The rest of the afternoon, we continued along the north side of the Danube, through Deggendorf and to our tiny guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. Just like Austria, we were having the same amount of luck finding a reasonably priced place to sleep. Everything on Booking was out of our price range and others sold-out, but our method of typing ‘pension’ into google maps gave us a result of otherwise non-listed guesthouses. These are usually small B&Bs managed by locals targeting returning workers spending time for the duration of a project, they don’t do any advertisement but are known by word of mouth. We arrived in the afternoon, just as the weather was getting colder, and settled in for the rest of the evening – full of hot showers, tea, and Jerry Seinfeld.
The next morning, we woke up to everything covered in a thick layer of frost and some fog. As we ate our breakfast, the clouds were lifting, and it looked like we would have another rain-free day. We set off on the bike and enjoyed the flat Danube plains. We spent our morning riding and trying to find the best, most direct path to Regensburg. In this region, the Danube meanders, meaning that following the shoreline curves would add extra, unnecessary kilometers to our day. For the most part, we were alone on the roads except for local traffic; the A3 highway was nearby though and we could watch the never-ending stream of semi-trucks. Cycling west, we could appreciate what dense, wealthy Europe has to offer in terms of roads. It was reassuring to know that we could always find a quieter side road away from any heavy traffic and large trucks.
We wound up at a Greek restaurant in Wörth-an-der-Donau for lunch, where some curious locals asked about our bike and where we were going. When we told them Augsburg, which is just a few hundred kilometers away, they were astounded that we were traveling that far… mentioning that we began our journey in New Zealand seemed incomprehensible though. When we hopped back on the bike that afternoon, we were looking keen on getting to our warm spot for the night and meeting up with some friends. Cycling into Regensburg, we joined what our maps called the ‘highway-cycleway’ and found a speedy, paved route into the city. By now, around 2:30pm, the skies were covered with thick clouds, making the temperatures feel even colder and nightfall seem imminent. We quickly unpacked the bike and found our way into Bettina and Andi’s apartment so we could warm up our fingers and toes. That evening, we made another noodle dinner and enjoyed some drinks as we caught up with our friends.
The weather didn’t improve the
Once we warmed up a bit inside the restaurant, we prepared to get on the bike again and noticed that it was sprinkling. It wasn’t ideal, but we only had 25 more kilometers left for the day. This was also around the time when we decided that instead of cycling along the Danube through Donauwörth and following the Lech river to Augsburg, we would just continue straight to Augsburg. With the weather getting continuously colder and the days uneventfully gray, days off the bike seemed more pleasant, plus we knew the area fairly well from weekend rides, so we could wait for the next spring to bike on those roads. As we left Neustadt, we crossed the Danube to the northside and continued cycling west. Just like the morning, we had to be conscious of the GPS routing, because it kept wanting to follow a busy road, something that we preferred to avoid around Ingolstadt, the land of speeding Audis. We rolled into Grossmehring just as it was beginning to rain. We found our hotel, stored our bike in the garage and settled in for the night, only venturing out to find a supermarket for dinner supplies (which also included a bottle of Glühwein).
Now that we were in Ingolstadt, ‘home’ was less than 100 kilometers away… about 75, so a full day’s ride away. Instead of rushing to make it to Augsburg before it got dark, we decided to ride only until Aichach and savor our last day cycling without feeling like we had to rush. This second-to-last day was for the most part uneventful… the skies were still gray, everything was still a bit damp, but we were both giddy with the fact that we were almost home. We cycled through empty fields and the landscape began to look familiar; these were places where we had often cycled on day trips. We stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant outside of Schrobenhausen, where we felt very out of place in our bike gear sitting next to a wedding party. Once we finished our last restaurant lunch of the trip, we got back on the Hase Pino and cycled the remaining distance to our guesthouse in Aichach, only stopping to gather sundries for our final dinner on the road.
