We took a week long road trip from our apartment in Loosdorf, Austria with two friends, Jutta and Pedro (whom we previously met while diving in Honduras) from the bottom of Germany right through to the top and then back again. Our first stop was the port city of Hamburg, way up on the northern shore of Germany.

Half the fun was getting there

We drove all the way from Salzburg, Austria. Most of the 10 hours was fortunately spent on the famous German Autobahn. The Autobahn, of course, is famous for its lack of speed limits. However, it should probably be equally famous for its summertime construction which frequently imposes speed limits of 60 km/hr, which seems really, really, really, slow after cruising at 170 km/hr. It was fun, fast, slow and frustrating all at the same time, but with three eligible drivers in the car it was really no problem at all.

City tour

We spent two nights in Hamburg, and really didn’t accomplish much outside of the “free” (as in – you don’t have to pay, but you will be guilted into leaving a tip for the unpaid guide) city tour. It was actually a really good tour. We learned about the two major disasters that the city has faced: the great fire of 1842 and the destructive allied bombings during WWII. We saw many, many brick buildings that actually look good, and toured the harbour which is apparently a “free port” meaning tax-free (no wonder that shipping is the major industry of this city).

The tour ended with a pirate story about the famous German Pirate named Klaus Störtebeker. He makes for an entertaining story, his name essentially means “down in one” and refers to his legendary ability to down a 4L mug of beer in one gulp. When he was eventually captured, it was in Hamburg that he was executed. Again the story grows interesting. During his execution, he is said to have struck a bargain with the mayor, to the effect that, the mayor would free any of his men that he could walk past after being beheaded. According to legend, after his head was removed, his body got up and walked past 11 of his men before being tripped by the executioner, who was being paid on a per-head basis. In the end the mayor reneged on the deal and executed everyone anyways, but what a story!

City Hall

Fancy Brick Building

Building shaped like a cruise ship

Old Port Buildings

Churches made a good target for bombers during WWII

These “Stumbling Stones” are a reminder of the holocaust. Each one has the name of a Jew who was killed inscribed upon it.

I’m in a bit of a rut… just like the title of this post suggests, I cut my hair every six months whether it needs it or not. That may seem like a long time to go without a haircut, but it’s not really. I get it cut short (probably because I’m frugal and I don’t want to pay for more hair cuts than I need) and don’t touch it again until it’s long enough to get knotted, and hangs in my eyes. That takes six months. Any more frequent and I’d just be cutting it for fashion’s sake, and I’m too utilitarian for that.

The first time I had my hair cut this trip, it was done by a professional in Utila, Honduras. He just buzzed it short and charged me $5. It wasn’t exactly my favourite haircut of all time, but it has lasted me until now.

This time around I resolved to cut my hair myself. This decision came around for a couple of reasons. First, I had thrown out my beard trimmer when I started the Camino de Santiago. It was too heavy to mail, it was broken, and I really didn’t want to carry it on my back. So I needed to replace it. What I found was a beard trimmer capable of cutting hair, so I had the tools.

Second, I couldn’t find a place to get a haircut for less than 10€. That seemed like a lot when I had my own set of clippers.

The Process

The clippers came with an instruction manual that explained what height to set the combs to for the various parts of the head to achieve a men’s haircut. It seemed pretty easy to me, so I snuck outside by myself and started cutting with the clippers in one hand and a small pocket mirror in the other.

When I thought I was looking pretty good I headed inside to show off my work.

The Results

You can take a look a the photos yourself. After the laughs, I was sent back out for touch-ups. It seems me and the instructions used different jargon. I had thought that the “nape” of the neck would refer to everything below the bump at the back of the head that is at about the same height as your ears. It turns out, the nape is the part of the neck below the hairline. So I shaved a bit higher up than I should have… Fortunately, as my grandfather used to say,

The difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about two weeks

Two weeks later, it looks okay again.

After walking every day for a little over a month, we were ready to settle down. For the past three weeks or so, we’ve been renting an apartment in Loosdorf, a small town in the middle of Austria. To get here, we flew from Santiago de Compostela to Barcelona where we spent another lovely night in the airport. From there, we flew direct to Vienna.

Barcelona Airport

Vienna is the “city of music”. We gave ourselves three days to enjoy the big city before heading to our new home town (for a little while anyways) and checking into our apartment.

For those budget minded folks out there, our Vienna cost per day was $80.01 CAD for the both of us.

