At 9,000 feet above sea level Quito takes some getting used to.  Our VRBO host, Francisco, insisted we take it easy. A costumed bell hop lugged our suitcases a block so we wouldn’t have to. Then Francisco drove us up a steep hill to the apartment. As per the travel guides, we stayed hydrated. Donna took B-12 tablets. I refused them. Then we napped.

We walked down the hill to Plaza Grande for lunch. With Ecuador’s Presidential elections coming up there was a lot of flag waving in front of the Presidential Palace. The current President is subject to term limits and can’t run again. No one seems to know which way the winds will blow come February.  They’d prefer to talk about Trump.

We circled the plaza looking for a likely place to eat. What is immediately obvious is that every nook and cranny is open for some kind of business. If you want socks, a Frozen lunchbox, spools of thread, hats, scarves, or a bowl of jello someone is strolling around selling them. Five closet sized restaurants were tucked side by side into brick wall. We picked one and ordered a thick Ecuadorean soup  (locro)  with corn, potatoes, avocado, and cheese. Careful application of the local salsa hadn’t been advised. We came close to going past the point of no return. Whew! Steaming bowls of locro were exactly what we needed.

On the way back to our place we stopped by the Super-Mercado and picked up some papayas and a couple of yellow and purple football shaped cucumbers. Then we faced the long walk back up the hill. About a block in, altitude sickness kicked in. Your head gets light. Your legs turn into tubes of pliable concrete. You are sucking air. A line of taxis and private vehicles chugs by blowing clouds of blue smoke. Looking back to see how far you have come you realize you are someplace new. At that moment Donna and I caught each other’s eye. Another adventure was beginning!  We smiled!!!

Somewhere along the line I promised that Donna would write about her planning process.  She has been too busy planning to do anything like that.

We arrived back home from our last adventure on November 1st. Two days after the 2016 Presidential elections our trip to Ecuador got fast tracked. My thinking had us going to Ecuador in February of 2018. Donna had other ideas.

As far as the election…the divisions within the U.S. have had us lumbering towards an existential crisis for decades. The election was merely a pivot point. Well, that was my rationale for heading out in a year.  Donna tolerated that rationale with one dubious eyebrow raised.

Rancor was always going to rear its ugly head. The winner of the Presidential election was never going to be the determining factor in that. But Sheesh! This election was King Kong vs Godzilla Championship Bowling.  It was played in the gutters.  That’s what happens when you pump obscene amounts of money into the democratic process. If unity was the pins, no one even came close. Then the victor wrapped himself around the top of his tower and started swatting at things!

Now, I am going to skirt some political issues here.  Suffice it to say the political debate at our house usually centers on the long game vs the short game. Donna comes down firmly on “the short game IS the long game” side of things. In a nutshell that is her planning process.

By November 9th Donna’s feeling was, “This election makes me feel dirty!  We’re getting out of here!!!”  She wasn’t alone in feeling this. 240 U.S. citizens were booking their escape to Quito while Donna was booking ours.  She was only online for 45 minutes. There is a baby boomer white privilege element to that. It is what it is, and guilt has never looked good on me.

So, why Ecuador? It lands on, or near the top  of The Best Places to Retire lists.  Ecuador’s weather is described as perpetually Spring like. The tax climate, although continually in flux, is favorable.  The politics are relatively stable. Even if there are weird political undercurrents we don’t know the language well enough to attempt our usual debate. That last piece is attractive right now. As sad as it is, blissful ignorance is a very tolerable state. Fortunately, it never seems to last. Neither one of us can leave things well enough alone. Eventually something slaps us awake.

Long game???  Short game???  I don’t know. Maybe those two are the same thing.  We’ll see what we see when we see it, and know what we know when we know it. Even though Donna raises a suspicious eyebrow when I say that, it works for both of us.

We have a veto rule that allows us to delete any photos of ourselves we deem unflattering. If I retrieved them and displayed them all at once, it would capture what jet lag feels like.

An Italian woman suggested watching a sunrise and a sunset to reset your internal clock. It makes sense to me. Coming home to Seattle’s downpours and relentless grey made this difficult. There may have been a sunset. There may have been a sunrise. What I saw was a monochromatic exercise that went from black to dark gray. Our moods matched the weather.

Donna’s insomniac expertise came up with the most productive plan to date. “We’re up. We aren’t going to go back to sleep. Let’s drive up to the island and rake leaves.” On the face of it… that was a terrible plan!