As we prepared our things the next morning, we noticed that big snowflakes were beginning to come down. We also decided to start a bit later than usual because we managed to get one of our friends, Mike, to brave the wintery weather and ride with us into Augsburg. However, up to this point, we never rode in a snowstorm. Once we found Mike at the Aichach train station, we left and were eager to finish the cold ride to Augsburg. Even though we were so close to home, the GPS proved to be (once again in Germany) suboptimal for taking the most direct route. We ended up unintentionally riding through the hilly Sielenbach-Dasing section, which would have been nice on a summer day, but not in a near-blizzard. We thanked Mike for coming with us in one of the worst weather we had in the entire year – luckily one of the shortest too. Once we got back on track, we rolled through Dasing and Stätzling, the first direct suburbs of Augsburg. Now we were able to make out Augsburg from the top of the hill. We took some small paths into our hometown, so no grandiose arrival, and not even a city sign where we were hoping to take a picture, but also the snowy streets only for ourselves. It was still snowing once we made it through the outer neighborhoods to the city center, and went many kilometers talking about what happened in Augsburg during the year (spoiler alert, not much changes year after year!) and then suddenly, there we were… at the Christmas market in Augsburg’s main downtown square, only a few pedal strokes away and finish! We had to clarify to some folks that we had not biked from Munich Airport but from slightly further east (probably not checking our webpages regularly enough…), explained why we had a fully loaded bike at this time of the year at the Christmas market, etc.
But just like one year ago, we were at the same place sipping Glühwein(s) with friends. It was hard to find the right words, but we made it!
Our year’s journey came to its end, and had finally reached its destination – home!
(Don’t unsubscribe immediately, we may have a few more posts to come – it just happens that writing is more difficult with our daily routine/regular-life/daily-grind is actually quite time consuming!).
]]>Bratislava is a pleasant mid-size city although without too many fancy monuments like its neighboring Budapest and Vienna, but green and pedestrian, so we just took an easy day off wandering around – after a visit to a bike shop to replace the entire front drivetrain. We had to explain the mechanics that the size of chain-rings doesn’t matter, it’s only a matter of ratios, and thus got some brand-new top parts with flashy colors – originally for an Enduro-MTB – but whatever, it is not the first weird part that we have added and we’ll now both be able to make it through the next two weeks! Through a discussion group that we used the whole year, we contacted a fellow cyclist from Spain (and actually living in Munich) – Jose – also in Bratislava at the same time and heading in the same direction to finish his year-long trip and spent the evening together over some Glühwein and beers.
We left early the next morning with the objective of the day to get into our last country before Germany: Austria. The easiest and shortest way would have been to simply follow the Danube, but it seemed on our maps that the path was not quite paved – which at this time of the year would have meant muddy areas on the side of the Danube. We would also pass through the Soviet iron-wall on that day, which meant that apart from recent large highways, there are still surprisingly few roads connecting Slovakia and Austria. Luckily a border crossing only for pedestrians and bicycles was created in the northwest of Bratislava, which allowed us to avoid going half way up to the Czech Republic like we would have had to with a car. That path brought us along the Morava under the Devin castle and later past several monuments commemorating the death of people who tried to cross into the west during the communist time (several hundred shot trying to go across a river only a few meters wide). The bridge took us across the border right into the large Schlosshof castle.
The first reaction in Austria was that it felt weird to be in an almost immaculate country: every single house well-maintained, farms perfectly clean, no dirt on agricultural machinery, etc. Well, basically Austria – but we had just gotten used to more unkept places! We stopped in a local restaurant to get our first Wiener-schnitzel since Thailand (back then at an Austrian expatriate!).
Somehow, even if we had progressively gone back to western Europe, we had to readjust again – prices had just tripled by crossing the Slovak border, dogs were not chasing you or barking like half-wits (some even going into restaurants with their owners and quietly staying under the table!), we had to park the bike to the dedicated bike-parking area, etc. We yet got some weird interactions, first Austria was the first country where people started to speak German to us – taking for granted that we had to be locals, when we were obviously foreigners anywhere else, then Austria still remains the only country in western Europe where smoking is allowed in public places – which makes local restaurants not enjoyable.
After our warm lunch in a small village, we decided to return to the Danube to avoid the Vienna traffic. Traffic was light in this region, but we knew it was going to pick up as we approached the capital city – so we wanted bike paths! Just as we got on the official Danube route, the rain once again started and we made our way up the Danube and into Vienna without many issues, enjoying what we could of the paved way. As it was approaching nightfall, we found our AirBnB and were happy to unload our wet things from the bike.
