The trip from Marrakech back to Madrid went smoothly. No problem with customs reentering the Eurozone, even with our bundle of carpets and other goods. The Spanish agents seemed much more interested in Europeans bringing items back than they were in Americans who were going to take their goods back out again. We talked over our next destination after we landed and decided that after Morocco, we needed a quiet place to chill out. We ultimately decided to try Arcos de la Frontera. Although it is a fairly long drive from Madrid, it is also pretty far South, so we're likely to get reasonably warm weather, and the town is small (about 35,000), so it won't cause us any problems with traffic or locating hotels. I had reserved another car for our last 6 days, and ... read more

We headed out of Granada on Friday morning, as usual finding our way onto the right roads much more easily than we did when arriving. Checking the maps, it looked as though Barcelona was further than we could comfortably drive in one day. We decided we would head for Valencia, or possibly for Torreon if we made sufficient headway. The start was pretty slow, as we were on 2-lane roads with a lot of truck traffic. Eventually, as the day went on, the traffic thinned out and we started covering more distance. As we headed East through Andalusia, we discovered that we had only seen a small fraction of the olive groves. Again, there was nothing else in sight for miles in all directions, and the smell of olives was everywhere. We stopped to find some ... read more

We got out of Porto much faster than we got in. It's amazing, you can get around really quickly when you're on the right road. We headed South on the Autovia, Portugal's version of the Autobahn. The official speed limit is 120 kilometers per hour (about 72 mph), but after observing the BMWs travelling at 160-180, I decided that 140 (approx. 84 mph) was not likely to attract the attention of the Policia. That meant we made pretty rapid progress, arriving at Sines in 4 hours. Sines is a rapidly-changing town. Probably 10 years ago it was a decaying fishing town, but now it is undergoing rapid redevelopment into a container-shipping port and beach town. Most of the historical houses have been renovated into holiday rentals. The lifelong Portuguese population is adapting to seeing visitors from ... read more

Toledo was a great start to our Iberian visit. We left there on Thursday morning for Salamanca. Roads so far have been pretty easy, with more 4-lane than I expected and quicker travel. Our route took us through Avila, which boasts the largest intact city wall in Europe. We chose to visit the cathedral, and it was very interesting. Although it is, stylistically, a messy hodge-podge of styles spanning 6 or 7 centuries, the intact portions dating to the 1200s provide a useful example of how lavishly decorated the Gothic cathedrals were. I can't show any photos, since cameras were forbidden, but virtually of the stonework was painted in multiple colors with gold accents. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit, in part due to the absence of many other tourists. Avila was pretty cold (about 40F), and ... read more

We left Kiawah Island Sunday morning. The general rule is that it takes three hours each in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. It usually takes a little longer, but is a full day in any case. We had hoped to stop and see my sister-in-law, Echo, in Raleigh, but we were not able to reach her before we passed the turn, so decided to continue homeward rather than risk showing up unannounced. Echo, we will definitely see you soon. It was remarkable when we crossed the state line into Virginia. We had managed to arrive at the peak of Fall color, and as the setting sun turned everything golden, we knew our home state was as beautiful as any we had visited on our journey. The drive was uneventful, and we arrived Sunday evening, tired ... read more