Road trips

Córdoba & Seville: Spanish Road Trip Part 4

Córdoba and Seville road trip; one night in Córdoba; bleh B&B, perfect parking; Córdoba’s magnificent Mosque-Cathedral; 8th-century hypo-style mosque hall; 17th-century Renaissance cathedral; flamenco at El Pañuelo; running Córdoba: the irresistible Rïo Guadalquivir, the Puente Romana bridge and the romantic Roman Gate; a whole lot of bull on the way to Seville; perillous parking, delightful digs; el scorchio temperatures but Spanish brain freeze; Seville Cathedral and Reál Alcázar, closed on Sundays; trotting the Guadalquivir… again; El Burladero, Christina’s Bistro, Bar Alfalfa; what’s with the girly drinks, Roy?; Next up: Cadiz and Tarifa!

Plaza de España Seville
Plaza España, Seville – unmissable on any Córdoba and Seville road trip or Seville itinerary

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Madrid, Toledo & El Santo Reserve: Spanish Road Trip Part 3

Madrid and Toledo itinerary; breakdown on a godforsaken highway; traditional English breakfast near Albacete; based in Pozuelo for Madrid and Toledo itinerary; wobbly bits and wrinkly knees at Museo Prado; G&T culture big in Spain; Zara closed! – gran sorrow on the Gran Via; triple hat-shop saga: in pursuit of a pointy Panama; birthday lunch on Plaza Mayor; day trip to Toledo; cobbled alleys, knights and swords in shiny Toledo steel; traditional menú del día in historic centre of Toledo; indescribably stunning El Santo Reserve, an exclusive reserve near Madrid; on to Córdoba!

As part of our Madrid and Toledo itinerary, we had planned to drive to Madrid so as to be in the capital for Roy’s birthday. Thank goodness Hertz was reasonably on the ball, and we didn’t end up spending his big day day sweltering on a dark desert highway.

Getting to Madrid by car … eventually!

Have you ever broken down on a remote highway? Were you far away from home, driving a rental car in a foreign country? Well, for us this was a first.

Rudely interrupting Roy’s carefully crafted Madrid and Toledo itinerary, the drive to Madrid was abruptly halted when the Skoda from Hertz broke down on the A-36. In the middle of nowhere. Within minutes, a traffic police vehicle arrived with a man who wanted to make sure we were okay and to put out half-a-dozen of those crucial cones.

ChatGPT kindly reconstructed the moment for us – stranded on a highway on the way to Madrid

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7 Days in Dénia, Costa Blanca: Spanish Road Trip Part 2

7 days in Dénia on the Costa Blanca; why Dénia?; UNESCO City of Gastronomy; getting there, no thanks to Trevor the Twat; mostly about Wendy and a bit about Bob; the joys of jogging; smelly seagulls and civil servants at Dénia Castle; Els Magazinos market; grape-vine blight and toy factories; free vs paid museums; market bar vermut and tapas; mediocre menú del día; warding off scurvy at Origen; ode to aioli; Altea and Jávea; Jésus Pobre gastronomic and cultural market; pondering the plight of blight-benighted peasants; farewell to Wendy; on to Madrid!

Verne, Wendy and Roy at Café Opera, Altea

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7 Days in Barcelona: Spain Road Trip Part 1

7 Days in Barcelona; GPS Catch 22; Sant Adrià de Besòs apartment; cheap and easy trams and metro; cathedrals, churros and chocolate in the Old City; Sant Roy the Goody-Goody; no Gaudi at the history museum – nada!; Barceloneta beach and Port Vell; Roy the Spontaneous ascends Montjuic; La Sagrada Familia; Roy the Wanderer at Park Güell; solace at Bar Vell; menú del día at D’Ins; menu ouvrier flashback to 2019; pig’s feet and buttifara at Mussol; A Tale of Two Markets; Barceloneta Restaurant with the Gidlows; bitterly failed Zara expedition; pricey cocktails at speakeasy Paradiso; vermut with Jefferson; paella at Port Forum

How did anyone ever get anywhere without GPS? I remember the days of paper maps and I admit they weren’t pretty. But now it seems we need two or even three devices to help us do the job of a single paper map, albeit badly mis-folded and usually held upside down.

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Spain Road Trip 2026 – Prologue

Spain road trip; pictorial preview of Madrid, thanks to ChatGPT!; A Short History of Spain: Contiki 1982, Portugal/Spain 1989, 1990s Torrox and Nerja; three stages of travel; planning and plotting; learning Spanish; getting there; Hertz so good

So, this is our big trip for 2026 – a six-week-long Spain road trip! Last year, 2025, it was a cruise, Canada and the US: a Holland America cruise from Sydney to Vancouver, followed by 10 days in Vancouver and a road trip down the US west coast to California. (See here for my post on Lake Tahoe and work backwards to Vancouver, if you like.)

