It was only a 23-minute train ride from Ventimiglia across the French border and on to Monaco, the world’s second smallest independent country in area (Vatican City is the smallest). Upon my arrival in Monaco’s underground station in the morning of 26 September 2012, I picked up the tickets I’d reserved on-line for all my trains across France. I was pleased that the polite ticket agent understood my rusty French and I understood her proper French.
As I emerged from the station into the daylight, I figured it would be easy to find my way around a country that is less than one square mile in area. Well…not exactly. Monaco is basically a small city of very expensive high-rise apartments built on a steep mountainside which descends to the Mediterranean Sea. The station is several hundred feet above the harbor and the commercial center of the city. I walked along winding streets which dropped me to the harbor then headed toward a stately building which I first thought was the Monte Carlo Casino. Turns out it was the Salle Garnier, Monaco’s opera house. The morning sun was getting hot, and I was getting tired from lugging all my gear. So I found an elevator that took me back up to the station in time for my train to Nice.
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Crowded residential area in Monaco. I suspect that most of Monaco’s über-rich residents are oblivious to rock fall and slope instability issues that lurk above them.
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| Impressive architecture. Monaco’s Salle Garnier. |
I had to change trains in Nice and had a little time for a stroll so I found some photo ops at the Notre Dame Cathedral and grabbed some lunch. At 11:55AM, I boarded a train that took me west all the way to Toulouse with stops in Marseilles and Montpellier, a 375-mile journey taking 6 hours 45 minutes. Along the way, I saw views of the French Riviera and the southern French countryside but didn’t find the scenery from the train all that impressive. By the time I reached Toulouse, I was happy to find my hotel practically across the street from the train station.
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Top: Photo of the French Riviera near Nice lacks sharpness due to the tinting of the train coach window. Bottom: French countryside near Toulouse.
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The following morning, I took a local train 1½ hours west to Auch (pronounced ōsh), a town of 22,000 and the former capital of historic Gascony Province of southwestern France. Auch is located in a rural area of rolling hills and farmland interspersed with forests. The reason for my visit was to reunite with an old friend, Michael Colbert, whom I had known 22 years earlier when we were Peace Corps volunteers in Niger (West Africa). After Peace Corps, I wound up back in Colorado and took an environmental consulting job which I stayed with for 11 years. Michael bought a sheep farm in Vermont and about 10 years ago sold out and bought another farm a few miles from Auch. Even though he is a US citizen, he was able to buy a farm in France because his grandparents were born in Ireland enabling him to get an Irish passport. As I understand it, anyone with a passport from a European Union member state such as Ireland can buy land in another EU member state such as France. Otherwise, France is very protective of its farm land and it would be quite difficult for a foreigner to buy a French farm.
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| Auch’s Renaissance Cathédrale Sainte-Marie and the River Gers. |
After catching up over coffee and tea at an Auch café, Michael wanted to do some shopping at the local farmers’market. “Ooo, could I use your kitchen and cook us a vegetable pasta dish for dinner?” I queried. I like to cook and was tired of eating mostly restaurant food for the past 2½ months. Michael, who lives alone, was happy to have someone cook for him so we stocked up on pasta, green and red peppers, mushrooms, onion, garlic, and a few other items that escape my memory.
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| At the Auch farmers’ market, Michael finds some green peppers for our dinner. |
With shopping done, it was off to a relaxing afternoon at the farm. The big task was moving his flock from a lower pasture up to an upper one. Michael carried a bucket of grain to the field where they were grazing, called the sheep, and shook the bucket to get their attention. After that he was the Pied Piper walking along at a fast past and shaking the bucket while being trailed by more than 100 eager ewes. It was my job to close gates and, since Michael has no sheep dog, chase after stragglers to get them back with the herd. All this while trying to photo document our sheep drive. It was exciting stuff for a city guy like me.
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Michael leads his flock up to greener pastures while I bring up the rear.
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Michael was able to obtain government conservation funds for fencing around this stream channel protecting the riparian vegetation from his ravenous ewes.
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Prior to dinner, Michael made us cocktails and we sat in chairs on the west side of his hilltop home watching a brilliant sunset. “Not a bad life,” I mused, and fantasized about being an “artist” in residence at this lovely, tranquil spot spending my days writing, reading, taking photos, exploring the countryside on foot, helping move sheep, and cooking meals.
