Wendy's Platter…travels

Novembre 15, 2025

The idea of leaving our new adopted home in Thiers was tinged with sadness, but also with plenty of anticipation of the next part of our journey. We had just a day or so to wrap up Thiers, so we did what most visitors do in Thiers…shop for knives.

What most of you know is that Skylar is a knife afficionado and has an impressive collection in his Seattle apartment. Clearly, shopping for knives in the knife center of France was a must. We devoted two days trying to appreciate all the dozens of knife shops within 300 meters of our apartment. It was a Herculean task but we were up for it.

We found a set of tradiitonal Thiers knives to bring home.

In the end I believe we purchased something from every shop, a few times over.

Savory crêpes one with duck and the other with local hams and cheese, plus a salad for a little greenery.

Another must for our last two days was to hit restaurants we had been hoping to try.

Banana-Nutella crêpe and a miel citron, honey lemon, crêpe. So delicious.

For the first time, we arrived at the crêperie, Le Coin des Hazards, at the right time to eat. We were dazzled by the choices of both savory and sweet crêpes. We vowed to save room for the dessert, but the savory crêpes looked just as enticing and they took advantage of the local cheeses and hams of the region. Skylar’s dessert crêpe was a banana-Nutella creation that reminded me of Betsy, Jenny, and I falling in love with Nutella in Paris, back in 1969. We have had a long-term and solid relationship ever since, Nutella and I, that is.

Our last sunset in Thiers.

Just on the other side of the terrasse lookout over the valley by our apartment is a small restaurant perched, like the terrasse, on the cliff. The small kitchen in the center of the restaurant competed with the view out over the valley, but made for great entertainment as the chef deftly cooked and created his gastronomic delights.

Our last meal was at La Belle Excuse where we had become friends with the owner/manager, Chris, who acted as waitress, busperson, cashier, and hostess. The only thing she didn’t do was cook, or at least we never saw her cooking. Ironically, we ordered a burger, as I wanted to try the Burger Auvergnat, one that takes full advantage of the local cheeses, including the Auvergne bleu cheese. It was as expected a lovely, local product version of my old favorite. And of course, the fries were way too good.

Our last meal at La Belle Excuse. The moelleur hiding oozing chocolate to be scooped up with the crème anglais.

Wednesday morning we packed the car, starting our drive to Lagos. Our first night was in Montpelier. Skylar, did a little research for our drive and found an interesting bridge that we would cross. We set our sights for lunch on the town of Millau below the bridge.

A few shots of Millau. I very cleverly was able to make it to the center of the maze. Skylar caught my brilliance in a photo.

The restaurant we chose had an Auvergne dish, aligot, that I had missed trying previously. It is a version of mashed potatoes with an absurd amount of the local cheese that creates a stretchy mass. It is usually served with a local sausage. It was gooey, great with the sausage, and just plain yummy.

Filled with good food, we headed for the lookout at the Millau Viaduct. At 343 meters (1,245 feet), it is the tallest bridge in the world and is considered an engineering masterpiece. For reference, the Eiffel Tower is only 330 meters tall. The bridge spans the Tarn Valley which is itself an engineering masterpiece created by geologic forces. There is a visitor center at the base of the bridge and a steep 400-meter asphalt path up to the lookout point. We were mesmerized by both the bridge and the surrounding Tarn Valley.

A few hours later, we settled in our charming Airbnb in the dead center of the old town, and were already exploring. Montpellier had not been one of our target destinations, but after walking around for five minutes, we realized it should have been.

Montpellier is home to the Université de Montpellier that was founded in 1220 and is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Eight hundred years of students has created a very vibrant town alive with the voices of students arguing just about everything and testing out their young adult minds.

