Lyon, FR

We left Avignon just in time! The rain was rolling in while we waited at the station, and during the first part of our trip the deluge was so dense, and our train so fast, that it seemed to be raining sideways. We arrived to skies that were dry, if not quite blue, and made… Continue reading Lyon, FR

Avignon, FR

Our arrival in Avignon was smooth, albeit a little later than we had initially planned. We made a newbie mistake and had checked the ‘Arrivals’ board in the Montpellier train station and thus were late for our real train by a mere 5 minutes and therefore had to wait for the next train 1.5 hours… Continue reading Avignon, FR

Montpellier, FR

As already in mentioned in Dan’s previous blog post, we found ourselves in Montpellier by accident since this was as close to Avignon we could book from Barcelona. We had a short stint here and enjoyed this small city more than expected. Our hotel was only a 3 minute walk from the train station and… Continue reading Montpellier, FR

Barcelona, ES (part 1)

Day 1:  Our train from Sevilla departed at a relatively early time of 9AM, and cruised through increasingly greener and more interesting landscape as we made our way east. Apparently our route took us north as well, through Madrid, but we didn’t even notice. It was a high-speed express train, so we spent most of… Continue reading Barcelona, ES (part 1)

Sevilla, ES

We are now back in Spain, exploring the southern-ish part of the country in the Andalucia region. Sevilla isn’t the type of city that you would consider beautiful by simply looking at it from a vantage point. You really need to see it up close to appreciate the architecture, the people and the history. In… Continue reading Sevilla, ES

“Obrigado” Portugal!

Our departure from Lisbon required three stages, starting on a municipal train from our home of Rossio (though not the Rossio Station, rather the Rossio Metro Station, as previously covered), then via reservation ticket to Tunes, and finally a regional train, strikingly similar to Calgary’s C-Train, to our destination of Lagos, in the popular holiday… Continue reading “Obrigado” Portugal!

“Olá” Portugual

We arrived in Lisboa tired and haggard from an overnight 12 hour train ride from San Sebastián and therefore took a little longer than usual in finding our accommodations. We had arrived in the Rossio Metro station, and attempted to follow directions from the hostel’s website, which simply said ‘2nd floor of Rossio Train station’. Little… Continue reading “Olá” Portugual

San Sebastián, ES

Sun, sand and sangria pretty much sums up our stay in San Sebastián. We’ve had a very nice introduction to Spain, and very much enjoyed some of the well-known stereotypes, like tapas (called pintxos, said like “pinchoes”) and siesta. We left blue-skied Bordeaux and arrived an overcast grey sky. Christina was disheartened, but there was… Continue reading San Sebastián, ES