Jack’s Walk

Chic Choc Mountains, Gaspe, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I are still on the east coast of Quebec in our little village called Perce. There are so many beautiful vistas here that it’s hard to choose, but today I’ll share the Chic Choc (pronounced Shick Shock) mountains. They’re the Canadian part of the Appalachian mountain range and are among the oldest mountains in the world. I love the soft rounded peaks that roll one into the other in a long unbroken chain. I’ll be sharing more photos of certain places in the mountains, but this is the long view to whet your appetite.

After today, Jack’s Walk will be here Monday to Friday only.

Jack’s Walk

Through the meadow, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Toward Perce Rock and Mt. Joli, ©voyager, all rights reserved

So much Blue, ©voyager, all rights reserved

The weather here is perfect today, a rare treat for the Gaspe where it is frequently cool and damp. Jack and I decided to walk the meadow path that leads to the edge of the cliff overlooking North Beach. The ocean looks so blue today and the sky so clear that we wanted to take it in from on high. You can walk even higher, all the way up to the cross which sits atop Mt. Joli, but that’s a steep climb we’ll save for another day.

Jack’s Walk

Perce Rock…going…

…and gone.

Fog is pretty common in Perce and it shows up at any darned time of the day. One minute it’s sunny and the next minute there’s a thick fog. When Jack and I set out this morning the sun was shining and the air was warm and clear, but by the time we got to the beach (a 5 minute walk) the fog was thick and there was a cool breeze. I like the film noire feeling of walking in the fog so Jack and I set out as usual down North Beach where suddenly the Perce Rock disappeared in the mist.

Tree Tuesday

Over the past few weeks Giliell has been sharing her wonderful holiday photos of Barcelona with us and as part of that series she has sent us an incredible tree to add to our collection. It’s called a Yellow Flamboyant and the name is certainly appropriate. This beautiful Spanish tree is filled with flaming color and style. Its flowers are big and bright and plentiful and Giliell’s photos show them off beautifully against a warm summer sky. The photos are all gorgeous, but I am absolutely in love with the last one, looking up through the tree. Flamboyant indeed.

Thanks Giliell.

Yellow Flamboyant tree, ©Giliell, all rights reserved

Flowers of the Yellow Flamboyant tree, ©Giliell, all rights reserved

Looking up through the Yellow Flamboyant tree, ©Giliell, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk

North Beach, Perce, Quebec, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack and I took a stroll along North Beach this morning. This is one of our regular go-to places when we’re here because it’s just across the road from where we stay and it’s seldom busy. It’s also beautiful and full of fossils, sea glass, agates and pretty stones of many types.

Jack’s Walk

Perce Rock, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s been a long and difficult journey this year, but we’ve finally arrived. We won’t have internet access until tomorrow, but once we do I’ll share more photos and stories. For now, I’m still posting with my phone. This is the classic tourist photo of the Perce Rock, but it doesn’t really give any idea of scale. I know a better spot to take this photo, but there are so many tourists in town today that I just couldn’t get there.

Jack’s Walk

We had an uneventful and generally boring drive yesterday which is just the way we like it. This part of the trip is just about putting kilometers behind us and that we did…about 650 km so far. We’ll spend today in Pointe Claire (we’re all exhausted) then tomorrow we’ll get back in the car and head east again for the next leg of our journey which should take us as far as Rimouski, Quebec. We’ll spend the night there in a motel and the following day we’ll drive the last leg of the trip all the way to Perce. Thankfully, the scenery improves once we get past Quebec City and the last part of the trip is so pretty that you can almost forget that your ass is asleep and your legs are numb.

 

St. Lawrence River, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Pointe Claire Yacht Club, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Barcelona: The City 5: Streets

The last of the streets photos. as I already mentioned, the city is between sea and mountains and has grown in the only possible direction, which is uphill, resulting in some streets that would make San Francisco envious. There are even some where there are escalators to get pedestrians up.

Very steep streets

©Giliell, all rights reserved

A light purple house with a lamppost with a yellow ribbon

The yellow mark on the lamp post is the sign in solidarity with the political prisoners after the failed referendum last year.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Barcelona: the City 3: El Mercado de la Boqueria

Just off the big Boulevard “La Rambla” is the big market hall Boqueria. The front is dominated by the stalls that mostly offer their goods to tourists, but in the back you can find the Barceloneses doing their shopping. Fresh fish and fruit and most delicious baked goods for prices that let you forget that you’re supposedly in a tourist attraction.

