Carcassonne in Carcassonne

We have a car now! Which is at times terrifying. At least I’ve stopped reaching for the gear stick with my left hand, and no longer feel a jolt of terror when moving into the overtaking lane. France as a nation seems to view road rules primarily as suggestions; at least in Carcassonne most of the streets were one-way, so I didn’t need to navigate oncoming traffic as well as avoiding snapping off wing mirrors.

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Bilbao and the Ballad of the Luggage

Sim kind of wrapped up Porto last time, but let me add my two cents. Portugal generally was fine. I would rather have been there than in the office. But for my money, I prefer Spain. I like the food better (except the tarts in Portugal, the tarts are great); the cities seem less likely to contain massive hills you have to drag your luggage up; the language is basically recognisable if you speak a smattering of any other Roman language. Portuguese is decipherable if written down, but aloud it sounds like French being spoken by a Russian.

So yesterday, I was happy to return to Spain, despite their absurd ideas about it being appropriate for a bakery to be closed until 9.00am. We flew from Porto to Bilbao via Lisbon. Our luggage flew from Porto to Lisbon, and no further.

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