All the accommodation prices skyrocketed once we entered Austria and we were desperate to find places that were still within our budget. Hoping to once again use Warmshowers, we contacted a few people along our path in Vienna, but they didn’t seem considerate of a winter cyclist’s needs (arriving at 8pm and leaving before 7am would be fine in the summer, but not in the freezing cold and 8 hours of daylight). We instead found the cheapest (but not cheap!) AirBnB along our route. Because we arrived in a new capital, we couldn’t help but checkout the bike store across the street (looking for a new battery for the dead tachometer) before turning in for the night.
The next morning, with all our bags dry, we got back on the EuroVelo 6 and continued up the Danube. We immediately noticed that the bicycle infrastructure was worlds apart from anything we had been riding on this entire trip. The signage made navigation incredibly easy, we rarely cycled on the side of the road, and nearly everything was paved. This was a huge surprise because our navigation apps showed few bicycle lanes, so we were expecting a lot of dirt trails on the side of the river. In addition to the superb infrastructure, the weather was also sunny – making the day that much more enjoyable. We took a detour from the trail in Tulln to see the St. Stefan church, find a bakery for snacks, and peek at the Christmas market. Although it was sunny, we had no desire for a cold picnic lunch, so we found a small inn in “Langenschönbichl” (yeah, we also had to get used to German words!) to take a break. Once we had our fill, we continued along the EuroVelo and made our way through a small forest. The rest of the afternoon, we followed the north side of the Danube and enjoyed the extremely flat route. We cycled into Krems an der Donau and met up with our Warmshowers host in the downtown. Thankful for him opening his apartment to us for the night, we made a hearty pizza and chatted about our tour.
The next morning, we left Krems and cycled through the historic downtown before rejoining the Danube. Now back on the southern side of the river, we followed the EuroVelo through vineyards and up a few small hills. The weather wasn’t as great as the day before (it felt much colder without the sun), so we were both happy that we decided to take a break in Melk to do some sightseeing. In the late morning after cycling 35 kilometers, we arrived at our guesthouse, dropped our things, and headed up to the gigantic abbey looming over the village. As we were milling around the inner courtyard, we realized that we got lucky and were able to join the afternoon tour without reserving a ticket in advance. The next two hours were filled with discovering the abbey’s history and gazing at the impressive Baroque architecture. Unfortunately, the abbey doesn’t allow photography, so our dear readers will have to visit to see the inside (or do a quick Google search). We finished the day with a Glühwein at the Christmas market before returning to the hotel for the evening.
After a hearty hotel breakfast the next morning, we saddled up and set out for Ennsdorf. We were having difficulties finding simple, cheap accommodation along the Danube, so our destination was now determined by places that fit within our budget – today, this meant a 30€-Airbnb, 80 kilometers away. We left Melk and crossed the Daube to the northern side (the navigation said that this way was faster). Shortly after we left, the clouds started to become denser and a downpour erupted just 20 kilometers after we left Melk. After we threw on our rain gear, we decided to keep riding until we found a warm restaurant for lunch. We stopped at a large restaurant and bit-by-bit, peeled off our wet layers to hang up to dry, and relished the hour in a warm room. The rain had subsided that afternoon to sprinkles, so we continued along and rushing to get to our destination before nightfall. Throughout our trip, we wouldn’t consider 80 kilometers to be a long day, but now with extended restaurant lunches and only 8 hours of daylight, we would consider this distance to be the maximum that we could achieve in one day. The EuroVelo took us more inland in the afternoon, avoiding some marshy areas of the Danube, but we decided to deviate from the route and follow the river so we wouldn’t have to add extra time zig-zagging through fields. At the beginning, this seemed like a fantastic decision because we were following a newly paved path, but it suddenly turned to ancient cobblestones, concrete blocks and rock piles with a sign stating that cycling wasn’t allowed. We stopped and deliberated for a few minutes and looked at a few maps to figure out our best option: 1. Keep on going straight, 2. Cycling through the wet and muddy forest, or 3. Turning around. We decided to continue going forward despite awful trail conditions and it turned out to be the best choice because the path became paved again in two kilometers. We quickly stopped for a quick break before continuing the last 10 kilometers to Ennsdorf, rushing because it was after 4pm and we could notice daylight rapidly receding.
Just as we were closing in on our goal, it started to rain again so any hopes of arriving dry and not needing to hang all our gear had diminished. The family hosting us were surprised to find that they were still having cyclists so late in the season; they mentioned that another young pair of cyclists had also stayed with them two weeks prior. For being a cheap AirBnB, the family was very accommodating and let us wash and dry our clothes and even said that we could have used their jacuzzi if it hadn’t been raining. After a day soaking wet, a jacuzzi was not quite are greatest envy anyway and we would have better dreamt of an open wood-fire! We set off the next day feeling clean and refreshed.
