Goodbye Spain, Hello France

My brother always says the first day of a vacation is the day that is most fun. I think that’s probably true. I also think the first meal you have any place always tastes the best. I think that will certainly be true for our first meal in France.

We left our apartment in Barcelona about 10:30 or 11 this morning. Bill had to run down a few blocks and get a taxi while I waited in our lobby with all of our bags. He was unable to convince the cab driver to come down the world’s narrowest street this time, so we had to haul our baggage a couple of blocks from our apartment to a larger street where he waited for us. He dropped us off at the airport and we went and picked up our little Peugot convertible.

We took off from the airport with Bill’s GPS device telling us how to get out of town. What did people do before they had technology to help them out? Bill had to learn how to drive a stick shift in a foreign country where he knew nothing of the written or (more important) the unwritten rules of the road. He did very well, thank you very much. Nevertheless, it was a very long drive. We filled up our tank with diesel fuel for $1.45 a liter, which comes to something like six U.S. dollars a gallon. Our little car is supposed to get very good gas mileage, and we are hoping that is true.

We pulled into Lourdes about 6:30 this evening. We haven’t seen much of the town as of yet, but what we have seen is very pretty. We checked into our hotel, which is extremely small. Extremely small. However, it is very clean, and oh-so-quiet when compared to Barcelona. It was never quiet in Barcelona.

We figured out that while the room is very small (extremely small), it provides us with free wifi! Yippee! Somehow if I can stay connected with my family via email, I don’t get as homesick. So for the next few days, we should be able to communicate with everyone. And that is important because one son is about to learn whether or not he gets approved for a loan for a house and another son and daughter-in-law will deliver our new baby granddaughter on Friday.

Now, back to the first meal in France. We walked down to the city center of Lourdes about 8 o’clock this evening. We had no idea where to go, but found a cute little restaurant just out of the city center called Quelven-Renaissance. We each had the menu, which is their prix fixe meal. Bill had a salad with a grilled steak and I had pate with cod. Oh. My. Goodness. They were both so delicious. We shared a liter of the house vin rouge (red wine). The wine was delicious, though I have no idea what kind it was. For dessert, we each had a chocolate profiterole. A chocolate-covered pastry filled with chocolate in a restaurant sitting at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Tomorrow we will figure out where the grotto is and spend our day with Our Lady of Lourdes.