Day 30 - Ronda

Well this is pretty much our last day of the holiday. The next 48hrs will be spent travelling within Spain and then onto Australia.

We spent the day enjoying the sights of Ronda, one of the most beautiful towns we have seen and good enough that Earnest Hemmingway and H.G Wells have their ashes scattered here.

The town is perched on top of cliffs and the major attractions are the old bridges that span the deep canyons.

As we are in the south of Spain, there is a significant Arabic(Moorish) influence to the buildings.

But otherwise, it's just another pretty Spanish town with lots of white buildings.

Day 29 - Ardales to Ronda (last day of Ride)

Today was a harder day with a decent 300m climb out of Ronda to wake us up. We then wound our way down some very average roads to the small valley town of El Burgo.

Now we faced our 2nd largest climb, from 400m to nearly 1200m. Surprisingly, despite having ridden a solid 5 days, we are finding the climbs a bit easier and find a good pace that suits us. We enter the beautiful town of Ronda very satisfied after 5 great days of riding.

Our hotel is perched right on the top of the cliff above.

Day 28 - Antequerra to Ardales

Gorgeous start to today, a nice (!) steep 100m rise out of town to get the heart started and then beautiful rolling hillside scenery for most of the morning.  We crossed into another scenic valley with lemon, orange, almond and of course Olive trees and gently headed down for most of the morning until arriving at El Chorro gorge. 

Let me tell you about the down hill sections; they are STEEP!  Yesterday we had to get off a couple times for an incredibly steep uphill section, but I (Shaz) could happily have gotten off the bike for a couple of the downhills!  The roads are little back roads so not the best surface to start with, then in the braking zone they turn to rubble and then to gravel in the corner!  Then the corner might tighten a bit, or drop off even steeper and of course, there can always be a car coming the other way, or two cars stopped - one in each direction - while the locals catch up for a chat!  My legs haven't hurt as much going up any hill as my forearms and hands have hurt trying to keep the speed under control going downhill!

So happily after lunch we headed back uphill, 200m to 450m in about 4km, through some pine forest, the lake district and then into Ardale.  Gorgeous, typical white town with narrow lane ways up steep hillsides, pity the food wasn't so great; I think the ice-cream was the healthiest option here.

Day 27 - Colmenar to Antequerra

A challenging day today with a few big climbs including one to the top of a mountain from 350m to 1250m. In places it was so steep that we had to get off and walk the bikes. The descents can often be more challenging, reaching over 70kph, blind corners, stones across the road, some sections with a 10% gradient (which is a lot steeper than it sounds, try impossible to ride up, difficult for cars and steep enough for walking to be very difficult). Again, the views were amazing, especially from El Torqo, the mountain we climbed.

Day 26 - Bike ride to Colmenar

A little shorter today but the tooshie is already sore from yesterday!  We had an incredibly steep ride just to get out of town so soon forgot about the toosh and just concentrated on breathing!  Just 51kms today but 2 decent climbs. 1 from 800 to 1180m and then the 2nd took us from 380m to about 700m and was right at the end of the day. 

But again, the scenery made it completely enjoyable.  We've ridden into one of those tiny, white towns perched right on top of a hill top and the valley's are just spread out below with views of another mountain range, the Sierra de Alhama in the background.

Day 25 - Bike ride Granada to Alhambra Granada

Now THIS is the Spain we've been waiting to see!  We had a pretty big bike ride to warm us up, 65kms and 3 massive climbs (well by our Beach Rd standards anyway!) with the final climb finishing in town at 900m. But it didn't seem to matter; as soon as we got a bit tired or thought the hill would never finish, we'd just have a look at where we were and the surrounding scenery. It was just spectacular!  Gorgeous little farms growing wheat, herbs & olive trees as far as the eye can see.  But it gives the land scape a really intersting patchwork appearance. Even the fields that look like weeds are pretty as they're full of red poppies and then yellow and purple flowers (which could be herbs or something for all I know!)  and everything else is bright green. 

