Foreign Perspectives

As Ryanair consider anyone over 2 years old as an adult, we’ve managed to amass a potential 100kg luggage allowance between the four of us. Not that we could actually carry quite that much! However, what we’ve been doing over the last few weeks is to use my parents house as a delivery point for Amazon and Ebay purchases to save on postage so it must be something like Santa’s grotto by now!

Wendy’s planning on taking over an empty suitcase to bring at least some of that stuff back but that’s not even counting the stuff we’ll probably pick up whilst we’re there.

We’re still looking for books & magazines for the little guys, so if you’ve anything suitable around the 2 to 6 age range, let me know as we should be able to pick it up while we’re there. Wendy wouldn’t say no to girly magazines either…. Heat, Cosmo, Hello, etc.

What’s in Port Aventura though? It’s divided into four themed areas: Polynesia, China, Mexico and the Wild West. Both China and the Wild West areas had quite a strong sense of theming but it seemed a little superficial in the other two. The Polynesian show was the only major one that we saw (as noted, there was little information about show times so we may have missed heaps of them) and was reasonable although as I’ve been to Polynesia I might be a little harsh in my criticism of this one. None of the rides in the Polynesian area take small kids.

To my mind, Port Aventura’s Wild West area was by far the best with a very high density of small rides and activities plus a few larger rides at the edges. However, if you’re wanting the more adventurous rides, head for Mexico or perhaps Polynesia instead.

There’s the usual train running around Port Aventura but with only two stops which are poorly marked on the maps, we were pretty much leaving the park before we found one of them (in the Wild West). The boat between the entrance area (just before you go into the themed areas of the park) and China was easier to find but we were told that we couldn’t go on it from China as we had a pram. As it turned out, this was nonsense as we were able to go in the other direction but is an example of the much lower level of custmer service as compared to a true American park.

Pay attention to the prices in the Port Aventura shops too. We found that some things were going through the till at twice the prices marked.

Anyway, overall, Port Aventura is a nice enough park but avoid it if you have any kids under 1.2m high and keep an eye on the prices.

Take programmable calculators for instance. Right now there’s a Sinclair programmable calculator and a Tandy PC-3 on the site, both bought new and for sale like new as they’ve been sitting in their original box for over 20 years. What kind of person keeps a mint programmable calculator for over 20 years?

More interesting, for me, are the likes of the Tandy laptops from 1983 onward. The Tandy 100 range is actually still in use by a number of reporters in war zones as it has a mini-wordprocessor, built-in modem, runs for 20-odd hours on 4 AA batteries and weighs about 1kg. Think about it: you can hardly rely on a power supply to charge up a normal laptop in a warzone before you even consider the effect of the knocking about that bomb explosions will have on a hard-drive. On the other hand, the 1kg Tandy can easily be accompanied by 1kg of AA batteries, still weigh less than a modern laptop and run for months.

Surely there’s a more modern equivalent though? Not really. After Tandy stopped making this series of machines in 1989 there was almost a 10 year gap before the AlphaSmart computer came along. It’s aimed at the education market but is also bought in significant numbers by reporters who basically want a modern version of the Tandy. Although, funnily enough, the Tandy still wins out as it’s the only one to come with a built-in modem.

The Tandy is so reliable (no moving parts, of course) that it’s installed in all the scrolling traffic signs in America and was the first laptop to be taken into space. It also has the distinction of being the last computer for which Bill Gates wrote a significant percentage of the code.

Originally on sale for around £600 or so (serious money in 1983), they can be had for about £20 on ebay these days.

As usual with French events, all the publicity is in French and there’s little distribution of it outside the local area so it’s a great opportunity to see a good rally without the usual crowds.

This year the route of the Fenouilledes Car Rally starts on Saturday in Ille-sur-Tete, heads up into the mountains through Belesta and Pezilla where they loop round through Rasigueres, Panezes and Latour de France finally turning at Estagel and heading back over the hill to Millas and then towards Ille-sur-Tete. The Sunday route is similar but goes through Ansignan after Pezilla, descending into Maury before once again crossing the hill at Estagel towards Millas and finishing at Ille-sur-Tete. There’s a map of the route Fenouilledes Car Rally Map 2006 and some photos of the key points on the route at Key Points on Fenouilledes Car Rally 2006 with complete details of the stages at Stage Details for Fenouilledes Car Rally 2006 and the participants at Participants in Fenouilledes Car Rally 2006.

By co-incidence, Auberge Mas Camps is in one of the better places to watch the race and have been fully booked by the rally organisers, ASA-Roussillon.

All being well, I’ll get some decent photos for a later posting.

During the day there isn’t a great deal to see in the Rambla itself as it’s basically just a long wide street with an assortment of small kiosks selling newspapers and some souvenirs at one end and on-street restaurants at the other end. In amongst this you’ll find a series of the street-theatre statues of varying degrees of interest. At the moment, the two most interesting are the two skeletal cyclists but the mix varies throughout the year.

More interesting during the day is the market just off the Rambla itself where you’ll find just about everything on sale. The entrance to the market is about half-way down the Rambla.

The Rambla itself is mainly a mix of newsagents, touristy places and lots of petshops. If you’re looking for proper shops the street immediately to the left and parallel to the Rambla has quite a selection of boutiques and El Corte Ingles is just across the road from the entrance to the Rambla (it’s like a Spanish Marks & Spencer).

The area really livens up in the evening when you can sit in one of the street restaurants and watch the world go by.

Take care with your possessions in this area as it’s a major magnet for pickpockets.