We spent a good part of today exploring the amazing parks near where we are staying- we walked though Jardines de Nurillo and Jardines de Catalia de Ribera. These are very tropical with palms, hibiscus and bougainvillea among other flowers. They are linear and follow a main road. At the end of the park you cross the main road and are at a Metro stop. It seems a bit of a joke as the entire Metro is two stops. They are hoping for a third one soon. We choose to walk across a garden Prado de San Sebastian - well know as where the youth party at night and given it was Saturday morning and you could tell that from the garbage left around.. After crossing the park we arrived at our destination Plaza Espana. It ... read more

July 17 Madrid to Seville We took the 11:00 train from Madrid to Seville about a 2 ½ hour trip. Once again it was a new train, very comfortable and fast. At one point in time the information monitor indicated that we were going 245 kms. an hour. Jim and I can barely believe it but as Jim says we were going downhill. .We took a taxi from the train station to the Plaza De Santa Cruz which is the closest a car can drive. Our hotel was a couple minute walk away through narrow pedestrian walkways (see photo.). We are in the center of the Bari Des Santa Cruz - the old Jewish neighborhood and close to many historical attractions, parks, and cafe / bars. In Spain many of the bars also serve food in ... read more

Jim and I just wanted to let everyone know that due to fires in the Glenrosa area eveyone in our area has been evacuated. Andre and the cats are currently staying with a friend in Kelowna so are safe. From the news it sounds like they may be out for awhile. Linda ... read more

We took the train to Segovia. The train was mostly through tunnels so there was not much to see on the trip. The train station is out side of town but there is a local bus that essentially meets the tuaint lookingrain and takes you to the center of town. The Segovia tourist map lists historic landmarks and I am sure we walked by lots of them but we really paid attention to three - The roman aqueduct, The 16 th century cathderal and the Alcazar the castle. The castle is the one that inspired the design of the Disney land castle and is very fanciful. you expect to see Mickey Mouse and friend from the magic kingdome inside but what you get are some pretty well done historical artifacts. ... read more

Hi Well since I am on vacation I guess it comes as no surprise that I thought Monday was the 14th. Tuesday we decided to finally get organized for a day trip out of Madrid to Toledo - a half hour train trip on an Avant train (that is basically a train that just goes back and forth between two cities). It took longer to buy the tickets at the train station than the trip took. While we were waiting for the train at the Atocha train station we checked out their huge internal tropical garden and pool ful of turtles. Very impressive. Atocha is a very large train station and is modern and convenient once you figure out where things are. the train left on time to the second and arrived a few minutes early. ... read more

We took advantage of late breakfast service on the weekend and slept in. In the afternoon we went to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum which we had never been to. Our primary goal was to see the special exhibit of Matisse art. and it did not disappoint. Alot of the works were from his early period which we had not seen much of before. We also took in about half of the permanate collection We started about early 19th century and moved forward through our favorite periods of expressionist, fauvist and avant-gardes. We looked at the pop art too but I (Linda) get as little out of it as I do the older 16th and 17th stuff. With the pop art I sometimes thiink they are putting me on. By only doing half of the collection it became ... read more