St. Marxer Friedhof & Zentralfriedhof:

If you ever wanted proof that Vienna deserves to be known as the “City of Music” just head on down to the graveyards. There’s a whole host of famous composers buried here including: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, and a few Strausses…

Mozart’s grave (one of two in the city)

Mozart’s actual grave can be found in the St. Marxer Friedhof.  A monument to him, along with the graves of the other composers listed above can be found in the enormous Zentralfriedhof among over 300,000 graves and crypts (and over 3 million “inhabitants”). There are no entrance fees.

Stephansdom Church:

After walking 800km to see the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, it was kind of nice to be able to take the metro to see this church. We were lucky enough to walk in during the middle of a choir/symphony rehearsal. We stayed there for most of an hour listening. There’s something really quite special about hearing live classical music being played in a stone vaulted roof church. The ambience was fantastic, and it satisfied our need to buy tickets to one of the many, many nightly symphonies, operas, or chamber music sessions that Vienna is famous for (they all seem to cost between 35-45 euros for the cheapest tickets if you’re interested).

Choir Practice

Naschmarkt:

What better way to get a feel for the local cuisine than to check out the largest outdoor market in the country. The Naschmarkt is held every day of the week except Sundays. For the most part, it seemed a bit more expensive than the numerous supermarkets we stumbled into, but there was a very good selection of vegetarian and health foods at reasonable prices. The vendors seemed more than willing to give out free samples, so we indulged our taste buds a bit. In the end, we stocked up on various grains and beans, sampled the dried fruits (the dried apples were simply amazing!), cheese, falafel, and a spinach stuffed pastry.

On Saturday, there was a “flea market” attached to the Naschmarkt. We walked through it quickly, because there was nothing too exciting. There were tables and tables of “junk” on sale. The type of stuff you expect to see left behind at the end of a garage sale. Maybe the trick is to go early, or we just hit a bad weekend, but I wouldn’t be too concerned about being at the market on a Saturday to see the flea market.

Flohmarkt

Schloss Schönbrunn:

This palace is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s huge, and I imagine over the top luxurious. The large building and gardens brought back memories of Versailles in Paris, which we had just seen not too long ago. Because of that, we didn’t feel the need to pay to go inside. We did stroll through the garden however, and eventually came across a labyrinth and hedge maze…

The Gardens of Schloss Schönbrunn

Donauinselfest:

So here we are, in the City of Music and our timing couldn’t be more fantastic. Vienna was hosting a FREE music festival the whole time we were there! We spent most of our days and evenings listening to music and sunning on the grass. The festival is held on a man made island in the Danube rive and takes place over a space of about four kilometres. There was a large variety of music ranging from Austrian folk to English oldies to death metal. With 20 stages (each with back to back performances), we had a lot of choices. When we didn’t like something, or felt like a change, we just walked over to the next stage in line.

In proper music fest fashion we ate some fried dough (langos – A thick dough shaped into a large flat circle, fried, and brushed with butter and garlic. They were refreshingly not sweet), and fresh chips. Of course everyone else seemed to be eating bratwurst and sauerkraut, but we weren’t interested in that. Okay, maybe we were tempted, but we managed to keep our vegetarian diet intact. What we really wanted were mini-doughnuts, which they had at the crazy price of 0.50€ a piece. Alas, it was too much.

Thanks for a wonderful free weekend of music, Vienna. We really, really enjoyed it.  Though you may want to consider upgrading your washroom facilities on the island. There were something like 1.8 million people in attendance at the music festival over the weekend, and almost no washrooms. On top of that, the washrooms all charged an entrance fee. Of course this was no problem for me, I just walked into the bush and took a leak with 50 other guys. Ashley, however, waited in line with the other ladies for 25 minutes and had to pay 0.50€. In the future, Vienna, if you are going to have a huge music festival, put out some free porta-potties please.

Ashley in line for the ladies room

Liquid Glam Rockets (One of the many bands we didn’t know)

Sunset

Night Time

The Danube

This is our HOW TO guide to walking the Camino de Santiago  (a.k.a. The Way of St. James) via the Camino Frances route. This path begins in Saint Jean Pied de Port, France and finishes in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. If you are looking for inspiration, you can read about our experience on the Camino by following the links at the bottom of the post. If you have already decided that this pilgrimage is for you, read on my friend.

