Great voyage with 17 USA tourmates to a different part of Spain than usually toured.

Since the tour went with only 17, the bus was a new 25 seater and had no toilet...traveling time never exceed 2 hours so it worked out ok...but the shocks were not as effective as on a full size coach.

The seats were tiered so some were higher up than the others; there was no seat rotation so we had the back row twice, each on a window which had a bird's eye view with tons of leg room for some reason and had 2 seats between us free for stuff.

It was billed as the route "Pilgrims" take to Stantiago (St. James) de Compostela from Germany, France, Italy, etc. It was not a religeous tour, but visited the towns along route the like Barcelona, Zaragoza, San Sebastian, Santillana del Mar, Oviedo (Vicky Cristina Barcelona filmed here) that the trek covers for those doing this pilgramage on foot (some finish it by bycle).

Weather was very moderate with glorious sunshine and even cool in the Galicia area where it had some early morning showers one day and has a climate similar to Seattle, Washington...rains a lot. It's the Spanish equivalent of Ireland and bagpipe music even plays here. They drink cider...yes made from apples and is alcoholic and they poured into a glass from a fully extended arm high in the air to add air to it for some bubbles.

Terrain in the north of Spain is mountainous and lush with the mountain range Picos de Europa available for hikes.

Some tidbits:

Food along the way was excellent! Tapas and Pintxo (pincho - Basque for tapa) were just amazing and very inexpensive. e.g. we had 4 rounds of a plate containing 4 different varieties (so that's 16 and quite large on a baguette sliced diagonally and piled to the max with fabulous foods like crabmeat salad, calamari, anchovies, sardines, tomatoes, peppers, eggs, caramelized onions, chorizo sausage, etc., along with 4 glasses of their great white Albarino wine for a tab total of 25 euro...not bad.

Another great food was Potatas Bravas...easy enough to make at home and really hit the spot!

http://spanishfood.about.com/o.../r/patatasbravas.htm

I brought trekking poles and used them only in Santillana del Mar (think Assisi) which were a great help. They even sold walking sticks in the souvenir shops there. Locals walked with them as well...very hilly and total cobblestones.

The rest of the towns did not have cobblestones, but had 4" square cement or slate squares making up their sidewalks/streets which were much better to walk on then cobblestones.

I found this part of Spain to be quite advanced for such antiquity...EZ Pass on highways, Recycling containters that are buried underground and have a small curbside recepticle like a mailbox to deposit into. A truck tours the streets and pulls this box up which is attached to the huge burried dumpster like container and empties it out periodically during the week...no odors...no overflow onto the streets and sidewalks!

Public parking is underground as well and they are now making apartment building parking underground as well.

They did not smoke as much as they do in France or Italy and none allowed in the airports.

Locals were gracious and worked out the language issues by hand language.

Catalan is different than Castilian Spanish and the accents of the Basque (Shushing sounds like Portuguese with a hint of French) differ from the Asturian and Galician dialects.

Shopping...not a shopping destination per se...silver jewelry with various symbols of the areas (shells and crosses); some embroidered goods...not much...plenty of religious items reltative to St. James, some ceramics...also designed with symbols of the area...bulls, dragons, cats, crosses. I spent the least of any trip this time around on "presents" for me or others!

If you are looking for an alaternative to the usual itinerary of Spain, consider Barcelona (Gaudi's work is amazing) and the north of Spain...it's just a great adventure.

Roxy, great tour, I am planning the Pays Basque for next year, is this a TT?, the plan was to drive, but this tour sounds good.

No not a TT but wanted to share memories for those thinking of a Spain TT plus extending on their own perhaps.

Yum Yum. Mr FTET's and my taste buds are drooling as we loves the food you are referring to. However I must say I do not like anchovies myself.We are looking forward to experiencing the Spanish foods and culture on our up coming tour of Europe.
Kathy

Welcome home, Roxy. It sounds like a great trip. Apart from the shocks,. how would you compare the smaller coach to the customary one? Which do you prefer?

Hi Caitie, always good to be home and thanks!