Leaving Ennsdorf, it seemed like the weather was cooperating when we cycled through Enns and back to the northern side of the Danube (since Linz is mostly on the southern side, the north side would have less traffic). As we approached the city, we passed the steelworks and were happy that we chose the north side – the Sulfuric smell was intoxicating a few hundred meters away, we couldn’t imagine what it would have been like right next to us. We wanted to see some of downtown Linz, so we crossed the Danube and pulled up to the Christmas market in the main square – and had a very Germanic snack (sauerkraut and sausages) while we enjoyed bit of sun. Afterwards, we pushed the bike through a little bit of the city before we decided to cross back over the bridge and continue west. For the most part, the weather seemed stable as we were cycling along, so we were considering stopping for a picnic lunch on the shores of the Danube. Just as we pulled off the trail at a rowing clubhouse for a bit of shelter, a major downpour had caught up with us… which wasn’t making an outdoor lunch enticing. As we were looking around the premises for a dry spot, we noticed that there was a restaurant on the top floor of the club house AND it was offering warm lunch specials, so we decided to save our lunch for another day. As we sat inside the warm restaurant munching on warm falafel, we watched the torrents roll across the Danube and were happy that we pulled over when we did. By the time we left, the rain had significantly subsided, and we continued along the EuroVelo 6.
This part of the bike path wasn’t very developed, so we cycled for quite a few kilometers on the flat river banks before needed to turn off and navigate. However, just as we were reaching the next village, we noticed that the hills west of us had disappeared completely due to another storm closing in on us and we cycled like mad towards Feldkirchen an der Donau, looking for some shelter from an impending downpour. We pulled up next to a small supermarket just as pea-sized hail started pelting us. We stayed under the roof for a few minutes as the worst part of the storm passed, mostly laughing and taking videos of our situation, and then continued cycling the last few kilometers to our hotel in Aschach-an-der-Donau. This night would be our last (and most expensive) in Austria, and we couldn’t be happier.
Every evening, we were spending hours scrolling through internet websites trying to find the cheapest places to stay along the Danube, shocked at the hotel prices. Even in the low season, there were no deals in the hotels and half of the guest houses weren’t listed on internet aggregators like Booking – leaving us to look through every single directory in every village’s homepage. (Pro tip for cyclists: type ‘pension’ in Google maps, for some reason it will show guesthouses that are not listed anywhere else).
We are not quite sure what is going on in Austria, but yield management pricing still has not been discovered around there – the price is the same, fixed, yearlong, no discounts even when the area is deserted: we were wondering why anyone with a car would stop in those villages when they can get much better places for much less from international hotel-chains in Linz. With bicycles, things are a little more difficult, but given that we have not crossed a single cyclist in weeks, the business model is perfectible. This hotel was yet our last in Austria and although glad that we were not freezing outside, we just couldn’t understand what made accommodations three times more expensive than the neighboring countries for a poor service – here we didn’t even have a water boiler or studio kitchen, and had for only exchange with the owner a key and post-it left in the mailbox. Austria was our 20th country on the way this year, and not our best recommendation for the value-for-money! We were feeling deeply annoyed to give away daily 4 months of average wage in Tajikistan to a ghost-host while we had stayed at amazing families in Central-Asia just a few weeks ago. We did not linger long in Austria!
