60th European Adventures

It was pointed out to me that I forgot to give the conclusion to the left behind backpack/camera saga...as I said we left for Montserrat very early, too early for a bar to be open, and they also didn't have a phone number listed for us to call.  While we were in Montserrat it occurred to Simone that we could call the restaurant we had been at the night before, which was just around the corner from the bar, and ask for their help.  (Talking of help, having a fluent Spanish speaker in our group has been truly wonderful, thank you Simone!) When she called, the waiter from the night before said no worries, and while she was on the phone, walked around the corner to the bar, collected the bag, checked the contents and said they'd look after it for us!   When we got back into Barcelona Greg took the metro there right away, and tipped both the waiter and the people in the bar - a reward for being so honest and helpful :-)  We have been very careful to check in on peopl...

 23 April We had a long four hour bus trip to Barcelona - the bus was full and it was very warm.  I was dressed warmly as I expected Barcelona to be colder than Valencia, thank goodness for my fan which was close by.  I did think I'd pass the time by watching a movie or two on Netflix but Greg had kindly packed my ear buds into his suitcase....! After dropping our bags at the hostal (the most basic of the hotels we have stayed at, but Barcelona accommodation is expensive!  It is well located though!) we set off to meet up with Suzy, Di and Ian who had taken the earlier bus into Barcelona.  They were on the hop on, hop off bus, and were quite overwhelmed by the crowds everywhere - it turns out today was St George's day.  When he slayed the dragon, roses came out of his mouth, so the tradition has developed that there are market stalls  all over the  city, selling roses for 1 euro and books - it used to be roses for women and books for men but now e...

 20 April Our last transfers with mydaytrip.com!  Today was a privately built castle - Castillo de Velez-Blanco. The owner built it on the ruins of a Moorish castle despite Isabella of Castille ruling that no one could have a private castle - to prevent nobles having too much power! Our stop in Muria was for 90 minutes.  Di, Greg and I had a quick lunch in the main square.  Di and I ordered half a baguette, expecting something small, instead it was like a subway foot long - huge!!  I was juggling messaging the tours for the following day, all of whom made changes to the time.  The first one was group 1 for 10 tastes of Valencia- he asked to change to 2.30pm as 4pm when the tour was scheduled for, was not suitable with the siesta.  Then the morning art and architecture tour wanted to change to 11.30am which meant we'd finish at 2.30...meanwhile the group 2 for the 10 tastes wanted to change to 5.30pm.  I was messaging them all and Viator and feelin...

 18 April As usual, our drivers were there to collect us promptly at 9.  Our first stop for the day was the magnificent city of Cordoba.  We have been blessed with beautiful weather and today was no exception, clear blue skies and a lovely mid 20 s temperature.  Spring is the perfect time to visit Spain!  Our driver said we had to line up to get tickets, but when we got to the front, they were for the castle only.  Although we would have loved to have seen the castle (next time!) we only had two hours to powered onto the cathedral.  Originally a mosque, it was re-purposed by the Catholics into a spectacular cathedral unlike any other I've ever seen, with the rows and rows of arches.  Everywhere we went it was "wow"- so beautiful.  When we finally left, Dean messaged us to say we had to visit the old  Roman bridge.  It was only 3 minutes walk away so we walked there and I was glad we did, not only a lovely bridge but  we had gre...