Today proved to be the worst travel day we have ever had in all our trips to Europe. We decided, for some unknown reason, to make a dash across France to go to Genoa in Italy - a distance of over 500km. I don't know what we were thinking - we usually limit our driving to about 3 hours max. Anyway, off we went. At least the weather was good (in fact except for a couple of rainy days, we have been blessed with really good mild weather - Snow in Clermont-Ferrand was...

Left Barcelona the other day to cross back into France - Montpellier this time, down on the south coast. Driving northwards from Barcelona the snow capped peaks of the Pyrenees were constantly coming into view on our left - when we could see them through the smog haze. Never noticed it when we arrived in Barcelona, but to the north of the city there is a brownish haze hanging over the countryside. Doesn't look very appealing at all. Once we got past Girona (a lit...

Left Zaragoza on the 28th and headed to Barcelona, where we spent the last couple of days before we head back into France. So far Spain has not disappointed us. It has exceeded our expectations and blown our preconceived ideas away. And Barcelona has been the same. For a city of 1.6 million people, its doesn't appear over crowded, the traffic is not as chaotic as you would expect, and there is a sense of space not evident in other large European cities. We know ...

Spent our last day in Zaragoza exploring more of the back streets of the city before visiting the Goya museum. The museum was a bit different to what we expected. Only a small part of it was dedicated to Goya himself. The rest of the space was allocated to artists who were "influenced" by Goya. Still fairly interesting but not what we expected. The exhibits of Goyas works highlighted a few things about Goya as a person:Goya was a political satiristGoya was a soc...