Tuesday, 5/7. Busy day. Lots of photos and a video. Drove to Gibraltar, which exceeded expectations. The cable car was closed for maintenance so we signed up for the “Taxi Tour”. Took us up and down the Rock with several stops and prepaid visits to a couple exhibits. St. Michael’s Cave was very interesting. It seconds as a music hall. A section of the cliff was dug into by engineers to build gun emplacements, which now looks down on the airport. Walking across an active airport was once-in-a-lifetime thrill. (Why do it twice?) The Rock is filled with history. I need to buy a book.

Plane taking off was exciting.

Visiting the Tio Pepe Winery in Jerez. “Sherry” is the bastardized word the English created from “Jerez”. A bit boring, but a nice stop. I couldn’t drink anything. Rather, I couldn’t swallow any of the wine.

In a first, we’re staying in a hotel with very little English spoken. Also, we need to drive into Seville tomorrow. We’ll manage.

Monday, 5/6. Boat to Tangier. Do customs on board. Met guide, who was nice but sadly lacking in guide skills. Spent too much time chatting up acquaintances along the way.

I’ve been twice before, so the point was to get Yoriko onto Africa. Then onto a camel. Short 50 yard ride, but the photo exists for eternity. Walking through the medina was a thrill. Lunch was so-so. Companions learned that beer is not normally available in Muslim restaurants. Yoriko and I visited one of the oldest hotel bars in the city and had wine.

Neither of us bought much. A scarf. Oddly, it was not the first day of Ramadan for Morocco, though it was for the rest of the Islamic world. Morocco has some literal interpretation of the Koran which requires that the moon must be seen. Computer predictions are ignored. It was clear that many in Tangier disregarded the state, as a lot more Moroccans than normal were wearing traditional Arab clothing.

On our return Yoriko celebrated with a plate full of mussels. Not many photos.

Sunday, 5/5 Got out of Granada with far less stress than we got in. I’ve realized that Google Maps and Maps.Me have a programed aversion to narrow streets. I’ve begun to ignore their advice and just charge down the shortest route, even when it’s barely wider than the car.

Ronda, found by Yoriko, is a charming little city that has an incredible bridge (Google “Ronda” Images, and you’ll see) and the reputation of being the founder of professional “gentlemanly” bullfighting. I suspect there are competing claims. But it was the second place to have a formal training school for horsemanship (Vienna beat them by two years). Excellent audio tour. Disgusting concept. BTW, bullfighter is not considered a sport. Look for it in newspapers and it’s in the Arts Section. Here’s a Youtube post of a horse with an itch.

The bridge is massive. ‘nough said. Yoriko had paella for the first time on the trip and was satisfied. Bought some local wine which is supposed to be gaining in reputation. We’ll see.

Getting to Tarifa via back roads was delightful. Part was on A-405. Though only two lanes with a speed limit of about 42 MPH, it still seemed faster and was certainly more enjoyable than US405. Got to Tarifa with no stress. Walked around. The city is the southernmost point of mainland Europe. Cool.

Dinner was fish and seared tuna. Pleasant. Inexpensive. Tomorrow we go to Tangiers. Yoriko’s first time in Africa.

Saturday, 5/4. (May the Fourth Be With You.) Tour was all in English. 25 people, which seems a lot, but it worked out. The guide (Bert) made it pretty clear early on that those who fall behind get left behind. He walked at a proper slow pace anyway, talking (educating) all the time. Place was crowded but not noisy. A clear majority were in a tour, so all were listening to their guides. As there are 8,000 people going through each day, there was no dawdling.

The place is overwelming in history, architecture and beauty. Though much of the site is a reconstruction (Napoleon’s retreating army did a lot of destruction), there is enough original structure to get a grasp of what it looked like in its prime. Ferdinand and Isabel deserve a lot of credit for getting past their anger and declaring the Alhambra a National Treasure. I think Spain has done a marvelous job being faithful in their reconstruction. It was a 3 hour tour that was worth the cost.

The rest of the day was spend eating slowly, watching people go by, and random window shopping. Saw people dressed up for at least 2 weddings (we think). No one was in a hurry to get anywhere. Had a fancy dinner with a five star view.

Friday, 5/3. Alhambra is visible everywhere one goes. We don’t tour it until tomorrow. Did the Hop-On/Hop-Off to get an overall view of the city. It was more of a Wait/Hop-On/Wait-Some-More kind of tour. Most was wasted time. But we did get to see where things were and where to focus our time. Walking was the how.

Did two self-walking tours, both excellent. The cathedral was nice and relatively simple compared to the one in Toledo. The Royal Chapel, where Ferdinand and Isabel rest, was even less embellished. Relatively. Both audioguides were irritating in that the script assumed I knew complex architectural and religious terminology and was (or could become) a devout christian. Even more than usual, the Cathedral was nestled in among other buildings. Clearly, lawns were not a thing.

