Category Europe

Europe 2017 – Summary, Part Five

August 24 – November 15 The final country we’d spend time in is one we continue to find fascinating and wonder how we’ve let it slip past us during the course of our many visits to Europe.  This would be France.  Although we’d been to Paris many times when stopping in to see Francois and […]

Europe 2017 – Summary, Part Four

August 24 – November 15 The next big portion of the trip was spent in Spain, where we took on the challenge of completing the Camino de Santiago.  What would have been approximately five weeks walking got shortened by ten days when we decided to rent bikes to finish our trek.  We used nine of […]

Europe 2017 – Summary, Part Three

August 24 – November 15 We spent time in just three countries this trip, Greece, Spain, and France.  Each was an extremely positive experience and we’ll recount these, and maybe some drawbacks in the following posts. Greece My one and only visit to Greece was a month spent at the end of a three-month trip […]

Europe 2017 – Summary, Part Two

August 24 – November 15 Logistically, this trip was easy and yet a bit more complicated than others we’ve taken due to the dual nature of our quest, that is for about half of it we’d be in tourist mode and during the other half we’d be pilgrims walking the Camino.  As mentioned in an […]

Europe 2017 – Summary, Part One

August 24 – November 15   This trip was unlike any that we have taken in the past.  Three major factors defined this difference: We would not, except for a brief period, be using a car for transportation We would not do any camping With the exception of our time with Francois, we would not […]

Europe 2017 – Barcelona, Part Two

November 12-15 After breakfast in the apartment, we set out for the 20-minute walk to Casa Mila.  Followers of this blog will recognize our fascination with Antoni Gaudi (much like with Frank Lloyd Wright) and this would mark the third time on this trip we’d visited a building he was responsible for or had some […]

Europe 2017 – Barcelona, Part One

November 12-15 The four-hour ride down to Barcelona went smoothly and cost 43 euros for the two of us.  Using Flix Bus had been an unanticipated bonus for travel in Europe.  It’s low fares and expansive route system, coupled with fairly modern, clean, and comfortable buses, while not quite as nice as riding on the […]

Europe 2017 – Montpellier, Part Seven

November 8-11 We had a cup of coffee (a welcome change from the Nescafe packaged drink we bought each night at the market) in the breakfast room at Les Nevons before departing for Avignon and the train to Montpellier.  This all went smoothly, retracing our steps and the familiar sites taking much of the anxiety […]

Europe 2017 – Provence Part Six

November 2 – 7 Our last day in Provence would again focus on the countryside and small hill towns that dot the area.  Our first stop was the hilltop town of Gordes, the Luberon’s most impressively situated hill town.  In the 1960s this was a virtual ghost town of derelict buildings where locals led simple […]

Europe 2017 – Provence Part Five

November 2 – 7 We awoke the next morning having had a rough night’s sleep.  Something outside of our room made a loud banging noise, almost like metal on metal and the continual racket woke us without cease.  As we prepared to hit the road the next morning, we stopped at the front desk to […]