them straight out. If  it’s something of greater value, maybe 24-hrs. In that case, it’s seen as more of an insurance issue, rather than a legal one. 

The legal system is very lenient on crime here.

Does that remind you of a recent administration of a very large and garish country that we all love to hate? Me too.

Barcelona

Well, we made it to Barcelona last night. About 2-hrs late, but we got here. 

Interesting how your perspective of an airport can change, depending on whether you’re arriving or departing. 

When we arrived into Frankfurt, it was an outdated, pokey little shithole. 

When we left, it was busy, very long, and not too bad. Apart from the bagtags.

When we arrived in Lisbon, it was small, busy and cramped. 

When we left, it was crazy busy, crazy big, and pretty good. Ish. 

Not really. 

Let’s start with the kiosks. We flew with TAP, the Portuguese national airline. We had checked in online, and had already purchased a second bag. Hello? Sarah!

All we wanted were bagtags, and boarding passes if they were on offer.

Found how to convert it to English.  yay  

Found how to print boarding passes.  yay

Bagtag? Not so much.

We eventually got the attention of one of the two Menzies-branded staff in the check-in area. Using the default language, he was tap tap tap like a Ginsu knife demonstration, and hey presto… 3 bagtags. Two for me, one for Sarah.

I still don’t think that option is even there in the English version. That’s my story.

After the Frankfurt debacle, Sarah won’t touch the bagtags, so it’s up to me not to fuck it up.

Have you heard of Husband 101? It says that even if you’re not in the room, it is somehow your fault.

Frankfurt was my fault. This will be too if I get it wrong.

The planets have aligned, and these tags are more like what we’re used to. Having learned from Frankfurt, the tags go on the side handles. We’re on a roll.

Automated bagdrop.

Just scan your boarding passes and put your bag on the device. Easy. Your tag doesn’t match your boarding pass. For fuck sake!! The tag doesn’t specify anything other than the surname, you fucking moronic machine. Billions of blue blistering barnacles!!

OK then, let’s scan the other boarding pass. Success. 

Moving on. AvSec. It’s a bit of a walk. Not far, just back and forth. Twelve times. Disney could learn a few things.

You can’t see it over the back, and I couldn’t wander around for the perfect shot, because photos in these areas are usually verboten.

Anyway, from when you enter the AvSec area, till you reach the AvSec benches, you must obediently follow the path, up and back, up and back the length of the room. This is not hyperbole. Twelve times. Six up, six back. Probably a sociological device to crush your spirit before you have to tip out your bag. Or anticipation of a really busy time. Could go either way. 

As it happens, we ended up at the end where you don’t need to take electronics out. I saw signs at the other end as we approached telling us to pull out the laptops. Must be older equipment down that end. Small mercies.

So to the gate. Sorry, won’t know the gate for another hour, because we’re here early . Have you MET my wife?And our flight’s 45-minutes late. Goody.

So let’s find a snack to keep the ugly at bay. Feeding the monster doesn’t always work, but sometimes it’s the only thing that does. But don’t be late finding the right place or menu item.

Anyway 

Snack found and consumed. Monster sated.

Eventually we see the screens updated with our gate. 

S 15A

Signage for all gates is not flash, so it took a minute to figure out a direction. Ah, here we are.

No Aircon. No aircraft in sight. No delay messages. 

When they EVENTUALLY start boarding, there are no boarding calls, just a slight movement in the stagnant ever-anticipatory queue and a small screen above the boarding sets that now says Zone B

We are zone C, according to our boarding passes, but what the hell. We’re rebels.

Staff are now battling with passengers about hand luggage, but when we get there they are distracted so don’t notice mine.

So down we go to the tarmac, and onto a standing bus. No seats. The sign says max 100 pax. Fuck right off! I know they have a thing for sardines in this country, but that would be taking personal space to a level that would make Borat blush. 

No more than a dozen boarded after us, so waiting for zone C would have been an exercise in futility.

And racing this time…There’s a TAP aircraft over there. Sarah thinks it’s an E190. Nope, not ours. There’s another one. Nope. 

At one point, I was starting to think that we were driving to Barcelona. No wait!! No, not that one either. 

At last, we pull up next to an aircraft. Teasing? No. We found it. Phew.

The aircraft is an E190, from Embraer. Config 2 and 2.

Over the last few days, I have been getting nagging emails from TAP, offering us an upgrade to business for not much less than what I paid for our economy seats.

Now tell me. Exactly what is the difference between the first 2 rows in front of the curtain, and where we are? Anything you can see to justify almost double the price to move 3 rows up?

Me neither.

Some traffic observations

 A couple of things about Portuguese drivers. 

First, not all of the streets are super wide. In fact most streets in the smaller towns are annoyingly narrow. 

Despite this, there is an unwritten rule that if you put your hazzard lights on, you can park anywhere for a few minutes. Visit gran, buy a coffee, pick up groceries. Only for emergencies, obviously. 

The other one is an echo of something I wrote years ago. On one of our visits to Bangladesh, I commented the the solitary traffic light in Dhaka was treated as something of a novelty. Drivers had a laissez-faire approach to that solitary set of lights.

It’s the same here with pedestrian cross signals. To be fair, some crossings I happened upon had a painfully long timer. Regardless, don’t just assume that if the little green man says good to go, that a car isn’t going to try to squeeze between your belt buckle and your underpants. 

Asian Prayer alert

 

A little flushed

 I mentioned the pay toilets in Germany. 

The stated logic is that the toilets are kept clean. This was mostly true.

No such financial burden in Portugal. 

That is a good thing, but some do have the tinge of a badly run dementia ward about them. 

Just sayin’

Heading back to Lisbon

Stopped in to another monastery. This one at Batalha. 

This monastery includes the tombs of King John I of Portugal and his wife at one end. 

This is a much bigger room, but without pillars. Rather a clever piece of engineering. It is used as a memorial for the unknown soldier. 

At the other end of the building is an unfinished chapel, originally designed as an even bigger and more detailed tomb for another generation. 

Then on to Nazaré. A beachfront town, famous for world record surfing waves. 

We found a crepe restaurant for lunch that do rather a good job. 

Asian Prayer warning. 

Then off to a medieval village for last-chance shopping.

There's a tiny courtyard as you enter town, which is reputed to have terrific acoustics.

So, without fail, you will see somebody doing their best Paul Potts impression over in the corner.

Finally, we stop in at a family vineyard for a home cooked dinner.

Just spending a few quiet days in Lisbon before we move on to Barcelona