We are on a train from Barcelona to the French border.  We had a hostel reserved in Switzerland, but all Spanish trains were stopping at the French border because of the strike.  We decided to go to the border and see if we can catch a French train on the other side; however, no French trains were departing either.  From that point on we knew that we would not make it to Switzerland.  Our focus then became trying to make it to Rome a little later in the week--we had a hostel reserved there too, and besides, Gene purpose in life and his main goal of the trip was to go to Rome.  By the way, in the pic Gene is reading Lord of the Rings, his second time to do so...

On a positive note, from the train we got to see the Catalan countryside.

After an unsuccessful attempt to leave Spain, we crashed at this very nice hotel in Figueres, a small town famous for being the hometown of Salvador Dali.  This was the nicest hotel, and one of the cheapest, of the whole trip.  This was also the only time that we slept 2 per room instead of 4.  On the right is our bathroom--this was our first encounter with the badet.  Nobody dared to use it (at least no one admitted to it). 

On the right, the entrance to the Dali museum located in Figueres.  Dali created this museum himself toward the end of his life.  It draws lots of tourists.  On the right is an oudoor exhibit which is part of the museum.  Definitely surreal. 

We bought bus tickets in Figueres which would take us to Italy, so we could get on a train to Rome.  The bus would depart in 3 days, so we decided to kill the time by going to one of the resorts on the Costa Brava--an area of Catalunya north of Barcelona famous for its beaches.  In this picture we are at the Macanet-Massanes train station in the middle of nowhere.  We just got off a train and are waiting for another one to take us to Lloret de Mar, which is a Costa Brava resort town where we spent a couple nights.