We're ready to go. We're looking forward to it, as always, but are also a bit sad that the reason for travelling to France this year is to sell our much-loved apartment. It's bitter-sweet, but we know it's time for a new stage in our lives.
Packing our bags this year has been totally different to previous years. Instead of travelling with our wheeled packs we've dragged out a large boxy old-style suitcase from a storage cupboard, and placed another old suitcase inside it. We are taking virtually nothing with us - a pair of shorts, a couple of T-shirts, travel umbrellas, walking poles and a toilet bag. That's about it, apart from a large cardboard tube that we're hoping to bring two painting canvases back in. To say that I'm feeling seriously under-equipped for a trip to the other side of the world is a major understatement. However, we want to take the minimum of gear over and bring back the maximum amount of stuff we can from our apartment.
Sally kindly dropped us at the airport at 9.30am on Sunday morning, and Bella and family came out to join us for a cup of coffee before we flew out and before they headed south to Hanmer Springs to spend the second week of the school holidays at our new holiday home. Rosie was especially very loath to see us go, but at least we could promise her this time that it's only for 7 weeks, not the usual four months or longer.
Leaving a beautiful day in Nelson we flew into cloud and rain at Auckland, par for the course perhaps? Rhonda and Brian met us at the airport and we stayed overnight at Rhonda's place. They are gradually tweeking it in preparation for hopefully selling up and moving down to live in Nelson.
The following day we arrived back at Auckland airport in plenty of time for our 1:15pm flight bound for Doha. The 17.5 hour haul always sounds daunting but actually the flight went extremely well. We both slept fairly well, the meals were excellent and the staff unfailingly very friendly and helpful. The 3hr transit time in Doha worked out perfectly in terms of allowing time to disembark, go through security and find our next boarding lounge. The airport complex is simply huge and our plane parked up miles from the terminal. The transit bus that collected us took possibly 10 minutes and a number of kilometres to negotiate the airport airfield to the terminal building.
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| Qatar's Doha Terminal |
Again, the flight went very smoothly, this time on a codeshare Iberian plane. The quality of service provided by Qatar Airlines was definitely superior, but it didn't seem to take too long until we were starting our descent into Madrid. John and I both slept or dozed pretty well on both flights, and the endless movies certainly helped too. Two hours into our flight from Madrid, dinner was served at 2.30am. It was quite surprising how many passengers opted for a small bottle of red or white wine at that hour of the morning! We gave it a miss.....
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| Amazing night-time view of Malta as we passed overhead |
It was a big wake-up call, literally, to be told by the pilot upon our descent into Madrid that the temperature at ground level was currently 1 degree! He assured us that he thought it was very cold. We had been working on the theory of Madrid being in the mid-20s to mid-30s, as it had in recent weeks, but didn't realise that the mornings could still be so cold. We hadn't packed any warm jackets or the like because we have them all in our apartment in Ceret to bring back home. Our only warmish outer layer was a rain jacket each. However, we didn't need to retrieve them from our suitcase because it wasn't too cold inside the terminal, and from there we jumped straight onto a Renfe train into the centre of town.
With 50 minutes to spare before boarding our train we enjoyed the opportunity to have our first Spanish coffee and pastry in ages. They didn't disappoint. It was pretty easy to navigate the way to our train, which departed on time at 11.05am bound for Seville. However, it only went about 20m down the track before it stopped. After another 10 minutes we started moving again and before long we were ripping southwards at a speed of over 200km/hr. I was keen to watch the landscape as it changed during the trip, but unfortunately I slept for most of it!
Arriving in Seville at 2pm, we had to kick ourselves that we'd actually made it. Both surviving the long 30+ hour trip, plus finally stepping foot in Seville after it's been on our bucket list for over 30 years. It felt pretty good, as did the temperature, which had warmed up to a balmy 24 degrees. We had a bit of time to kill before our apartment was available so we walked the 15 minute walk to a location close to it and sat down at a little cafe for a cold beer and a little tapas. It was lovely. We were feeling a little bushed but not too bad.
It was easy to find the apartment, and once we were in, could take off our shoes and socks and heave a bit of a sigh. We jumped into bed for a bit of a rest/nap and promptly fell asleep for three hours! I was anticipating just a short nap of perhaps one hour, having slept very well overall I thought. Clearly we both crashed. We know you're supposed to get out on a walk and try to adjust to local time asap, but we didn't have it in us. However after a shower we were ready to hit the streets and do a little exploring.
Our only real plan for today was to walk around the grand Plaza de Espana and the adjacent Parque de Maria Luisa. It was a pleasant 15 minute walk to both, and they were indeed magnificent, especially the plaza. With the wide expanse of paving fronting the imposing building, colourful tiling, fountains, bridges and a boating canal, it was definitely impressive. While there we enjoyed watching some buskers performing Spanish flamenco dancing and accompanying music. I didn't realise how energetic the dancing was. Up close and personal to the women performing it felt exhausting just watching. It was a great display, and the Spanish guitarist and drummer were equally enthusiastic in their contribution to the performance.
By the time we'd picked up some milk and yoghurt at the supermarket to have with our muesli in the morning (who else travels with home-made muesli?), we didn't roll into bed until after 10pm. It felt SO good to anticipate a whole night of being horizontal.
