Barb and Baden’s 2nd Spanish Adventure – Part 1

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 12 years since our last trip to Spain. Barb and I have so many good memories of that trip back in 2003 and it’s surprising that it’s taken us this long to plan our 2nd Spanish Adventure.

Our itinerary will be taking us to regions of Spain that we have never been to before other than Madrid which is our airport hub in and out of the country. As we did in 2003, we will also be renting a house for several days for part of our trip and we’ll have a rental car for the majority of the time so getting around will be a bit more flexible. Overall, we have quite different plans of this trip than our previous trip to Spain. More on that later.

As I’m writing this section we leave for the airport in a few hours so all of the last few months of planning will start becoming reality today. I’ll add another update soon after we arrive in Spain.

Long Day

Getting to Spain from Vancouver is always going to be a long, tiring day and there’s just no way around that. Of course what keeps us going throughout the almost 12 hours combined flights to get to Madrid was the first 6 days that we would be spending in the north of Spain in the country house that we had rented. Adding to our long flight was a 4 hour drive from Madrid, arriving at our house in the early evening. In hind sight I thing that it would have been a better idea to take a flight closer to our current location and avoid such a long drive.

Nonetheless, we’re here and we have many days to relax and leisurely explore the area.

Located near the small town of Uztegi, the updated 400 year old house that we’re now staying at is located in the mountains that are common in northeast Spain. We’re on a large property and we can’t see any of the neighbouring houses from any of the upstairs windows. The house seems to have been updated many times and the modern interior likely has little remaining from the original house built in 1593.

Once we had settled in to our house yesterday, we made a quick trip to the local store for some supplies. This morning we feasted on farm fresh eggs and sausage that was also locally made. It took us some time to figure out the stove-top coffee maker but we were enjoying coffee with our breakfast in no time. While it was overcast around 18-20 degrees this morning, the sun started to peek out and I quickly ran out with my camera to get a few outdoor photos. We’re hoping that it will be a bit cooler today than the low-30’s that it was yesterday. Nonetheless, we’re prepared for any kind of weather and plan to enjoy the rural surroundings today and over the next days to come.

I have limited Internet access for this part of our trip and I’ll likely update my blog when we start the next stage of our 2nd Spanish Adventure.

Baden