Benicarlo

Well, it´s been a little while since we updated the blog - we´ve been in some pretty remote places - being chased by thunderstorms along an old railway line, and toiling up endless hills between whitewashed berber villages in the Sierra Nevada. It´s been fun, and hard, and looking back, there have been some absolutely priceless moments.

But to start from the beginning ...


Benicarlo

Is a lovely sleep y village not far south from Barcelona. We stopped there for a few nights with relatives of Prita´s - Carlos, Graciela and Hernan. They were amazingly welcoming and looked after us so well, whcih was great as Prita was sick. They took us to the amazing crusader castle of Peniscola, which was the seat of a pope during some schism or other. It was breathtakingly beautiful and we sat on the parapets of the old citadel and looked out over the wide azure mediterranean, and i thought ´gee this is different to sitting at my desk at work ...´



Benicarlo has a beautiful church and we were lucky enough to see some of the celebrations fro semana santa - above.
After being completely cared for and totally looked after by the amazing Graciela, Carlos and Hernan, we reluctantly headed off further south. This involved almost a full day of bike assembly with Carlos´ help.

Prita and I left Benicarlo, with the warmth of our stay still in our hearts (not to mention amazing Paella in our bellies).

Which was lucky, because it was unseasonably cold as we headed south. In the first 10 minutes i managed to misjudge my girth and smack into a planter box, ripping a waterproof Ortlied pannier that was a present from Prita (sob) and, amazingly, putting my front wheel out of true.

We rode slowly, getting used to the bikes and the extra weight (and in my case a wobbling wheel). The sky slowly cleared. We discovered later that there had been massive flooding in the north, so we were actually pretty lucky there.

The Adventure Begins

After 2 magnificent days in London we finally said goodbye to Daniel and Bernadette to head back to Heathrow. Things went surprisingly painlessly on that end, and we managed to hop on the plane relatively stress free.

The best part of the flight was flying over the Pyreneese, it was amazing and terrifying all at once! Gee they look big. We could see lots of little switchbacking roads over the mountain passes, they looked rather impassable. I´m sure we´ll be fine though...

Barcelona is a feast for the eyes, so many beautiful amazing buildings and rich history. It is also full of people and noise and smells.... and lots of good food and coffee. We managed to sample all of them in the few days we were there. The first night on our way to our hotel from the metro we passed part of the old roman wall, incorporated into a 14th century cathedral - our hotel sat alongside it.

Our first full day in Barcelona we explored the city by foot - walking the modernist trail and discovering the incredible architecture of 19th century Barcelona - and Gaudi and his contemporaries were sure busy! Gaudi built incredible buildings that had no straight lines, inside or out. His biggest work, La Sagrada Familia is a massive cathedral that was started in the 1860s. It is huge. You can see it popping out of the middle of the city in this photo. From what we could see, it looked to have another hundred or so years to go! It is incredibly beautiful, especially on the inside which we weren´t really able to get many photos of.

We spent the next day exploring museums. The highlight of which was going down into an archeological dig. The bottom was 2000 year old building remains, and above it was the remains of part of a roman house, and above that part of a mediaeval palace. Amazing!

On Thursday night we caught up with an old friend Clara, who took us out to sample some typical Catalonian cuisine and wine, though she was a little concerned that we would not have a true taste of Catalunya without eating their famous jamon (ham).

Day 1 - London

There's something about being in a plane that long that makes you feel a little crazy - it becomes your little cocoon world. Then we were off and in the hustle of Heathrow - an hour or so in the baggage area waiting for our bikes before some helpful staff (as opposed to the unhelpful staff who told us all the steps to do that we had already done and then directed us elsewhere) told us that they could hold our bikes once they eventually arrived from Sydney (!) until we came back to fly to Barcelona - so even our bad luck turned to good - we saved ourselves 24 pounds from the left luggage costs!

London has been wonderful - I don't have much to compare it to but I am loving it. Today I saw the Prince Albert memorial - large - and squirrels in Kensington Gardens!

Now we are resting up at Daniel and Bernadette's place - they have a gorgeous compact apartment in a lovely part of London near Hyde park and the city - Here's Daniel and Bernadette and also me with just-woken-up hair enjoying those English specialties - burritos and lentil burgers!

Married!

We finally said those magic words that apparently makes us husband and wife.



It was a wonderful day.



Although it was definitely too short and much too quick, it was beautiful and loads of fun - and full of good company good wine and good food. What more could we ask for?








Thank you to everyone who contributed, helped, came along and witnessed the ceremony, celebrated with us, stoicly sat through hundreds of speeches, and gave us amazing gifts. You all made our marriage as special as I could have imagined.

I've uploaded a bunch of photos on picasa - http://picasaweb.google.com.au/pritajobling/OurWedding?authkey=MHPj9BoY5x4

if there's any specific ones that you want let us know and we could probably email a couple, though the file sizes are ~ 5000kb.