We sleep in, and when I realise how late it is I decide to make this morning’s shower extra quick so that we don’t waste any more of the day. This proves to be a bit more of a challenge than I might have hoped. The water outlets in the bath are a bath tap, a shower rose on the end of a hose, and a real shower head. I can only work out how to turn on the first two of these, and as Murphy’s Law would have it it’s the third one that I really want. How can this be so complicated. After a long time I find an obscurely hidden knob to twiddle and the real shower head bursts into action. I wish Issy luck as she goes into the shower, but she ... read more

Issy again asks me to steal some buttered toast for her from the breakfast buffet in direct contravention of the hotel’s strict rules about not removing buffet food from the dining room. The elderly guest who seemed to be awake to my scam yesterday is here again so I need a new tactic; I decide to go with sneaking the toast out hidden under my shirt. I don‘t think anyone noticed, but my shirt is now covered in butter. Issy says I’m being ridiculous. That’s easy for her to say; she’s not the one who's going to get locked up, although I suppose they could still get her as an accessory after the fact. Issy is happy to stay in our room munching on her contraband toast so I go out in search of more churches. ... read more

After failing to decipher the mysteries of Segovian eating times last night, I enter the breakfast room at about what I would consider to be a normal breakfast time having no idea what to expect. There are people here eating breakfast, but if they’re staying at a hotel they’re probably not Segovians, so I’m really no closer to solving the mystery. Issy is a bit tired after a long day of travelling yesterday so I set off on my own for the Cathedral. As we saw last night, it is an absolutely massive and spectacular structure that towers over the main square and the rest of the town. I arrive just in time for a tour of the belltower. I’m told that the tour will be in Spanish, which is fine because I’m now an expert ... read more

We still can’t quite believe that we drove an hour to get to La Pelosa Beach yesterday (and it was a truly stunning beach), but we then had to turn around and come back again because we couldn’t find a square millimetre of unoccupied sand to lay our towels on. Issy reminds me that we walked about ten kilometres along a pristine sand beach about an hour from home last summer, without seeing a single other human being. We make a note to remember to never again take our Aussie beaches for granted. We discuss some other observations we’ve made about life here. We’ve seen lots of Italian parents here with children of other races, who we assume must be adopted. You hardly ever see this back home, and we understand that Aussie adoption laws are ... read more

We’re still trying to work out what our accommodation, the Starry Sky Charming House, really is. Mr Google says it’s a four star hotel, but it clearly isn’t because it doesn’t have any hotel facilities. It does have hotel size rooms, but they’re jammed into an apartment block, and are certainly way too small to be called apartments. The establishment itself refers to itself as a guest house, but it’s not a house, and the only guest houses I’ve ever stayed in have at least had a lounge, a bar, a reception area and a restaurant, and it certainly doesn’t have anything even vaguely resembling any of those. We decide to settle for “boarding house”; for which we’re paying four star hotel prices. I’ve decided that I need to try to stop thinking about our accommodation, ... read more