Andorra

I'm doing a very bad job of keeping up with our blog posts.

On Friday, October 10:
From Bilbao, we drove to the small principality of Andorra, which is governed by co-princes -- one from Spain, the other from France. It was a 6 1/2 hour drive, largely in the rain with a LOT of tolls. We did get to drive a bit through the French countryside on a very narrow, winding road. Scott would have loved to have had his Lotus on those turns. Fortunately, we had a break from the rain during that stretch of the trip.

Andorra is beautiful. We both think it looked a lot like the Argyle Forest in Scotland on the drive in -- steep mountains, Scot pines, and a few trickling waterfalls and brooks. There were a number of cows on the sides of the mountains, some right along the roadside. I think it's the first time I've seen cows actually wearing cowbells.  

Once we were amidst the small towns sprinkled along the mountainside, it was typical ski-towns with buildings made of stone and timber. It's all very pretty!

We're staying in the very small town of Erts, which is in the northwest part of Andorra -- very near the Spain and France borders. The capital (Andorra la Vella) is a big shopping mecca. We did lots of walking and looking but no shopping. Most of it was brands we could get back home and wasn't worth the exchange rate or lugging it back in our bags. It's tough to compare prices with those at home since I don't shop a lot, but they were supposedly discounted and I believe tax free.

We left on Sunday -- staying in each city/town on our trip just 2 nights -- and exited through Spain to Barcelona. That drive was pretty as well although not as dramatic as the one to Andorra from the French side.

I haven't downloaded photos from this part of our trip yet, but will update the posts with photos at some point.

Today, we arrived in Seville -- after Barcelona, so I have at least 2 more posts to complete before we return home. 

Bilbao

It rained much of our drive from Madrid to Bilbao yesterday and was still drizzling when we went out to explore last night. But today was very nice -- mostly sunny and highs in the 70s.

The Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao

We slept in late and went to the Guggenheim Museum. The entire 2nd floor and one exhibit on the 1st floor were closed as they prepared for new installations, so tickets were discounted. The famous Puppy out front was also covered with scaffolding as they replaced the previous flowers covering the sculpture with pansies.

And, of course, we walked, and walked, and walked as we often do when on vacation -- exploring Bilbao street by street. We stopped in one of the many bars/restaurants along the street for the obligatory tapas (in Basque: pintxos -- pronounced pinchos), a beer and glass of red wine. 

Then we went to the grocery store for a few drinks and snacks for our drive to Andorra tomorrow. It's a 6 1/2 hour drive. We'll go along the coast of northern Spain through San Sebastian and through France to get there. 

We'll begin our nightly quest for dinner soon. It's currently 8:22 p.m. here, and no one eats before 8 -- although some articles say not before 9 or 10 p.m. It seems mighty late to us, but I'm sure we'll get used to it by the time we leave Spain. :-) Here's an interesting article about it from the New York Times earlier this year.

Beginning our vacation in Spain

We arrived in Spain yesterday - taking a direct flight from Atlanta to Madrid. I wasn't able to sleep on the plane at all; the flight seemed to go quickly even though it was approximately 8 1/2 hours. So, we spent much of our 1st day in Spain napping.

We did go out and walk around a bit, grabbed a quick snack and drink at Starbucks to take advantage of the free wifi. Then had dinner at an Italian restaurant just down the street from our hotel. It was just what we needed -- simple and casual. Neither of us felt like dressing up or waiting for a table.

Granted we didn't see much of Madrid, but I wasn't overly impressed. Nice, metropolitan city, but nothing really stuck out about it.

Today, we took a taxi to the Hertz rental car location nearest our hotel and drove to Bilbao. With traffic, it was almost a 4 hour trip. That's almost 2 hours shorter than the train because the train makes so many stops along the route from Madrid to Bilbao. That was the biggest factor in our deciding to rent a car.

It rained on us a good bit of the way. Most of interior Spain was dry, brown and dotted with rocky mountains. It reminded me of New Mexico. The closer we got to Bilbao, the greener it got -- more like the Argyle forest of Scotland.

We haven't ventured out to explore Bilbao yet. Scott's resting after the drive and I'm catching upon email, online news, etc.

Hopefully we'll have photos to post tomorrow.