Yes it was a great trip; I think you and hubby would enjoy it plus your trekking poles would get some activity...they truly are an asset to bring...I'm glad I invested in them.

The smaller bus was fine (except as I said for the shock absorption factor due to the smaller wheel base ) and I especially liked the tiered seating so on more than half of the seats you weren't looking at the back of someone's head.

....same small cubbies up top, no tray tables or mesh bags, but the seats did recline slightly with no problem to others. Cargo area held all large luggage as well as flight carryons almost to the the inch!

On my last day in Madrid, which was extremely hot, like 97F., a TT coached passed by...probably on the "city tour" thing; there were like 8 heads visible on board!

It was said throughout, that everything has been modified to accept less numbers due to the reduced numbers in travel. None of our optionals fell apart and went with very few ...there were only 3 anyway; 2 of which we passed on being extremely overpriced for the event. The 3rd one was also over priced (a river cruise in Galicia to see coves and how their shell fish are harvested) but at least we had platters and platters of delicious mussels and unlimited house wine.

Also, for others visiting Barcelona on their TT, La Sagrada Familia has an enormous amount of scaffolding and the inside of the Basillica is basically a construction site...no alters, nothing just 2 or 3 stained glass windows and a look upward to more scaffolding. So...don't pay for an optional to go there...go yourself and pay an entry fee of something like 9 euro (which we did) and stop by the museum inside and queue up to the upper level if you want to view around the area from higher up.

I am longing to go to Barcelona and hope to add it on to the Spain, Portugal and Morocco trip one day. Did you get to Park Guell? That has always looked fascinating to me.

Yes is was awesome as well as the rest of Gaudi's work...Casa Batllo, La Pedrerer and of course La Sagrada Familia.

Also La Palau de la Musica (concert hall) was a visual and acoustical delight!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...M%C3%BAsica_Catalana

Do keep Barcelona on your hit list...it has a lot to experience and enjoy.

It has been high on my list ever since I saw a friend's video of their trip. Gaudi's work makes it look like a work of fantasy or science fiction! Hope to spend several days there before we do the tour but sadly it will be a few year's before we get there. USA and Canada for us next! Want some of that New York, New York.

Roxy,

Welcome home !!

Many thanks for the Tale - it was very interesting.

I am very fond of the north of Spain and so pleased that you enjoyed it. By the way, I LOVE pintxos and have tried several times to recreate them at home with limited success - they just don't seem to taste quite the same - maybe you need the surroundings as well !

It won't be long before your feet start itching again. Happy scratching !!!

Hola and thanks!

I suspect the atmosphere of being at the bar, in a crowd and selecting your "toothpicks" has a lot to do with it!

I intend to do the same in recreating some of those I enjoyed most...maybe some Spanish guitar music in the background might help me out...!

How was Turkey?...excluding the letdown of the no-go-balloon ride (which you can take in Arizona or upstate New York if your visits wander there.

...no itch yet...too soon...needs time to develop!

Thanks for sharing details of your trip. Hoefully, we can visit Spain (together with Portugal and Morocco) in the next couple of years.

We just got back from Greece, so no more trips this year.

Cheers !

Thanks for the feedback Roxy. Good to hear your holiday went well. My husband went to Spain a few years back and is still talking about the tapas

Would like to add one more dessert tapa for you all to present at home: Cherries!

They (Inopia Bar and Rest. where Mario Batali and Gwenyth Paltrow filmed a segment of their "Spain...On the Road Again" food TV show) had a huge (think basketball sized) brandy snifter type bowl on the counter filled with large ice cubes and topped with dozens of golf ball sized black cherries with stems.

Your tapas portion was 13 (not sure of the significance of 13, but it had to be 13) cherries and arrived in front of you heaped in a mound, slightly chilled, on a small pretty plate with a toothpick!

Now there's something we all can do!

Roxy, welcome back, and I expect to be invited for tapas next time I'm down your way .

Found you tale very interesting by the way, and quite different from the usual Spain itineraries.

Brenda