For dinner I wanted to make sure to find another local dish…cassoulet which is, as you would expect, is a “casserole” made with duck confit, sausages, and pork, simmered for a day or more with cannellini beans and many herbs and spices. The last time I had cassoulet was at my friends Fred and Bob’s house. It was leftovers from a party they had a few days earlier, and it was super tasty, maybe even better because the flavors had plenty of time to meld. Given the hours/days it took to prepare, I have never cooked it.

The cassoulet at Le Tomate, the Tomato, was as good as Fred and Bob’s and I would say it was the best bite I have had since starting our 100-day trip. The spices, the sausage, the duck, the pork all swimming in the gravy created by hours of cooking in herbs, then broiled to create a caramelized crust, was what cassoulet was all about. I may have to give it a try with the cannellini beans that Nick grows for me every year.

We are getting close to Spain as the Pyrenees come into view. Near the border is Le Perthus Pyramid completed in 1974 and marks the border between France and Spain.

The next morning, we were off and running early as we had booked a walking tour of Barcelona at 3:00 and the drive from Montpellier to Barcelona was about five hours. We almost arrived early until I realized the street address was right, but I had inadvertently put in a nearby town. With Skylar at the helm, we found our apartment and took the metro to arrive at the tour only a couple minutes late.

Free walking tours, are not truly free unless you decide not to tip the guide. As I have always learned a great deal from the tours, our guides are well-paid in tips by us. Our guide was born and bred in Barcelona. Her first language is Catalán, although she speaks several others, including Spanish and English. She is very proud of Barcelona and the Catalán area and focused a great deal of the tour on helping us all understand the desire for Catalán to be independent. But even she understands that it will probably never happen.

Our tour concentrated on the gothic areas of Barcelona where the Roman and later medieval town would grow. Walking it was easy, but you find yourself snapping photos every few seconds of the differing architectures represented in one block.

After the tour, Nick and I were ready to rest and try our first tapas. Skylar took off to explore and we made plans to meet up in a few hours in the Plaça Reial. Well-sated with the tapas of gambas de ail, garlic shrimp, Nick and I went wandering through the old town.

Old Barcelona is divided into three areas: Barrí Gótic, El Born, and El Raval. Most of the alleys and streets were pedestrian only, so the only vehicles to watch out for were bicycles and scooters whizzing by at scary speeds. All the shops and restaurants had narrow storefronts but some led back into larger spaces. Almost all of the restaurants had tables on the street. In front of most restaurants were often young women or men armed with menus trying to entice you in. The variety was staggering but it seemed like you really couldn’t go wrong with any choice.

Walking home from the Barrí Gótic was a long 45-minute walk after having put in several miles of walking already. But Skylar, our “live Google,” led the way, kept a steady pace, and rarely had to stop for lights to change as he seemed to have some spidey-sense that got us to the intersection just as the light changed for pedestrians to green. As impressive as his spidey-sense was, a little respite at the intersections after five hours of walking, more or less, would have been welcome.

The Batlló House is a fairytale of architecture. The colors, the balconies…even the house next door, which looked pretty interesting seems like a dowdy old aunt (hey, I resent that!).

Friday was our day to explore on our own. Much to our delight, Skylar wanted to stick with us old folks and take in Barcelona together. Viewing some of the Gaudí buildings was at the top of our list, so we started walking. Our first stop was Casa Batlló, named after the family who commissioned Gaudí in 1904-06 to renovate the house that had been built 1877.

Upon seeing it for the first time, the whimsey and enigma of Gaudí dripped from every detail and color. As a main tourist attraction, the large house situated at the end of a block was surrounded by tourists taking selfies, tour groups getting explanations in all languages, and native Barcelonans putting up with it all. Nick, Skylar, and I stood in front from several angles, occasionally remarking on a detail that caught our eye which would lead us to a silence as we all three took it in. The dragon scales of the roof tiles brought home the connection between the patron saint of Barcelona, Saint George and the dragon he slew.

