We are lucky enough to stay in Old Town Lisbon about 3 blocks from the beach and really experience the charm of our neighborhood. Lovely old buildings, narrow steeply pitched streets lined with plenty of cafes and small businesses. Thankfully we are close to city transit making it easy to get around town.

The main city plaza -enormous, lined with historic national buildings that face the bay that leads to the Atlantic.

Trolleys reminiscent of SF are a fun way to tour the sites.

We spent last week exploring Northern Spain from the very chic and beautiful San Sebastián to Vigo and we loved our journey. We found the people open and warm and willing to take a minute to listen and help you. We found the area industrious from the small fishing crews to the farmers to the shopkeepers. Most with a ready smile on their face. We loved the mid sized cities with amazing museums and architecture and restaurants. And we found many of the small villages to have the same….amazing food, historic & beautiful architecture and proud & accomplished restaurateurs.

For our journey in our fiat we loved the fact that we could take small roads through villages & along coast and then switch to the major roads and toll roads when we wanted to make better time.

As there are few major cities in northern Spain, I think it seldom finds its way on to travel itineraries …..one of the best reasons to add it to your travel plans.

As we recuperated from our first Camino hike we love the rugged authentic north coast of Spain.

We love northern Spain. The coastline is spectacular ranging from stunning cliffs to sandy beaches. Seafood amazing. And variety from large metropolitan areas to tiny towns. Oviedo -large city beautiful architecture. OGrove – tiny island town with fun biking, excellent beachcombing, and the cutest church completely covered in scallop shells. And easy driving in our little Fiat.

Okay – I combine photos from 3 places when I have WIFI – very confusing for you.

Let me see ifI can catch up

San Vicente- sea bass dinner – and the view of the cove. That sea bass was swimming in the waters of the cove earlier that day – delicioso and our dinner view was of the cove which is the quintessential small Spanish fishing village. Earlier that day at the nearby beach we watched a kid’s surfing competition.

The photos of the funky & spectacular architecture is a Gaudi home located in Las Comillas-another small coastal town. This home designed by Gaudi is one of a handful located outside of Barcelona. The tiles are all unique and hand painted – tho similar – each is unique. The support members make for an interesting room. And the stained glass really fun. Take a close look – in one a crow is playing the piano 😳 and in the other a bee – one of Gaudi’s favs is also destined to be musical.

The really rocky shore photos are of Llanes – a fav town