Our car: Purr-geot or Poo-geot

Thought I'd do a post on our means of transport - the Peugeot 308 manual diesel straight off the factory floor.  We picked it up at the Charles de Gaulle airport with a massive 2km on the clock.

A nice looking car with that new car smell, a flash touch screen interface with a very important GPS for all our navigational needs.

Driving off from the airport depot, everything felt good - a nice car to drive, although the electronic handbrake (I guess it's now a finger brake) took some time to get used to.  Then it was into the mad Paris traffic, which was even more madder than usual due to a public transport strike.

I found out that Parisian drivers do not have an atom of patience in their bodies.  Any form of queue (i.e. 2 or so cars waiting in a row) and they feel the need to push in.  This meant that our one-lane exit off the motorway was 5 cars wide at the bottleneck and growing!  They don't seem to care about blocking the motorway to get a position or two ahead - not what I needed after a long haul flight.  But enough of my whinging, this is about the car and the GPS worked a treat guiding us through all the mayhem with a soothing female UK accent - I think we're going to be good friends...and I think I like this PURRgeot.

We were driving to our second stop in France along the fantastic French motorways, bopping along to the B52, when all of a sudden the music stopped and the GPS screen blanked out!  A few seconds later "Peugeot" appeared on the touch screen!

The Peugeot controls interface had decided to reboot itself mid drive - must be windows based!  Anyway 30s or so later our music was back and the GPS was continuing to guide us to our destination.  OK. Just a small glitch, I thought, probably wont happen again...


Wrong!  Does it roughly every one or two days but luckily most times were soon after starting the car and whilst I was programming the next address into the GPS - annoying, but not at critical times.

Worse was yet to come...  it was a hot day (35-40 degrees) and we were on a long drive along a motorway in the south of France.  The GPS was showing that we needed to take the exit 10km ahead.  I had driven for a few kms when I checked the screen again - take the exit 10km ahead still?  The bloody system had frozen!  We left the motorway and stopped in a supermarket carpark, turned the ignition off, waited 5-10s, turned it on again.... bloody thing is still frozen!  And because the touch screen controls the music volume and air-conditioning, these were stuck on our "loud and blasting air" motorway settings and we could do nothing to change them!!!

Tried turning off the ignition for a bit longer (~10mins) - still frozen.  Time to call the Peugeot emergency assistance number.  Dialed the number - line connected, beep... then it disconnected?  Tried again - line connected, "hello?", beep, disconnected!
This was my first of many "BLOODY POO-GEOT!!!" days.

Couldn't get through but after about 30mins with the car in the shade the Peugeot system booted OK.

So in a couple of months driving the POO-geot, the touch screen system has frozen up (requiring us to rest the poor baby for half an hour in the shade) about 7-8 times.  It still crashes and reboots itself pretty much every 1 or 2 days, and now another fault is rearing its ugly head - the GPS is starting to fail!

It goes into la-la land and can't work out where we are.  It has shown us driving out into the Mediterranean, and one other time I thought we were in ground-hog day as it would continually repeat itself showing us driving through a town that we had already passed through miles back!
"in 200m, turn left....in 200m, turn left....in 200m, turn left....in 200m, turn left....in 200m, turn left...."
Luckily I had brought my own trusty tomtom GPS from home so I've rigged that one up as a backup. Never fails.  Really!  It is 6 years older than the Poogeot GPS and it just works.

In all our driving through Europe, I've discovered that the brand new Peugeot GPS has very very old maps.  It tries to guide me down roads that no longer exist (and obviously haven't for many many years), down one-way roads - the wrong way!, and even once tried to guide me over a footbridge.

The fun doesn't stop there... after leaving the car parked in a seemingly quiet street we returned to find the rear fender dented and scratched.  

My guess is it was one of the numb-nut scooter riders misjudging one of their stupid passing manoeuvres.  Great.  Now I have to deal with the useless French insurance company too...

All fun times... but no, I wont be looking in to buy a POO-geot back home.

Slumming it in Salamanca

Our first view of the Cathedral de Salamanca...

 ... and believe it or not, our apartment was a stones throw from it in the old town itself!

Here's our view from the apartment lounge room window...

...and no we weren't in jail, the bars are to keep the riff-raff out.  Tons of tourist groups seem to start their walking tours from just outside our window.  Thank god for double glazing.
Here's Lea at the front door...

... we spent quite a bit of time there trying to get in due to a dodgey lock!!!  Funnily enough after a couple of drinks the lock seemed to work just fine???

The old town of Salamanca was incredible.  Around each corner there was a new postcard picture...

The new cathedral - Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance styles

... the elegant Plaza Mayor with its arcades on all sides.. residents must be sleeping in, the view from their balconies would be fantastic.

 

 Here is one of the plainest churches we've seen (inside and out) - not so glitzy but very unique.

The central motif of the altar like facade of the Convento San Esteban is of San Esteban getting stoned, the more unpleasant way.

 

La Casa de la Conchas (house of shells) - where shells are the main decoration of the facade.

