We left Granada bright and early (actually not bright as the sun wasn't up yet) to catch the bus and train to Ronda. We opted for the 6:45 am train in order to make the most of our time in Ronda, but unfortunately the weather had other ideas. The south of Spain has been experiencing a drought, so of course it was raining. After catching a taxi to the station so we wouldn't get too wet we caught the bus back to where we had changed from the train on the way to Granada and then transferred to the train which took us all the way to Ronda. There are remains of Neolitic Age settlements around Ronda, including the Cueva de la Pileta caves. Ronda was first settled by the Celts, then Phoenician, then of course ... read more

We arrived in Sevilla 45 minutes after we departed the train station in Cordoba. From the train station it was about a half hour walk to our AirBNB in the centre of the shopping district of Sevilla. Our first impression of Sevilla wasn't great as the area around the train station is a bit average looking, however as we got closer to our AirBNB things started to improve. Seville was founded by the Romans approximately 2,200 years ago. After the Romans came the Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths. It was taken by the Moors in 712 and remained under their control until it was conquered by King Ferdinand III of Castile and Leon in 1247. The Spanish Inquisition held it's first tribunal in Seville in 1478. After the discovery of the New World by Christopher Colombus in ... read more

We left Barcelona in the morning on a fast train headed to Madrid. The approximately 600 kms journey only took about 2.5 hours. The train was very comfortable although not quite as smooth as the Chinese and Japanese high speed trains we have taken in the past. After leaving the train we found a store to purchase a SIM card for our phone. We then headed back into the station to pick up our hire car. Our hire cars seem to be getting better each time we rent one...this time we ended up with a new Audi A1. We drove out of the station and found our way to the motorway (autovia) to Toledo after only a few wrong turns. The journey to Toledo from Madrid took about an hour. The drive was pleasant as the ... read more

On our final morning in Danyang we awoke to steady rain which didn't look like it would let up anytime soon. We packed up our room, had breakfast and then set off towards Sokcho, via Gangneung. The majority of the trip from Danyang to Gangneung was on rural roads; it took about three hours and along the way we passed farms, mountains and industrial estates... We drove straight through Gangneung and headed on towards Unification (Tongil) Park which is just outside the city on the coast. Unification Park houses the North Korean submarine which was captured during the 1996 Gangneung Infiltration Incident. The submarine was used to transport a reconnaissance team to the South, but it all went wrong when they tried to collect the team and the submarine ran aground. The 25 North Koreans abandoned ... read more

We arrived in Gyeongju, which is in the south-east of Korea, about 5 hours after leaving Seoul. The drive was quite pleasant as the roads are decent. There are a lot of fixed speed cameras in Korea apparently; and they're all signed which means that drivers seem to go as fast as they like between cameras and then slow down rapidly just before a camera and then speed up again.. Pretty sure that's not the point of the cameras. After checking into our hotel we headed out to grab some food. Scott had noticed a Chinese restaurant on the drive to our hotel and had his heart set on that so we set off hoping that they would still be open despite it being 8pm. They were open but we're not entirely sure if that was ... read more