A young Queen Marie Antoinette once said 'Let them eat cake!' Its lesser known in history that this saying travelled west through the porto grapevine to Portugal, the people taking it literally, and deciding that life simply could not exist in Lisbon without at least one pastry shop on every street. Most people have at one time or another tried the delicate dessert known in Australia as a Portuguese Tart, in Portugal these are called pasteis de nata. Just out...

Sometimes a city just 'gets under your skin' and there really is no other euphemism that can match how I feel about Sevilla. It really is burning under my skin, I want to see more, know there is more to see - and know I will be back again. I have really loved our 3 weeks in Spain, however throughout our time here I have been bothered by a sense that all is not how it should be, and perhaps that's because my first ever experience in Spain was Sevilla, and I expec...

There was fairly high expectation around our visit to the small city of Granada, which was under Moorish rule from the 13th century until 1492 when it was liberated by the Catholic Monarchs who unified Spain and Portugal. As such Granada has quite a great deal of historic Arab influence in its culture and architecture - even today a large Arab/Moorish Quarter is a central part of the city, as well as a large population of gypsies who are renowned for prying on un...

The Spanish word for 'Sun' is Sol, which is also the name of the colourful and noisy area we find ourselves staying in Madrid. It really is the beating heart of this enormous city, as you climb out of the metro station you literally see crowded streets darting off in all directions from the centre like rays of the sun. And after an emotional few weeks of ups and downs due to recent sadness, it is in Sol that I have finally felt the planets have begun to align on...

A three hour train trip from Barcelona saw us arrive in Valencia in the midday sun, and she kissed us with all the force of a shot of tequila on an empty stomach. Yes it's pretty hot down in the south of Spain and I am very glad I decided to leave my cold weather gear at Hotel de Jaunay in the UK. The train trip into this smaller Spanish city isn't the most scenic, and we really weren't sure what to expect as we passed farms growing cabbages, olives and orange...