Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

The build up to Retirement Trip Number Four was far from ideal. An operation, and a hospital stay that was longer than anticipated, brought us quite close to our leaving date for Spain, having already had to abandon the Azores/Portugal section of the proposed trip. I realised that my powers of recovery become somewhat slower the older I get!

It would have been difficult to pick somewhere more challenging for someone whose energy levels were well below par than the precipitous streets of Toledo’s Old Town. However, we made the best of it with bus and mini-train tours which afforded fabulous views of Toledo from the river. We also discovered a good bar restaurant on a small plateau, which offered more fantastic views out and down in the opposite direction.

The high speed AVE train to Granada was as much of a treat as ever. We felt we had the opportunity to see much more of the city than we had previously, and our day at the Alhambra and the Generalife Gardens was wonderful. Our apartment was in an edgy, graffiti-strewn district, which had good quirky bars and restaurants, and we achieved a long-held ambition by experiencing flamenco in the caves of Sacromonte.

Jerez de la Frontera offered a longer stay, in a great hotel with a huge pool and grounds, and again the opportunity to see much more of a city that we had only previously touched on. This included an enjoyable tour, sherry tasting, and sampling of the impressive art collection, at a world famous sherry bodega. A quick side trip to El Puerto de Santa Maria facilitated a wine-soaked dinner at our favourite tapas bar, Er Beti.

A flight across Spain to Barcelona took us on to our apartment in Sol del Este, for a relaxing conclusion on the beautiful Balearic Island of Menorca.

This time around, we have decided to move further east in the Mediterranean, to re-visit the Greek Islands, ferry-hopping around as we did for the first time back in 1980. We are scheduled to fly from Edinburgh to Santorini, the spectacular volcanic island which we first visited in 1983. I returned on a day trip back in 1991, but Fiona will be making only her second visit.

We’ll be staying in the same family-run hotel in Thera as we did in 1983, although its footprint (and its prices) have expanded considerably since then! No doubt the island’s integral beauty will endure, but I’m sure we’ll see a lot of changes.

From Santorini, we’ll take the ferry to Folegandros, a much quieter and less visited member of the Cycladic Island Group. It will be intriguing to visit a Cycladic island which may have echoes of past times on Mykonos and Santorini, before they became quite as busy as they now are.

Then another ferry to Paros, which we last visited in 1991. Again, the island will have seen a lot of change in the intervening period, but we hope it will have retained its original essence. Perhaps they won’t any more catch the small fry in a wee fishing net on the harbour side, fry them in bubbling oil on a camping stove, and pop them straight onto your plate – we shall see!

More ferrying will take us to Piraeus, the huge sea port of the Greek Capital Athens, for a single night, before it’s back to the ferry terminal for a trip to the fabled island of Hydra, which we missed out on back in 1980. Back to Piraeus for another night, then off to Athens airport for a flight to Mahón, and our second home on the island of Menorca. Well, we couldn’t stay away from Spain for a whole trip, could we?

The itinerary for this trip, and the series of links which relate to the relevant blog posts, can be found at Retirement Trip Number Five: Index of Blog Posts