Made it home safely (Apr 12 - May 12). Had a great time and saw many new places.
We started off right with icy drinks on our way from FL.
Most of the sidewalks in Ponta Delgada have a different tiled surface. We had an excellent lunch at a cafe on the central square. Was the only rain we suffered on the trip.
With our tuk-tuk tour driver in Lisbon. We took a tour of the Alfama district and spent a pleasant afternoon enjoying lunch with a couple we met from England. Needless to say, we sampled several port wines over the 3hr+.
Santiago de Compostela as a city was much, much more than we had anticipated. We will be returning to spend several more days as there is so much we missed. We will either walk or bicycle part of the Camino de Santiago to earn our certificate (no one wants to spend more time then necessary in purgatory
).
The Guggenheim was excellent and Bilbao is another outstanding place to visit.
We enjoyed so much we canceled our time schedule in San Sebastian and stayed in Bilbao.
We enjoyed Biarritz and had a balcony overlooking the ocean, but one really needs to rent a car to get down to the ocean. While we enjoyed, we likely won't return. Needless to say (check out the name of the cafe - Le Comptoir du Foie Gras), we enjoyed some excellent pâté.
Spent a day in St-Emilion and had a wonderful lunch (again, almost 3hr). With so many good wines available almost anywhere in France and most waiters being professionals, we generally ask our waiter to select the wine. We've yet to be disappointed. The wine maker of the wine my wife had was having lunch with the owner at a neighboring table. This pic is looking down into the central town square. We ate at the Lard et Bouchon, which is located in a cave cut into the side of one of the hills the town is built on.
Moules Frites in Bordeaux. Enjoyed our walk along the waterfront. Every cafe/bistro seems to have hamburgers these days. I had to try one and it was excellent. Not much different from a good gourmet burger here. Again, excellent wines (but twice the $$ as excellent wines in Portugal/Spain).
TGV from Bordeaux to Paris. We took the slow one (3hr9min at 180mph). Got there in time to check-in and have a late breakfast. Terrific carafe of Brouilly red, which we were not familiar with and suggested by our waiter.
We enjoy visiting the smaller churches to view the windows like these in the St-Severin. The brilliant colors of these ancient windows on a sunny day are amazing. We enjoyed excellent omelettes at a cafe just outside the entrance. The Jardin Luxembourg was in full bloom and we enjoyed a 1/2 day cooking class that included shopping at an open-air market prior to cooking our meal.