The towns are all white with caramel colored roofs and they,re just dotted across the countryside and perched precariously on hill tops in many cases.  And then of course there are the specacular, rugged and still snow capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada. 

We're told that Cadel Evans is training around here having just finished some local race where he came 5th, so we're in pretty impressive company!

We ride into the massively steep streets, even when you're walking! of the tiny town of Alhambra and get taken by our wonderful Dutch hosts to the natural springs just outside of town and let our legs recover after a massive day lugging our extra holiday weight around and then get taken to a great little restaurant for dinner.
We can't figure out why this place doesn't rate as highly as Tuscany; certainly the countyside is up there, perhaps the towns aren't up to comparison with Sienna, etc.

Day 24 - Granada

Granada seems to be an interesting place, situated inland and a bit larger than San Sebastian. One of the main attractions of Granada is the old palace which is in the Arab/Islam style like we saw in Morocco, but a lot larger and more grand. It was really worth the visit.

Day 20 to 23 - Madrid

Madrid's a little harder to get into than the (limited) Spain we've seen so far.  Granted, it's the commercial centre so the focus is primarily work and not tourism; however, it's been hard to find a good meal and harder still to see what the attraction of the city actually is.  Whilst there are plenty of places to eat, they're smoky little places with the telly & football on and the tapas aren't that great. It's also meant to have great nightlife, but we've found only more smoky little bars.  And when I say little, these bars are full at 40 people, they are just tiny and the streets are literally lined with them, but still not the energy we expected in a big city.
We spent one full day shopping at an "outlet" mall about 40mins out of town (which is a long, long way out of town anywhere in Europe!). The mall has a lot of the big name brands such as Ralph Lauren, Diesel, Boss, Bvlgari, Versaci etc.  But we got lost getting to this place and ended up in a nearby suburb and you could see all the housing they've built or partly built that now lays empty and often unfinished. They have "Vendi" signs everywhere and whenever we speak to locals they tell us just how messed up their property market is here and just how disinterested the population seems to be in getting  their economy back on track.

Days 16 to 19 - San Sebastian

This is a gorgeous town; facing a really sheltered bay it has wide sandy (not shelly at all) beaches, a beautiful tree lined river and mountains form the backdrop. It was also the summer playground for the Spanish royal family and has obviously had some money spent on it. 

The architecture is beautiful and far more decorative and varied than is more typical in France, the shops are quite high quality too and there's no getting away from  good food here! San Sebastian is well known as foodie mecca, with more michellin stars than anywhere else in the world. This translates to even average food being of a truly excellent standard, significantly better than the food we encountered in France. The old quarter is home to seemingly hundreds of tiny bar/restaurants, all with Tapas lining their bar tops. Even better, as eating doesn't start until 8.30 - 9.00pm (we couldn't order an ensalada at 8pm last night!) it seems that an ice cream before dinner is quite the norm!!

We did the walk to the top of the Jesus statue for great views over the town yesterday and then just wandered the city to enjoy the squares, parks and plaza's. This town is only a few hours away from Barcelona, Madrid, the Riviera, the Pyranees and Paris, it's large enough to happily live in and close enough to the rest of Europe when you want to do something a little different.

Arzak - Ruined!

San Sebastian is a reasonably sized town in the Basque region of Spain, up near the Pyranees, on the border with France and in a bay sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean. It's also a quite prosperous city and has the highest number of top 50 rated restaurants outside of Paris. We tried Arzak, currently number 8 restaurant in the world and consistently in the top 10.  So how good could it possibly be?!

The restaurant certainly doesn't depend on any razzle dazzle for it's ratings.  The decor is of course very well done but simple and sparse.  There's no view to speak of and no ornate architecture, just well spaced, large tables with room to present the food at it's best and that's where the supurlatives begin!
 
