Wade and Melody visit August 10th to the 14th

Our last visitors of the summer were Wade and Melody Kitagawa and their twin daughters Maddy and Grace.  Wade is my mother's cousin, and growing up, I don't remember seeing him very often.  By coincidence, Wade and his family decided to spend a year in Avignon, France the same time that we moved to Barcelona.  In February 2014, Wade and family made a trip to Barcelona and we all met up for dinner.  It was strange, because I didn't really know anything about Wade or his family and it was the first time I had ever seen his daughters.  But we had a nice time catching up on the last 20 years and all the kids got along really well.

Fast forward to May 2014.  Based on the success of our first meeting, we decided to meet up again, this time in Costa Brava which is sort of mid-point between Barcelona and Avignon.  We all stayed together in a restored Medieval era house, with a tower and everything in the tiny village of Cruilles.  We had a great time hanging out with Wade and his family in Costa Brava.  It's ironic that we had to move to Spain in order to get to know them.

The cool house we stayed at in Cruilles

A windy boat ride at L'Estartit

Melody, Roxy (dog), Wade, Maddy and Grace

Flashback is over.  I got a surprise e-mail from Wade at the beginning of the summer.  He and his family were going on a month-long road trip around France in August and they wanted to stop off in Barcelona for a few days.  It worked out that Amber and Cassidy were leaving the day before they would be arriving and I had just booked our trip to Pais Vasco for the day after they were leaving.

Since Wade and Melody had already been to Barcelona once, they had already seen the must-see sights.  We thought it might be fun to take them to Catalunya en Miniatura so that they could do a rope course and see all the major monuments of Catalunya.  We also happened to have 2 free passes from Rylan's Super3 birthday card. (On your birthday all Super3 club members receive a card with free passes to different attractions) My kids were very excited to do the rope course, Wade's family had never done it before, but they were very adventurous and decided to take on the most challenging course.  The course did prove challenging for them, but they all made it back safely.

In the midst of all the miniature buildings, they have a giant Doremon statue.

I think this is Maddy on the zip-line

I believe this is Grace on the zip-line

I can thank Melody, Grace and Maddy for Ciara's new-found love of shopping.  The following day, we proposed going to a beach, but they preferred to hit the stores downtown, and given the option, Ciara preferred to go with them.  Maybe for the first time, Ciara experienced the joy of shopping for the fun of it, which is much better than functional shopping like I do.  That evening we took them to Tibidabo because as we discovered when Amber and Cassidy were here, it's much better to go at nighttime when it's cooler and less crowded.

On Thursday morning I took them to the outdoor market in Sant Ildefons.  Wade and Melody went through the market thoroughly and found some cool deals. Then we went downtown to have lunch in Barceloneta and of course a little more shopping in Port Vell.  The next morning they were off to their next destination in France, and we had a day to get ready for our road trip as we were leaving the following morning for San Sebastian.  

With Maddy and Grace and Don Quiote on La Rambla

A Day in Andorra

Bob and I are big fans of hot springs. After we discovered the natural hot spring in Alhama de Granada, I have been eager to find other hot springs in our region.   I spoke to my next door neighbour, and she told me that there is a huge thermal water complex in Andorra called Caldea.   With my parents staying for a week after we got back from Paris, I figured it would be a great time to make a visit to Andorra.

I checked out the Caldea website and I was sold.  It looked amazing!  It is the largest thermal centre in the world.  Our timing was perfect too.  During the month of March there was a promotion: with each adult pass, one child could enter for free during the month of April.  Caldea is not cheap, each adult entry (3h) is €34,50 and a child entry is €25.  Since we would be 4 adults and 4 children, we saved €100. 

After doing a little research on other things to do in Andorra, I found Naturlandia, which is a nature park in the mountains with lots a great kids activities and the largest alpine coaster in the world.  I also noticed that children under the age of 14, could get in free with a Super3 card.  Super3 is a local kids' TV channel and they have a kids club.  With your free membership you can enjoy discounts or free admission to different events, attractions and activities all over Catalunya.  So I quickly sent in the Super3 card application for each of my kids.  We were very fortunate that their cards arrived the day before we were planning on going to Andorra, Tuesday April 14th.   During low season adults are €22 each and kids are €15 each, which is actually not that expensive given the amount of activities they offer, but we saved €60 with our Super3 cards. 

It took us about 3 hours to get to Andorra, because of the inevitable traffic getting out of Barcelona.  First we went to Caldea.  It is an incredible facility.  There are 3 floors inside as well as a large pool outside.  I like the fact that the children had access to every part of the centre as usally children are not allowed into spas.  There are lots of different pools, saunas, steam rooms, jacuzzis and relaxing areas.  Our only complaint was that the water temperature was pretty much the same in all the pools.  My parents were hoping that at least one pool would be really hot, but they were all around 34 degrees.  Still, the kids had a blast exploring the different pools and because it wasn´t busy, they didn´t annoy too many people in the process.

After Caldea, we left my parents in the town of Les Escaldes to do some shopping and the rest of us headed off to Naturlandia which was about 30minutes away.   It was a gorgeous day to be up in the mountains.  As it was low season, so there were not very many people there.  The kids barely had to wait to do anything, even the Tobotronic (alpine coaster).  I think that one ride on the Tobotronic is worth the price of admission, it was so much fun.  But besides the Tobotronic, there were bouncy castles and  trampolines, we did archery, rode pedal cars, drove little jeeps,  went on an Airtrekk (the longest skytrail in Europe) and a giant zipline.  Pretty fun day!

Relaxing in Caldea

The main pool

Mom really liked the placemats from the restaurant.  It was good food and huge servings.

Doing Archery at Naturlandia

Sitting beside the Tobotronic 

Hangin with the Naturlandia mascots