Foreign Perspectives

The other thing that we found, which is not advertised anywhere outside the Port Aventura park, is that there is very, very little for children under 1.2m high even though they charge almost full price for admission (EUR 35 for adults, EUR 28 for 4 to 11 year olds at the time of writing; under 4 are free). In fact, the height limitations had no overall consistency with rides wanting anything from 1m, 1.1m, 1.2m and 1.3m plus others with age limitations (usually 5+) and others with both. We found that something like 90% of the rides required a height of 1.2m so if your child is over 4 but not yet 1.2m then it’s probably not worth going. Most of the small-child-friendly rides seem to be in the “Wild West” area of the park which tends to be the last area that you reach if you follow the main route round yet there is no indication of that.

We were expecting to be in the Port Aventura park until well into the evening, yet despite advertising night admission in a number of places we found that the park closed very abruptly at 7pm. In fact, it started closing up considerably before that with various shops and the like finishing up more like 6pm and by 6.30pm the security people were noticeably sweeping people towards the entrance. At the time we were there, sunset was around 7pm or so and the mosquitoes were out in force by then. Perhaps you think that they can’t do anything about that? Well, Disney World is built right in the middle of a swamp which ordinarily would mean millions of mosquitoes yet there are none so it is definitely possible to do something. As it was, we are covered in bites.

Anyway, if you’re going to Port Aventura, March to June or September to October should be fine and leave before the mosquitoes arrive around dusk.

Barcelona extends for quite a bit and it’s very easy to get lost in the city. Net effect is that, despite numerous visits, our navigation within the city is dreadful so we were very surprised when we managed to arrive in the Rambla area with no wrong turns along the way.

We started off with lunch in El Corte Ingles (a Spanish version of Marks & Spencer). The view from their top-floor restaurant is spectacular as you can see. Unfortunately the prices for the less than brilliant food is equally spectacular. The portions are very large though.

Our next stop was the Rambla, of which more in a later posting.

One thing that I was particularly looking for was a large but carryable Spanish/English dictionary. The snag is that Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and so a lot of the books shops are Catalan, so lots of Catalan/English and Catalan/Spanish dictionaries but it was quite a while before we found a bookshop with Spanish books. Although, you’d think that the selection of Spanish/English dictionaries would be as large in Spain as it is in the UK, in fact it’s much smaller and the dictionaries are, on the whole, more expensive for comparable quality. The sole exception to this, at least in the bookshop that I looked in, was the Collins dictionary which is pretty much the same price (allowing for the difference in currency) and even adds a version of the dictionary on CD which isn’t available in the version of the book on sale in the UK. They change the name of the dictionary so the full Collins dictionary is called Universal in Spain, the Concise edition is called Master but otherwise appears to be identical.

Normally in Spain, car park prices are pretty low but that’s definitely not the case in central Barcelona where the prices are comparable to those in London so do check the prices if you’re planning on parking all day.

Barcelona is spread out quite a bit with a number of separate centres, but if you’re thinking of a short break to Barcelona, you’d not go far wrong basing yourself in the Rambla area.

As usual, when we want to get away early the last guests didn’t check out until the very last minute so we didn’t set off for Sitges ’til noon. That worked out pretty well as with a break for lunch at the nice little café on the border we pulled into the hotel around 4pm.

Sitges is a very lively resort in the Summer months but is a good deal quieter once you get into Autumn. Although the majority of the shops were still open, the town had a feeling of closing down for the Winter about it with a number of the more upmarket shops already closed up and the much lower number of tourists limited the extent of the promenading pretty much exclusively to the central section of the beachfront.

I was quite disappointed in the old town as it’s almost entirely taken over by various government offices and has a very “restored” feeling about it.

There’s a fantastic Australian-owned restaurant called the Beach House which Wendy wanted to try out but I guess it may be one of those that closes up for the Winter as we couldn’t find it.

As we went a little bit out of season, the selection of accommodation was massive of course. We ended up staying in a very nice four star aparthotel which is normally EUR 400 odd yet only cost us EUR 70.

So, quite a nice town to walk round, but you’d need to go closer to the main holiday season to make the most of it I think.

On the other hand, there are many like us who have a French car, pay UK tax, etc. but who would still probably consider home as being somewhere in the UK.

Even the authorities seem a little confused by the question. Almost three years after moving here, the French have continued to send tax bills to our former home in the UK whilst the same office simultaneously sends other tax bills to us here. The UK tax people are even worse if that’s possible with Inland Revenue regularly sending mail to here, our old house in the UK, my former employers in the UK and even my parents house sometimes! Where they consider is home for me is anyones guess.

My driving license is expiring shortly and I thought that perhaps I’d have to swap it for a French one because the UK form states quite clearly on the front page that you can’t get a UK driving license unless you are resident in the UK. However, they go on to define in detail what they mean by someone being resident in the UK and I meet all their requirements!

In fact in most cases it is still much easier for me to prove that I live in the UK than to prove that I live in France, to the extent that not only have we been able to get credit cards but even a mortgage! Interestingly, despite telling everyone official that we live in France, we have yet to receive any request to pay the Taxe d’Habitation so it would seem that officially we don’t really live in France after all.

So it would appear that, officially at least, “home” for us is actually still the UK.

PS We’re off to Spain for a short break this afternoon so no more FPs ’til at least Wednesday.