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

A list of, and links to, the 11 blogs which resulted from this 6 week trip through Portugal and Spain is available on the Trip One Blog Index Page.

Back in 1980, Fiona graduated with an MA from Glasgow University.  Naturally, we decided to celebrate by traveling across Europe by train, on what was then called a Transalpino Rail Pass.  We set off by train from Edinburgh to London, ferry across the channel and then on to Paris, for our first stop: quite blase, as it was our second visit that year!

Destination number two was Lausanne in Switzerland, where we actually camped.  In a tent.  On into Italy, and the magical city of Venice – walking out of the railway station was like walking into a fairytale!  We ill-advisedly gave Verona a miss (still to be rectified), and carried on to Belgrade, then the capital of Yugoslavia, with the sand from the Venice Lagoon still between our toes.  Belgrade was not the most welcoming of cities in those days, though Fiona was thrilled to be taken to the Red Star stadium.  So it was on through the night to Athens, and our first taste of the Greek Islands!

We discovered a new world as we island-hopped through the Saronic Islands, alighting first on Spetses, then moving back towards Athens, staying on Poros and Aegina, with the spectacular Temple of Afaia, but missing out Hydra (another omission to be put right!).  We eventually ferried back to Piraeus, and spent some time sightseeing in Athens, albeit on a miniscule budget, in common with the rest of the trip.

Next up was the Black Sea Shipping Line to Alexandria, stopping in Larnaca, Cyprus (nice) then Laddaquia, Syria (not nice) – gun shots on the harbour side and heavily armed men in a dockside shanty town were discouraging.   After alighting in the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, we hired a driver to take us to Cairo – the car broke down in the middle of nowhere, at dead of night.

Ten days in the wonderful, but stressful, capital of Egypt were never to be forgotten – despite eating off street stalls and in very cheap cafes, surprisingly our stomachs survived.  We boarded the first plane of our trip in Cairo (98 deg) to fly via Sofia and Brussels (- 4 deg) to London, then a final train trip home to Edinburgh, with 0.60p in our pockets.

38 years later, we decided to see if we could still do it, albeit over a smaller area of the globe, by training our way through Portugal and Spain, ending up in our other home on the beautiful island of Menorca.  Our trip is outlined on the map below, it goes:  Oporto – Douro Valley –  Coimbra – Guarda in Portugal, then across into Spain for Salamanca – Avila – Sevilla – Puerto de Santa Maria (for Cadiz and Jerez) – Palma de Mallorca – Mahon, and La Gardenia, Sol del Este.

A list of, and links to, the 11 blogs which resulted from that 6 week trip through Portugal and Spain is available on the Trip One Blog Index Page.