We drove through internal and external fog and rode a socked in ferry to Herron Island. Donna cleaned cupboards. I fiddled with the water heater and the gas fireplace. Then while I attempted to fine tune the flames in the fireplace Donna attacked the leaves. Eventually I joined her. We felt invigorated. Well, at least until the trip back home.

By evening I was no further along in fighting off my jet lag induced wobbles. I fell asleep on the floor with my boots on. Donna was attacking leaves and weeds, rearranging furniture, paying bills, and sorting through junk mail.

We have two distinctly different approaches. I subscribe to the try and find the zone method.  Donna’s method is to try and fight through it. For the record, neither of them seemed to work. I will admit that Donna’s method is more productive.

Eventually we started to get synced up to our time zone. That meant going to sleep at 8 PM and waking up at 4:28 AM.  Then just to make things interesting they threw daylight savings at us!

Who knew we were participating in a movement. If you Google “Slow Travel”, you’ll find a collection of essays extolling the virtues of taking it slow. I’ve never moved quickly in my life. I’ve held my cards close and made studied moves that surprised others, but Donna will tell you I can be frustratingly deliberate. Call it whatever you want, “Slow Travel” is about my speed.

I don’t like living out of a suitcase. The pressure of getting oriented and seeing as many sights as possible within a narrow time frame exhausts me. Although I would like to deny it, I am not getting younger, or more flexible. There are always tours and tour guides, but they preclude aimless wandering. Taking the time to talk politics and falafels with the owner of a back street cafe in Grenada doesn’t always happen on a tight schedule. Neither does the exercise of getting strategically and purposely lost. Not having to be somewhere anytime soon facilitates those things.

Staying somewhere longer, or not cramming too much into a shorter trip, is about approximating what it might feel like to live someplace. It’s not about seeing the market. It’s about using it. You can’t know a place in a week. You can’t know it in a month. That’s fine.

Donna and I have lived in Seattle, and in the Seattle area, our entire lives. I can count the times I have been up in the Space Needle on one hand. I would never take someone there to eat. If someone mentions Chihuli Gardens with any level of reverence, I usually laugh. On the other hand Donna and I use “The Market” several times a season. We are old school Seattle enough that umbrellas mark you as an out of towner.  Despite being lifelong locals there are great parks and restaurants we’ve never been to. Our Seattle experience is our own. It doesn’t require rushing around.

At this point in our travels we have a greater familiarity with canal boats, Grenada, and Bologna. We’ve spent two weeks on French canals, a month in Grenada, and fifteen days in Bologna. Even after a month we hadn’t run out of territory to explore. “Did we see…???” “No, maybe next time.”

 Our fifteen days in Bologna allowed us to use it as a hub. We made day trips to Modena, Parma, and Reggio Emilia. We had a romantic getaway at the Sangiovese Festival in Ravenna. A convenient hub and a place to come home to made exploring a lot more comfortable.

Rome, Florence,Venice, or Paris??? Those were blips on our screen. We barely scratched their surfaces. I’m thinking each those cities requires at least a ten day visit, or an extended stay. After five nights in Venice we were just starting to get our groove on. It was Baba’s for breakfast, and then exploring a new corner of the city everyday. All those short stays felt like brief flirtations. At our age that’s nice, but we’ve learned depth is more fulfilling.

Our friend Micheline went to Paris to reconnect with family. She was there long enough to start calling a particular street her own. She visited her butcher, her baker, her produce vendor, and then she put their wares to use. She returned to her street with familiarity and purpose. Connections were made! Connections are where lasting memories reside. I don’t believe any of us travel just to look at buildings.

Is any of this “Slow Travel”?  I don’t really know, but a connection with a place and its people was what we were looking for. Life was lived a little bit more deeply. We hit the travel wall fewer times, and with less intensity. However fleeting the sensation, another piece of our planet felt a little more like home. After all, “Home is where the heart is!”

All those cities in the States that string twinkle lights along open sewers and proclaim, “We are the Venice of Wherever” need to get a grip. So does that homage to excess on the Vegas Strip. These ripped off inventions don’t even come close. The culture of Venice and the city itself are entwined like DNA’s double helix. Sure, if you look hard enough you can find a McDonald’s in Venice, but it won’t be in a strip mall cozied up to a Taco Bell. It is difficult to find anything in Venice that isn’t thoroughly and completely Venecian.

