Today is our last day in Europe before a very long and gruelling day of travelling to Calgary in western Canada tomorrow. Issy is looking forward to this like a hole in the head, so she says we should spend today preparing for this ordeal by doing as little as possible. We sleep in, and then settle in for the day on a pair of sunlounges on Playa de Cala Barques beach in front of our hotel. It looks like a perfect beach day; the sun is out and the wind has finally abated. We can’t however fail to notice the yellow flag on the walkway at one end of the beach, which we assume is some sort of caution. We’ve noticed green and red flags here on other days, so we consult the Google machine ... read more

It was very crowded when we drove out to Cap de Formentor a couple of days ago, so much so that we couldn’t go to the main lookout because we couldn’t find anywhere to park. I have a theory that Spaniards don’t like mornings and that it might therefore be quieter there at 7am, so I set off to test it out. I ignore the obvious flaw in my theory which is that most of the people who are likely to be there won’t be Spanish, they’ll be German or British, and I don’t know anything about how they might feel about mornings. Despite this I think that my theory might be correct. There are lots of cyclists struggling up the steep road, but not too many cars or buses. The views over the sheer granite ... read more

We awake to cloudy skies and the sound of a howling hurricane blowing outside. We briefly consider setting up shop under an umbrella next to the pool, but I think if we try to put an umbrella up in this gale it would quickly end up somewhere in Africa. The wind is directly on-shore and the waves are pounding in. The red flags are up declaring the beach unsafe for swimming, but a few waves and a Category Four Cyclone are apparently not nearly enough to discourage the average European tourist from lying by the shore. We decide to go local and join them. There’s not much sun so most people are sitting on the sand rather than under the umbrellas. The umbrellas are thatch on a solid timber frame, and the fact that most of ... read more

Today we have a longish day of travelling to Majorca. The train ride from Avila to Madrid takes us through some very harsh and barren looking country, with scattered shrubs and a few small trees sitting in amongst a lot of parched earth strewn with granite boulders. It reminds us both of parts of our Aussie homeland. As we pass through the small village of El Escorial we spot a massive castle up on the hillside. This is apparently the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. It’s a bit hard to miss, and completely dwarfs everything around it. We read that it’s a 16th century historical residence of the Kings of Spain, and most of the Spanish kings from the last five centuries are buried here. It’s apparently a very popular tourist attraction visited ... read more

First stop this morning is the 12th century Avila Cathedral. One of the most notable things about this event is that I’m able to get Issy into a Cathedral. She went into a chapel in Salamanca for a few minutes a couple of days ago, and the fact that the roof didn’t fall in has clearly encouraged her to try her luck on bigger and better things. The roof seems to be holding firm today as well, which is good for her, as well as for the hundreds of other tourists who are here. I’m also quite pleased. The Cathedral is impressive, if not quite on the same grand scale as those in Segovia and Salamanca. The rear of it forms part of the town walls, complete with turrets. The stress of waiting for the Cathedral ... read more