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 […]

   Since the train ride to Madrid wasn’t a destination, then Madrid would have to be one. Only thing was neither Carol nor I had any bucket lists to scratch off for the capital of Spain. Typical American narrow-mindedness right? Yup. Turns out, a wood-fired pizza place just up the corner from our apartment and a […]

The 12:00 to Madrid     Some train stations try to mimic the airline experience, and Barcelona Sants is one of them. There is a TSA-type bag and security check prior to entering a “gate” area, where you line up before passing through a boarding pass check. Then, an escalator down to the platform, where you stand […]

Photo Credit: Carol Madigan    The mistakes and missteps were beginning to pile up on this trip: The wrong date on the Figueres return ticket, saying “I’m bored” out loud. If you want to maintain a slacker’s approach to travel, you need to maintain an almost pristine record when it comes to screw-ups. Otherwise your slacker […]

   I can’t explain a lot about the things I believe, and trying to explain these two artists is no exception. On the one hand I casually dismissed the one at first encounter; the other I’ve unquestionably embraced since my first experience of him as a teenager. To me anyway, Antoni Gaudi and Salvador Dali both […]

   Photo credit: Carol Madigan Since Carol likes to find things, and I prefer things to find me, we’ve adapted to each other’s preferences and enjoy a mutually agreeable compatibility on the road. But every road has a bump, and we hit one today. “I had failed to maintain a Nash Equilibrium, and instead achieved  Champagne […]

Photo credit: Carol Madigan    Carol had already outlined what our first full day in Barcelona would consist of. Plaza Catalunya was the premier square of the city, and La Rambla the famous promenade and commercial strip that begins at the plaza and ends at the marina. It was a walking tour, and while Carol looks […]

The 14:54 to Barcelona     Judging by how full our first class carriage was, we were smart to roll the dice and reserve our seats for the TGV to Barcelona back in the states before we were sure we had seats on the plane to Paris and a confirmed hotel there. Even that early, however, the […]