When I gave ChatGPT a photo of myself – hair newly waved – and asked it for a picture of me and my new iPhone in Madrid, this is what it came up with. Impressive, hey? I almost suggested we cancel our flights.

Spain road trip, Madrid
ChatGPT’s preview of me in Madrid, con mi iPhone neuvo

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Splendid Lake Tahoe Weekend: Boating & Partying – May 2025

Splendid Lake Tahoe weekend: boating & partying; getting there: JSX flight to Reno, like catching a bus; liver punishment briefly postponed; Tahoe Beach Club; oysters and filé gumbo at Oyster Bar, Stateline Nevada; living it up on the lake with Eric and Renée; Steve, the Cold Plunge Hero of Emerald Bay; exactly why Fun Ain’t Easy; Vesper martinis to die for (or from); The Lucky Beaver and The Naked Fish; Lest we Forget add-on: Solo in Durban: my solo trip for Julie’s 60th Birthday; Up Next: Singapore and Bawah Reserve, Indonesia, yay!

Lake Tahoe Weekend

Our friends Ellie and Steve have a fabulous holiday home at Tahoe Beach Club on Lake Tahoe, Nevada. To surprise us while we were spending a week with them in California, they had booked JSX flights from Orange County’s John Wayne Airport – a small airport conveniently close to their Newport beach condo – to Reno, Nevada.

Boarding a JSX semi-private jet flight to Reno

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Newport Beach, California, May 2025

Getting to Newport Beach, Orange County; Malibu still a no-go after 2025 fires; LA still a great big freeway; Roy’s Death Row birthday menu; ferry to Balboa Island; swilling Chablis at Circle Hook, sublime soft serve at Somi Somi, unphotogenic raclette at Basilic; palm tree trivia: feeble fronds and a dearly departed arborist; sublime casual dining at JOEY’s; lunch “on the beach” at Montage Resort, Laguna Beach; purveyors of boots and artichokes at San Juan Capistrano; huge thanks to our amazing hosts – next up, Lake Tahoe!

Steve, Ellie, Roy and a trio of Vesper martinis

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California Road Trip to Santa Barbara – Part Two

Road trip to Santa Barbara; Big Sur closed, and 16 miles of denial; the alternative: Salinas Valley, the salad bowl of the world; the Mexican at San Simeon; not visiting Hearst Castle; San Luis Obispo Bay – say that 10 times, quickly; the very big rock at Morro Bay; declaring a lucky day; my main problem with road trips; San Luis Obispo: two missions (church and café); Los Olivos, but alas no wine; Solvang, a little Denmark; beautiful Santa Barbara; Stearns Wharf and sausages; Derek at Joe’s Café, the world’s most generous – and ethical – barman; life-saving meatloaf and short-rib; Newport Beach, here we come!  

Prologue

This is a huge one! But I have managed to cover the whole of the rest of our Pacific Highway road-trip… so hang in to the end for some gorgeous pics of Roy and Santa Barbara. Here’s a preview:

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Big Sur Road Closure Denial

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California Road Trip, May 2025: Part 1

California road trip to Monterey via Santa Cruz; preview of 3 theme parks; the road less travelled to Santa Cruz; subdued fun at The Boardwalk, Santa Cruz; On the Carousel… or not; and then we have an ice cream; lunch at Carmel-by-the-Sea; whisky and wines of the best; a visceral flinch; Old Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey; smelly old sea lions; Osteria Al Mare; scenes from Cannery Row and a couple of Steinbeck quotes

For my previous post about how we got to San José to embark on this California road trip (spoiler alert: by train), plus some almost inconceivably lovely photos of Roy, click here.

To Monterey via Santa Cruz

Today’s sightseeing felt like visiting a series of three theme parks, albeit with very different themes. Here’s a quick preview:

#1 The first was an actual amusement park, The Boardwalk at Santa Cruz.

#2 The second was the almost impossibly cute town of Carmel.

#3 And the third was Monterey’s Cannery Row, themed around Steinbeck’s novel of the same name.

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Train to San José, California, May 2025

Train to San José: all aboard the Amtrak overnight choo-choo; dinner in the diner; dissing Reese’s and devouring Frank & Louie’s; Rock Me (un)Gently; stunning San José station; Santana Row and shopping

It’s an overnight journey of 19.5 hours from Portland, OR to San José CA. With a couple of hours to spare before our 2.30pm departure, we enjoyed the comfort of Portland Union Station’s Metropolitan Lounge. (Here is our Amtrak eTicket.)

Lured by the help-yourself drinks and snacks bar, I succumbed not only to the Reese’s peanut butter cups but also to Miss Vickie’s Jalapeño Kettle Cooked Chips. (Purely in the interest of cultural research, of course. Fortunately, though our local supermarkets in Western Australia do stock Reese’s peanut butter cups, I’m now relieved to know that they’re fairly yuck; definitely not worth the calorie and chemical splurge.)

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