Definitely a "highlight reel" day. We toured the Guggenheim Museum at 10, but did not tarry long. I have trouble finding much interest for collections of airplane ashtrays linked by a loosely arranged keychain. We then drove up into the mountains. We are by now well accustomed to using our GPS to find our way. But the GPS requires being able to locate your destination. Today, we were not only off the beaten path, but the beaten path could not even be seen from our vantage point in the mountains. Our goal was Asador Etxebarri, a restaurant known to "foodies" but otherwise obscure. It is listed several places as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world, and richly deserves that ranking. We arrived early, mostly because our tour of th Guggenheim Museum was shorter ... read more

A relatively easy travel day, but long on interest. We drove almost straight up the coast from Porto to Santiago de Compostela. We had been advised by our friends Alan and Sue to visit Holy Bom Jesus near Braga in Portugal. We could not remember what was there, so we e-mailed them and Alan (typically) told us of the opportunity for a meal on top of a small mountain reached by a cablecar, and Sue told us of pilgrims going up on their knees. It was too early to eat, and we weren't going anywhere on our knees, so we bypassed it. By lunchtime, we were in Cambados, a lovely and picturesque seaside town in the Galicia region of Spain. Our drive took us through rolling hills with various types of forestation, and the usual vineyards ... read more

Somewhat regretfully, we departed Sevilla and head to Lisboa through the Algarve. Our first stop was in Italica, a Roman town founded in 206 B.C. by Publius Cornelius Scipio "Africanus" to provide land and accommodations for his veterans of the battle of Ilipa, where the Carthaginians were defeated in the Second Punic War. In that battle, the Carthaginians were finally evicted from the Iberian peninsula, opening up the rich lands for Roman domination. Italica later became the birthplace of the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian (actually, there is some dispute about Hadrian, nephew of Trajan). Today, the oldest parts of the town are buried under the modern Spanish town of Santiponce, ane the excavated portions are from a later era when those emperors enhanced the town of their birth. The site includes houses, a temple complex ... read more

Long-ish travel day. Started in Madrid with breakfast as usual, but left early for trip to Granada and our visit to the fabled La Alhambra in Granada. On the way south we drove through what seemed like endless groves of olive trees. The area from Madrid to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada is a sere plain. Although lack of experience precludes my making any definitive observations on all plains in Spain, I can absolutely assure one and all that the rain in Spain doe not stay on this particular plain. There are scattered vineyards, some wheat fields, and some cotton patches, but most of the land is give over to the ubiquitous olive trees. On the way down we drive through the Morena mountain district, home of Don Quixote, and saw some of the famous ... read more

After an uneventful trip from OKC, we arrived in Madrid and immediately took our rental car south to Toledo. Toledo has been occupied since the Bronze Age, but gained real prominence during the Roman occupation, when it was the administrative center for the Tarraconensis province. After a period as the capital city of Visigothic Spain, it became an important multicultural center (La Convivencia) under the Caliphate of Cordoba, with vibrant Jewish, Christian, and Muslim populations. When re-taken by Alfonso VI of Castile, the Arabic libraries were not destroyed, and translations into Spanish and Latin of the many Hebrew and Arabic texts allowed that knowledge to be re-distributed throughout Christian Europe. From the 17th century to the late 20th century, economic penury prohibited urban renewal projects, and thus the architectural and cultural riches were preserved. Today, Toledo ... read more