Category: Europe 2018

Before leaving Lleida this morning we hiked up to the castle and old cathedral overlooking the town.

Then we drove three and a half hours south to Sigüenza where we are staying in the castle Parador.

As we have almost every day we played bridge before dinner.

We are headed toward Madrid now. Today we left Andorra and drove two and a half hours south to Lleida. Along with he way we saw this church with a stork nesting on the top of the steeple.

Here in Lleida we did laundry. We are staying at a Parador that has been open less than a year. It is built in an old convent. The restaurant is in the former church.

For dinner Duke had snails to start. He shared. They were delicious.

For dinner he and Linda shared a paella made with rabbit, sausage and snails.

And here is desert.

We woke up this morning to snow covering the mountains. The sky was blue and the sun was shining.

The owner’s well behaved dogs really wanted to join us at breakfast. After breakfast we plotted a route to explore some Andorran museums. Luckily the road had been plowed by the tome we headed down the hill.

We started at the Museum of Electricity. Learning about the history of electricity in Andorra allowed us to learn about the recent history of Andorra.

Next we went to the motorcycle museum.

While the museums were closed for lunch we drove through Andorra to France and back. We saw several very busy and beautiful ski resorts.

From there we went to Casa Cristo Ethnographic Museum. It is a small Andorran home that allowed us to see what ordinary Andorran life was like in the 19th and early 20th century.

Next we visited the Automobile Museum.

And finally we tried to visit the museum in a typical Andorran stately home. We got into the ticket office but were told we couldn’t tour the house without a reservation. So that ended our very busy but extremely fun and interesting day.

This is where we spent the night last night., in the castle Parador of Cordona.

And this is where we are tonight. In a lovely little four room inn on the side of a mountain in the small country of Andorra.

It was a relaxing day enjoying the scenery and taking it easy.

From our view overlooking the reservoir of Sau we drove into the town of Vic and parked. We walked around the town in the rain marveling at the beautiful old buildings. This Roman temple was built in the first century AD.

Duke bought some communion wafers left overs from an enclosed convent. He never saw the nun who sold him the bag. It was all done through a evolving serving hatch

Everywhere we looked we saw Catalonian separatist signs.

After a coffee in Vic we drove to Cordona where we are staying in a Parador in a castle high above the town. After checking in we had fun exploring the castle from its base to the top of the tower.

For dinner Duke and I started with a cheeses and nut plate.

We had veal and beef for our main course.

For desert I had strawberry with cheese ice cream and Duke had cottage cheeses with honey.