I’ll be honest: I was mostly interested in Bilbao for the pre-credit sequence in The World Is Not Enough, which sees Pierce Brosnan abseiling out of an office window and running across the Puente de la Salve bridge. But it turned out to be lovely in its own right.

We got on a tram, which chugged us through the heart of the city to the Guggenheim ( Read more... )

The castle won the prize for most varieties of cake offered at breakfast (some of them were wrapped, and made their way into my pocket for later ( Read more... )

We left Portugal and entered Spain at Miranda do Douro. Time jumped forward an hour, the hills grew low and gentle, the post boxes changed colour (I posted some postcards with Portuguese stamps on the Spanish side, but I'm told they turned up eventally) and the Douro river became the Duero as we continued to follow it east ( Read more... )

It was raining the next morning, which is such an unusual event it made the national news. I walked around the village, taking photos, petting some of the regional mountain sheepdogs and buying souvenirs (including a sticker for my top box...with a dog on it), then deployed my waterproof overtrousers for the day ahead.


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I like to invest in a Michelin map for holidays, because they helpfully put a green border along the scenic routes. Today was all green borders along wiggly lines, as we averaged around 30 stunning miles per hour ( Read more... )

We hadn't booked for the next few nights, wanting to see where the mood took us as we headed back towards Spain and the ferry home. We'd have liked another night in our cabin in the vineyard (there was a pool, and our hosts had promised us wine), but it was booked, so I reserved an AirBnB in Tomar called the Casa do Aviador ('a tribute to Sacadura ( Read more... )

After a fabulous breakfast buffet (if you can have cake for breakfast, always have cake for breakfast) and another swim, it was time to check out of our temporary life of luxury. After buying some postcards in the gift shop, where the assistant waved some with an older photo of the hotel and told me "This is from the James Bond time ( Read more... )

Today we were leaving our James Bond apartment for a James Bond hotel. We were very offended to wake up and find it was raining, but it had stopped by the time we set off south to Estoril, near Lisbon. Wildfires were still burning and there had been motorway closures, but although the sky was still hazy and there were burnt trees beside the road, ( Read more... )

A busker played Skyfall on sax as I walked through the main square. I was tourist shopping, wandering, buying postcards. I found a shop dedicated to fancy tinned fish and spent a ridiculous amount, and now I have to work out what to do with a small can of octopus (I regret nothing). Howard and I had a coffee near the apartment, then I sallied forth ( Read more... )

I was eager to be out exploring and left the apartment before Howard woke up, roaming the streets until a delicious bakery smell lured me into a café for coffee and a pastry filled with Nutella. The town centre is wonderfully walkable (although it does go up and down a lot) and every corner brings a new scenic surprise ( Read more... )