Our two nights in Carcassonne done, and it was time to leave France. Rather than take the expensive and boring motorway down the coast, we decided to head to Barcelona via the high country and ski fields that straddle the French-Spanish border in the Pyrenees mountains.
But a first stop had to be the little hilltop hamlet of Rennes-le-Chateau, immortalised in the Dan Brown novel, The Da Vinci Code.
This too proved to be a source of great images.
Then, it was on to our high country jaunt through villages such as Formiguères. We stopped here, grabbed some ham, cheese, tomatoes and baguettes, and had ourselves a nice little roadside picnic about 5km out of town.
As we headed toward Barcelona, we flew past (on another inevitable motorway) the mountain range at Montserrat. I would have liked to have stopped to shoot it, but if you stop on the motorway, by law you have to put out an orange warning triangle, and wear a fluorescent vest. Too much effort. And I didn’t want to get off the motorway either, as that would require paying a toll, and then getting a new ticket when re-entering the motorway.
So, stuff it. Montserrat photos won’t be happening.
We arrived in Barcelona, and met our lovely Air B’n’B hosts, Alba and John.
They were very helpful, giving us info on getting around in Barcelona on public transport, and mentioned that they were going away for the following night, so we would have the place to ourselves. Apparently, the reason for their exodus was that the following night (a Friday), was a local festival known as the Festival of St Joan. This particular event involved the whole town going crazy with fireworks until the early hours of Saturday morning. Um, right. OK then.
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