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 […]

The 12:00 to Badajoz  The 14:09 to Extremadura  The 17:27 to Lisbon     Rick Blaine had an easier time getting on the last plane to Lisbon out of Casablanca than it would seem Carol and I had in getting there from Seville. Say goodbye to the train-is-the-destination guiding principle for this trip. From here on in […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    I think these ridiculously narrow, old city Seville sidewalks are how tightrope walkers train. Yet our’s led directly to a barber shop. No, I’m not belaboring a cliché.  Carol had been “advocating” a haircut since we landed in Europe. But I was crafty enough to put it off by offering, “we’re […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    Since the Spanish social evening doesn’t begin until a typical (senior) American one ends, Carol and I were going to have to pace ourselves (read: take a nap) in order to be ready to attend our first professional European soccer game, which didn’t kick off (is that what they call the […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan The 8:00 to Seville     The worst part of an 8:00 train, besides the airport-like ungodly hour you have to get up for it, is that it’s also too early in the morning for wine while aboard. Add a full, chatty, phone-prone first class demographic, and you have yet another case where […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    Given we had a 5:45 a.m. wake up call for our 8:00 a.m. train to Seville in the morning, I was still hoping for a light day. El Retiro Park was a pleasant subway ride, further enhanced by a smiling toddler who wanted to practice waving hello to total strangers such […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    As Carol had already confirmed there was nothing in particular she wanted to see here, I’d hoped Madrid would offer a respite from the Sturm und Drang of sightseeing. We were headed for Toledo today, but that was going to be a Hop On Hop Off bus ride, which is a […]