Leaving Madrid the train station punished us with the usual Spain train issues getting started but we got on our way eventually and made it to our next major destination Cordoba. Our hotel was next door to the major mosque/ cathedral: the remarkable Mezquita of Cordoba. Cordoba has a UNESCO listed old town where we wandered the narrow stony streets past loads of Tapas places and tourist shops selling Spanish style skirts, aprons, and spotty shoes; Alicia sighed in bliss as the sight of child sized spotty Flamenco shoes but can't really justify buying them for a non-existent 2-3 year old girl. The old town was charming enough to wander with a few pretty buildings and squares; we were finding it a little hard to remember we are in Spain with the Mosque and other ... read more

Our time in Italy this time around.... To hear Alicia tell the story (and I've listened to her tell people on Skype) you'd swear we were tortured mercilessly from dusk until dawn with waterboarding, burning blades, and dental drills during our time working on a Tuscan farm near Florence. This is not true. What did take place during our WOOFing (Working On Organic Farm) was that our hosts were disorganised and not terribly considerate which led to considerable frustration for us. Our time in Italy consisted of a few days in Rome, then 2 weeks in Florence; most of which was out on the farm, then two nights in Milan. Sadly there's not much to say about our time in Rome or Florence as we both came down with a vicious stomach bug that left us ... read more

We headed out to tour Cappadocia on our bus after returning from out dawn balloon flight. Our first stop of our tour of Cappadocia was the Underground City (2*+); this was an unexpected stop for me as I hadn't read the itinerary in minute detail but it was quite a highlight. During times of conflict the people in the Cappadocian area had built underground rooms hewn from the soft Tuffa stone. Over years the carved out rooms were linked together with halls and tunnels and eventually expanded to such a degree that new levels where built deeper in the stone to house more people, animals, and produce. The city we visited had up to 18 levels underground!! We toured a couple of levels and saw storage rooms for wine, living rooms and bedrooms, and the linking ... read more

Ratings explained: JAC- Just another church 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable + - emphasis on the rating We arrived in Turkey on a night flight and got into Istanbul via a simple and painless transfer organised by our tour operator, we're starting a 10 day tour of Turkey first thing the next morning. To break up our Turkey blog into sensible photographic and story entries I will be leaving all Istanbul stories to the last entry and posting several shorter blog text entries covering different things to give me a chance to put up the hundred or so wonderful photos we have. Don't forget to check the second page for the extra photos! So skipping day one of our Istanbul tour; this blog covers most of what we ... read more

Ratings explained: JAC- Just another church 1* - worth a look 2* - Good Times 3* - Unmissable + - emphasis on the rating Readers of the last blog entry would know we had a tough start to our Barcelona arrival with a severely delayed flight then an attack of bed bugs allowing us to get to sleep on our arrival night only at 4:40am We were therefore pretty sorry for ourselves and unenergetic on our first real morning. After a late breakfast we headed down to the waterfront where we spent most of the day walking the beaches of Barcelona. This is a very lively area of Barcelona which stretches for many miles. The beachfront has many cafes along it and there were many people out soaking up the sunshine. We also noticed many ... read more