As all good guides should, I’m going to start by acknowledging that we don’t know everything, and refer you to the same guide book that we used.

Walking Guide to the Camino de Santiago History Culture Architecture from St Jean Pied de Port to Stantiago de Compostela and Finisterre by Gerald Kelly

This is a Kindle book, which we’ll come back to. There are no maps, just a listing of all the towns (with places to stay) that you’ll be passing through, a description of the hostels/albergues (with prices), a brief bit of history, and some notes on various buildings and buildings. Most importantly for us, it had notes on which places had kitchens for our use. This book is updated every year, and we thought it was pretty good.

What to pack:

Ah, the eternal question. Follow our advice, and you’ll do well. Take nothing more, and nothing less. Seriously.

• 40 L or smaller backpack with frame – You want the frame so your hips can carry the weight instead of your shoulders. Also bring a rain cover if it is not a part of your backpack. We used our 38L Osprey Kestrels and found them very roomy.
• Sleep sheet or Sleeping bag – we brought sleep sheets, and wished we had sleeping bags. Then again, the weather was much cooler than normal for our camino, and pilgrims we met who had done the pilgrimage in other years recommended the sleep sheet. Both work.

• Long underwear top and bottom – It gets cold, even in Spain. If you only have a sleep sheet, this is essential.
• 2 quick dry shirts – Synthetics, or very thin cotton
• 2 quick dry bottoms – a pair of zip-off pants, and a pair of shorts
• 3 pairs of underwear
• 3 pairs of liner socks
• 3 pairs of wool socks
• Sweater
• Fleece
• Rain coat
• Wide Brim Hat
• 2 packing cubes, and a couple of zippered bags for organization
• 1 Pair of flip-flops – This is a necessity, most albergues will not let you wear your walking boots inside.
• Bottle of shampoo
• Bottle of sunscreen
• Deodorant
• Partial bar of laundry soap
• Toothbrush, floss, toothpaste
• Toilet paper (mostly for females) – for those times when you just have to go.  For the bushes, carry an empty ziploc and pack the paper out to the next toilet.  Albergues usually  run out of TP in the ladies room by morning, so it’s handy there too.
• Quick dry travel towel XL (this can double as a flimsy blanket if you wake up shivering)
  
• 12 Clothes Pins or portable rubber clothesline
• First aid kit – Include tape, gauze, band aids, mole skin, iodine, needle, thread.
• Swiss Army Knife – The smallest knife that has scissors, a can opener, and a cork screw.
• Headlamp
• Passport and Pilgrim Credential
• Digital Point and Shoot Camera – Light weight & small; also bring rechargeable batteries and 8 GB of memory cards.

Optional but recommended:

• The Kindle from Amazon This is our favourite travel item of all time. It’s lightweight, the battery lasts a really long time, it’s easy to read, and there are a lot of books for it. On our Camino, Ashley read 6 books, and Mike read 5. It would not have been pleasant carrying all those books around in paper format.
• MP3 player – The only catch here, is you will need one large enough that you won’t get bored of your music. 4 GB at a minimum.
• Sunglasses
• Spices – Namely, salt and pepper.  You can buy the cheapest shakers and dump half of it out to cut down on weight.  We also recommend curry powder – it makes lentils just a little more interesting.
• Light weight bowl and a half dozen plastic spoons – great for making hummus, salads, or oatmeal when you have no kitchen.
• Reusable grocery bag

Things you should not pack without consideration:

• Laptop – Unless you are blogging, or need to be connected, don’t bring it.  Even if you are blogging, consider the weight carefully (we did opt to carry our netbook with us).
• Travel Safe – Absolutely awesome if you bring a computer, otherwise a bit big/heavy for a walk like this.
• Compass/map – Not essential – you are not going to get lost.
• SLR Camera – Too heavy for our liking.  Invest in a good quality point-and-shoot – your shoulders and knees will thank you.
• Day bag – Use your pockets.
• Padlock – Don’t bring it, there are no lockers.
• Deck of playing cards – hardly used.
• Extra shoes or heavy sandals – Stick to flip-flops. There are a lot of shoes/boots that get left behind because of weight.
• Rain pants – not necessary, but a creature comfort nonetheless.  We didn’t have them, but they would have been swell on exactly two days.

Just remember, the lighter your bag, the happier your Camino. If you don’t expect you will use something you’ve packed every day… leave it at home.

Oops, I brought too much stuff. What now?

