Day 103, 15 October 2012, The Paris Pass - she begins - Louvre, Paris Story, Fragonard Perfume Museum, Grevin Wax Museum, Arcades, Seine Cruise & Eiffel Tower - We purchased a six day Paris Pass about 6 months ago when we were still in Sydney. The challenge is to use it to see as much of Paris as we can whilst ensuring we get at least €60 per day value from the passes. Here goes. First off we went to the Louvre and spent about 5 hours absorbing gallery a...

Day 102, 14 October 2012, Paris, France. Boy oh Boy! it's everything I've ever imagined, It's quaint and hazy and rainy and monumental and the Louvre seems like the largest building on planet earth. We left the bags at our quaint (that's double speak for small and cheap) hotel in the 20th arrondissement at about 9.30 am. That was after a 1 hour herculean effort on the Paris metro with our massive bags to get here from Gare d'Austerlitz via 3 different changes. ...

Day 101, 13 October 2012, Badalona - Barcelona - PARIS!!! Almost 3 weeks have passed since we arrived in Spain and it would be fair to say we could both live here easily. What's not to like about stunning architecture, inexpensive food and bottles of wine for less than €2. And of all the places we have visited, Barcelona has been incredibly accessible. Today we farewelled it sadly with a final nip into town on the Metro to hunt down some portable camping typ...

Day 100(!), 12 October 2012, Barcelona Gaudi Walking Tour with Runner Bean Tours - Gaudi is Barcelona's favourite son (not to say he wasn't controversial in his time, mind you). Until we reached Barcelona, we would have been hard pressed to say if Gaudi was an artist or an architect... that is we knew nothing at all. The tour soon fixed that. First stop was Placa Reial where we saw Gaudi's one and only commission for the city council of the time - the exotic l...

Day 99, 11 October 2012, Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda... Didn't - Nothing like a great walking tour to tire us out... and the weight of plans yet to be made hung over our heads, so today we lounged around the apartment (pictured is the view to the beach), listened to the rhythm of the falling rain.... and worked like crazy to plan for about 2 weeks from now when we had tentatively scheduled a trip from France to Ireland prior to reaching London in early November. What...