Exploring the Ajuda Neighborhood On our escape from Europe, we are passing through Portugal’s vibrant capital for four days. Surprisingly we had never been here so we decided to devote our time to discovering the city, and save Sintra and surrounding areas for another visit. We chose an apartment west of the center in the Ajuda neighborhood, which we noted looks…
In Summary…. This was my second time and Greg’s third visit to Spain and although we definitely found more redeeming qualities, budget saving measures, and I had the huge asset of being able to walk this time, (yay!) we’ve still concluded, it’s not a top country for us. At least it’s not in the winter or summer, and there are…
Exploring the Town of Rota For the holiday season, we took a housesit somewhere we’ve never been together…the sparkling southern coast of Spain. Other than being home to a bizarrely familiar community, thanks to the US/Spanish Naval Base, Rota is a charming seaside destination with a quaint and quiet old town, whitewashed Andalusian houses, narrow streets and squares, and long,…
From Rota, where we spent the month housesitting, we took a day trip to the ancient city of Cádiz, which is a lesser known Spanish superstar known for being the “oldest continuously inhabited city” in Western Europe. Although it preludes Rome by centuries, it’s hardly a date in the bucket when compared with a city like Plovdiv, Bulgaria founded 6000…
From Porto, we jubilantly traded in our three words of Portuguese for Spanish as we boarded a 6-hour BlaBla car ride south to Sevilla with a pair of sultry-looking Spaniards, Daniel and Carlos. It cost a whopping $109, but whacked the bus time in half for the same price, which made it well worth it. It also meant we would…
In Summary... This was our second time to this Portuguese gem of a city…this time in much different circumstances. The first in May 2022 was a brief four days, warm, already congested and crowded, and I (Mandy) was on excruciatingly limiting crutches. The second, due to a 2.5 week housesit, was cool and rainy, easy to bypass any crowds, and I…
To Porto (from Baku, Azerbaijan) Our 38-hour westward odyssey from Baku to Porto...consisted of a series of unsatisfying siestas in stupendously contorted positions…three budget airplanes featuring a zero degree pitch on their seat back tilt…a hate/hate, literal on/off relationship with my now compulsory compression socks …and our saving grace thanks to our Venture X credit card, a stream of Shangri-La-ounges…
In Summary... Baku, Azerbaijan was an unexpected destination for 2025 on our way back to Europe from Central Asia, but it didn’t take long for us to become utterly enchanted by this underrated and under touristed destination. In fact, it’s a place we undeniably see ourselves returning to again, and though we needed downtime this visit, we’re also very eager to…