There is still a great deal of Moorish flavor. The market place could have been in Tangier. Hookah rooms. Moroccan style clothing for sale. Etc.

Found restaurants that served tapas with every drink. I experimented with the Tubo beer, Alhambra beer, sherry, and a sangria-like blend of wine and Sprite. Got four tapas. Yoriko had one beer and most of the sherry with one tapa. About $15.

We climbed to the scenic lookout. In fact we did it twice, the second time to watch Alhambra during sunset. Marvelous.

Thursday, 5/2. Uber to Airport for the car. Audi. Not the kind that you see in America. The kind that reminds you that Audi is owned by Volkswagen. First gear is extremely finicky. Tiny pedals, close together. I hunger for my motorcycle, for many reasons.

Drive on highways easy. Arrived in Toledo with some routing confusion. Offline mapping software is faulty. The town was crowded (it’s another holiday). Did an audio tour of the cathedral. After St. Peter’s, it’s the most incredible I’ve seen. Since its construction bishops have sought to put their own mark on the building, so it’s layer upon layer of ostentatious additions. Sculptures run amok. Had a fine lunch, toured the shops. Knife’s are big here, both figuratively and literally.

Getting out of the city was maddening. Every sign seemed to point to Madrid!! I disregarded the navigator several times because she was directing me to a Madrid onramp, which made it worse. Very upsetting. “Road rage” is a misstated description of the actual direction of anger, but not in this case!

Finally got headed south to the La Mancha windmills. Getting up to the hilltop was a chore due to insanely narrow streets that appeared to me to be walking alleys. (I would soon learn better.) But the view from the top was 360 degrees great, though the tourists were annoying. Could have sat up there for hours, but we were behind schedule.

Drive to Granada was unexciting. Directions to the hotel were the opposite. Four pages, with photos. Many turns were guesses, but we in fact made none wrong. Streets got progressively narrower until we were on a street(?) that doubled as a walkway along a creek. A car behind assured me I wasn’t completely lost, but I was terrified that I’d taken a wrong turn with no way to get out. We successfully found the hotel. Breath of relief. Arabic style home converted to a hotel. Felt I was back in Morocco. Beautiful area. We had dinner at the place recommended by Andy and Jazzy. Walked, slept very well.

Wednesday, 5/1. May Day. A holiday. Closures were common. We strolled from point to point but entered few sights. There is an Egyptian Temple which was relocated in total in thanks of Spain’s help in moving Abu Simbel before the Aswan Dam was built. A street considered Madrid’s answer to Broadway (a poor answer). We visited other locations, but none matching yesterday’s sights.

We ate. We watched Spaniards eat. We took a nap. In essence, we used today as a jet lag catchup. In the evening we had tapas. The place I aimed at was closed, I assumed for the day. Then I realized that 8 PM was too early. They opened at 8:30.

Tomorrow I get a car and we head to Granada via Toledo and the La Mancha windmills.

Tuesday, 4/30. Palace, Art Gallery, Park, Pub Crawl. And Food. Lots of food.

Owing to the fact that tomorrow is a holiday, we squeezed both the Palace tour and Art Gallery visit into one day. The Tour was bi-lingual, meaning that half the time the guide was not giving half the people a tour. Not to my liking. I feel I only got half a tour. The Palace is the largest one in the world, measured by interior space. Though we saw better ornate rooms on our river tour cruise last year, there were a lot of rooms here. Impressive was that it’s still essentially a functioning Palace for special events. Obama ate here. The last king abdicated here. Very nice. Exhausting and rushed tour. I’m sure we missed a lot. The adjacent Armory Museum was incredible. If you think you’ve seen knights’ armor, you really haven’t until you’ve seen this place. Among other things, over a dozen beautiful ceremonial armor for children!

The Prado Art Gallery (“one of the three largest in the world”) was immense and confusing. Fortunately Yoriko had some Japanese guidance for which artist was the most sight worthy. We were able to focus on finding these which was vastly more rewarding (and time-saving) than just wandering from room to room.

Madrid is very clean, even though there are lots of homeless. Very few hawkers. Street sellers have their products attached to a sheet which is attached to ropes. They see the police, pull on the ropes, and their product is compressed into a bundle, allowing for a quick escape.

The main city “square” was occupied by Venezuelans, supporting regime change. Peaceful.

Had two small meals during the day with not-so-small tapas. It appears restaurants are taking liberty with the word tapas. The evening Tour (starting at 8!) was a historic walk with four restaurant/tapas stops. (Tapas literally means “lid”, to describe food which could be placed over a glass to keep dust and flies out.) Excellent guide, very fun companions. Huge selection of food. Defies a short description.