No problem, so did we. Head down to the post office in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port and mail it on to Santiago de Compostela. For a fee, the Pensión Badalada will store them for you. We used them, and had no trouble. Details can be found on their website http://pilgrimhelper.wordpress.com/luggage-storage/

Getting Prepared – Physically:

It’s just walking ladies and gents. It’s time consuming, invigorating, blissful and divine, and if you can walk to the grocery store, you can walk the Camino de Santiago.

Please don’t think you need to be young like us. We were the exception. A typical pilgrim is closer in age to 60 than 30, with plenty in their late 60’s or 70’s.

Physical fitness is also not the biggest concern. Again, we met plenty of people who would be considered clinically obese along the way. They may have been a bit slower than us, but they got there just the same.

My point is, no matter what kind of shape you are in, regardless of your age, you can probably walk the Camino. All you need to do in preparation is walk.  A lot. Try loading up your backpack at home, wear the same shoes you plan to wear on the Camino, with the socks you plan to use, and head out for an hour or two each night. After a couple of weeks, I think you’ll be as prepared as can be, and more prepared than we were.

Blister Care:

You are going to get blisters. They are going to hurt for about four days, and you will walk on them. Don’t worry though, you can think of it as character building, and it’s not too bad. It is bad enough, but not too bad.

If your blister has not popped, don’t pop it. What you want to do is sterilize a needle and a bit of thread by boiling it in water. Next run the thread through your blister from one end to the other. Trim the thread so about 1/2″ of thread is sticking out either side of the blister skin and leave the thread in your blister. The thread will allow your blister to continue to drain while you walk. If your blister continues to fill, give a tug on the thread to loosen it, and the puss will start flowing again. When you need to walk on it, cover with gauze and tape. Change the gauze when it gets wet. When you don’t need to walk on it, leave the gauze off. When the blister stops filling (you’ll know because the thread stops sticking), you can take out the thread.  That’s it. Thanks to Shawna from http://getupandglobe.com for the advice – we followed it and it worked well.

If your blister has popped, you want to buy a Compeed from any pharmacy. They’ll be prominently displayed along the Camino. You should be able to find one designed to fit the exact spot of your wound. Make sure your skin is clean and dry before applying. The Compeed will become a second layer of skin. You can shower with it, sleep with it, in fact you do everything with it –  just don’t rip it off! It’ll fall off on its own after four or five days.

Weather:

We had a huge range of weather over the month we walked the Camino. In the mornings, it could be as cold as near-freezing (we needed to walk with spare socks on our hands to keep the blood flowing), in the plains it would reach the mid 30’s, and then there were the days where it poured rain. If you’ve got the equipment in our packing list, you should be fine. We walked every day regardless of what the weather threw at us.

One tip, if your boots get soaked from walking in the rain all day, fill them with balled up newspaper when you get into the albergue, and change the newspaper before bed. Most albergues have paper sitting by the boot rack on rainy days.  Your shoes will be dry by morning.

Accommodation:

The cheapest, and therefore best, accommodation are the pilgrims albergues. Expect to spend between 4€ and 10€ per night per bed. You’ll be sharing a dorm room but have a bunk bed mattress to call your own (although occasionally it may be touching a complete stranger’s mattress… just remember, the Camino’s a great chance to make new friends). There will be a curfew, usually 10:00pm at night, and a checkout time of about 8:00am. This is a very good thing, as you’ll be able to go to bed early, and wake up early to beat the day’s heat. If you can not tolerate hearing the snoring/flatulence of dozens of other pilgrims, consider earplugs.

You don’t need to book accommodations in advance (in fact, often you can’t).  The albergues open between 12:00pm and 1:00pm for the most part, and it’s a good idea to get in early for a few reasons. For one, they can fill up, meaning you may be forced to walk several kilometres farther than you had planned that day. Second, hot water is usually hot when their doors open, but may not be so hot after 100 other people have showered.

Upon arrival, we would usually shower ASAP, then do our laundry. It was best to do laundry early every day so it had a chance to dry. Every albergue expects that you will do your own laundry, so they provide washing sinks and clotheslines. If it’s raining, only wash your socks and underwear. You can drape them over your bunk bed rails to dry inside (may take two days).

Food:

We didn’t really eat out, preferring to make our own vegetarian food. However, there are a lot of restaurants and cafes on the cCmino, so there is always a place to eat. Pilgrim menus are available for 10€ and include a starter, a main course, desert, and wine. For lunches and snacks, most cafes will make you a sandwich called a bocadillo for 2.50€.

