Granada Last night, after dinner, many of us sat in the lobby to watch Futbol, Spain vs. Croatia. It was exciting to be in Spain watching the national team tries to move on to the next round in Euro 2012. It was a close game and well played with Spain coming out the winner 1 to nil. Italy was also playing and handily won their game over Ireland 2 to nil. Both teams move on to the next round. During the game our guide Bozo (pronounced Botho) surprised me with a slice of birthday cake and sang “happy birthday”. A great way to turn 59! After a good night’s rest we were up at 6:45AM, we got to sleep in an extra 15 minutes, and headed down to breakfast. This was also a buffet but not ... read more

Montserrat Sunday Fathers Day June 17, 2012 Also called the saw tooth mountains, this is the site of a famous historic Benedictine monastery built in the 1500’s and destroyed by Napoleon in the later 1800’s. The monastery is the resting place of the “Black Madonna” The story goes that the monks once held a famous carving of a Madonna made from cherry wood. Over the years the stone darkened naturally. It was discovered recently that the hands and face were actually painted, first brown then black, so as to preserve the statue. The statue was venerated and considered very sacred and thus, valuable. When the Moors invaded Spain in the 1500’s the Black Madonna was hidden in a cave, to protect her from the infidels, in the hills around Montserrat. There the statue remained hidden and ... read more

Arrival in Barcelona We arrived 30 minutes early into Barcelona. The weather is beautiful a warm 68 degrees at 8:15 AM and sunny. The airport is very large and beautiful and somewhat crowded. We passed through passport control in a few minutes, not much security coming into Spain! We headed to the baggage carousel, number 14, and waited for our luggage. And waited. And waited. It seems for awhile we were the victims of “lost baggage hell,” but fortunately as we were getting ready to give up out came our two bags and we headed off to carousel 16 to wait 30 minutes for Rick and Alla to arrive and get their luggage. They arrived from Newark right on time and their luggage was ready within 10 minutes. We headed out the door to meet the ... read more

Anyone who has ever traveled with us will find the following unbelievable. We left this morning ONTIME and did not FORGET a single item! Every year we leave late and 95% of the time we have to drive back to get something. Once, I left my phone home and had to drive back. Once, Chris left his entire suitcase home and we had to have some friends rush drive it to Detroit. Today we forgot NOTHING, or at least we think we forgot nothing! So the day dawned bright and sunny with a temperature under 80 degrees predicted. We left the house without a hitch. Well there was one hitch. It seems a few weeks ago our nephew Vince got married to the lovely Angela. Due to a strange series of events the wedding card we ... read more

Saturday May 1, 2010 It is Saturday morning and our great adventure is coming to an end. All too soon, but it would be really nice to get home and see Cathy and the boys and share with them the wonders of Egypt. The plan was to get up early, about 5:30 AM, catch a bus (provided by Trafalgar) to the airport and spend the next 11 hours winging our way home. From Cairo we are to head to NY and JFK airport for a short lay over till our final flight to Detroit and home to be reunited with family and friends. Unfortunately that is not exactly what happened! Things did get off to a good start. We did get up at 5:30 AM only because Rick was all sleeped out and he just woke ... read more