Toledo We are beginning our last full day today. It will be another hot one, 108F! What may save us however is the cloud cover and the very low humidity. Today we drive to Toledo, the former capitol city of all Espana. Toledo was the seat of power until 1650’s when the capitol was moved to Madrid. Toledo of old is beautiful. Close to the origin of the Tagus, the same river that flows all the way to Lisbon, Toledo was a fortified city built on a hill and surrounded by walls. The city was very defensible, with a river on one side, a mountain on the other and 25 foot walls all around. The city is still home to 70,000 people who live and work within the ancient walls. Toledo is noted to hand tooled ... read more

Fatima Today will be a long bus ride day as we depart Portugal and head back to Spain. Our journey is coming close to the end with only 3 days left before we bid adieu and return to our normal lives back home. Today we visit the Shrine of Fatima, a holy site sanctioned by the Holy Sea. You may recall that it was here is 1920 that three young children, a brother and sister and their cousin, were visited by the Virgin Mary as the children tended their goats. The Virgin appeared to the children a number of times and revealed to the visionaries several prophesies. There were a total of three major prophesies revealed to the children to be shared with the world. If anyone is interested in the prophesies and their meaning there ... read more

Lisbon day 2 Today we had the chance to sleep in, all the way to 7:00 AM! We were heading today to some smaller towns around Lisbon. Our first stop this morning was the fishing village of Cascais. This small village is filled with small shops, restaurants and seaside sights. It is a resort town where the locals go to relax, especially on the weekend. We saw some of the major sights and then had some free time for shopping. We were able to buy some more Port Wine and enjoyed an espresso. Then back to the bus for the short ride to Sintra. Sintra was the summer palace of the King of Portugal. Here we were to tour the summer palace; however Cathy and I had been here before so we decided to shop the ... read more

Seville The fourth largest city in Spain behind Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia is absolutely beautiful. It is also hot! Today the temperature approached 100 but fortunately it was very dry with low humidity. It felt warm in the sun but in the shade it was tolerable. Our first stop was the city center area which was essentially the historic city of old Seville. We visited the Jewish quarter, there are less than 2000 living in Seville. We also visited a park that was gifted to the people by the ruling family in the 1800’s; the family actually could not afford the upkeep so they turned it over to the city as long as the city kept it a park. Pretty smart eh? We saw memorials to Spain’s favorite son Cristobel Colon (aka Christopher Columbus). It was ... read more

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