Queue Up: John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads

Yes, that time has come, where we need to re-create that jenga configuration that allowed us to cram all the “absolutely can’t live without this for 5 weeks” stuff into our backpacks, and head home. I will not be sad to put away the rain pants that I have been living in for most of those weeks, although I may have dropped a couple of pounds because on some days it was like walking around with a sauna in my pants. If I had only known I think I could have packed half the stuff and really lightened my load.

Even after all this time in cathedrals, it became clear that I am terrible at interpreting the stories told by paintings and statues. Mark, Cat, and Peter would conduct almost daily Sunday school lessons. There was one painting however, that no one could figure out. So I felt a little better. It was at Montserrat and it one was one of the last things you saw before you had your alone time with the Black Virgin at Montserrat. Interesting choice.

Antonio mentioned creating a coffee table book on the pillow culture in Europe. In case you are itching to know, the pillows in Spain are long and super flat. Like really long. Sometimes they spanned the width of the bed. Cat started making her own pillow out of clothes wadded up in an empty fleece bag she sewed (I hope they were clean). Because, well she is Cat, and you do not get nicknamed CatNet because you are not industrious or resourceful.

The food here was amazing. And we had the added bonus of a good giggle every now and then as we tried to decipher the descriptions. For example, one menu said “old cow”, which we finally figured out meant “aged beef”. But I believe Peter has finally had his fill of pork – I honestly never thought I would see the day. I’m planning a couple of weeks of spa meals to try to get back to regular order. Let’s see how long it takes before he has pork withdrawals. I do think we need on food moderations strategy on these trips…but well…who am I kidding.

During the 4+ weeks we spent here, we visited 9 cities, stayed in 12 hotels, met 21 local guides, made 2 trips to the hospital, and experienced 4 different cultures that are make up this rich and complex country of Spain.

We are typically DIY vacation planners focused on photography, but for this trip we decided to put our cameras away and focus on learning about the history and the culture of Spain. We thought we would approach this trip differently. We engaged a local travel planner, using Wendy Perrin’s WOW service, and picked from his curated list of hotels and activities. We couldn’t be more pleased, and would definitely recommend this service. Instead of spending weeks and months doing the detailed planning, we spent less than 3 hours with him and loved the hotels we stayed out, and the guides and activities he arranged. Many things we would not have had access to, had we done it on our own. He added the additional peace of mind to know he was there to support us when Peter injured his foot and we needed to seek medical care.

At the end of every trip, we sit down together and talk about highlights and lowlights – things we would recommend if others were to ask us, and things we would suggest not doing if time was limited. For this trip, it was challenging to come up with lowlights. Sure, the weather was challenging for almost the entire month, but we found our guides were able to flex and still provide us with rich experiences. As you get with four people, everyone had a different favorite, so it’s hard to summarize any one thing that we would say “you absolutely have to do this”. If you are planning your first trip to Spain I would definitely recommend doing all the major touristy things Spain is known for. We are already thinking about a trip back where we get off the beaten path and explore the countryside.

Thank you for all the kind comments and for reading. We will be back in August.