The food is exquisite, stunning and quite exceeded all expections and anything I've ever had anywhere else!  We start with a chef's amuse which appropriately was composed of 5 small tapa dishes, the highlight of which was a tasty sliver of anchovy atop a strawberry! Sounds aweful doesn't it but the strawberry flavour had really been extracted and highlighted in a sauce and this allowed the strawberry to match the flavour of the fish, it was just a gorgeous food match.
These tapas were so good we were concerned whether this standard of food could be maintained for the degustation courses that we had selected but we needn't have worried.  Another highlight of the degustation here is that for both the fish and the meat course, we are offered a choice of 3 dishes. This allows us to select a different plate each.

The next dish is a caramelised bubble of foie gras (my mouth is watering already!) on a disc of apple. This dish was beautifully presented and just divine, great flavours to start with and just beautifully balanced.  Again we doubted this level of food could be maintained but I believe this is what sets this standard of restaurant apart. We've had meals at Vue and Aria that had a couple of truly amazing dishes but also a few misses.  These Arzac dishes have set the bar above anything that I've had elsewhere and the following dishes lived up to this level. 

We also asked the somellier to match 3 to 4 glasses of wine to the food for the night and we had some fantastic wines that we'll have to follow up when we get home; even better, the prices were reasonable.  I know the dollar is great against the Euro right now but we came out of this night at around $750, so the value was also really good.
The next dish to arrive has an almost cult rating, it translates to Egg of the Moment and is basically the "first laid" egg of the day, poached and presented in a bowl with crunchy little tasty bits including caramelised sesame seeds that looked like silver shot.  When we break the egg and stir it into the crunchy bits, it creates a gorgeous blend of flavours and textures and is just quite stunning. 

We're starting to lose superlatives to describe the food, we're hopelessly unable to convey our appreciation of the food to the wait staff and this extended to Elena (the chef) when she came out to talk to us.  Another "gold star" for the restaurant as she makes an effort to talk to all tables despite the number of languages that must be present on each evening! She is coming to Australia next March so seemed to make a real effort to talk to us.

The next course is the fish dish; I had the sea bass and Greg had the monk fish.  Again, beautifully presented. My dish had a sauce spread across the plate like sand with little sauces made to look like shells, a curacao star fish and red "seaweed" and it tasted sensational.  Greg's dish similarily had amazing presentation with what looked to be walnuts and green garlic but which were in fact perfectly matched flavours shaped as walnuts and green garlic cloves. Whilst the flavour was more subtle than my dish it was still very yummy!

We're also not too full! While we haven't wanted each dish to end that's because we don't want the flavours to be gone!  But the degustation has been really well created so that by the end, we're not too stuffed but very happily satisfied. The last of the main dishes was the pigeon for Greg and lamb for me.  The pigeon was melt in the mouth tender with a gamey flavour while the lamb was quite rare for what we're used to but incredibly tender with the sauce just enhancing the flavour.  That's been quite consistent; the sauces and other "decorations" on our plates have just enhanced the flavour of the dish itself and added to the presentation of the meal.  The main ingredients though have been the highlight of each dish.

By this stage of the night we've been exchanging looks of "OMG this is good" with another Aussie couple on a nearby table so we finally got together to share stories on what had brought them here.  There was an American couple on the table next door and they'd lived in Oz and really knew their food and wine so we also invited them over. We unanimously agreed that this was by far the best dining experience we'd all enjoyed (and the Aussies had done Tzetzuyas) and our only regret was that we were probably ruined for eating out anywhere else! A nice touch was the special cake for our anniversary celebration, we've been milking that for a while now!

So the deserts started and this has been a dish that I've always been disappointed in with degustations. Perhaps I'm usually too full by desert but I actually think it's because they're trying to be too tricky and haven't used enough chocolate! But not here!!  Gregs plate was scattered with little chocolate moose serves, each topped with a sugary wafer.  My dish was little balls of chocolate in a strawberry sauce and basil sorbet and believe it or not, the basil matched perfectly.  The little chocolate balls were just an explotion of liquid chocolate flavour when they popped in my mouth; these were extraordinarily good.