My impressions of Venice have always been influenced by Nicolas Roeg’s 1974 thriller Don’t Look Now. The film has been described as intensely erotic and macabre. That’s mostly true, and Roeg used Venice’s back walkways to chillingly claustrophobic effect. While the director was taking the viewer into the darkness, in reality the walkways guide you towards the water and the light. Roeg was spot on about the extravagant sumptuousness of the place though.

It didn’t hurt that our first adventures in Venice were to Ca’ Rezzonico and The Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The Lonely Planet has this to say about Ca’ Rezzonico, “Baroque dreams come true at Baladassare Longhena’s palace, where a marble staircase leads to gilded ballrooms, frescoed salons and sumptuous boudoirs.”  Our own digs were extremely humble by comparison, but the touches were gracious. The touches are everywhere in Venice, and they have a cumulative effect.

The Guggenheim Collection includes the work of more than 200 artists. Pollock, Ernst, Picasso, Arp, Man Ray, Dali, Rothko, Warhol, Kandinski, Mondrian, Tobey, and the big names keep coming. It’s an important collection. It’s also lively.

The collection includes Marino Mariani’s fully erect horseback riding Angel of the City. Donna stationed herself by The Angel while I headed to the canal to take photos. Every once in a while I could hear her snicker. Finally Donna let loose with some unrestrained laughter. An unsuspecting mother of a twelve year old girl caught sight of The Angel’s exuberant expression of joy and just about dropped her teeth. Water, light, and a sense of humor…Venice has it all!

What is missing from all the places that pretend to capture Venice is the sense that you are in a working city.  The water traffic in Venice goes back to its birth. It has always played a necessary and integral part in the life of city. Most of it still serves a vital function. I watched two young men with a boat deliver a washing machine and haul an old one away.  All of their maneuvers were executed with skills born on the water. Our neighborhood produce stand is a boat moored along the canal. A water taxi dropped us off in our neighborhood. A water bus will take us to the airport.

We didn’t succumb to the temptation of a gondola ride. After seeing a full blown tourist stuffed gondola traffic jam, complete with singing gondoliers, the attraction withered. What held our interest were the working boats and the bridges. You could feel the hum of Venice in the air. It’s a hum all great cities share. Look past all the grit, or not, and what you feel is a deep and abiding inspiration.

Venice is a real place and it has few rivals. New York may be The Big Apple. Paris is still The City of Light, but Venice retains its title. It’s The City of Love! 

It’s our last night in Bologna. The bags are packed and sitting by the front door. Reflection comes easily. We love Bologna. Asked why, Donna has a more involved answer than I do. My answer??? Well, I have an inexplicable attraction to porticos, and Bologna has more of them than any other city in the world.

I checked out that last bit on Wikipedia. This is not something I would normally do. That’s usually Donna’s territory. She loves reading about the history of a place. “Just imagine! Cleopatra actually walked here!!!”

There are several ways to respond to Donna’s exclamations of wonder. The wisest is to keep my mouth shut. That isn’t one of my talents.  So, I venture where angels fear to tread. “Cleopatra  isn’t the only one.  Think of all the tourists who have walked here.  Must be over a billion footsteps by now.”  This earns me a sharp, “Oh, just shut up!”

When it comes to historic buildings I am likely to go into my Trump Tower routine. “I want to know about the people who carved the stones and laid the bricks. The person whose name is on that building never lifted a finger.”  Yes, I have delivered that annoying speech. It never fails to earn me what I call one of Donna’s little prayers. Several deities and their earthly representatives get mentioned! When it happens in a beautiful cathedral it cracks me up.

Donna seems vaguely amused by my fascination with porticos. That’s something of a surprise. I know from experience her comebacks are always stunningly on target. Perhaps the teacher in her is glad I am showing an interest in history. Although, I suspect she merely thinks my interest in porticos is weird. She probably puts it in the same category as my love of impractical gadgets, condiments, and cleaning supplies.

Donna is right about my interest in porticos. It’s weird. She did agree to trod up the Passo di San Luca with me. It’s the longest continuous portico in the world. I looked that up too. Pilgrims used to climb up the hill to Madonna di San Luca on their knees. Someone decided covering the path with 666 portico chambers would be a service to God and the folks crawling up the hill.

