Author: Franco

Madrid Retrospective

Cities are not my natural habitat. [Ed: Quelle surprise!] Much of my feelings about cities have naturally been shaped by London which is an over-priced, over-populated metropolis with no architectural integrity that I’d rather avoid. Crowds aside, I am not

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

The Van Gogh Experience

And so to the driving force for our trip to Madrid, the Van Gogh Alive experience – an audio-visual show. We’d scouted the location yesterday so knew where we were going. Our entry tickets were for the first publicly bookable

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

The Devil Wears Prado

Our first full day in Madrid was forecast to be sunny and so it was; cool, though, topping out at about 8°C. We fortified ourselves at a local café with chocolate y churros – cups of hot chocolate accompanied by

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

AVE Madrid

Well, it was too close to Ave Maria to resist. I’ll explain in a minute. Francine has been playing tour organizer again; we’re off on a trip to Madrid [big city, scary spiders] for three days. There’s safety in numbers

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Up the Montgo

On Monday our walking group, numbering eight, had gone up a couple of mountains that gave us great views of the mountain known as the Montgo towering above Dénia and Jávea. Today, our Wednesday walking group, the Costa Blanca Mountain

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

A View of the Montgo

Monday walking group time again. Unfortunately, Francine had a need to visit a farmacia so could not accompany me. She also needed the car so I was into being dropped off and bumming a lift to and from the walk.

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

La Foradà

On a couple of our day trips out, usually heading for dragonfly sites, we have driven higher up the nearby Vall d’Ebo. As one drives the road, high up on the righthand side can be seen a moiuntain peak capped

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Winter Flutterbys

The Three Kings, which is a 12th night present bonanza and a bigger deal in Spain than Christmas, is done and dusted and things are now returning to relative normality, whatever that is. We are currently enjoying a spell of

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

First of the Year

Yes, the first day of the new year and a sunny one here at the Costa Blanca. 2019, if you please. It doesn’t seem that long ago that we in the IT industry were fretting about the havoc that a

Posted in 2018-2019 Winter

Beside Las Salinas

We’d popped into Calpe for a spot of lunch.  Not wishing to eat large lunches, ours tend to be tapas, either calamares [squid] or chipirones/chopitos [baby squid – I think chopitos is the Valenciana name]. The astute reader may see

Posted in Uncategorised