Verona

We drove our rental car up to Verona a couple of hours to the north of Florence via Bolognia. We ditched our (only slightly damaged, but they didn't see it) rental car there and met up with Davide Zavaroni, who stayed at our place in Dec 2006 while touring NZ. Davide had booked us some accomodation near the Arena and got us tickets to an opera that night. Verona is also the setting of the story of Romeo and Juliet, made famous by William Shakespeare.

The Arena was built in 60 (yes sixty) AD


Davide lives about an hour from Verona. Oscar looks in awe at the Arena


Statue of Romulus and Remus being raised by a she-wolf. The pigeon is an extra!


Statue of Bill (Shakespere) who apparently spent some time in Verona.


The entrance to Tomba di Gulietta (tomb of Juliette)



Deep in the basement, the actual tomb. Sadly covered in kids feltpen graffiti.

Then across the other side of town was at Casa di Giulietta where Jan is out on THE balcony... "Johnny, Johnny, where for art thou"?


The 'saw tooth' decoration is unique to Verona and can be seen in a number of places around the city.


Later, we bought some food and drink from the deli and went to the Arena for the opera. By sheer luck the opera was 'Romeo & Juliet', you can't ask for more than that.


Click on this for the full view


There were big screens and all the scenery was projected onto screens. It was a stunning, unforgettable show .


This is the battle scene between the Montagues and the Capulets


And in the end they both die...


...or do they???


What a show, the highlight of the trip - grazie mille Davide!


Davide left us after the opera and drove back home and we wandered the streets in search of Pizza. Next day we were off to BARCELONA...

Barcelona

This is Rambala de Mar, a walkway around the port. Funny, when we got home and showed these pictures to the boys, they said "oh we've skated here on the Tony Hawke PlayStation3 game". They were quite familiar with this whole area thanks to Sony. However we didn't see any real life skaters grinding up on those giant arial rails on this day.


One of the highlights of our siteseeing in Barcelona was the trip on the cable car that runs over the port and up to Montjuic .


It looked a bit scary from the ground. Nice artwork though.


However we hardened up, paid the 11 Euro and took the lift up the tower. It was pretty high up there.


There's the skateboard park again.


The ride is about 2 km in length. This is the centre tower where you can get off if you wish.


It looks kind of vulnerable. Personally I was quite pleased to get off.


Then we sauntered down town to Las Ramblas for some lunch in the markets.


One of the finest seafood lunches Oscar and I have ever had. Jan went with a turf-based selection.


The beer was extra good too. Nice Hat Stu!


The other tourist 'must-do' in BCN is to see the work of architect Antonio Gaudi (1852 - 1926). This is a church called La Sagrada Familia (the Sacred Family). Construction began in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026. It's a stunning piece of work, I think Gaudi was a man ahead of his time by about 100 years. Well worth visiting the city for this alone.










No those are not microwave transmitters




Fruit




Doves




We made good use of the BCN underground system, reminded me of London.


We ate out one night at a place Jan had researched as a 'not so touristry' place. We fed the address into the GPS and blindly followed through the back streets. The menus were in Spanish and I ordered some sort of meat medley. The white bits tasted a bit foreign to me and I asked the waiter in sign language what it was. He tugged on his ear! My next question was "moo"? the waiter shook his head and went "oink oink". The Audiologist was highly amused.


Next day we took another cable car ride into the hills overlooking the city and saw this church.


Christ!


Nice. However the view was crap due to the smog.


That night we met up with Spanish Bob, an Englishman I met via the AdvRider website who has been working in BCN for 7 years. He rides a BMW G/S Adventure and showed us a night on the town at a local Tapas Bar. No pigs ears on the menu here. Tapas is an entire cuisine; at Spanish restaurants, you (or Bob in our case) order many different small tapas, and keep em coming till you're full.

Mmmmm, try the bowl of chillis - one out of every dozen or so is an 'eye-waterer'. Their appearance gives no indication of the heat, you have to bite them to find out - a bit like Russian roulette. The chilli score, Bob 4, the rest of us 0. Ha ha ha ha nice one Bob.

This is the AdvRider salute, known internationally as FYYFF... (if you don't know, don't ask)


Next day we bid farewell to Barcelona and hopped on the train to Granollers, 30km to the north for where you'll find circuit de Catalunya for MotoGP Catalunya

MotoGP Catalunya

The circuit de Catalunya has a classic iconic shape for many of it's structures based on the letter 'C'.


And a classic leaderboard ala Daytona


Pit lane exit


Marco Melandri exiting pit lane




This is a massive bronze honouring Argentinian GP great Juan Manuel Fangio.


And another to Paco Bulto founder of the Spanish 'Bultaco' motorcycle marque.

Another view of the main grandstand

Same uniforms, different girls, different circuit, same effect!

First lap of the 250cc race on Sunday


And the winner's celebration.

Rossi had one of his trademark special sets of leathers to show his support for the Italian national soccer team in the 2008 Euro Cup.

and matching uniforms for his pit girls.

The Catalunya crowd was a record breaker

This is the MotoGP race. Pedrosa leads Rossi and Stoner.

Action, what we came for.

The Kiwi Rider Paparazi hard at work

See how quick they change directions

Rossi (2nd), Stoner, Andrea Dovizioso, Edwards and De Puniet. Pedrosa is long gone.

A Spanish flag marshal indulges in a bit of quality reading between races.


MotoGP action - click to play movie.

Dani Pedrosa - made mincemeat of the others.

The local boy led from the start and won by a country mile. Celebration by the fans was by contrast quite muted. Crowd control and a Police force that DID give a shit, meant no track invasion like the week previous.

Our next and final holiday spot was ANDORRA, 200km north.