Donna read the part about the 666 chambers and almost changed her mind about the adventure. “Why 666??? Maybe this isn’t a good idea!”  We walked all the way to the top despite my sore hip. The chambers were numbered, and Donna was relieved when they stopped counting at 658. Good thing we didn’t run into any black cats. She would rather drive into a ditch than have a black cat cross her path. She also doesn’t walk over grates. We found several of those.

The hike up to Madonna di San Luca contributed to what wound up being a twelve mile day. The pilgrims back in the day, and the athletes we saw on our trek, had a more strenuous journey. We walked and stopped fairly frequently to rest my hip. The pilgrims of yore crawled on their knees in the sun and the rain. The athletes use the path as a training ground. We saw two women in track suits hopping up the path like frogs. Despite taking the easy way up my hip was miraculously cured. Weird!

None of this explains my fascination with porticos, or why I am coming home with 100 portico pictures. Or…why so many photos look like duplicates even though they are not. Obsessions are seldom practical things.

I did locate one of the original wooden porticos. Examining it made me remember a piece of history I read.  Sure, porticos provide shade when it’s sunny, and shelter when it’s raining. That’s obvious. In their early years porticos also provided large covered workspaces in a city that was rapidly growing. Under the porticos was where life happened. The old portico was a rough thing. Today most are beautiful. A practical thing made beautiful always appeals to me, and in Bologna the Art of living is evident.

Bologna??? I can go on and on about the things that make it an amazing city. If you ask me? I’ll just say, “I love Bologna’s porticos!”

 

 

Here in Bologna there is a wine bar located on Via Malcontenti. I don’t know if that’s where Italy’s armchair radicals buy their wine, but I doubt it. My guess is they are buying jugs of the cheap stuff and adding high proof liquor just like our homegrown radicals do. Although, in the back of their cupboards they all hide a bottle of the good stuff. Even malcontents succumb to romance. The cheap stuff doesn’t always fit the occasion.

I only bring this up because here in Italy the noise of the U.S. Presidential election can be heard. At home it’s been drowning out everything else for awhile. Does anyone in the states know who Matteo Renzi is? In Italy there is a major vote coming up on December 4th. Who knew? What about Italy’s immigration issues? How is Italy’s economy doing? How does it impact our own?

In a global economy knowledge and connection are essential, but we can hardly manage these at home. The disconnects and divisions are so great we don’t fully know our own countrymen. If I travel 45 minutes outside of Seattle I am in a world I don’t truly understand. I can find the same jugs of cheap wine and fast food outlets, but we might as well be talking different languages.

There are a lot of mechanisms at work. To delve into them all would require writing a textbook full of charts, graphs, and references. The books have already been written, but they are seldom read…and even less often agreed upon.

Agreement is overrated. It insulates us within our own bubbles of vacuum packed information. I can easily shut out anything that intrudes upon my preconceived notions. My version of the truth can be preserved intact.

From a distance I have come to think that there are two collective notions that work against Americans. One notion we embrace, and the other we fight against, or deflect. The first notion is that we live in the greatest nation in the world. The second is that we aren’t good enough.

The United States healthcare system is currently ranked 37th in the world. That we lack paid maternity leave, debt free higher education, GMO free foods, solar initiatives, etc. is not indicative of a team that’s going to the playoffs. So, let me quickly ask, “How did a Championship Team fall into 37th place?”

This is where we start to splutter. This is where the disagreements begin. This is where blame gets cast. This is where the second notion comes into play. It’s where “We are the greatest!”  knocks into “We aren’t good enough.” The results are at once chaotic and predictable.

“We are the greatest!” is meant to be inclusive. “We aren’t good enough.” isn’t. The message that gets sent is, “You aren’t good enough!” or, “We aren’t good enough, and it’s your fault!” The second notion seeks to exclude. It is pervasive.

We apply it to the fans of sports teams we don’t root for. It is applied to the way white people dance. It is applied to members of “the other” political party, bald people, and to the overweight. It is applied to women’s pay. It is applied to communities of color where the message gets amplified by test scores, dropout, unemployment, and incarceration rates. Add to that getting followed while shopping, harassment stops, and getting shot by cops. The message isn’t designed to be aspirational.

“We aren’t good enough.” gets internalized when you are one of the excluded. This is America though and we’ve also internalized the notion that we are the greatest. As a result we have come to a dangerous conclusion. We believe this is as good as it gets, and we/they don’t deserve any better.

