My Sweetie and I...........................

 

..................just returned from a ten-day jaunt in Spain and Portugal.  A fabulous experience we highly recommend.  The weather was about perfect.  Mostly sunny blue skies, high day-time temperatures in the 70s, low night-time temperatures in the 50s.  We traveled with another couple.  None of us had familiarity with either the Spanish or Portuguese languages, but that fact created no issues for us.  Our lodgings were clean and comfortable and the hotel staff helpful. Restaurants abounded and we ate and drank well—menus typically had English sub-titles.  We enjoyed more gelato than is reasonable.  We were pleased not to be driving ourselves.  Both countries feature awkward traffic patterns and signals for those not familiar with them.  The idea of clearly identifying street names never apparently occurred to them, and the older parts of the cities (which are very old compared to anything in America) mostly consist of short, winding, narrow lanes.  Having said that, getting around was simple.  For local trips, splitting cab fare between four people made it easy and economical.  Having a map handy resolved any language issues.  If we couldn't understand each other all we did was point and say "here".  For longer trips, their high-speed rail was amazing.  The people we encountered treated us well and for the most part they seemed very pleased to be living where they were living.  Happy and there by choice.

      Both my Sweetie and my well-travelled cousin commented that we tried to fit too much into too short a time.   That being the only complaint, count this trip a success.  We highly recommend it.