drinking Archives - A Wanderful Life

Departing Norfolk on Monday, we were back in travel mode as we faced a 5-plus hour drive north to Newcastle Upon Tyne. After (finally!) getting past the ultra-slow two-lane A-roads of Norfolk, we began to see large overhead signs on the motorway indicating that we were headed to (seriously!) “The North.”

After three hours, we were drooping by the time we were just outside York, so we stopped in one of those mega-roadside-rest-stations that has multiple restaurants, a chain hotel, petrol stations, a grocery store, and a bookstore inside. There might have been a lot of traffic on the motorway, but the inside of this large building was amazingly quiet as you can see from the photo below.

Food court at motorway rest stop

And since when is it necessary to have music-playing games machines right outside of the toilets in places like this? Sometimes having an iPhone to document things is quite handy!

One machine in a row of fun-fair type games parked outside the toilets in a motorway rest stop

I’ll be posting pictures in the days ahead of our short term renovation assignment here in Newcastle and some tourism articles about places to go and things to see in Newcastle.

Stay tuned!

In contrast to our own home town here in the South of France which practically rolls up the sidewalks on weeknights, you certainly can’t say that about a weeknight in Barcelona!

The photo below was taken on the very busy Passeig de Gracia at night. Note the happy women taking a break on the bench surrounded by all of their shopping bags as other people continue to stream by.

Two unidentified women rest on a bench as people walk by at night on the busy shopping district in Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona, Spain.

Strolling, laughing, running into friends, people are definitely out an about and not racing to get home and sit behind closed doors.

Happy Barcelona, Spain citizens out and about on a week night on Passeig de Gracia

And in this photo, people are just beginning to think about going out to dinner and filling up the tables at the very early hour of 8:30 PM.

Diners begin to slowly fill the tables of a sidewalk cafe in Barcelona, Spain.

We found an upscale ‘toy store’ for grownups called Vincon that carried everything from fabbo art and office supplies to a stunning array of kitchen goods. I had what we called (in Deb and Mark verbal shorthand) ‘a tile store moment’ when there was actually so much in that store that I didn’t know where to look first! I managed to get some shots that weren’t filled with people (and trust me, that was quite difficult), but the store was absolutely packed. At the front entry there were a row of waiting room style chairs for the people who were sitting and patiently waiting for someone else to finish shopping so they could go home.

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Barcelona is an amazingly vibrant city and I can’t wait to go back!

A Wanderful Life

The Neverending Journey

Tag Archives: drinking

On The Road Again to Newcastle Upon Tyne

Barcelona Nights Out: Photo of the Day – Shoppers and Diners