…a bit late with this

I’m now so far behind with this thing I’ll probably never finish it, and even if I did it would be so vague and misremembered it probably wouldn’t be worth it anyway.

Filed under: asia, australia, europe, north america, australia, betyouthoughtiforgot, laziness, summary, thailand, vancouver

…done with secluded monasteries

With my travelling companion preferring the shops of London to the Barcelona rivals (not compared: Milan), she set off for a couple of days to the UK to get some summer clothes for our impending move to SE Asia. Not a wide selection in December, apparently, but the cheapo stores will sell any old thing at any time of the year, thankfully.

Filed under: europe, barcelona, monasteries, montserrat

…done with Barcelona

Barcelona’s the most visited city in Spain (probably) and one that airlines try to push the most. I base this on the fact that I used to do work for a major airline who, every month, wanted at least one article written about the place. What do I remember from all those articles? Gaudi.

Filed under: europe, barcelona, caganer, catalan, spain

…done with Zaragoza

After Madrid my hopes for Spain rose considerably, but Zaragoza sort of pushed them back down again. It’s a cute little riverside town, with an amazing cathedral and some nice cobbled shopping streets but, like Santiago, for a traveller who wants instant gratification there’s not much to do beyond the first couple of days of sightseeing.

Filed under: europe, saragossa, spain, zaragoza

…Madrid fer it

I’ve said my piece on big cities before, so it’s understandable that every time I visit a new one I’d have a bit of apprehension about the place. On top of that, in the Madrid vs Barcelona debate — the Spanish equivalent of Sydney vs Melbourne — it seemed like I’d fall on the Catalonian side.

Filed under: europe, capital cities, madrid, spain

…drinking porto in Oporto

If there’s one thing that’s great about the Portuguese city of Porto, it’s that they make a lot of port. There are, admittedly, other good things, but let’s make it clear that that’s the best.

Filed under: europe, oporto, porto, portugal

…done with Santiago

Santiago de Compostela is a town best known for being the end of a pilgrim’s trail, a trek that starts in France and takes around a month to hike to its end point at the Santiago Cathedral. People started doing El Camino Santiago back in the middle ages and continue to this day, believing the cathedral to be the resting place of St James’ bones, and was the subject of a big enough Hollywood film that I saw it in the cinema.

I took the simple option of just flying to the bloody place.

 

Filed under: europe, santiago, santiago de compostela, spain

…done with Tenerife

Remember the whole blogging in retrospect thing? That turned out to be a bit rubbish, didn’t it? Delaying the writing makes things seem easier at the time, but then when I’m actually meant to update this thing, the memories of wherever I’ve been are distant and I’ve lost any idea about what it really was like to be somewhere other than ‘remember that nice coffee shop?’ or ‘it was a bit okay’. Anyway, without further ado, here’s some vague details of my trip to Tenerife. I should be a salesman.

Filed under: europe, santa cruz, spain, tenerife

…actually cruising

The last post was a bit of a curve ball (I don’t know what that actually is, hopefully it means ‘misdirection’) because, you see, the next thing I did was go on a cruise. Initially it was meant to be just a paragraph or two but it grew arms and legs and by the end it was too long to serve just as an introduction.

Filed under: europe, cruise

…Paphosterous

Many of you will have read the unofficial version of my time in the Cypriot town of Paphos, but for those who want the watered-down, less interesting official version, read on.

Filed under: europe, cyprus, paphos, retirement home