Finally a plate of bite sized sweets with a pineapple jelly, apricot wafers and chocolate covered in cocoa. Our new American friend shouted our tables a bottle of Le Grand Dame to celebrate the occassion and the six of us shared travel, food and wine stories into the early morning!  We finally noted we were the last standing, including the staff (!) so regretably left Arzac and the finest food I have ever experienced behind. 

Photo's from Sharen's Formula 1 ride

Day 16 - Barcelona

But 1st a few observations from the past few days.  We've been travelling with Greg's little Dell netbook (a tiny little laptop that he uses to record laptimes etc in his car!) for this trip and it has been a holiday saver!  We wanted it to be able keep up with any urgent emails and to log our holiday blog but it's also come in useful as a back up for precious photos.  However; from the moment we were told our flight to BCN wasn't on, this thing has been a holiday saver! 

At 2am in a dodgy dive of a hotel in the even dodgier town of Tangier's, we happened across a flight taking reservations from Malaga to BCN; BCN had just re-opened!!  This would save around 9 to 10 hours of driving time and time was insanely tight at this stage.  We brought our ticket and reserved our seat on line and there were plenty of seats available. By the time we arrived for this flight however; it was jam packed! The queue at the airport to get on one of the rare flights operating was huge! We didn't get to Malaga with a lot of time to spare so had we ended up in the queue we would have missed the flight and more than likely have missed getting to BCN and the F1 experience.
A funnier moment was sitting in Marrakech train station, using Segafredo,s (cafe a few 100 mtrs away) wi-fi when a Pom comes up asking for the IP address we're using - every Westerner travelling was making plans on the move - so we get up the IP and he takes out his IPOD and takes a snap shot! It just seemed an insight into the future of travel!

On the train from Casablanca to Tangiers, there were 4 other Westerners all taking phone calls and texts with travel options for the next stage of their trip.  They were hoping there trip back to London could be done in about 4 days! 

But we're back on track now. Needless to say we didn't end up with any time to see BCN but we did manage a stroll along both the port foreshore and up La Rambla to a fantastic tapas bar.  So we've seen enough to know that it's a great looking city with a very active nightlife and amazing Tapa's bars!  Mo-vida isn't a patch on this style of eating - the bar is just lined with great looking, colorful plates of food, there's a whole section of fresh seafood that when selected, disappears into the kitchen for a few minutes and comes back as a dish that makes your mouth water!  And it's cheap! Definitely have to come back here.

Day 15 - I've Died and gone to Heaven

OK, life does not get any better than this. Today I drove a Formula 1 car flat-out and Sharen has been taken for a spin in a 3 seater Formula 1 car. I have wondered for a long time how it would be to actually drive a F1 car, but my imaginings could not prepare me for the actual experience. It was awesome beyond words, thrilling, genuinely un-nerving and such a violent and overwhelming assult on all of the senses. Despite your brain saying this is crazy, this car is going to kill you, just enough concious will remained to keep the throttle flat.

Yes, that's me!

Me in the Formula 3 car

I would like to be able to say that I drove like Michael Schumacher, but I cannot. This is a whole new solar system of car performance that I just could not come to grips with in the 5 laps I had. I drove it as fast as I dared, but not so there was any chance I would suffer the ignomy of crashing their very expensive F1 car, like one other driver did... It was made all the more difficult by my too-large feet fouling the accelerator and brake, causing a few tense moments when I couldn't release the throttle fully. Anyway, I did experience an F1 car at full throttle, reaching over 300kph on the front straight, talk about INTENSE. Very similar intensity to skydiving. The F1 car I drove was the Benetton that Giancarlo Fisichella campaigned in 1998 and got one Pole Position, has a 780hp Cosworth V8 and only weighed 650kg.

