First 3 days in Barcelona

6/26: I thought we were never going to escape Rome.  Ever.  Because the number of our bags seems to have grown exponentially and because Melinda's back was bothering her, we hired a driver to take us to the airport, which was a service the hotel provided and was cheaper than a taxi.  I'm surprised we survived the ride to the airport--our driver was an aggressive driver, even for Rome standards.  He didn't really believe in things like: braking, stopping, signaling, yielding, not talking on the phone while driving, following the speed limit, etc.

After about 40 harrowing minutes, we arrived in hell, aka Fiumincino Airport.  We arrived around 8 o'clock for a 10:20 flight, yet we almost didn't make the flight.  The check-in line at Vueling was ridiculously long--and in classic Italian fashion, the desk agents kept rotating through breaks, so despite the line that curved through the terminal, there were always only 2 agents to check people and their bags in.  We survived that line only to reach the security line, which actually stretched so far back that it touched the exit doors of the terminal.

I should actually call it the "security" line because the agent working our line didn't even open our passports.  She just asked if Aidan was with me.  Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

We had to run to our gate, which, naturally, was the last gate in the terminal.  We were (for the second time this trip) the last people on the plane.  :)  The flight was lovely and uneventful, with picturesque views of the Mediterranean.

After checking in (our apartment is on the 4th floor, but our host and his friend carried all our bags up for us), we decided to explore the neighborhood.  Our apartment is centrally located, near Las Ramblas. We walked over to Plaza Real.  Melinda discovered sangria.

After lunch, we hit the beach.  We walked along the marina until we reached Barcelonetta beach.  The water was quite rough and cold, but Aidan and I had a good time in the water.  Melinda people watched and tried to get tan.  Eventually, Aidan's lips turned purple and he had goosebumps that were about 2 inches high and couldn't stop shivering, so we left.

Melinda went to bed and Aidan and I went out for dinner--he's discovered that every tapas place has either fried shrimp or squid, so he's happy.

6/27: We split up this day.  Melinda did a bus tour of the city.  We all love Barcelona, by the way.  Aidan and I love walking, and although we've done 1 bus tour on the trip, it's not our style.  We ended up walking more than 6 miles-- from the water, all the way up Las Ramblas,

though several neighborhoods,

 to Sagrada Familia (which is undergoing cleaning, so isn't very photogenic right now),

back through neighborhoods to see all the major Gaudi sights and other intriguing buildings, which seem to cover Barcelona..

 We had a coffee in the cafe on the first floor of La Pedrera.  We also discovered, not really to our surprise, how much cheaper everything is once you get away from the touristy parts of the city.  We ate our packed lunch in a park and Aidan played on at least 3 playgrounds that day.

  Barcelona is filled with playgrounds-- it's great!   After our trek, we decided to go back to the apartment for a couple of hours and then we headed out for some late night tapas and people watching in Plaza Real.


6/28: Melinda had to finish the 2nd day of her bus tour, so she headed off to do that.  Aidan and I had an epic water day.  We visited the Aquarium, which was remarkably good and much better than I expected.  It's really kid-friendly with lots of hands on exhibits and play areas.   And cuttlefish!!

After the Aquarium, we walked up the marina.  And down the marina.  And up the marina.  And down.  Aidan loves looking at the boats.  He wanted to do a harbor tour, and the galondrinas that tour the harbor are under 20 euro for 2 people,so we decided to take one.  The one that was departing when we reached the ticket office was the 1.5 hour tour, which with hindsight was about 45 minutes too long for both of us.  Nonetheless, we enjoyed our quite extensive tour of the harbor.

To top off the water-themed day, we walked to the maritime museum.  Unfortunately, it is undergoing massive renovation (the first time in 800 years, according to the signs) and there  really isn't much on display.  Only one boat and the Darwin exhibit that was at the Witte last year.  The building's upper floors aren't open either.  We still loved the building and the one ship on display.

Naples: Where the men all have overly-waxed eyebrows

On Monday, we took a high speed train from Rome to Naples.  Our train went this fast

which might mean something to those of you who are familiar with the metric system.  All it means to me is that we reached Naples in under 2 hours.  

