DAY 14 – LEAVING BARCELONA

After checking out of my hotel, I had a few hours – so I hopped back on the Tour Bus. Barcelona is wonderful, and I rather wish I had booked more time here. I could just drink up the ambiance and architecture forever. As I walk back generally toward my hotel, I decided to have one last meal here in Barcelona. I had skipped breakfast, and it was now mid-afternoon – with a long evening ahead of me. I order the Fried Camembert with Tomato Jam and then a breakfast dish with potatoes and eggs. And a very brave little sparrow joined me for lunch. [OMG – the camembert was amazing, and the tomato jam was divine. (If you’ve never had tomato jam, I highly recommend it. I mean, tomatoes are a fruit!)]

I grab my luggage from the hotel and head for the Bus Station – which is more like a train station (and nothing like the Greyhound Bus stations in the U.S.) I had such a wonderful time on the City Touring Buses, and the BlaBlaCar was great – so I decided to take the BlaBlaBus from Barcelona to Rome. NOT recommended.

            First – it’s a  L O N G  bus trip of 21-24 hours. And although buses have improved over the years, they still don’t have enough leg room. But mostly, people on the bus are far less considerate. One woman talked on the phone for hours. One older woman watched obnoxious videos without headphones. And the man in front of me reclined his seat all the way, so it was completely in the way. And although the inner-city buses had wifi, the cross-country ones did not. Next time I’m flying!

            And the “transfer point” was at Lyon. On the schedule it looks easy. Off at Lyon, on at Lyon. But they drop you off under an overpass and vaguely point “up”. Oh yeah – at 3am, with the bus & train stations closed. And EVERYTHING in the area closed. The only people around were some homeless men sleeping outside the station.

            Fortunately for me there were 2 young men from Columbia also going to Rome – so we roamed around together for an hour, trying to figure out where out bus would be. All of which would have been MUCH easier if I spoke Spanish or they spoke English, but we got by with Google Translate and a lot of charades. Eventually we got somewhere – and about 5am things started waking up. And at 5:30, as scheduled, the bus to Rome showed up.