Tag: #VermazenVagabonds

We are On The Road again.

We made it to Rome! It was an smooth trip. Saturday we drove from Reno to the Bay Area where we had a wonderful few hours with family and friends.

Barbecue at Allie and Doug’s

Sunday evening Allison drove us to San Francisco airport. We were checked in, through security and at our gate in thirty minutes. That’s fantastic compared to our last trip when it took two hours!

Swiss Air was quite comfortable. The food was good, especially the chocolate. On the flight to Zurich I slept as much as one can expect on an airplane.

Judging by the Playa dust on her pack, the lady next to Duke had been at Burning Man and was on her way home from Black Rock City.

Dinner

We had a two hour layover in Zurich and then flew on to Rome where we caught the Leonardo Express Train straight to central Rome. From the train station our hotel was just a short walk.

Buying train tickets
Walking to the hotel.

Although We were exhausted, we went out for some dinner before sleep.

Waiting for dinner in Rome
Pizza!

Trujillo to Guadalupe

Today we had a fairly short drive further northeast towards the Parador of Guadalupe, another new Parador for us. We drove through the mountains.

The view on our drive to Guadalupe

Guadalupe is the site of the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe. It has been a pilgrimage destination since the fourteenth century. At the location where pilgrims first crested a hill and looked down on Guadalupe there is a Hermitage.

Hermitage of the Humilladero
Guadalupe

The Parador of Guadalupe is right next to the cathedral.

Parador de Guadalupe

The view of the Parador and the Cathedral from the balcony of our room blew me away when we walked in.

We have to leave here fairly early tomorrow to meet Roger and Gail at the airport in Madrid. So this afternoon we drove back up to the Hermitage and recoded Duke’s second car review of this trip.

Duke’s Review of our rental car.

When we got back to Guadalupe we went exploring.

Cathedral of Guadalupe
One of the old gates of Guadalupe
Guadalupe

We had a picnic in our room for dinner.

Dinner
Dinner

The view from our room is pretty at night too.

Guadalupe

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

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.