We have incar and external video of the drive which, I'll upload when I return.

Day 13 and 14 - Planes Trains and Automobiles (and Ferrys and Buses)

Well it had to happen, the volcanic ash has now closed Madrid and Barcelona airports, thowing our travel plans and that of most of europe into disarray.It's incredibly chaotic, the shutdown of all flights into and out of Europe just doesn't happen and everyone has somewhere they need to get to. The airport provided little information beyond the fact that there are no flights. So, we've had to make very hasty alternative arrangements. Unfortunately, it seems everyone else is having to do the same, so hotels, trains, car rentals etc.. are all under massive strain. It would have been fine if there was no time pressure, however in just 36hours I was due to drive the Formula 1 car, so our own real life episode of Race Around the World was on.

Look at all the cancelled flights!

So what was supposed to be a nice 2hr flight to Barcelona became;

• 3hrs waiting for a train in Marrakech
• 9 hours on the train to Tangier
• A 1am arrival at a dive of a hotel in Tangier that would do Fawlty Towers proud. Thanks to Alan for arranging the only hotel with availability in Tangier at 3:30am Melbourne time while we were stuck on the train. Fortunately this hotel had wifi, so sitting in bed at 2am, we discovered that Barcelona airport had just been reopened, and we managed to quickly secure a flight fromthe south of Spain to Barcelona. Now we had to catch our flight...
• A mad scramble at 5:30 am to a Ferry from Tangier to Tenerife, which incidentally involved throwing money at helpful locals to magically skip the long customs queues, the only thing that got us on the Ferry in time.
• 2hrs on a Ferry across to the Europe mainland,
• A 1hr bus ride to Algecerias
• A further 1.5hr bus ride to Malaga
• And finally, a 1.5hr flight to Barcelona.

We finally made it to Barcelona at 7pm, with just enough time for rest prior to the F1 experience,whew!

Day 11 & 12 - Marrakech

Marrakech is a pretty cool city.  It's not the commercial centre and has only about 1m people so is much smaller than Cassablanca (8 to 9 mil) and much better for it. The place started as a trading centre on the camel caravan routes so all sorts of goods including slaves were traded here.  The Souks and Square continue this amazing tradition of trade today. You can easily get lost in the rabbit warren of alleys and laneways in the Souk but Greggie came up with the brilliant idea of taking a picture behind us, every time we turned a corner with me in the picture pointing to where we'd come from.  When you want to go home, just play the pictures back on the camera and follow the directions - Brilliant!

We had a tragically touristy experience at "Chez Ali" one night. It's like a really poorly done, Disneyland version of the history of the Berber tribes accompanied by equally tacky (but lots of it!!) food. I imagine a night at Kryal Castle might be nearly as bad as this!

But otherwise, it's been great to relax for our last couple of days here with a bit of bargaining and shopping, a walk through the gardens owned by Yves Saint Laurent and enjoying a traditional Hamman - well, perhaps it was a bit of a Westernised version as Greg & I could be in the same room together but it was lovely and at 1/10th the cost of a massage in Paris we've realised too late that we should have had one every day!

Off to Spain tomorrow, assuming of course that this Icelandic volcanoe that has shut down 2/3rds of Europe's flight space does not interupt our plans! Oh well, Inshallah!

Day 10 - Dades Gorge to Marrakech

Well Sharen (me) hasn't yet seen the Grand Canyon so the Dades Gorge - Africa's answer to the Grand Canyon was ok by me, but today when we were offered a tour of Africa's answer to Hollywood - in the form of "Morroco Studio Cinemas" I thought it was best given a wide berth, despite all of the promising posters of Gladiator and Russell Crowe.

The day got better though with spectacular scenery crossing the High Atlas; villages built into the mountain side with only goat tracks leading in and out, a valley of roses,  terraced fields of just about anything that can be grown, the contrasting colors of the red earth, blue sky and green oasis and a windy, squiggly little switch back road that Greg would just love to fang the beast up.

