Renault Clio's and Gasseaux

This morning we said a slightly grumpy but fond farewell to the Barcelona apartment and it's caretaker Jose Louis – the place was mac and we will miss it. We hopped on the metro and to the train station to pick up our rental car, the spacious Renault Clio, with it's all power locks and windows in front, and it's manual windows and no locks in the back. After navigating the one way and dead end streets of Barcelona, Ulises put us on the right road towards Nice – thanks in part to the GPS system that Diego brought (she was pretty insistent about when you are on and off route).

So we drove, through the hillsides of Spain, vineyards, and cattle lands and alongside the coast of the Mediterranean. We drove so we would have the freedom of stopping at a place if it looked interesting, so we took a couple of detours. Stopping first at the closed but still fascinating Dali museum, then in Emoyrues -an old Roman outpost and Medieval city - and then continued to drive past Roses and into Cadaques. After driving up and over, and down and around the precipitous drop offs of a two lane high mountain road, where suddenly the road opens and there is a whitewashed town wedged into a blue green inlet along the Mediterranean. It is breathtaking, and despite all of the German tourists walking around (saying things like, sfurder fieder and sounding like the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show), we enjoy a good meal of fried fish and tapas style plates along the shore.

After sight seeing we head back out towards Nice, our detours have taken us about 3 hours off course, and now we are scheduled to arrive at the Marriott (gotta love those rewards points) around 9:30.

A few hours after crossing the border into France, we hit the 1⁄4 tank mark on the Clio, and decide a much needed WC break and refuel are in order. Let me say that all of the highways are toll highways, and as such the French have the nicest rest stops I've ever seen. Sprawling restaurants, clean restrooms (albeit without toilet seats), and 40 stations gas pumps…the problem is – they are in French. So using my limited French skills and the clerks limited English skills I figure out that Gasseaux is Diesel (Black Gas). So we fill up at the cost of $70 Euros for about 11Gallons of gas and head back towards our final destination.

After twisting and turning roads, 5 more toll booths, and 2 more hours, we finally arrive at the Marriott Monaco Rivera. It was the nicest Marriott I've ever been to, and I think that they took pity on some stinky starved, and non French speaking backpackers and upgraded us to the Suite – which we proceeded to run to so we could place a room service order prior to the 11PM cut off. So a fast meal of over priced Marriott burgers and Caesar salads had at midnight overlooking the Monaco Rivera – ah the taste of corporate luxury in the second smallest nation in the world - for about 7 hours.


Au Revoir