Walking to the next Gaudí, La Perdera, or Casa Milà, built between 1906 and 1912, we were struck by the waves of stone, twisted iron work, and lack of color that defined La Perdera. There were no dragon scales or crazy balconies that look like masks. La Perdera in Catalán means the “stone quarry” although every stone quarry I have seen was very angular, not soft waves as Gaudí redefined Catalán modernism.

Barcelona, like most European cities and towns, has a variety of churches, cathedrals, and basilicas. Although there are many gothic churches and cathedrals with their intricate stonework, there are also Catalán gothic churches which are far simpler in ornamentation. And then there is Gaudí.

The Basilica de la Familia Sagrada was commissioned by the Sagrada family through private donations and construction started in 1882. Gaudí’s Basilica makes you want to get to know the amazingly creative brain that designed the structure. In some ways, it reminds me of the drip sandcastles we would make as children at Three Arch Bay. You never quite knew where a drip would land, but you could always add another if you wanted. Gaudí seemed similarly inclined. There are bananas, salamanders, grapes, popes, snails, what looks like lollipops, gargoyles, spires, angels, heralds…the list is as long as the church is tall. The church, at the moment, is the tallest in the world at 172 meters.

There were plenty of cranes around the basilica which we assumed were part of the renovation. We could see the brightness of the newly cleaned stone versus the dark stones that had succumbed to the environment over the past century or so. But as we circumnavigated the basilica, we realized that one face of the basilica was under construction, with rebar sticking out waiting for the next ornamentation. The basilica, like most grand cathedrals of Europe (several took several centuries to finish), is still under construction after 143 years. Completion date is expected to be in 2034. We need no excuse to put Barcelona back into our future travel plans.

We chose to have tapas for lunch and headed towards the beach that had been created in Barcelona for the 1992 Olympics, from sand imported from Egypt. By the time we sat down for lunch, we had walked about five miles and welcomed the slow lunch with anchovies, cheese, and Iberian ham croquettes, aided with sangria filled with fresh fruit.

Tapas: cheese, anchovies and croquettes. At the right both Nick and Skylar play tag with the Mediterranean Sea for the first time this trip.

There were several history museums that intrigued us, but we chose the history of Barcelona. The Casa Padellàs is the home of the museum in the heart of the Gótic quarter where Barcelona, was founded as a Roman outpost. Barcino (pronounced Barkeeno, and which eventually, over the centuries became Barcelona), was built about 150 BCE as a fortress and a passage on to Roman outposts further west and south. The original Roman city was an octagonal walled fortress which still defines the streets of current day Gothic Barcelona.

The museum is mostly underground showing what is left of the old Roman walls, bath houses, fish salting vats, giant wine fermenting amphoras, and even large stone square laundry vats. The museum traced how the small, 6600 sq.ft. area of what is now the center of Barcelona, fared over two thousand years.

The well-thought out path through the ruins, well-protected by grates and glass, told the story of how this small piece of real estate changed over the centuries and how building materials from the Romans were re-used to build churches or other buildings in future centuries of the young Barcelona. Of course, in excavating, many artifacts were found proving that Barcelona or Barcino saw travelers from all over the ancient world, including Germanic tribes, Arabic, Gallic, and more.

Our afternoon tapas had evaporated with all the walking so it was time for a traditional dinner of paella. We chose an outdoor restaurant in a small square defined by the Basilica de Santi Maria del Pi. Nick and Skylar were determined to find pi in our paella. After a lovely, gently-paced dinner, we went in search of gelato to help us on our last 2.5 mile walk back to our apartment.

Skylar has a fruit smoothie with the patatas bravas, a very common tapas dish. Paella with chicken, sausage, and rice.

Exhausted, but not ready to give up on our Barcelona experience, we walked a few steps up to the rooftop terrace to take in the pleasant 70° November night air, allow the city sounds to surround us, and let our feet have a well-deserved rest.

Tomorrow we head south to a little town of Santomera, near Murcia. I think I will let the “boys” drive so I can catch up on writing.

©2025 Wendy Platt Hill

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