Day 95, 7 October 2012, El Rastro and The Prado, Madrid - We were both moving quite slowly this morning. Can´t begin to imagine how many miles we covered with our hiking about yesterday, but can sure feel every one of them. Not ones to let sheer physical exhaustion get in our way however, we headed off to the biggest flea market in the world, El Rastro. With sign language demonstrations and warnings in Spanish echoing in our ears about the near certainty of h...

Day 94, 6 October 2012, Madrid - In three days or less! - We ventured along the Paseo de Prado and were overwhelmed with the lushness of the public buildings and sculptures everywhere, for example Plaza de Cibeles. Eventually we took a left and meandered down to Plaza Mayor (remember, that´s Pla-tha with a "th"). Our goal today was to check out a free tour provided by a company called Sandemans. It is the first of hopefully many tours as they operate in most ...

Day 66, 8 September 2012, Istanbul to Morocco. Via Madrid - Very, very productive day on the travelling front. We leaped out of bed at 4 am. OK, slight exaggeration. But definitely perkier than we have been due to the soft bed. We were at the airport within 5 minutes of leaving the hostel due to non-existent traffic and it actually took much longer to get through the onion-like layers of airport security. For once I looked like the terrorist risk - jacket off...