This is of course how a Championship Team falls into 37th place. It’s why we underfund our schools, burden our college graduates with crippling debt, don’t provide paid leave so parents can nurture their infants, poison our food and water supplies, fill our prisons with people of color, and fight amongst ourselves.

Unity and connection are the only things that lead to greatness. We can’t be great as long as we are willing to exclude others from that promise. Inclusion may be a romantic notion. Certainly it is not a notion that calls for the cheap stuff. Greatness never comes cheaply. The good stuff has been hidden in the back of the cupboard long enough. A dream that isn’t shared can’t become a reality!

Rome, Florence, and Bologna are any tourist’s dream. Around every corner there are iconic sites that grace history books. These are the places that make the “1,000 Things To See Before You Die” list.

I can tick a lot of them off my mental check list. The Colosseum, the Palatino, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Basilica of St. Mary of the Flower, the Towers of Bologna, and more. Although, if you asked me what my favorite moment in Rome was, I’d have to say it was the long lunch in Campo dei Fiori. Homemade pasta, good crunchy Italian bread, excellent olive oil, market fresh produce, the house wine, a coffee, and people watching are pretty high up on my personal list.

In Rome our HomeAway host, Romula, provided a list of restaurants and circled their locations on a map. At Osteria del Belli the mere mention of Romula’s husband’s name got us first class service. The spaghetti with bottarga reminded me of the smoked salmon eggs you get on the Tulalip Reservation. Donna had spaghetti with clams. The sample of fettuccini with tomatoes and sea bass the owner brought to our table was mind altering.

Street pizza, gelato, and dinner at Trattoria Sora Lella rounded out our Roman food adventures, and our bellies.

In Florence we hit the market as soon as we could. The meat, cheese, fish, and produce stands were closed, but upstairs upscale open kitchen food stalls were open for business. You grab some seats at a bar, or bus your food to a table, and eat your way through the market’s choice products. The cheese stuffed  zucchini flowers were amazing. So was the rigatoni with wild boar ragu. The next day we ate at a place across from the market. The t-bone steak at Trattoria Mario barely fit on the plate!

In Bologna our first foray into the Quadrilatero was a little disappointing. In the last three years major gentrification has occurred. Quaint shops have been replaced with chic clothing stores. The next morning when all the produce stands, fish markets, bakeries, and butcher shops were open our disappointment disappeared. It felt like we’d come back home!

Donna pulled out her list of favorite restaurants from our last visit, and a new list that included recommendations from Mario Batali. At Settetavoli we split a serving of homemade fettuccine with bottarga. This reached a whole new level. A subtle hit of lemon, the earthy flavor of the pasta, and then the flavor of the sea danced across the palate. Donna had the squid with pork cheeks and peas. I had the pork tenderloin. There was an apple tart for dessert. I ordered flute of grappa. Donna had a sweet wine. My blood sugars were less than ideal the following morning.

Mario Batali’s recommendations? Trust them! Rosteria Luciano is my new favorite restaurant! Pasta with zucchini blossoms and a dusting of hard boiled egg yolk. Sour apple and veal with bits of mint. Lamb ribs with radicchio. For dessert Zuppa Inglese, meringues, candied almonds and cashews, Arrocco dessert wine (I only got a sip!), and an espresso. Rosteria Luciano is a little slice of heaven. We are going back!

Of course we are also visiting as many historic sites as possible. Donna’s phone says we are walking from 6 to 9 miles a day. If your intake of calories involves eating at amazing restaurants, a daily walking tour isn’t optional!

Note #1: Barcelona is a world class city. It has great art, architecture, markets, food, bars, restaurants, music, dance, and theater. Barcelona has Gaudi, and more!

Note #2: If you visit Barcelona in the Fall and it hasn’t rained, it’s not roses you’ll be smelling. There isn’t enough water in the sewer system to move things along. Think Porta-Potty in July.

Note #3: Everything in Note #1 still applies!

Note #4: For short stays a hotel might make more sense than a VRBO. Cab drivers can find hotels. Hotels have receptionists on site. If your room sucks, you can change it! Hotels will hang onto your luggage after checkout!

Note #5: VRBO’s are still cheaper, and 9 out of 10 times they are nicer. (Yeah, there is a story here, but it’s really long!)

Note #6: We read that Barcelona is a pickpocket’s heaven. I still have my “Easy-Pickin’s Decoy Wallet”. We did get scoped out by some Euro-Dread snatch ‘n run artists though. They stood too close and had a really stilted conversation. “Someone stole a cat!” “Wow! They stole a cat?”  “Yeah, a cat!”  This really happened! They were sort of obviously obvious. Barcelona felt safer than quite a few other places I could mention!

