Category: Europe Spring 2020

Our trip to Europe in February, March and April 2020. We visited London, The Canary Islands, the Spanish mainland, France and Italy.

Madrid to Reno

We made it home. We left for the Airport in Madrid about 6:20 am Madrid time on Monday and finally arrived home 36 hours later. There was a long line to check in at the airport in Madrid but it moved fairly quickly.

The check in line in Madrid

Our flight from Madrid to Miami was quite good. It was only about half full. Getting through health screening, customs and immigration and rechecking our bags in Miami took less than an hour. In Madrid airport they were making regular announcements to keep a one meter distance between people. In Miami that didn’t seem to be a concern.

Our flight from Miami to San Francisco was almost full. My middle seat made for a long flight.

My daughter and her family left our truck for us at the airport in San Francisco. About 1am Tuesday morning we were on the road home to Reno.

Loading our truck in San Francisco

There was very little traffic. We stopped to nap a couple of times. Interstate 80 was closed through the mountains so we sat in a parking lot in the town of Colfax for several hours.

Interstate 80 through the Sierras

It feels surreal to have been in the middle of a two month trip one day and be home the next. Duke is busy working on trying to get refunds. We are doing laundry and going through the mail. I will update our itinerary and the final videos of the trip on my YouTube channel in the next couple of days.

Córdoba to Madrid

We woke up this morning to the news that all hotels in Spain will close tomorrow. We were able to get a plane ticket home for Monday. In Córdoba we went to the bus station. Almost everything was closed up but luckily the rental car office was open and we were able to rent a car.

Archaeological ruins in the bus station parking garage where we picked up
our rental car.

We drove the four hours to a hotel next to the airport in Madrid where we are now.

Sign on the freeway. “It is prohibited to travel without justification “.

Our flight leaves early Monday morning. We have a connection in Miami and if the U.S. entry process isn’t too slow we will be in San Francisco by midnight. We have our fingers crossed.

Sevilla to Córdoba

This morning we took the train from Sevilla to Cordoba. We are changing our plans. No more public transit. We will rent a car tomorrow. No Madrid or Barcelona. We plan to stay out in the country, limit human contact and take it easy until we head home. We don’t know exactly when that will be but it will be earlier than originally planned. As of today most things are closed down here.

The Sevilla train station.

Once we had checked in to our hotel in Córdoba we went out and bought groceries. We are planning to eat in the room tonight. We walked along the River for a bit. Córdoba is a beautiful city.

The Roman bridge in Córdoba

Sevilla

This morning we had breakfast in our hotel.

The breakfast buffet at our hotel

The Cathedral is very near our hotel so about 10:30 we walked over and stood in line to go in. The Sevilla Cathedral is the biggest Gothic Cathedral in the world and the third largest Cathedral after St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London.

Standing in line to get into the Sevilla Cathedral
Christopher Columbus’ Tomb

This afternoon we had our last beers with Rick and Elaine while sitting in a street cafe people watching.

Eventually we headed back to our hotel. The hotel called a taxi for us and we all went to the airport and Duke and I saw them off on their trip home. We took the bus back into town and walked through the park back to our hotel.

We had a wonderful dinner in a nearby cafe then walked by the museum we want to visit tomorrow to check their hours. Unfortunately this sign greated us. It says they are closed for 15 days because of the rules from the ministry of health.

Carmona to Sevilla

We returned our rental car in Sevilla this morning. The final few streets to the hotel were very narrow and quite nerve racking. After dropping off our friends and the luggage Duke and I took the car to the train stain to turn it in then walked back to our hotel.

The street we came down to get to our hotel.

Our room wasn’t ready so we took a horse and buggy ride around the old town.

In the Plaza de España
The Catedral de Sevilla

Sevilla’s center is a wonderful place to walk or sit and have a snack.

Our friends are cutting their trip short and heading home tomorrow. We of course are not going to do the Italian part of our trip. Duke spent the afternoon cancelling reservations.

After dinner we walked around the Cathedral and enjoyed the peaceful and beautiful setting.