While in Chile, the owner of Ko’kayak (the company that Greg, Tiff, and I went with for sea kayaking) referred me to the Ardèche when I said that some friends and I would be making a visit to France. So, we used his great advice and added the Ardèche as a destination for the Eurotrip.

On the way to La Musardière, the specific bed and breakfast that we were referred to for its friendly owners and idyllic location, we passed through a small, quaint town named Alba-la-Romaine. Exploring the small streets of the town and the impressive views it provided was a welcome surprise. Also surprising was the fact that the château on the hill was open this particular Sunday evening for a local artist’s exhibition and wine tasting. Recognizing the need for wine on a day that all shops are closed, Sylvain pulled some strings and got us in for an enjoyable visit to the château on the hill.

The helpful receptionist at the Regina Hotel pointed us to Ginette et Marcel, a local restaurant in a local area that was exactly what we were looking for (i.e., something off the beaten track). G&M served up tasty ‘tartines,’ which are open-faced sandwiches with delicious toppings such as goat cheese and honey, mushrooms and cheese, etc.

We took a nice walking tour of Avignon on Sunday morning, and the impending storm provided a backdrop for some high contrast photos. We returned to G&M for lunch as it started to rain and afterwards hopped in the car for the traffic jammed drive to the Ardèche…

Our two days in Barcelona were packed with activities, and left Nick and I wishing we had more time to enjoy the city. On Thursday, Stefano took us on an nice introductory tour with a stop at the huge Cathedral followed by a local bar for drinks, a tour of his apartment, an excellent restaurant for tapas, and a very good local flamenco show. Stefano’s reaction to the surprise gift of Speck from the Venice airport deli at the end of the night was exactly what I was hoping for.

Friday brought Dana, Nick, and I through the very touristy area of Las Ramblas to the Palau Güell, an impressive building architected by Antoni Gaudí. After that was a stop at Café Viena for the purported best sandwich in the world, and although good, I have to say that the Venice airport deli sandwiches were better. Also intermixed in the day were stops at the local and colorful markets of Santa Caterina and La Boqueria and the clothes store Zara, where I bought my new favorite shirt.

After all this, we attempted to visit Barcelona’s newest cathedral, Sagrada Família. Construction began in 1882, and it’s still under construction. Although very impressive on the outside, we unfortunately weren’t able to go inside due to a private, invitation only concert.

Stefano then met up with us and took us out for a local and enjoyable evening with sandwiches, tapas, and drinks at a number of his favorite spots. Nick and I ended the night early at our centrally located Airbnb apartment in Barcelona at 1:30am – we still needed to find accommodation for Saturday night in France; Act III was about to begin in a few hours…

Specifically, Laura and Jimmy are catching a flight to Nice, France followed by trains to Bordeaux before we meet again in Paris. Nick and I are headed to Barcelona for Act II of this adventure.

With just 2.5 hours before our flight departed, Nick and I decided to take a harrowing yet scenic 45-minute ride on a water taxi through the Grand Canal. This was followed by a speedy bus to the Marco Polo airport, and we arrived with much more time than we expected so we were each able to get not one but two delicious prosciutto and buffalo milk mozzarella paninis with sun dried tomatoes at the airport deli. The food here is so good, and I have a feeling that trend will thankfully continue in Barcelona.

First up after arrival is the immigration process. TripAdivsor says that this has recently (March and April 2012) taken up to 2-2.5 hours, but for us on a Tuesday morning in May 2012, it took 20 minutes. Some friends on a recent Saturday morning took 30 minutes, so not too bad at all. The key is to walk fast through the terminals to get as far ahead in line as possible. After 15 minutes of standing in the immigration line, the line had grown quite long, with people just arriving probably having to wait upwards of an hour.

After collecting the bags, we proceeded to follow the signs to “Coaches” where we got in line at National Express to purchase one way tickets to Gatwick North Terminal for 25£ each. Note that you can purchase from the machines with a regular (non-chip) credit card, but you need to leave it in long enough for the machine to read it.

The Gatwick National Express bus picked us up 5 minutes later right outside the terminal at stop 16. After showing the tickets to the driver, we loaded our bags on the bus and boarded for the 53 minute, ~40 mile ride to Gatwick – 2 minutes faster than the scheduled arrival time.

The airlines recommend 3 hours minimum for this transfer and we had 3 hours and 50 minutes from touch down at Heathrow to take off at Gatwick. Today it took us 2 hours and 10 minutes from wheels down at Heathrow to the gate area past security at Gatwick. Lady luck has smiled on us once again.

Following a walk through of the Great Church of St. Mark, we headed to a small shop near the Rialto district where the owner of our B&B said we could purchase the bath towels she provided for us. I jumped on this opportunity because 1) these are the best towels I’ve ever used and 2) I arrived with half empty backpacks to bring stuff exactly like this home. We found “TSL” after asking no more than five people and I made my towel purchase.

By this time we were a bit wet from the rain so we headed back to the B&B to regroup, get dried off, and ask the owner for a lunch recommendation. This lead us to the pizzeria Corte dell’ Orso at the end of a dark and deserted ally – a very good local choice! To make things even better, the rain had stopped for the day a few hours earlier than Nick’s estimate.

The British Air magazine on the flights over recommended we visit a small art gallery called Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni where we were definitely off the beaten path. With our fill of many depictions of a pointy-eared dragon getting slain, we headed back to the Santa Maria Formosa square where we met a gondolier named Roberto who seemed friendly and spoke excellent English – we had found our captain!

No tour of Venice would be complete without a gondola ride. The industry is regulated by the 425 gondoliers (red and blue banded hats don’t signify anything more than flair) and rides before 6pm cost €80 for a 40 minute tour of the area near where you pick up the boat. We wanted a tour of the small canal ways, and that was delivered in spades. Excellent! The only thing that could’ve made it better was if we had hired a singer/accordion combo that we later saw a couple cruising through the canals with.

Next up was a “Vivaldi el’ Opera” concert, which was actually quite good. Jimmy even caught a glimpse of a tear in the eye of the tenor singer as he looked into the light – the woman soprano didn’t seem quite as into it.

Nick and I wrapped up the day at a small bar down the street from our B&B enjoying the Californian Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap. A good end to a great and very picturesque day in Venice.

Upon meeting Jimmy at the B&B, he took us to the plaza Campo Santa Maria Formosa where we met Laura. We then wandered a few blocks and ended up at Al Mascaron for a filling and very tasty dinner.

The evening found us enjoying prosecco and limoncello on the patio of our B&B – it’s good to be traveling with good friends and seeing new places once again.