Carol and I leave for Ireland this week. She continues to nudge Rick Steves’s guidebook Ireland my way, and I keep nudging it back. I’m not being an idiot, at least not in this case. I’m also not being a snob just because I’ve been to Ireland once. That was more than 50 years ago, and about […]

   He can smash a drive 300 plus yards; more significantly, he’ll hit it straight down the middle of the fairway. He hits greens in regulation, chips and putts well. He has recently begun breaking 70 for 18 holes on a championship-length course. Oh, and he’s only 15. And, of course, I hate him. “Those who […]

   The annual outdoor Laguna Beach Sawdust Arts and Crafts Festival features close to 170 artists working hard at their crafts in a wide range of media including ceramics, painting, jewelry, glass and photography. In other words, it’s exactly the kind of day trip that has me heading for a darkened corner of the couch begging […]

   Think I’ll stay on the subject of aging for one more blog. For most of my senior years, I’ve continued to allow my inner 17-year old to make all my health care decisions. Since my inner 17-year old is very much like my real one of more than 55 years ago, it means I’ve entrusted […]

   I turned 74 on this most recent  European trip. I also became even more introspective, well, because I could, given the pleasant hours spent with little more to do than stare blankly into the fast moving French and Italian countryside rolling by me on a high speed train.    In the final analysis, it occurred to […]

   If you’ve read these travel blogs of the past few weeks, and have gained nothing in terms of useful information, tips, perspective or growth at any level, then I’ve accomplished precisely what I set out to do.    I like the going.  Once there, I like the staying. A good accommodation – comfy couch, sizable fridge filled […]

   We had just settled into perfect seats in a nearly empty carriage when they came aboard and slid into seats just behind us. Until then, it had seemed like our last train ride in Europe would be a good one: seats in the direction of train and a quiet ride all the way into Sintra. […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    The bad news about Cascais is that it’s a beach resort. The good news about it was that if this was to be our last day in Lisbon, it meant we wouldn’t be daytripping to Sintra, which by all accounts was steep and overrun by selfie-crazed tourists (present company included) […]

Photo Credit: Carol Madigan    If you travel like me (relax, almost no one does) then arriving somewhere simply means you’re ready to go somewhere else. No city seems to capture the essence of “somewhere else” quite like Lisbon, where somewhere else is only a 30 or 40-minute ferry or local train ride away. Barcelona (Figueres), […]

   The cab ride from our hotel to the apartment seemed to leave the thriving Lisbon behind for a chock a block residential sterility. But a fully stocked grocery store was just around the corner, as was a metro station. We were not to be isolated after all, and my first trip to the grocery yielded […]