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…
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…
Happiest of New Year's to all of you! We wish you love, joy and happy travels in 2026! For us, 2025 began at a month-long housesit in the upside-down where winter is summer, and summer is winter. While listening to new carols which could really enhance the Mariah Carey selection like Six White Boomers and My Dingo Stole my Christmas…
The Extraordinary Village of Melnik To celebrate Greg’s 47th birthday, we chose to have an overnight escape to the seductive teacup-of-a-town called Melnik, which we first visited on a whirlwind hour-long dash and drink in 2019, thanks to the inconvenient buses we had to catch from Blagoevgrad. This time, catching a direct bus from Sandanski, we were thrilled to spend more…
From Sandanski, it was time to head 9 hours northeast to our next one month perch in Plovdiv, which we’d be splitting between a private apartment and a housesit. Now, one might look at this nine-hour chunk of time and think…that’s absurd in a country the size of Iowa. It kind of is, considering we weren’t even crossing half of it.…
