WE'RE OFF AGAIN! EUROPE 2012

¡Hola from Madrid, El Escorial, y Segovia!

Fútbol outside of the El Escorial Monastery

Europe 2012

We departed for Spain, France, and Italy on September 3; the adventure will last two months, until October 29!

Beginning with a visit to Madrid to see Álvaro's family, we'll continue on to Valencia, Benidorm, Ibiza, Barcelona, Marseille, Nice, Genova, Florence, Venice, and (possibly) Santiago, before coming full circle back to Madrid.

***Update! It ended being--> Madrid, Benidorm, Barcelona, Ibiza, Barcelona again, Limoges, Paris, Venice, Rome, Toulouse, San Sebastian, Seville, and back to Madrid
STAY TUNED FOR A POST FROM EACH CITY!

My next post will sum up my time here in Spain´s capital. Look for an entry as we depart from each location / city--- coming soon is a calendar outlining a loose itenerary so you´ll have a better idea when that will be.

So it seems the plan outlined in the previous post (east coast of Spain, southern France, northern Italy) needed to be revised. We severely OVERestimated Europe´s size... as we had planned to use our flexible Eurail "travel days" (one-way train trips) on what we didn´t realize were only 2-3 hour journeys (my how far transportation technologies have come). Alvaro´s family gave us invaluable advice; we´re paying for this train pass so why not get as much out of it as we can and take the longest trips possible in order to see the most beautiful and highly-recommended parts of the countries we´re visiting? And now that we´re more familiar with how these passes work, visiting these places no longer seems impossible. (How nice it is to have such knowledgable guides as we´re just starting out!)

Now, instead of skirting only the southernmost towns of France, we´ll be hopping from Barcelona to Paris; Paris to Milan; Milan to Rome, then Venice, Florence, and back to France to see Nice and the surrounding towns. After that, we´ll be heading back to Spain to see the northern coast (San Sebastian) and then bringing it full circle to Madrid.

This seems like a much better bang for our transportation buck; not to mention getting to see the capitals of these countries I may not see again for a very long time... if ever.

Once again, I welcome any feedback / advice.

Onward to Alicante & Benidorm tomorrow =)