It was a long but pretty incredibly scenic drive and then we arrive into Marrakech which is quite something else.  The Square is amazing.  The sound of everything going on hits you first; the sounds of traffic back in a city where the traffic is bedlam, African drums, the hawkers selling their wares and foods, the call to prayer being amplified from at least 4 mosques and of course the flute of the snake charmers.

Yes, I did end up with a tiny snake around my neck (note Greg hiding behind me in the photo!) and while I actually don't mind snakes, the sight of the cobra's lying nearby on the ground is a bit unsettling to say the least.

Day 9 - Sahara to Dades Gorge

After coming down with a bit of a cold, I'm over travelling today. So when presented with the Dades Gorge, apparently the largest in all of northern africa, my synical side simply thought 'not a patch on the Grand Canyon'! Nonetheless, it was pretty impressive but was hard to get excited about following the highlight of the Sahara. Sharen says Greg is not the best travelling companion today :-)

Day 8 - A Day and Night in the Sahara Desert

Much of today was spent in transportation into the Sahara Desert, first by our guide, then 4wd, then on Camel through the dunes. What an amazing place, outside the Sahara is a barren wasteland of dirt, gravel and tussock as far as you can see. Then before you know it, you're in the dunes, and they are massive! Many are over 150m high and some over 500m.

Travelling on Camel back was a unique experience, what odd animals, able to survive for up to a month without water or food and able to carry huge weight over shifting sands, they are certainly useful in the Sahara. They are weird to ride, much higher than a horse and much wider, and you have no stirrups. It's also quite a rough ride as they take their long loping strides through the sands.

Our group of 5 arrived at the Berber bivouack(?) on dusk and settled in for the night sleeping under the stars in the Sahara Desert, a truly memorable experience. It was surprisingly windy and cold, so sleep was hard to come by. Soon enough however, it began to get lighter, signalling the time to begin our ascent of the 150m dune near the camp, a challenge set by our guide. After what seemed an eternity (maybe 45min) we finally crested the top of the dune and took in an amazing sunrise over the sand.

Hotel George V Review

Often rated as the best hotel in the world and the awards to prove it, it's fair to say that our expectations of the George V were very high. For the most part, it did not disappoint.

We were greeted at the door by name (no idea how they knew) and were immediately made to feel welcomed. Our concierge escorted us to our room on the top floor, with a magnificent view of the Eiffel Tower. We were immediately impressed with the size and understated elegance of the room. Very tastefully furnished without screaming opulence like some asian and middle-eastern hotels can.

However, you need to be very careful to avoid getting gouged at every turn, try $600 for a bottle of Baileys, or $110 for a Ceasar Salad or Club Sandwitch. Even internet access is a further $40 per day. You'd expect that with room rates starting at $1500/night that it might be included. Another annoyance for me is the insistence on a fairly formal dress code including the requirement for a suit or dinner jacket for lunch or dinner.

Located in Paris's 'golden triangle', between the Champs Elisee, Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph, it was a doddle to walk to any of Paris's many attractions. An unfortunate side-effect of the location in the very trendy 8th Arrondisment is that it seemed every shop and every person was dripping wealth and wasn't really our scene. It makes Albert Park look like Broadmeadows.

The hotel restaurant, Le Cinq has 2 michellin stars and has the most amazing dinig room that looks like a Louis XIII era palace. We have been lucky enough to enjoy some really fine dining over the years and unfortunately the food did not live up our expectations. The food was generally excellent, but no better than we have had in some Australian restaurants. It was all all good up until the Foie Gras dish that was just too rich and too large, everything after that was a struggle.

Despite the small annoyances, we thouroughly enjoyed our 4 nights at the George V, it is unquestionably the best hotel we have stayed in and had very little room for improvement, however we are happy to leave places like the George V as a very rare and special indulgence.