If you are going to prepare your own food like us, there’s good news and bad news. Finding food is not that hard. Just about every small town has a store for pilgrims, though the smaller centres will have very high prices and very small selection. For whole grains, you will be able to find whole wheat bread at a little less than half the bakeries, oat flakes at a similar percentage of grocery stores. Whole wheat pasta is also available, though slightly more rare, and very very rarely you’ll stumble across whole rice.

There are lots of options for legumes. Just about every store will sell precooked garbanzos, lentils, and white beans for less than 0.60€ a jar. You can also buy dry lentils and cook them in your albergue without pre-soaking in a reasonable amount of time.

As for fruits and veggies, Spain is the right place to be. Everything is very delicious, and reasonably cheap. Make sure you eat a banana every day, but don’t stop there. Try the cherries, oranges, grapes, apples, peaches, nectarines, and especially the tomatoes. If you find very small, very ripe, natural looking Raf tomatoes. Get them. They are delicious.

Speaking of cooking in albergues, most kitchens are only equipped with a few pots/pans and a single 4 burner stove. You’ll have to share with everyone else, so expect a lineup unless you eat at very strange times.

On the topic of sharing, don’t be afraid to buy too much, and share it. We often were the benefactors of partial bottles of wine and pasta. We also left behind partial packages of lentils, and other uneaten foods that we didn’t want to carry with us the next day.

Walking:

The heart of it all. We walked at about 5 km per hour, and found that 25 km or less in a day felt easy, and we woke up feeling very good. When we walked 26 km or more in a day it felt long, and our bodies felt a bit sorer the next morning. We spoke to quite a few pilgrims, and everyone seemed to feel the same regardless of age or general fitness.

How far you walk in a day is completely up to you. For the most part, albergues are spaced about 5 km or so apart, giving you lots of options on where to start and end your day. We’ve met people who walk 50 km days, and those who walk 15 km days. Whatever you are comfortable with is fine. There are no rules. However, if you walk too little in a day, you’ll be waiting for your albergue to open and if you walk too far in a day, you’ll be hoping you can find an unoccupied bed.

Breaks are also a personal preference. We tried long breaks, short breaks, and no breaks at all. After 37 days of trial and error, this is what we settled on; walk the first 10km without break. From then on in, rest for 10 minutes every 5km.

You’ll need to carry water and snack foods with you while you walk. We each carried 1L of water split into 0.5 L of drinking water, and 0.5 L of emergency water. We refilled our waters at the numerous fountains along the way. Only rarely did we actually need to touch our emergency supply. For snacks we brought a variety of mixed nuts, bread, cheese, dried figs, and Ashley’s favourite – double stuffed Principe chocolate cookies.

If you have more questions, just stick them in a comment, and we’ll do our best to answer them. The rest is just following the arrows. Like I said, you won’t get lost and ¡Buen Camino!

Want to read more about our Camino?  Check it out…

Our Camino, Your Camino… Our Challenge to You
Camino de Santiago Week 1 – Beautiful Landscapes & Unexpected Challenges
Camino de Santiago Week 2 – Getting Past the Pain
Camino de Santiago Week 3 – Feels a Lot Like Home
Camino de Santiago Week 4 – Easy Walking
Camino de Santiago – We Made It to Santiago, But We’re Not Finished Yet!
Camino de Santiago by the Numbers – Our Budget and Stats
Guide to the Camino de Santiago

Barcelona is beautiful. It seems to have everything going for it – wide boulevards, dedicated biking lanes, trees, mountains, beach, and architecture.

In the one week we spent in Barcelona we were able to walk everywhere. No need to rent a bike, hire a cab, or take the metro. All of that walking had an added advantage of helping to prepare us for walking the Camino de Santiago that we are doing right now – If you haven’t checked it out yet, please take a look at our challenge to you.

As you can expect, by my opening description of Barcelona, we spent nearly all of our time just walking and looking. We didn’t really do much else, though we certainly could have.

For example, there seems to be a pretty hopping night life. Every night between 11:00 pm and midnight, the patrons and staff of our hostels (we stayed in three) would finish showering, put on some cologne, and head out for drinks and dancing. In the morning, all reports gave us the impression that they were having plenty of fun, but we never joined them. Partly because partying just isn’t our thing anymore, and partly because Central America got us too used to going to bed at 9:30pm and waking up at 5:30am.

