Today we bid a sad adios to the Costa Del Sol. Our beach resort day, and the relaxed start this morning gave us time to recharge our batteries and we were ready to hit the road! My cold is going away, and I should be fine in another day or so. Jody’s problems are probably more allergy related, Europe is old and there’s all kinds of new stuff to be allergic to. We left this morning for Alfarnatejo, a small village in the mountains of about 400 people. This is not a tourist town, there are no souvenir shops. It’s just and actual farming town where people make their living from growing olives and making olive oil. There is also a little wheat farming, and they are experimenting with pistachio and almond trees, but mainly ... read more

After last night’s Flamenco exhibition, it would be difficult to find anything more fun in Sevilla, so it’s time to move on again. This time we’re leaving Spain again, even if it’s just for a few hours, to visit Gibraltar, which is actually part of Britain. We can't actually bring the bus into Gibraltar, both because it’s too big to get very far, but more because the bus and our luggage inside are subject to search by British Customs and this could cause a long delay. There has always been animosity between the Spanish and British Governments, but it has really been flaring up lately due to Brexit, and this has been causing customs delays. The story goes that back in the 18th century, when Spanish king didn’t have any children, the children or grandchildren, of ... read more

It’s time to say adios to Portugal, it’s only been a few days, but it’s time to head back to southern Spain. I’m not sure why I thought we were going to Costa-del-Sol today, but because I did, we thought it would be cold and we wore jeans. But we are actually going inland to Sevilla, were it’s hot! When we got off the bus it was 37C or 98F and that is certainly hot, even by Florida standards! But we’re now true Floridians, so we just dealt with it. Those of us from Florida, Arizona, and Texas didn’t have much trouble, but some of the northerners were dying. Sevilla is a beautiful city of about 800,000, home to the third largest cathedral cleverly named the Cathedrale de Sevilla, actually the official name is Our Lady ... read more

After a couple of quick, one night stands in Salamanca and Porto, it’s time to relax for a couple of days in the capital city of Lisbon. But first, there are a couple of stops along the way. The first is the famous Catholic pilgrimage city of Fatima. The nuns at St-Margaret's would be proud that I remember most of the story of Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta, and the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1917. I remember as a child that the 2 places we should want to go, other than Rome and the Vatican of course, were Lourdes and Fatima, pilgrimage sites and modern miracles, with Fatima being the most recent. There were evidently 3 secrets of Fatima, not that I remembered the details, but I did remember it had something to do ... read more

After the hectic pace of yesterday, today promised to be slower and more relaxed. We woke up at 6:45, showered and left the suitcases outside the door at 7:30 while we checked out and ate breakfast. By 8:30 we were on the road, outbound from Madrid. Today was also seat assignment day. To make it fair for everyone on the bus, we initially choose seats with friends or loved ones either in front or behind us, but not across. Every day we move 1 seat towards the rear, so that everyone eventually gets to sit on both the left and right sides and at the front and back of the bus. None of this is important, and most people don’t really care where they sit, but the most important part of this exercise is that we ... read more