Note # 7: Everyone wants to talk about Trump. They apologize and then start blurting! No one has anything nice to say!!! Leonardo is a Spaniard by way of Venezuela. He compared Trump to Chavez. Leonardo apologized a lot! ” I’m sorry, but if Trump is elected you need to come to Spain! I apologize, but I have seen this before! Trump is not the richest man in the United States. I’m really sorry, but there is someone richer and more powerful who wants him to be President.” Then there was another round of apologies!

Note #8: Taking the Grimaldi Line ferry from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, Italy is a good thing to do in October. There were only 300 passengers on board. At the height of tourist season there are typically 2,000 or more. Many passengers sleep in the corridors and under stairwells. This put several British reviewers in a snit. What we experienced felt more like a ghost ship. The entertainer in the huge ballroom/disco sang to a crowd of ten. The bottom line is that Grimaldi offers a reasonable travel alternative after the tourist crowds have dispersed. It’s a fairly fancy ferry, but kind of a crumby cruise ship!

Note #9: If you are trying to travel light, accumulation is the enemy.

Donna: The best decision we made was renting a house in Grenada for a month. It has been our home base. We have taken off for several adventures. We took a bus to Salobrena to explore the beach. We rented a car and drove to the Sherry Festival in Jerez. On the way back we spent two nights in the beautiful little town of Alhama de Grenada.

When we explored we traveled light. We only took clothes and a few necessities. Everything else was left at the house.

When we returned to Grenada it felt like home. All the stress of negotiating the unknown melted away. I’d slip into my comfortable shift. Mark would prepare tea and a light snack. We’d sit on the terrace and reacquaint ourselves with the fairytale view.

We’d  unpack and the laundry would get done. It would get hung up on the terrace and dry in the breeze. Then Mark would write, or play guitar. I would read, and begin to look forward to my seista. We felt at peace. We were at home!

 Mark: I checked Donna’s notes and discovered the feeling of peace and home she is talking about cost us $44.82 a day. That’s the financial bottom line. Putting that aside, it’s going to be hard to leave Grenada, the Albayzin, and Calle San Luis # 12.

We have toured the Alhambra, seen several flamenco shows, endulged ourselves at the Arab baths, and eaten tapas and meals at a few of Grenada’s celebrated bars and restaurants. All of these contributed to being able to imagine staying here longer, or returning. They fell more into the “We came. We saw. We conquered!” category though. There was something else. It was a little less tangible.

Nothing can completely explain the sense of nostalgia I felt in a place I had  never been before.  Up at Plaza Larga we became regulars at the butcher shop and one particular produce stand.  I could expect the proprietors to insist upon providing me with their best. How can I explain what it felt like to get a great big smile when choosing an ugly tomato that didn’t conform to American preferences? When a handful of peppers and some pears got tossed into my bag for free??? Forget about it being a good business practice, it felt like I had arrived!

It took me back to my childhood. Grandpa Gustav used to take us to Seattle’s Sanitary Market for birthday lunches. He was on a first name basis with all the venders. He was confident that he was getting, “The best!”  In Grenada I was able to share the same sense of confidence.  Our tastebuds were reminded of the most mouthwatering oranges, watermelons, pears, and meats we’d ever eaten. We were getting, “The best!”

The Albayzin started to feel a little like a Spanish branch of Seattle’s Rainier Valley. Donna and I were both raised in the Valley back when it was known as Garlic Gulch. The name came from the early Italian immigrants, but they were followed by people from all over. Quite a few had Spanish roots.

Having my brother Leland arrive with Lorrie reinforced our feeling of being at home. Together we explored a few corners of Grenada Donna and I hadn’t yet explored. Seeing the flamenco show at Pena La Plateria (Leland’s suggestion!) was something on our list we might have skipped over. We would have been making a mistake. There were plenty of tables filled with a home town crowd. They were as enthusiastic as any we’d experienced as kids. The performers and the audience made it a spectacular night. The next morning Leland and Lorrie headed to Morroco, and Donna and I started packing for Barcelona.

Calle San Luis #12, the Albayzin, and Grenada started to feel like our comfortable and lively home, but Barcelona, Rome, Florence,  Bologna,  and Venice are waiting!