2026 Spain

On our last day in Seville we were met by Chef Ana Lopez who has a cooking school located not far from our hotel in the old part of Seville. We had arranged in advance for Ana to teach us how to make salmorejo, a traditional Andalusian soup made with tomato, bread, olive oil and garlic. Salmorejo Read more

On our second day in Sevilla we got to take a tour of the Alcazar, the royal palace, with our guide, Manuel. As with most things royal in Andalusia, there is a long and complicated history involving Romans, Moors, Visigoths and Spaniards. The palace that stands today is built right on top of a Read more

It was a short drive from Cadiz to Sevilla, about an hour and a half. Compared to Cadiz, Sevilla is a big city. It is one of Spain's most historic cities and so it combines the new with the old. In the central historic zone they have regulations preventing the new from creeping in too much, but Read more

Today we took a drive outside of Cadiz to the area known as Bolonia, which is about an hour's drive. Lily, our guide from yesterday, accompanied us. The main attraction was to visit Baelo Claudia, the ruins of a Roman city which was abandoned by the Romans in the 7th century A.D. After it was Read more

On our first full day In Cadiz, we had a tour of the old city with our very nice and energetic tour guide, Lily. She gave us an initial orientation in the local museum showing us the ancient history of the city and how it was occupied by Phoenicians, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors before Ferdinand Read more

Attention Readers: Go to Cadiz! Cadiz is the southernmost place in Spain, near Gibraltar and just a few miles north of Morocco. It is a busy seaport with a large, well protected bay, founded by the Phoenicians (yes, it's that old!). Before this trip, I didn't really know anything about Cadiz at Read more

Our second day in Granada was scheduled to be unscheduled. So we got up a bit later than usual, had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, and then wandered out to see the Granada Cathedral and the burial place of Ferdinand and Isabella. Now that I'm writing this, there doesn't seem to be much Read more

On our first full day in Granada we were met by our guide Eduardo who grabbed us a taxi for the brief ride up to the Alhambra, a stunning Moorish palace build on a hill above the city of Granada between 1238 and 1358. It is quite a large palace, surrounded by a wall with a river below the wall for Read more

On Tuesday morning we bid farewell to Madrid, wishing we had more time in that beautiful city. But we couldn't be too sad because we were scheduled to take the AVE high speed train to Cordoba in Andalusia. The AVE train really moves, reaching speeds up 186 MPH. We reached Cordoba in no time and Read more

We've been very busy the last few days! On Monday, Jane and Alex arrived to Madrid at 5:45 a.m. from Boston, where they were attending the wedding of one of their college friends, They got to our hotel at 7:30a.m., joined us for breakfast, accompanied us to Toledo, and then went to a Real Madrid Read more

We got up early today to try out the Ritz hotel breakfast buffet and it definitely made getting up early worthwhile. I failed to get my camera fired up but I found a representative picture of the fruit area: It really did look like that! And then there were the breads and pastries, the full leg of Read more

We arrived in Madrid in the mid-afternoon of Saturday, 2/28/26. Neither of us were too tired since we did manage to sleep a bit on both legs of the journey eastward. We checked in at our Madrid lodgings, the Mandarin Oriental Ritz Hotel. That Mandarin Oriental part of the name is very recent Read more

I'm really not a chocolate person. That's not to say I don't like chocolate, I do. But chocolate people (you know who you are) have a totally different relationship with chocolate than I do. They not only love chocolate, they need it. They appreciate chocolate in a way I never will. Still, even Read more

Achtung, bitte. Hello from Frankfurt airport in Germany. We are passing through here on our way to Madrid, so this is a preseason post to kick things off and make sure my custom blogging systems are working OK. The plan is to spend a few days seeing Madrid with a day trip to the ancient town of Read more

OK, We are getting ready for yet another trip. This time to Spain. To the south. Granada, Seville, Cordoba, and then on to Portugal. We are super excited and hopefully you can come along with us via this blog. Read more