Gym's Ramblings: Fall 2023 - A Euro Roadtrip

September 23, 2023

Following the completion of the convention in Barcelona, Gym and his lovely sidekick woke up in their cozy room at Hotel Arts, in Villa Olympica, Barcelona. It would have been nice to have spent a week there but our hero had places to go and things to see. They were headed to France! But first they had to get over to the airport to pick up some new wheels from the National Rental lot. This time Gym was not going for the Vauxhall Corsa, he needed some room to be able to stretch out a bit. After discussing matters with his boss, an agreement was reached to get something more roomy. Later when the nice people at National showed our hero a late model Volvo XC90, Gym fell for it. Go National, go like a pro! (Gym just loves that Patrick Warburton the National's celebrity spokesman).

Before leaving Barcelona, Gym secured an invite to visit brother Bill and his family in the south of France. The travelers would drive east, check out the lush countryside along the Med and set up a base camp in Montpellier. From there they would drive up to Collias and visit the temporary Moore foothold in that part of France. They would also take the time to explore Montpellier.

Montpellier is not quite the French Riviera but it sits in a very enviable position on the Mediterranean coast. It doesn't have the colourful and ancient history of Marseille, Nimes or Barcelona but it has a beautiful medieval city centre called L'Ecusson which is juxtaposed with some very impressive modern architecture in the adjacent Antigone neighborhood. Montpellier is about a four hour drive from Barcelona on an excellent divided motorway. In Spain, its the AP-7 but at the border of France, it changes to the A9 and becomes a toll road. It will cost 20 euros to travel from the Spanish border to Montpellier. However, the A9 might be worth the tolls, it was Gym's favourite highway on this trip, fast and smooth.

Prior to entering France though, Gym wanted to check out a spot along the Costa Brava in eastern Spain. The Gardens at Cap Roig are about an hour out of Barcelona. It is there that a wealthy English lady, Dorothy Webster and her exiled Russian aristocratic husband bought an estate perched on cliffs overlooking the sea iin 1927. This power couple then lovingly built their dream castle with a landscaped area of about 17 hectares, around it. It took them 30 years to finish it. You can't go in the castle but there is more than enough to see roaming about the terraced gardens, even in September. The views of the Med are spectacular. It is well worth spending some time here.

More on Collias and Montpellier in subsequent posts.

The tall building in the back is the Hotel Arts. The sculpture a stylized whale sits between the hotel and the beach. On the left are a number of shops and dining venues.