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Spain and the Canary Islands
  • Delaneys to Go

Spain and the Canary Islands

It’s the big 70th for Tory and Christine. To celebrate (a little early), we are off on a cruise to the Canary Islands followed by 2 weeks in Spain. Bring on the tapas, paella and wine! Read more
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  • Delaneys to GoSpain and the Canary IslandsTraveler

    Lost Again

    March 21, 2019 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 15 °C

    After a slow start to the morning, Tory and Christine set out on foot to try and find a new restaurant that had been recommended on Trip Advisor. The men left later, with the van to meet them at the Tourist Information kiosk. The restaurant was found but no joy at the kiosk; still closed. That’s ZERO for 5 attempts!! We cruised the town till we found a parking spot and visited the VRA, a small, open air museum of a Roman Villa with a partial excavation of a Roman bath. The exhibit was modest but the young man running it was very helpful with how we should spend our last 2 days. Armed with his directions we set the GPS and drove away. Almost 2 hours later, we had traveled through farmers fields, orange groves, pot-holed dirt tracks.....you get the picture. We gave up, found a paved road and consoled ourselves with wine and pizza at the first open restaurant nearby.Read more

  • Delaneys to GoSpain and the Canary IslandsTraveler

    As Usual

    March 22, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    The weather returned to what we had come to expect; sunny with some clouds and 16 C.
    As usual, we left around 10 a.m. but this time checked the internet to confirm our route.
    Our day trip this time was a half hour jaunt north to a pretty town called Polop. Amazingly the van’s GPS found the town easily (it probably knew we were checking it).

    We parked near an “I” which to our surprise was open, and got a local map and a brief history of a famous Spanish author, Gabriel Miro, who had lived there. Back in the van, we wound our way through narrow streets, up the mountain (again) to the old town. We were forced to walk the last kilometre, past small houses, a church, through a small square to the remains of the castle. Almost at the top, there was a small bar/cafe. We stopped for coffee, delicious croissants and a magnificent view.

    That evening we returned to Lings, a restaurant we had visited the first night. The staff is friendly, the food delicious and it was a lovely ending to our stay.    Read more

  • Delaneys to GoSpain and the Canary IslandsTraveler

    Good and Bad

    March 24, 2019 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Our last driving day began well. All packed, we set out on the toll highway. Good weather and light traffic made the trip easy. Passing miles and miles of orange groves it was hard to believe Spain is only ranked 6th in their production (Brazil is #1). We breezed through the toll booths laughing about how we had struggled with them 2 weeks ago. It’s expensive but Google told us we were saving 1.5 hours for the last 500 km. Our troubles began when we came to the last toll. Christine couldn’t find the credit card we had been using. Our best guess was that it had fallen out a the restaurant we had stopped at for lunch. At the hotel, she called Visa and Roger and Brian returned the rental van to the airport. Remembering we had to top up the gas tank, we pulled in to make a quick purchase. Not so fast. Despite Roger following all the robotic instructions, the pump would not work! He had already put in his credit card info so we were reluctant to move and try another pump. To make matters worse, the station was fully automatic and unmanned. We tried asking people in adjacent stores to no avail. Our luck changed when a young woman drove up behind us. She volunteered to phone her sister in law who spoke English and talked us through an alternate way of purchasing gas. Good.

    Leaving the station, our GPS decided to have one last hiccup. Bad. After going in circles for 5 minutes, we finally got directions from the cursed machine and returned the van. We couldn’t wait to tell them our tale of woe. The Enterprise representative couldn’t have been nicer. She listened to all our complaints, apologized profusely, explained what we could have done differently and gave us a substantial rebate. Good!

    Back at our airport hotel, we reconnected with our wives and enjoyed a complimentary glass of cava (not very good) and eventually, a surprisingly good dinner. Good.    Read more

  • Delaneys to GoSpain and the Canary IslandsTraveler

    Final Thoughts

    March 31, 2019 in Canada ⋅ ❄️ 0 °C

    All in all it was a very successful trip. NCL was more than adequate and the larger ship and good weather made for smooth sailing. The Gaudí Sagrada Família is amazing and a “must see” for anyone visiting Barcelona.
    The people of Spain were quite friendly to tourists; especially the staff in the restaurants.
    It was unfortunate that the Tourist Information places were often closed. We think it was a combination of the time of the year; siesta breaks and bad luck.
    The roads we drove were in good repair, we just didn’t stay on them, blindly following our GPS. Five out of every ten cars that passed us were BMW’s doing at least 140 KPH on the toll highways.
    They use two languages in Spain: Spanish (Castilian) and Catalan (Valencian); wished we had known that sooner.
    The flights to Europe were uneventful but 7 hours in Economy across the Atlantic, wait times in airports and 6 hour time differences take their toll. We took the melatonin at each end which did help but I fear theses long trips will come to an end in a few short years.    Read more

    Trip end
    March 24, 2019
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