Though in retrospect, it may have been better to join them to avoid the 3:30AM, lights on wake up calls when everyone finally stumbled back to their beds. Nowhere else have I seen so many people act so inconsiderately in dormitory beds. And it wasn’t just one night, it was every night at three different hostels.

That’s my only real complaint about our time in Barcelona. Everything else was great. Especially the food.  There were the chocolate croissants (I still think they are better than anything we had in Paris, Ashley disagrees), whole wheat baguettes, and the snack like dishes called tapas. At the recommendation of our friend Uri, we tried Patatas Bravas – a type of tapa that reminded me of buffalo chicken wing sauce poured over potato wedges. Delicious.

Aside from the splurges eating out, we ate our other meals in. I think we were trying to make up for our overindulgence of desserts on the cruise ship. It also helped to keep our European budget from exploding by taking advantage of our fully stocked hostel kitchens. Even after becoming vegetarian, we still love to cook.

Anyways, enough talk about food… it’s time to get to the meat and potatoes of this post – just what did we see in Barcelona?

Montjuic:

A hill overlooking the harbour of Barcelona. One of the nicest park areas we’ve seen in a city, with plenty to see.

The Fortress at Montjuic

Big gun

Panoramic of the harbour

An ancient Greek theatre where the slightest whisper on stage could be heard from the back row.

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

La Rambla

One of the most famous streets in all of Spain. We’re not sure why, but there were a tonne of people on it every day.

Lots of people on La Rambla

Gaudi

One crazy architect from the very early 1900’s. His work is all over the city, and really quite neat to see.

Park Güell

Sagrada Família still under construction. It should be finished in 2028, 102 years after construction began.

We saw a lot more in Barcelona than I could fit in this post. If you want to check out more photos, see our photo album.

As we told you when we suggested that a 5 star cruise is probably the best way to cross the Atlantic Ocean, our port stops were all too brief. We had only eight hours or so in each port. During that time, we’d get off the boat, walk into town, walk back to the boat for free lunch (it’s free, how could you not), then head back into town to see what we could see before the all aboard time.

Not only did we not spend enough time in any of the port cities to “get a feel” for the places or the people, but something strange happened. Our time was so brief that the memories of each place blurred across the partitions of our memory that separate one experience from the next. The end effect being that we can hardly remember which photos belong to which city. It all seems like one big port stop.

Over the 14 day cruise we stopped in Nassau, Bahamas; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain); and the Spanish mainland cities of Cadiz, Malaga, and Valencia before finally arriving in Barcelona. I actually quite liked all of the port stops, excluding Nassau, or at least what parts of them we saw.

Nassau:

Meh… Sorry, but that sums up how we felt about it.

Okay, this guy was kind of fun

Santa Cruz De Tenerife:

One of the capital cities of Spain’s Canary Islands. The city is a major stop over for transatlantic traffic, and has been known as such since the early days of Christopher Columbus.

Cool Theatre

Typical Street View

Cadiz:

Cadiz was a cool town with plenty of beautiful gardens and buildings. It’s quite small, easy to walk around in a day, and has some neat Muslim architecture, a large cathedral, old forts, and Roman ruins.

The Walls of Cadiz

Ashley’s favourite photo of all time

Inside a Cathedral that dwarfed anything we saw in Central America

Málaga:

We paid to do one thing in Malaga, which was more than we did in any of the other port stops. And it just so happened that that one thing we did was completely awesome. We toured Alcazaba of Málaga. A fortress dating from the 11th century. The photos, I hope, speak for themselves.

Wow

The Moorishness shows through

Details in everything

Valencia:

We switched things up a bit in Valencia. The old town is a fair jaunt from the port. There’s a shuttle you can book, but it costs 15€ per person. So, we decided to walk through a park that runs the length of an old river bed, and in theory would have gotten us to downtown if we had enough time to walk it.

We made it about half way, but in the process, we saw heaps of modern architecture that we’d never seen the like of before. It was a nice change from all the other ports.

Space aged

Believe it or not, this is how they build buildings

It’s been a little while since we posted videos and stories from underwater for you.  So I thought that while we are gliding over the Atlantic Ocean in our 5 star cruise liner, eating and drinking everything in sight, it would be nice for us to share the last of our video footage from Utila, Honduras with you.  I hope you enjoy.