We finished our 2 month travel journey exploring around Lisbon, Portugal staying at a great airbnb in Estoril which is located about 15 km from Lisbon. Our place was a quick 5 minute walk to Poco Beach, one of many swimmable beaches along the promenade extending to Cascais to our west. It was great to be in a nice clean and bright space for 4 consecutive days to conclude our travels before heading to Madrid. We explored Lisbon our first day by taking the train in...

On our way to the seaside fishing village of Leiria, we stopped in Porto, Portugal, which we are calling a Portuguese version of Seattle. Porto seemed to have a laid back, rugged vibe with tons of cool looking wine/port shops. We roamed the steep streets despite the 90 degree temperature and checked out a cathedral on top of one of the many hills. Once on top of the hill, we then walked down and got on the oldest and likely steepest furnicular down to the river-a...

We easily drove across the border into Portugal and quickly got off the main highway to take the scenic route. We ended up stopping for lunch in a small festive town, Vila Nova de Cerveira. Colorful umbrellas hung across the cobblestone streets and we found camino shells lining the narrow road we went down guiding the Portuguese Camino route. Unlike much of Spain, the waiter spoke pretty fluent English and French. We discovered lots of French tourists throughou...

Onward to the northwest coast of Spain, Galicia. After spending 2 days in Gijon, we quickly found ourselves reading road signs in Galician and hearing this different Spanish. As we drove west, we saw lots of rolling hills , rivers and more greenery as we traveled to Betanzos. We arrived in the small town of Betanzos, a hilly village wedged between two rivers leading to the Atlantic Ocean, to stay in an airbnb right in the historic district. Staying in a historic ...

From Burgos, we spent the night in Valladolid, which is a working class town, that was a good stopping point for us so we could head to Segovia the next morning to pick up at Spanish residency cards. This was our second time in Segovia, so we knew the easiest parking garage to get to and how to navigate our way through this tourist town to get to the police station. This town had been our first overnight stop after arriving abroad and even the second time round, ...