After an evening with the heater on full-blast, we work up and put on our rain gear once again. The rain never really subsided overnight, so we were wet immediately. We spent the first hour cycling through a ‘remote’ stretch down a narrow country road along the shore, shocked by the frosted hilltops just a few hundred meters higher than us. Even through we were well into December, this was another reminder of cold winter weather to come. Once we reached the main road, we cycled up and down a few hills and made a lunch stop in Engelhartszell-an-der-Donau (“the spot of the hard fishermen on the Danube” if interested in the translation of weird Germanic locations!) to dry off. This time it was hearty-yet-expensive venison ragout and Schnitzel with a warm coffee. Shortly after Engelhartszell, we reached the first border crossing with Germany across a dam and decided to leave Austria behind. We could have continued cycling a few dozen more kilometers in Austria but found it too tempting to not cross at this juncture. As we rode along the dam, it was soon apparent that we couldn’t simply ride across… instead we had to carry our luggage, the bike, and the trailer up and down two flights of stairs. This added a little extra stress, but then we could finally say that we entered Germany. Shortly after the border, the rain subsided, and we rolled through some small German towns along the Danube. We reached our hotel in the middle of Passau in the late afternoon a bit stunned that we were so close to home. Cedric had worked tens on times in this area a few years before. As we cycled up to the hotel, many people were about in the streets and we received many stares. Ah yes, the return to Germany, were it’s completely normal for people to stop dead in their tracks and just stare at you if you look out of place (the Pino and trailer don’t help). Passau is the starting point of many river cruise ships on the Danube and before we carried our rig up into the hotel, we became the focus of a group of English-speaking senior tourists who apparently seemed more impress that we had been outside in December than biked non-stop from eastern Kazakhstan (because that’s probably just a few miles east of their cruise’s final destination in Budapest…)! We spent the evening walking around town, not too much in the churches and monuments (we had already seen enough and had been in Passau previously), but more interested in German shopping chains: Rewe, DM, Saturn, etc. Not because it was anything interesting, but probably just to make sure we were back!
We however got a new article from our regional newspaper in Augsburg, the “Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung”.
Here’s a copy of the paper edition:
Alternatively, you can also check the web version:
or the original pdf version:
And if you need some help with German, some “Google Translations” (or learn German 
):
Please read the first post in Madrid first!
So after picking up my parents at the airport after a podcast binge-listening due again to Ryanair delays, we drove straight to the south of Madrid to avoid traffic the next morning. Nothing very exciting in a hotel completely empty, still no heater (i.e. winters in Spain are warm outside, but freezing indoors!).
Our first destination on this monday morning is Cordoba, that we reach after 4h driving. White buildings, sun, some arabic architecture, it somehow feels a bit like being further south in Morocco. The highlight of Cordoba is definitely the cathedral, actually a large mosque transformed into a christian worship place when catholics took over southern spain in the 13th century. Luckily the change of religion only slightly affected the building integrity and the fine muslim decorations have mostly remained. The first idea in mind was that instead of keeping and financing (mostly-)unused churches and cathedrals “just because”, and having extremist politicians doing everything to not allow other religions to have their prayer places, a simple solution would be to just share the same building… Plus, there’d probably be less death, darkness and other monstrosity and more geometrical figures in the decoration! Apparently, the three main monotheist religions have already chosen different days – friday, saturday and sunday. The cohabitation shall be easy! (and maybe a library and science-center monday>thursday?)
The rest of Cordoba was spent walking around the small streets in the old center, and peeking at the indoors and gardens of houses.
We drove further the next day to Sevilla, with a first stop in the village of Carmona – a fortified place on top of the hill overlooking the valley and andalusian fields. Whereas Carmona was very quiet, Sevilla was a little overcrowded with families celebrating the three wisemen (it’s apparently at least as and possibly more important than Christmas in Spain) and a loooot of tourists. The two main sights in Sevilla are the cathedral, by some criteria (don’t ask which) the biggest in the world and also where Christopher Columbus is buried (the tomb is a little megalomaniac, but maybe not as much as Napoleon’s). Second sight is the Alcazar, arab palace later transformed in the local-king’s palace and today still one of the royal residence. The gardens give the place a peaceful atmosphere to the place and a great area apart from Sevilla’s restlessness. We are in Spain, so we spent the evening getting stuffed with tapas and sangria!
After so many cities, we went wednesday to the Donana National Park. The park is located in the delta at the end of the Guadalquivir river and is supposedly one of the best places in Europe to spot birds in winter. We saw lots of animals, but somehow only mammals: boars and deers :-). The park still is a wonderful place between pine forests, beaches, swamps, sand dunes and meadows. We finished the afternoon and evening in Cadiz, a town on the spanish atlantic coast with an enjoyable mild weather (and enjoyable amazing tapas). Cadiz really reminded me of Essaouira in Morocco – just a few hundred kilometers south (although the spanish town has more locals and less tourists).
