Well we are in our second country having crossed Spain we arrived in Lisbon, Portugal today.  Along the way we have stayed in Peniscola (1 night), Valencia (2 nights), Cuenca (1 night), Toledo (2 nights) and Merida (1night).  Prices in Barcelona were not bad but once away from the major area things got cheaper and friendlier with our lack of Spanish and Portuguese becoming even less of an issue.  The weather has been a little cooler and we have to thank Dan & Roz for suggesting the Gerbings heated vests.  All the grief Maurice went through getting them in time has paid off.


After a lovely ride along the coast out of Barcelona we arrived at Peniscola.  Memorable for two reasons, the first the beautiful view of the Castle from the beach and the second the smallest bungalow (cabin) in the world.  It was so small you had to go outside to change your mind.

The view from the beach of Castell de Peniscola.

The smallest bungalow in the World!

We had a long look around the Castell de Peniscola and then headed off toward Valencia.  To save our poor little legs we took the tourist bus around the city.  We saw both the new and the old styles of architecture.  Karen's highlight was climbing the bell tower of the old cathedral, yes she was the only one up to it.

Karen at the top of the Bell Tower.

Just some of the amazing buildings in Valencia.

A less strenuous walk on the amazing bridge.

An adventurous ride seeing some of the sights you wouldn't see on the normal tourist track, such as the disused cement works, thank you Mrs Zumo.  To make up for it though we did find the most character filled restaurante/cafe we have seen so far.  We also travelled through a picturesque little valley to our camping ground in Cuenca.  The weather however was not the greatest and the boys had only just covered up the babies when the hail started. 

Restaurante Venta l'Home.  Picture doesn't do it justice.

"Holy Toledo" what a great place.  Thanks for suggesting it Chris & Jeff. Maurice's quote for the day "so many knifes and swords and no where to put them". We had the best weather and a great day walking around wishing we had a support vehicle for all the stuff we wanted to buy. 

Toledo steel on steroids.

Impressive gates to the walled city of Toledo.

One of our favourite moments so far has been a coffee stop on our way between Toledo and Merida.  This little place "Casa Javi" had the friendliest people we have met.  They took our photo's for their wall and we in turn took theirs for the blog.  When we were going to leave he went out the back and got us four baseball caps.  They were just lovely and we just regret not taking up their offer of a second coffee.  Next time maybe.

This photo was taken by Ana the other owner of Casa Javi.  Javi with the four of us.

Casa Javi

Snow capped mountains across from Casa Javi.

Maurice's quote of the day "What is the difference between a realist & an optimist? Realist is our taxi driver who brought a trailer for our luggage an optimist is me & Kev thinking we are going to fit it all on 2 motorbikes."

To start this entry I have had to work out how to get the page from reverting to Spanish! Which is a bit difficult when the instructions to do so are in, you guessed it, Spanish!  Anyway Maurice & Kev have caught a taxi to pick up the babies so I thought I would take the chance to fill you in on the trip over and our first couple of days in Barcelona.  


All our flights were on time and A380 was pretty comfortable although I don't think they have created an economy seat that remains comfortable for 20+ hours.  Waiting around Heathrow for half a day was a bit of a chore but we managed to fill in the time with coffee, food and wine.  

The Airport hotel is quite pleasant & we have managed to make use of the public buses into La Rambla (the tourist area) on several occasions.  Kev managed to upset one of the drivers by producing a 20 euro note which was obviously not the right thing to do.  Oh well at least he didn't kick us off the bus.

We have tried several of the local delights including, Paella, Sangria, Spanish Omelet, Churros, some Tapas, Wine and Beer.  We have seen what has to be the worlds most unusual church designed by Gaudi and walked around most of the central tourist area.  








The jet lag really caught up with us yesterday and we came back to the room relatively early for Nanna naps.  Today has started off much more lively with the boys already on their way.  We are in Barcelona until Thursday morning when we will head south along the coast to Valencia.  I'll write more from there.

On the 5th Feb 2012 Maurice & Kev left sunny Adelaide to ride to not so sunny Sydney where they had to wash the bikes again!  Waiting for them, and the other intrepid travellers, at the shipping terminal was Andrew from Get Routed.  I felt sorry for him because as any of you who know Maurice & Kev, will testify they can be a bit mmmm, how shall I put it? FUSSY.  Apparently though these guys, who do this for a living, do actually know what they are doing and things went smoothly.  The only thing they found difficult was trying to keep the panniers clean whilst wrapping them. 

Our baby safely secured to the cradle.

All snuggled up in the container.

Two happy campers with the nothing left to do but worry.

The planning for the trip could start in earnest now.  We had two things in mind from the very beginning, two weeks on the Isle of Man to watch the crazy or as Maurice prefers to call them extremely gutsy,TT riders. Yes you guessed it, that was Maurice's idea.  My part of the deal was I wanted to go to the Edinburgh Tattoo, must be all those years of being around uniforms. By the way that's is where the blog name came from, just in case you were wondering.

Safely tucked away in its new room.



Map of the I.O.M.
(R.I.P. Deano)



The map of the UK & Europe with some of the proposed places to visit.

You can't really tell from the map but the trip will start with us flying into Barcelona Spain to collect the bikes from the shipping terminal.  It will end about 51/2 months later when we drop the bikes off at the shipping terminal at Felixstowe UK.

So we got a very good deal on the bikes but now we had to get them from Darwin to Adelaide.  Kev came up and Maurice and he did some male bonding during the three day trip down which included some interesting moments for both of them.  Kev had a rear end malfunction that could have ended up a lot worse and Maurice ran out of fuel (thanks to a dicky fuel gauge) and also left his wallet behind in one of the motels.  All in all not to bad for a first trip; that is of course until Kev got home but that is a story best told by them!  

Maurice & Kev at the Daly Waters Pub.
 It was also a pit stop for Charlie Boorman and is in his book.

 

I should know better than to ask Maurice what he wants to do!  This time the question was "if you could do one thing what would it be?"  The answer was ride a Motorcycle around Europe.  Fast forward about 2 years to April 2011 and here we are test riding a new Beemer in Darwin.  

The more the merrier of course so enter Kev & Karen who just happened to be in Darwin at the right time to test ride their new Beemer. 

       Well somebody’s got to do it!!!