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Cultivated field near Auch. According to Michael, farmers plow up and down slopes to keep water from ponding on the clayey soils in this part of France.
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Unfortunately, I could only stay a day and was on the 9:07 AM train back to Toulouse, then on to Narbonne on the Mediterranean where I caught a southbound train to the Spanish border town of Port Bou where I arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon. Following another day of trains, I was eager to get some exercise and this picturesque town located where the Pyrenees meet the Mediterranean provided an excellent opportunity for walking along the cliffs above the sea.
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Port Bou, Spain just south of the French border.
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| Rugged Mediterranean coastline looking south from Port Bou. |
It was up again early the next day for the 6:59AM train to Barcelona. I had planned a 5 hour + layover between trains in Barcelona so I could see some of the city. After stashing my stuff in a locker, I descended to the Metro and seven stops later I emerged into daylight in front of the Plaça de Catalunya in the heart of the Old Town. There was only one problem – it was raining. My rain suit and hiking boots kept me relatively dry but it was basically a miserable day. After a couple blocks, I ducked into an indoor market, and had some lunch. When I came back out an hour later, the steady rain continued and after a few more blocks I gave up and headed back early to the Sants train station. I felt like I’d “missed” Barcelona but, hey, into every trip some rain must fall.
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Top: Yuck! The rain gods spoiled my ramblings around Barcelona.
Bottom: I took refuge from the rain in this indoor market which featured a plethora of both healthy and unhealthy food choices.
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Left: Barcelona is probably a lovely city on dry days! Right: Barcelona is the capital of the northeastern Spanish region of Catalonia. Less than three weeks prior to my visit, more than 1.5 million people brought the city to a standstill at a mass rally for Catalonian independence from Spain. I saw numerous red and yellow striped Catalonian flags displayed in Barcelona.
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The last train leg of the day covered the 370 miles between Barcelona and Madrid. The trip took only 2¾ hours including a stop in Zaragoza. I was on one of Spain’s AVEs which stands for Alta Velocidad Española but “ave” is also Spanish for “bird”. It was the fastest train I’ve ever ridden and considerably more rapid than America’s fastest train, the Acela between Boston and Washington, DC. Watching the Spanish farms and forests flash by at 180mph was quite a rush.
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Top: My "AVE" prior to departure from the Barcelona Sants station. Bottom: There was a monitor in my car which showed our current speed. At one point, it hit 300kph (186mph).
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Top: The Spanish landscape whizzes by my window northeast of Madrid.
Bottom: South of Madrid, I caught a glimpse of this town of white buildings and a hilltop castle in the region of Castilla-La Mancha.
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The skies had cleared by the time I reached Madrid’s Puerta de Atocha station at 5:45PM. I had a train for Granada the next morning so no time to see the city. I would have most of the day in Madrid on October 10 when I came back through on my way to Lisbon.
The next morning when I arrived at the station I was upset to learn that my train to Granada had been cancelled. Fortunately, they routed me a different way and I arrived in Granada by early afternoon on September 30 at about the same time as originally scheduled. Spanish trains are fast, comfortable, and efficient but their on-line ticketing totally sucks. I had to use a booking agent for the AVE train to Madrid and bought the other tickets in local stations the day before my trips. As a result, I wound up having to pay considerably higher prices for tickets through Spain than the bargains I scored on line to get me across Italy and France.
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Rugged landscape west of Granada. Note the rows of olive trees which seem to be ubiquitous in southern Spain’s region of Andalucía.
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After nine exhausting days of travel, I was finally in Granada, the site of the IECA Iberoamerican Chapter Conference. I had signed up for a pre-conference workshop on October 1 but it was cancelled because of an inadequate number of participants. Thus, I teamed up with Julie Etra, IECA’s V-P for International Development, and her husband, Larry, for a day at Granada’s famous Alhambra. This palace and fortress complex was originally constructed in the 9th Century by Muslim Moors. The Moors were driven out of Spain in 1492 by the Christian armies of Ferdinand and Isabella. You may recall that this was same royal duo who, that same year, funded an Italian navigator who claimed he could get to India by sailing west.
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The Alhambra: An outstanding example of Moorish architecture.
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