Our plans, decisions, and adventures
The Europe 2024 trip focused on a six-week house-sitting and puppy-sitting in Oliva, Spain. With a beautiful condo near the beach, we enjoyed a relaxed routine of cooking, swimming, and caring for a playful poodle named Wally. Family visits led to celebrations, day trips, and exploring local sights, including Alicante's castle.
We arrived in Valencia by train from Barcelona and grabbed an Uber for the short drive from the train station to our hotel. Valencia has a beautiful green space that meanders through the city and contains many recreational and cultural buildings. Referred to as the Jardine del Turia (Turia Gardens), parklands replaced an empty riverbed... Continue Reading →
We planned our three-month Europe 2024 trip around a six-week housesit in Oliva, Spain, south of Valencia. We were able to add on a couple of weeks before the sit and a month after, before our scheduled return to Canada. Stop one was Barcelona for six nights. Fate had a different plan for us. Our... Continue Reading →
We started 2023 on the third month of a wonderful trip through Portugal and Spain. We had found out in October 2022--days away from our flight to Portugal--that Ken needed a monthly eye treatment for 12 to 18 months beginning immediately. Not wanting to cancel our trip, we arranged the second treatment in Porto. Though... Continue Reading →
Once we decided to head back to Canada at the end of January and started researching airfares, we discovered a direct flight from Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel in the Azores to Toronto, Ontario. We would have preferred to fly directly to Vancouver, British Columbia, but the option of spending some time... Continue Reading →
The interior section of the Alentejo region is often passed by, or maybe just touched on with a quick day trip or one-night visit to Évora from Lisbon. We identified several spots we wanted to see and decided on a five-night itinerary so we would have four full days to delve into the area. Our... Continue Reading →
Though we could have selected any number of towns as our base to explore the eastern Algarve, a local recommended Faro to us as a still-open-and-active winter location. We arrived in Faro by Flixbus from Seville, Spain, where we had been visiting with family. It was a bit of a walk with our suitcases into... Continue Reading →
We had been to Seville, Spain, twice before, and this short trip was all about family--family members who live in Seville (Ken's brother, his wife, and their daughter) and family members who would meet us in Seville (our son and grandson) for the first week of January 2023. In order to get there on New... Continue Reading →
Algarve is the region at the south end of Portugal. Its over 200 kilometres of coastline offer up sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, white hillside towns and historic fishing villages. With decent year-round weather (warmer and drier in winter than other parts of Portugal and not too hot even in the hottest month of August) and... Continue Reading →
So ... Much ... Rain.... At least on the day we arrived in Lisbon. We took a bus from Caldas da Rainha, where we had returned our rental car, and then took a metro to within 800m of our accommodation. Even if we had taken an Uber or Bolt ride, we would still have had... Continue Reading →
The Silver Coast region of Portugal includes Coimbra and Aveiro, which I've covered in a previous post, but this post touches on quite a few smaller towns and areas in the region. We stayed for a week in a little village called Carregal, a few minutes away from Óbidos. Since we had a rental car... Continue Reading →
Just left: West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Now: Qualicum Bay, British Columbia, Canada
Up next: Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada
Life: Phase Next 