Sunday 27 April 2014

Carcassone - Barcelona and buskers galaore



En route to Barcelona we stopped at Carcassonne to break the journey.    Carcassonne, is a medieval fortification and was fascinating; we would love to visit it again to explore.      The next day we drove down to Barcelona which was a splendid journey seeing the landscape becoming increasingly Spanish and 10 degrees warmer.   We took a detour off the main road to have a quick coffee at Port Leucate which looked interesting on the map - expecting to find a quaint old harbour overlooking the Med.    How wrong could we be?     It was like an upmarket Butlins as the area has been hugely developed (if there ever was an old quaint harbour – there is no sign of it now).   There was a very smart modern marina surrounded by upmarket shopping experiences and the usual trashy souvenir shops then acres and acres of new holiday housing.   Oh well, the coffee was good.   


On we drove down to Barcelona a city we love, having visited 12 years ago for Jeff’s 50th.   Jeff had booked a hotel right in the centre called The Axel.    We noticed some strange things when we were checking in for example lots of pink fluffy furniture, giant cushions, posters advertising erotic shows in the lift – the posters were in the lift not the erotic shows!) and then discovered we were in the heart of Barcelona’s LG&B community!    But it didn’t matter – the hotel was excellent, the staff lovely and welcoming and it was great value.     After some yummy Italian nosh, we found a great little place called the Harlem Jazz Club http://www.harlemjazzclub.es/ within walking distance, where the evening show was a group of city buskers jamming together.    Great fun, fabulous music.

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