Arriving into Lisbon early at 7.30am after having breakfast in the dining car we made our way by metro to the Novotel to leave our bags before returning to town to see the sites. We first came across the Praca do Comercio with long important looking buildings lining three sides of the square and the fourth facing out to the water. Along the water we had to face the climb up through winding cobbled streets firstly to the 'Se' (Cathedral) and then further up to the...

Really nothing to report today as I spent much of the night with stomach cramps & food poisoning. We ended up paying for a late 6pm checkout and I stayed in bed all day, my stomach still cramping in waves. Once we checked out we walked as far as Placa de Santa Ana (about half way into the centre) for some dinner, although I just picked at the tapas we ordered then we returned to collect our bags & go to the station for our overnight train to Lisbon. Lucky...

We had the morning to see some more of Barcelona and decided to see Park Guell, another Gaudi creation which he had set out to be a utopian community but he passed away before it was finished. Just a few metro stops and then it was uphill to the side entrance of the park but luckily the steep street had escalators which ran up the middle! The park was quite busy but a nice place to meander around as it was well maintained and cool in the shade. Some of the struct...

The first stop on the Barcelona Tourist trail today was Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's very different take on church design. At €13 to get in we just had a quick look at the unusual modernist outside before wandering back towards Las Ramblas via the Casa Batllo, another of Gaudi's buildings with a wavey kind of effect on the facade. We continued down into the Barri Gothic area and found some lunch near the cathedral. From here we followed lane ways until we came to t...

Flying to Spain this morning we were up early to take the train to the airport for our 10.10 flight to Barcelona. The hour forty flight, though a few minutes late went smoothly enough & then we were on the train to Sants Station to sort out reservations for our train to Madrid in a few days. Little did we know that we would be sitting on some hard wooden chairs for close to an hour & a half watching numbers tick over excruciatingly slowly until our ticket...