From the Moorish Castle to Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal
Portugal has been on my short list of travel for several years now. I kept reading about and hearing from others about how many people love it and plan to retire here in the future. Not just those from the U.S. either. It is popular with many expats from other parts of Europe as well. Why? The weather, the ocean, the culture, the people and the food. Obviously we had to check it out. We flew from Rome and landed in Lisbon. There we rented a car and headed south to the region known as the Algarve. Thankfully, after the heat in Rome, the weather was clear and cool. [Read more…]
Our final destination in Spain is Seville. There is a great deal written about how wonderful the city is in books and on the internet so I decided we should stay here for a week. I found another great apartment in a central location and after visiting Ronda we drove our car into town (only getting lost once or twice) and turned it into the rental agency. All good. Once settled in we headed out to explore. Surprisingly because it doesn’t get dark there until after 10:00 p.m., it seems pretty natural to wait until 7:00-8:00 to eat. That of course is still early for Spaniards who typically wait until 10:00 to eat, but it worked just fine for us. We relaxed the first day in town (did some laundry) and prepared for our tour of the Real Alcazar–The Royal Palace–the following day. 