Colourful displays of sweets and marzip figures.

Marzipan and sweets in the market.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

What I interestingly couldn’t find were signs and comemorative plates of the terrorist attack that happened there last year.

Barcelona: The City 2: La Plaza Catalunya

The centre of Barcelona is the Plaza Catalunya. Lined on one side by the traditional Corte Inglés shopping centre and start of the Rambla, the main boulevard, there’s a snowball’s chance in hell you’ll miss it. Most tourist buses start and stop there (our shuttle bus from the camp site dropped us off there and picked us up, and so did most others), the hop on- hop off buses stop there, the metro lines do, the regional train station is under it.

Above it are the pigeons.

Water fountain by night, brightly lit.

The fountain by night.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

 

Water fountain in daylight.

The fountain by day.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Pigeon bathing in a water fountain.

Did I say fountain? What I meant was “pigeon bath”.
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Pigeons in a tree.

How many pigeons can you count?
©Giliell, all rights reserved

Barcelona: Camping 3: Lightning

The city of Mataró, where the camp site is located is wedged between the sea and the mountains, like the whole region. This makes land fit for construction scarce, but also creates a special microclimate where the mountains so to speak keep the clouds from escaping, so they experience frequent thunderstorms.

Google Earth view of the citiy of Matró

Source: Google Earth

One of those hung over the mountains one night when we were having dinner at the “chiringuito”, a small beach bar/restaurant. Wonderful lightning. As soon as we got home I grabbed the camera and the tripod and went to a location where I could possibly, hopefully, finally, take some pics of lightning.

Since I had never done that nor informed myself on how to do it, I simply set the camera to 30 seconds and kept shooting, hoping that lightning would happen in that time.

And I got lucky.

Lightning

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Lightning

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Lightning

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Only that while I was shooting the rain arrived and I was stranded a few 100 metres away from the caravan with the camera in the pouring rain. Since walking back was no option I decided to retreat under a tree and hold my skimpy summer dress taunt over the camera so it wouldn’t get wet. I just hope nobody took pics of the fat lady in her undies holding her dress over the camera.

Barcelona: Camping 3: Friends

Camp sites are interesting social spaces, because for a short while they throw people together who then all have to get along with each other. For adults that may be stressful, for kids that often means new friends. Subsequently you get to know their parents and often you find out that just like the kids, you can easily pass some time with total strangers and amuse yourself over a glass of wine.

pixellated image of three girls eating ice cream.

There’s nothing like ice cream. It’s not that I was unable to take a proper pic, it’s just that I don’t want to publish recognisable images of children, especially not other people’s children. ©Giliell, all rights reserved

Funny enough, this was the second time at this specific camp site that the kid and parents were on a several months long journey through parts of Europe following the birth of a child. I don’t know if this is becoming a new trend with middle class families with one main breadwinner who then takes the paid parental leave and then they all take off together.

I’m not going to have another child to find out.

Barcelona: Camping 1

I was practically born into camping. My first camping holiday was when I was about six months old, and the few times I spent in hotels didn’t exactly warm me to the idea. However, in one way, camping is exactly like staying in a hotel: the term describes a wide range of options, from very simple to very luxury. The American version of pitching your tent in the wild and shitting in the woods is unknown in most parts of Europe, probably because we don’t have many bears that can eat you up. People here go to campsites, which range from simple to holy fuck, how much does that cost?

Campsites near big cities, like the one we stayed at, have a very interesting social mix, since the residents range from students on a 20 bucks a day budget (been there, done that, it was great fun) to people with camping “cars” that cost twice as much as our house, extra car not included. Interestingly, those peple also had the cheapest, most uncomfortable folding chairs on the market, the very ones Mr and I had back in the day when we didn’t have the money or space for anything that didn’t leave you with a sore back.

Anyway, we clock somewhere in the middle, with a tendency to pack too much stuff and create utter chaos:

A caravan with a sun roof in front of it. Table and chairs under the sun roof. Lots of articles of daily life are cluttered all over.

What I personally like about this version is that you’re as protected from the elements as you need to be, but as open as possible. The campsite is on a piece of former farmland, so you live in nature, which gets me to our constant companions this holiday: ants.

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