Ah, Naples....  We arrived about an hour before we were supposed to meet up with our tour.  That hour before the tour, as well as the 1.5 hours we had to kill after the tour/before we caught our train back to Rome, allowed us to spend some quality time with the lovely citizens of Naples.

The Naples train station is currently undergoing renovation.  One gets the impression that said renovation has been happening for a long, long time and will continue for much, much longer.  I honestly got the impression that as soon as one job was completed, another work crew would come along and undo the job, so it would have to be done again.  This suspicion was reinforced by the signs everywhere in the train station proclaiming "This renovation is made possible by a grant from the European Union."  

After dodging unwelcome advances from men with waxed eyebrows and poor fashions sense, hoards of beggars, and just generally unappetizing people, we met up with our group in front of a hotel across the street from the train station.  

We loaded a bus headed to Pompeii.  Our fellow travellers included a family from South Africa who pretended they only spoke Afrikaans, although everyone knew they also spoke English.  A Scottish couple.  A couple from Austin who had spent the past year teaching in Kazakhstan.  And a couple from Iraq.  We like to play the 'if a disaster happened now and we were trapped with all these people, who would you want to team up with in order to increase your odds of survival."  I instantly decided that the Iraqi couple would be the way to go-- they've already survived a dictator, invasion, and insurgency.  The Americans living in Kazakhstan were a close second.  The South African dad looked like he'd be the first to kill someone in the group and eat them at the first sign of a shortage in food. 

The bus ride to Pompeii was filled with lovely scenery (once we got out of Naples)--lots of sea and mountain views.  We learned that before the eruption in 79 AD, Mt. Vesuvius was twice the height it is now.  After about 40 minutes, we arrived at Pompeii, only to be swarmed by hoards of pushy street vendors trying to sell us all sorts of useless stuff.

Our bus collective split into 2 groups: one that was just touring Pompeii (us) and the other that was doing Pompeii, Herculaneum, and hiking Mt. Vesuvius.  Unfortunately, this is when we lost our partners in survival, as both the Iraqis and the American-Khazaks were on the other tour.  But we still had the South Africans and the chain-smoking Scottish couple. 

Our guide, Susi, was very friendly and knowledgeable. She also had a bright pink and turquoise umbrella for us to follow.  Our tour was about a 3 hour tour of the ruins.  She said you need about 8 hours with a guide to see everything.  At its height, Pompeii had more than 20,000 people living in it, and a large transient, sailor population.  

The city is much larger than I realized and I was glad to have a guide, since there really aren't signs or marked tour paths inside the walls of the city.  The Victorians established a system of street naming and addresses, but it's in Latin and is in a code, so...

We all had headsets so we could listen to our guide without being right next to her.  Aidan said his headset also allowed him to communicate with Humphrey back in San Antonio.

Before the tour commenced, we spent some time by this wall,

then we headed into the large theater.  The wooden features on the theatre are reconstructions-- we learned that because Pompeii was covered in hot ash, all the wood was burned, but the ash allowed for other materials (like impressions made by bodies, bread, and tile work) to be preserved.  Herculaneum, however, was covered by mud, so wooden features remain.

We then visited the smaller amphitheatre, which is known for its acoustics. 

 Susi asked if anyone wanted to sing.  That is when this happened:

Here's how you'd cross the street in Pompeii to avoid stepping in sewage.  This steps also dictated the minimum height for chariots, since they'd need to clear them in order to drive on the road.

We saw bakeries and brothels, fountains, and forums, temples and terraces.  I could go on and on with the alliteration.  But here are some pics of various ruins:

We also learned that the Romans used lead in everything--pipes, painting, makeup, wine.  They used lead pipes to carry their water and terracotta pipes to carry away sewage.  That might explain Nero...

We also learned that they liked phallic imagery, both to encourage fertility and prosperity

and to point the way to the brothel

where sailors got to receive services on stone beds and ordered from a picture "menu" on the wall.  The guide instructed Aidan to count all the stone beds (thus, he'd not see the picture menu), and I tasked him with photographing them, so we don't have any menu shots, and he just thinks the building was a hotel.

The town was relatively uncrowded, and we definitely did not feel like sardines in a can, which is not the case at many of the places we've visited this trip.  We'd all love to go back, and do Herculaneum as well.