The Museo de Art Nuevo y Art Deco - a standout inside and out with leadlilght ceiling and front wall

 ... this was our first museum visit of the trip - but worth the wait.  (Sorry weren't allowed to take photos inside, but trust us, it was stunning - google it)

Candid Caceres

Caceres medieval old town - austere and serious - unlike any other old towns, this one is not filled to the brim with souvenir shops and cafes - we virtually had the place to ourselves and we felt like we'd stepped back in time...

  

... even the information centre was well disguised inside one of the old buildings...

  

... this statue looked a bit suss...

... it's actually representing one of the many processions for the Semana Santa in Caceres

There are a lot of beggars in the cities all over Europe - the next morning we shared brekky with one of them...

(un) Holy Toledo!

On nearing Toledo, we were taken aback by the standout edifice on the hilltop...

Surely it must be some impressive religious structure...

...nup, just a library.

Golfing in Granada

Our apartment in Granada was set inside the Granada Golf Course.  It was modern, clean, bright and spacious with a glass enclosed terrace.  Temps while we were there were upper 30s but luckily the apartment had a split system airconditioner.  Unluckily, however, the outside component (that blows hot air) was located in the enclosed terrace!  Aircon on means terrace hot!  Lea didn't notice the problem.

The golf club bar/restaurant was a staggerable 20m away from the apartment and had a superb terrace...

with stunning views...

 

We drove into the centre of Granada and on surfacing from our underground car park, we were faced with a lovely plaza with a working fountain and a strange looking statue... two little heads???

We wandered the streets and came across an area filled with grungy little flamenco bars.  Of course nothing opens until at least 9PM.

We found a cafe in the more touristy area which Lea says gets a gold star for its pastel de queso al horno (baked cheesecake). It went down a treat with the Vino Rosado for lunch.

As it was stinkin hot and there are a few inclines, we took the soft option to explore the city...

 ... the tourist bus/train.

It gets you around the city sites with ease, but makes for crappy photos... I don't know how the Japanese do it..

Not-so-Spanish San Miguel de la Salinas

Our next stop sounded interestingly Spanish, San Miguel de la Salinas -it ended up being a pommy retirement village.  The first night on our terrace, we were serenaded by the Elvis karaoke from the not-so-Spanish bar down the street - it served up bacon, sausages, eggs and beans or if you wanted something exotic... cornish pasties or fish and chips with mushy peas.

Our AirBnB hosts, Harry (German) and Adriana (Slovakian), were kind enough to supply some of their homemade chili paste, which was delicious on our steaks that we cooked on the as yet unchristened BBQ on the terrace.

The shower in the apartment was quite different...

... tubular - cone of silence style - but surprisingly roomy!

Not what we'd "Castellon de la plana" 'ed - but turned out great!

Our next stay in Spain was our first experience at house sharing all of our previous AirBnB places have been independent houses or apartments all to ourselves.  We were a little apprehensive but the couple we stayed with were fantastic - so easy going and friendly.

Iratxe and Abel were fellow travellers who had just recently returned from a 6 month holiday in Australia and NZ - they even went to Adelaide!  Iratxe is from the north of Spain and Abel is Mexican.  It was great to share travelling stories over a morning coffee or a late night aperitif .. or two...

You may have noticed that we're not ones for taking too many people photos.  This is their AirBnB profile photo.

.. a great couple we hope to cross paths with again.

This was their house in the hills of Castellon de la Plana...

The panaderia next to the bar we frequented had these offerings...

.. not sure I'd go for the top one - I think one would be more than enough.

About an hours drive back up the cost was a place called Peniscola - a bit of a funny name but an extremely popular holiday spot.  The beaches were packed for as far as the eye could see...

Luckily there was a gorgeous old town built on a rocky point with much less people...

and the views from up there were stunning...

About another hours drive inland and we arrive at the ancient walled hilltop village of Morella.  An impressive sight...

 Back at the ranch, we were entertained constantly by the 4 kittens Iratxe was fostering til they were old enough to home...

Sallent Sleep-ins

After just on 2 months, we have finally arrive in Espana!

Our first stop was the little village of Sallent - a great introduction to Spain.  For its size, there were an abundance of  plazas where all the towns people gather after work until stumps which is about 1 or 2 am - kids and grannies too - such friendly people and a wonderful atmosphere.

Not so many people in the mornings though...

Our AirBnB place was a couple of kms out of town up a dirt road to a hilltop residence with a number of rooms (all with 2ft+ thick stone walls) and a superb pool / event area.  It's a popular place for weddings...

here is the view out of our bedroom window...

In the distance you can see the multi-peaked Montserrat mountain where apparently there is a famous monastery - Monestir de Montserrat.

We went looking for it up a long winding road and came across this... surely this must be it!

...nope, Monestir de St Benet de Montserrat... close but no dice.

Further up the winding track was a boom-gate with a fee to continue...  It was getting close to drink time so we decided save our pocket money and head back down.

On the way back down we were stuck behind this tour minibus...

... the company name on the bus was interesting given that the spanish 'j' is pronounced as a guttural 'h'.


Back down the bottom we found the quick and "easy" way up to the monastery... and we also caught a glimpse of the elusive monastery way up in the rock face...

... we weren't keen to take the ride up - it was pretty windy and the little cable-cars were getting quite a sway up!