Europe Tour 2018

Didn’t think it could get any colder; we had a freezing day in Avila but absolutely worth it. After a leisurely breakfast with Roza in Salamanca, the short drive to Avila was uneventful; strange landscape, from farming to rugged with snow peaked mountains in the background. Staying in a lovely hotel within the walls of the old town, one of the few towns where the wall is still intact. Luck was on our side as we also found a car parking space first up 50 meters from the hotel. After checking in, went exploring, it was bitterly cold wind and an occasional shower. Not a nice day but a walk through Avila helps you forget about the cold. We walked on top of the old city wall (castle like), which further tested our resilience to the cold weather. That’s enough about the weather. The forecast at our next destination, Madrid is pretty warm. Avila is a pretty little town definitely worth visiting; not far from Madrid. The wall, plazas and the customary cobb...

Decided to leave Porto by 8am, which was 9am in our Spanish destination of Salamanca where we were staying for the night. The drive was uneventful but could sense we were gaining altitude. Got to Salamanca around 1pm, driving through the town was no different in terms of dwellings, high rise apartments on either side of the road with very few cars on the road, siesta time. Found our accommodation within walking distance of the main attractions without any hiccup, where we were warmly greeted by Rosa our delightful host (and her pooch, Paco) who could not speak a word of English. We got by with Ursi’s knowledge of Italian and the little Spanish that she has picked up in Spain. We had full use of her lovely home and a private room all to ourselves. She lived there with her son (who was at work), Pedro, a delightful young man we met in the evening. Off we went to explore the old town; what a town it was, It had a lovely square, the usual cobbled stone pedestrian lane...

We had been on the go for the last 22 days, so today we decided to take it easy; this decision was influenced by the weather forecast and sure enough, we woke up to a rainy morning. My turn to go and get the bread; wasn’t kept waiting to be served, unlike Ursi on the previous day. Let’s not go there again for her sake. We did jack all in the morning; mostly on our computers, making bookings of flights, accommodation, creating routes for our cycling tour etc. Around mid-day the rain had stopped, the cloud cover was lifting and we could see patches of blue sky as we made our way to the old town using a completely different route. Stopped at a local (not touristic) café for our morning lubrication fix after which we were energised to tackle the rest of the day with a smile on our face. First up, came across this amazing store that sold loose confectionery, nuts etc just like the way it used to be when I was young (pre-supermarkets and shopping malls). Next up, was the Por...

Ursi had to move the car by 8am from outside our apartment, as it is pay as you go meter parking limited to a maximum of 4 hours on a working day to a near by parking station for 5 Euros a day. She was hoping to buy bread rolls on the way back but learnt that the bakery in the supermarket doesn’t open until 8.30am. Back she went at 8.30 and much to her annoyance had to wait 20 minutes to be served (noting that she doesn’t do queues); she got the 4 fresh bread rolls, she had 1 for breakfast and made sandwiches with the other 3 for us to take with for lunch. Today, we had planned to go on a free walking tour; armed with our lunch, bottle of water, cameras etc made our to the meeting place for the start of the tour.   After a brief introduction of name and where you come from, our group comprised of 3 German girls, a retired Polish couple (she an architect), a young couple from Holland, a young male Spaniard and our guide a young Irish guy, very appropriate for a tour of...