I will not be blogging about our Christmas trip day by day. This is partly because we went to the same area as last year, even staying in the same rental penthouse with a hot tub on the terrace, and I started this blog reporting on that trip, so it seems silly to be repetitive. It is also partly that the weather was not so great, chilly with lots of wind and one day of heavy rains, and largely because that asthma I referenced earlier (which is new for me) was really bad for most of the trip so I was often pretty out of it and not seeing all the detail I normally see and really not taking photos.
We started off a bit differently for this trip. Rio only had school until 11:00 on the Friday before Christmas break. Dave was working that day in southern France, almost right in the path of where we would be driving. So, rather than have David fly home Friday afternoon and then start driving (along with half the country) on Saturday morning, Marika and I loaded the car, picked Rio up from school and the kids and I started driving south to meet up with David in Mont Pellier, France where we would spend the night before finishing the drive on Saturday (which also meant we would already be settled and not on the road for Rio's birthday on Sunday).
Overall that worked really well. It was great to get out before the major holiday traffic was on the roads (it was noticeably lighter) and we really only had a back up in Geneva (which we hit at rush hour and then sat for a little more than an hour getting across town and at the back up on the French side of the border just out of town waiting to get our toll ticket).
It was really nice to arrive at the hotel (the Holiday Inn Express in Montpellier, France) and already be checked in; Dave was waiting out front for us with a room key (knowing I always need a bathroom ASAP after a drive) and parked the car while we settled in. He had also already explored the area and had some good ideas of where we could go for a late dinner.
We had chosen the hotel simply because it was inexpensive, we could earn "points" at the chain and it was where we needed to be for the night. Overall it was a nice hotel with a decent sized room (that slept four with queen bed and pull out sofa) and a pretty good breakfast included. We had paid a little more to book a nicer room with a "kitchenette" since Dave would be on his own most of the afternoon and evening. It's a good thing we were only there one night and not counting on being able to actually cook anything. Kitchentte meant a small fridge and a microwave and not even a pair of glasses in the room, much less a plate or other cooking item!
The great thing about the hotel though was that it was right across an easy to walk over street from a huge shopping and entertainment area called the Odysseum. We had not known this when we booked, and have never heard of this, but it was a lot of fun (reminiscent of Downtown Disney) and we will likely go back for a long weekend sometime just to hang out and play here. There is nothing cultural about it at all, just fun general stuff.
As you can see, there were large open spaces between shops, lots of palm trees and a carousel.
This disco style ice skating rink looked like it would be loads of fun. Too bad we were in so late and needed to get up and going in the morning. One reason we have to go back!
The climbing gym had some of the tallest (if not THE tallest) walls/courses we have seen.
There was also a nice looking bowling alley, a huge aquarium, a large planetarium and a big movie theatre as well as many shops. There were many choices for dining as well. From basic Italian and French restaurants, to an American style diner, to our choice: Pirate's Paradise, which had this fun photo op out front.
How to describe Pirate's Paradise? Hmm. Not easy to do. If you recall my post from this summer about Denver's Casa Bonita, it is sort of like a newer, high class, pirate themed, French, Casa Bonita, Yeah, I know, that makes no sense. Or think Rainforest Cafe but with better food, better pricing, and higher quality theming which is pirate. It was a fun place (and not busy at that time) and really felt like vacation. Here are a few photos:
Every member of the waitstaff had different, and good quality costumes, which added to the fun ambiance; here is Marika with our waitress.
By the time we enjoyed a fun dinner and explored both the restaurant and the surrounding area, it was about 10:30, so we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep as we still had about 8 hours of driving ahead of us for Saturday.
Saturday was a pretty easy day. We slept in and then stopped about three hours in in Barcelona to stretch a bit. We drove up to, and parked at Tibidabo (see last year's post for photos) but did not buy wntry wristbands. Instead, we stayed in the free Skywalk area and just walked around enjoying the views, etc. We did end up buying one 2 euro ticket per person for the ticketed rides out in that stretch. The kids wanted to ride up in the tall crane that overlooks the city from way too high up (in my opinion) and Dave and I saw the little film about the history of the park that they run in the old planetarium. All in all we spent about 90 minutes up there, and it was such a pleasant break.
Because we had rented this same place last year, there was no need for someone to meet us and show us where to park in the garage, how to run the heaters, etc, so we had been able to arrange to pick up the keys from a local tapas bar instead of having to meet at a very specific time, which made the rest of the drive quite a bit less stressful.
And, so, on the night of the 21st we arrived happily at our little penthouse, where, much to my delight, the owners had even provided us with a Christmas tree this year!
Up next, a report on our day at Mundomar (this time Rio did not start running a high fever an hour into the trip, so this topic bares repeating!).
--Hadley
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