This is from last night. Didn't go. Lots more later. Interesting day. Quick update, no photos tonight. I didn't take any and Fran hasn't uploaded. After arriving in Malaga in the early afternoon we walked with the group to our selected excursion, a visit to Malaga's most popular museums, the Carmen Thyssen Museum and the Picasso Museum. We didn't get 100 yards with the group before Fran looked at me and I said ok, and we bailed. It's getting to be a common occurrence. Not that anything was wrong. There was a knowledgeable local guide for our group of 24 and he liked to talk. All guides like to talk. What else are are they supposed to do? But we had a big group and people were frigging asking him questions! And so he was in ... read more

Portimao, Monday afternoon After lunch we docked in at the harbor of Portimao, still in Portugal. Portimao is a small city in the Algarve region. The predominant industry here is catering to the large number of tourists and second home (condo) owners. With pleasant weather year round, Portimao has become attractive for upper middle class people. It is certainly not Cannes or Monaco, but is seemingly uniformly nice. There’s a terrific beach that we passed on the way into port. There were several land excursion choices and we selected a three hour hike and bread tasting. The hike was to be across beautiful hillsides to look at rock ruins from the Neolithic period, called Megaliths, followed by a tasting of “tibornia, freshly made, wood-fired bread with regional olive and garlic along with aromatic herbs cakes and ... read more

Time for restaurant review and a little more. Last night, on the advice of our friend Barry, we took a car to Sesimbra, a small town on the coast, to have what our friend Barry said would be one of the best meals anywhere. The drive was about 40 minutes, due south, across the Golden Gate look alike bridge crossing the Tagus River, then into a wooded landscape that looks a little bit like north Florida or Georgia, flat with scrubby pine trees and oaks. As we approached the coast, the land grew hillier and we climbed steeply until we could see the coast and the Atlantic. As we descended to Sesimbra the view was spectacular. There is a marina with a diverse set of large motor yachts, dozens of sailboats from magnificent to modest, and ... read more

Hello again to those folks that are anxiously awaiting brilliant and incisive information about Lisbon and all the other places that I'm probably going to write about over the next week or so. Well, keep waiting, or go to Andrew Harper or Lonely Planet or Fodors. They're pros. I'm just an amateur not terribly interested in whether you gain any real knowledge by reading this. On the other hand, I'm not trying to sell books or hotel rooms. But as long as you're here, I'll bet you give me a minute or two and that's all I'm going to take. For those of you surprised to see this popping up on your screen, Fran and I are about to embark on our first cruise, a National Geographic trip from Lisbon to Barcelona with a bunch of ... read more

Typo. Me, the guy who finds all the typos made a big one. First sentence, last blog entry. Missing the word, "nothing." Somebody close to me pointed it out like she always does.... read more