I was drawn to Girona, 99km northeast of Barcelona, by the 63rdTemps de Flors (Fiesta de Flores) or Flower Festival. If it hadn't been for that, I would probably not have bothered to go to this city, which I'd only vaguely heard about …
Trying to understand Dalí
I have to be up-front here and admit straight out that I don't much care for the Surrealist work of Salvador Dalí. But, whilst in northern Catalonia it seemed an obvious thing to do to visit at least one of the three Salvador Dalí museums and try to understand what it was she liked about this bizarre man's work…
The omnipresence of Catalan
My only experience of Catalonia thus far was Barcelona, where public signage is in both Catalan and Spanish and you hear more Spanish than Catalan spoken. But we're staying 60 kms north of Barcelona in the village of Sant Pol de Mar for the next 10 days and the Catalan language here is not only omnipresent but frequently unaccompanied by any Spanish translation…
Emerging from the shadow of Versailles: the Château de Fontainebleau
The only French château to have been occupied continuously for eight centuries by 34 kings and emperors with its 1,530 rooms that contain more furniture than any other castle in Europe lies just 70 km south of Paris: Fontainebleau. But why, when this UNESCO World Heritage site surrounded by a forest that attracts some 11 million tourists a year, does Fontainebleau palace play second fiddle to Versailles…
Crossing Australia south to north by train: the Ghan
It is a common misconception that Uluru (Ayers' Rock) is close to Alice Springs. Which is why I thought we could go to this small town in the geographical centre of the Australian continent, pop over to Uluru in the afternoon and leave the next day. We didn't want to fly, we wanted to see the Outback up close and personal. But we didn't really want to drive 1,500kms either. The answer: go by train!
Driving down the Pacific Highway
The idea behind undertaking an almost 1,000 km drive from Brisbane to Sydney was to see some of the coastline. Well, it turns out that the Pacific Highway doesn't actually run anywhere near the Pacific and that it's mostly lined with gum trees!
Bustling Brisbane
Brisbane is a big, modern metropolis, set along both banks of the Brisbane river whose waters at this wet season are brown and fast flowing...
Sleepy, tiny, remote Darwin
The first thing that struck me in Darwin was the high proportion of Aborigines. The second was how small and empty this state capital is (its population is comparable with that of Weston-Super-Mare in England or Versailles in France). The third was that it feels (to me) as though this town belongs to a different place: there is something a bit rootless about Darwin...
The Ghan, heading north
I'm not going to write too much about The Ghan here because I'll be writing about it elsewhere.
But as it was one of the major highlights of our trip to Australia I shall tell you this:
The Ghan is not only the longest passenger train in the world (1km long, give or take a metre or two) but it also takes you on one of the world's great train journeys...