Thursday was mostly a road trip accross the “white-villages” in the andalusian mountains. Surprisingly those villages are the rainiest in Spain due to geography and feel therefore like a completely different region – luckily we kept the sun with us. All buildings are painted in white, as summers here are sweltering, although a winter jacket is also nice in January. Ronda is particularly impressive, with a village split between two clives and a bridge that may have inspired Tolkien between the two parts.
The next day we visited Granada, and possibly the most famous monument of Andalusia – if not of all Spain, the Alhambra. Cordoba itself is a very beautiful town right next to the Sierra Nevada mountains, with several old neighborhoods: muslim, jewish, gipsy, etc overlooking the center of the city. But all those areas are themselves located below the gigantic palaces of the Alhambra hill, and the snow-covered Sierra Nevada stands overlooking everything behind at over 3000m. There are so many monuments in the city that we need to walk continuously across town and the whole afternoon is spent in the Alhambra. The fortress and especially the Nasrid palace are inspiring, fully covered with arab art. Although almost a 600 years have passed since the arabs have left Granada and the successive conquerors have damaged, modified and poorly maintained some parts, the majestic of the buildings has impressively remained.
Our last full day was spent in the Jaen region and in the town of Ubeda, also known as olive oil capital of the world. We drove through a natural park, olive tree fields, and ended up in the less known town of Ubeda – listed as a Unesco world heritage site. Although the size of Ubeda is smaller than the other cities visited the previous days, it feels like every second building is a renaissance landmark. We spent the evening savouring local olive oil in a great gourmet restaurant and I discovered how amazing some olive oils can be. Seriously fantastic! (and I bought three bottles of olive oil each more expensive than champagne… totally worth it!)
We drove back through the Escorial near Madrid on our way back to the airport on sunday. Although a very famous monument in Spain and its huge size, I felt a little disappointed. It’s maybe because of the comparison with monuments in Andalusia or because apart from the size of the building, architectural details are mostly missing, and also maybe because it is mostly about the spanish monarchy and their mausoleum… But a good detour back home after those cultural 10 days finally discovering a bit more from Spain!
Spain has definitely ranked higher in my destinations after this trip.
Cédric
After a few days celebrating the end of year festivities with the family and the usual almost-daily gargantuan meals, I took the chance to finaly visit Spain south of the first 100km across the Pyrenean border.
Some new low-cost airlines from Toulouse made the direct trip to Madrid very cheap and easy. From Toulouse to Madrid center in 5h, even after a few plane delays. The only hiccup is a bad sinusitis combined with poor pharmacy prescription supposedly against a cold, that made my nose only flow some blood – and scare off a bunch of children in the airport.
My hotel is located in the downtown of Madrid, a few hundred meters from the “Sol-square” on a pedestrian street. First reaction, even at 11pm on a thurday evening Madrid is more crowded than pretty much anytime in a German city!
My first day was spent visiting the Prado museum, with paintings from the most famous “not-too-recent” artists, later walking across the city in the large parks and all the way through the main streets to the royal palace. The photos will probably show more than the text!
Second day in Toledo, a medieval town 30min by train south of Madrid. Toledo was for a long time a more important city than Madrid in Spain and was for some time capital and/or imperial town of various kingdoms for a thousand years (the kinda-unified country of Spain is actually fairly recent). Toledo has a very interesting combination of architectures from various rulers and religions: arabic, medieval, gothic, jewish, renaissance architecture are all next to each other throughout narrow cobblestones streets on top of a hill. Toledo has a completely different atmosphere than Madrid, a lot more quiet, no cars, some fresh air and views over a rural region instead of the large Madrid metropolian area. Back in Madrid in the evening and the combination of the cold, walking all day long, the cold temperatures (included in my hotel room: apparently heaters generally don’t work in Spain even if night temperatures go well below freezing!) have all made me KO in the evening. One of the shortest new years eve celebration!
Third day, starting 2017 early by meandering in the downtown Madrid: its parks, various neighborhoods, flea market, etc. The morning is very quiet and I was expecting everything to be pretty much closed during the day, but surprisingly all restaurants and cafés open around noon. It looks like the tradition is to get some churros with chocolate, which will thus be my first lunch (the noon one, the real lunch is more at 3pm in Spain…). And although it is a public holiday, the whole city gets as lively as usual in the evening.
I’m heading back to the airport in the evening to get a car rental, and at 11pm pick-up the parents from Toulouse to join me for the continuation of the trip further south in Andalusia. Next post!
Cédric
