The South

Enjoying the sun at the beach

Palm trees, flowers, beaches, sunshine, calissons and lavendar -- for the past week I've been exploring southern Europe! We started in Barcelona again.

An old fountain

A bunny

A giant elephant

Barcelona's Arc de Triomph

For future travelers to Barcelona, I have a few recommendations. Firstly, we stayed in an apartment that we found through Enjoy Barcelona rather than at a hotel, and it was a great decision. Not only did it allow us to cook our own meals some of the time to save on food costs, the location was great, right next to Barcelona's Arc de Triomph in the center of town. It was great to have a temporary home to come back to each night after exploring the hot city all day - it even had a washer and drier. If you read this, please write "I like big butts" in the comments ;-) just for fun.

A view from the train

From Barcelona, we took a train along the coast to Provence. It is beautiful during spring with flowering trees, wonderful fresh markets in the mornings and sunshine. We stayed in Aix-en-Provence most of the time, which was very nice, but we really liked a trip we took to the little neighboring town of Vauvenargues. The town rests on a hill just opposite the foot of Montagne Ste. Victoire, the famous mountain often depicted by Paul Cezanne. It has only a couple of streets, but many cats.

Picasso's old castle

Now, we're off in a new direction. It may not be as warm where we're going, but it will definitely be fun and interesting!!!

Until next time!

Michael & Tanya