Swap No. 3 - near Barcelona

At the moment we´re staying at our shortest swap. It´s only for 3 days, whereas all the others are for a week to ten days. We´re at a very nice apartment in Vilanova i la Geltru, which is on the coast about 50km south of Barcelona. The apartment is very large, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms and two studies. The kitchen is well-equipped with appliances I don´t know how to operate:

I can never get over what an act of trust house-swapping is - the owners just walk out and leave all their books, CDs, photographs and personal items. There are thousands of books in this one:



There´s a really large sunny terrace as well:

The Tapas

Were about to leave Spain in two days´ time and, among its many attractions, perhaps tapas bars are the one I´ll miss most. In Australia, even though we have a beach culture and laid-back lifestyle, it is impossible as far as I know to walk into a bar and select a small plate of food from several in front of you at a tiny price. It´s been possible for us while on the Costa Del Sol to have four tapas plates between us and two drinks for not much more than 10 €. And quite often this would be enough for dinner. This was a very popular tapas bar in the village of Sabinillas:

I just love the atmosphere inside, and the idea that you can order really nice food with drinks rather than just carb-laden snacks:

The standard choice for us was the Salad Rusa (potato salad with tuna and olives) the gambas (prawns), tortilla (potato omelette), and meatballs. At this bar we also tried the huevas (stuffed eggs) which were delicious, Montadito de Chorizo (chorizo sandwich) and the Pinchito de Cordero (lamb kebab). You can see how low the tapas prices were on the left of the menu:

Everything looks so fresh and delicious:

We even got complimentary bread and olives:

More from France and Spain

Just a couple of extra photos of Frank and Ro´s house where we stayed in north-west France:


And here is the bedroom in our apartment in southern Spain:

This is the beach we walk along to the tapas bar in the village nearby:

House Swap 2 - near Estepona in Southern Spain

We reluctantly left our sunny apartment in Paris about ten days ago in our rented Peugeot, bound for southern Spain via north-west France. We went north first so that we could stay for a few days with our lovely English-Australian friends, Frank and Ro, who have a cute little house in the village of La Doree. On the way to their house we stopped at Monet´s Garden in Giverny, which was just as spectacular as I had expected it to be:

We had a lovely time in La Doree with Frank and Ro, and their friends, Pat and Pete:

Our bedroom, complete with shutters and a church bell across the street:

On the way down to Spain we stayed at the Chateau de la Reynat at Perigueux, which I can thoroughly recommend. The accommodation was reasonably priced, as was the excellent gastronomique meal we had there. We had dishes such as snail ravioli, mushroom cappuchino and foie gras with mango, all of which were unforgettable:

After another two days of driving south through Spain, we were very relieved to arrive at our second home swap, at a resort near the town of Estepona. We can just walk out the door and into the pool:

This is the view down past the pools to the ocean:

Needless to say, we are not planning to venture very far from here for the next week, apart from short day trips to Gibraltar, Granada and Seville. The tapas, wine and seafood are all cheap and very good. What else could we possibly want?