WELCOME TO FARNSNIENTE

Spent the morning in the very pretty Botanical Garden in Gigón. Struggled to find some place open for lunch at 12:30/1:00 - they definitely keep different hours here. Long walk to the not too pretty Old Town then struggled to find some place open for dinner at 7:30. Plenty of bars open and if we’d wanted potato chips or olives for dinner we’d have been fine. Ended up at a small grocery store for some picnic food and had it in one of the nice seating areas at our parador.

So long San Sebastián, hello Hee-hone (Gijón)! On the way we stopped at a scenic overlook above Bilbao and enjoyed the beautiful views. Drove in to town to visit the enormous Ribera Market but were failed by the Parking Gods so continued on to Castre Urdiales where supplemented our supplies and had a picnic at a pavilion on the beach. Adventurous drive to near Gulpiyuru Beach and hike to the actual beach. It’s an amazing little inland pool and beach that is created when the t

A fun morning and early afternoon of eating and urban hiking. At 1:00 we meet up with Anouk as planned, the actual meeting time being the only thing we know about what we’ll be doing with her. She takes us to the market where we purchase some supplies and get some education about things Spanish. Afterwards, we’re off to a nondescript doorway and down into the building’s basement where we learn that this is one of the many Secret, Invitation Only clubs in town. We eat our mark

Al fresco breakfast on a pretty square. Walked along the marina then hiked up Mount Urgull to the enormous Sacred Heart statue for stunning views of the city. Pintxos (Basque equivalent of tapas) crawl for lunch then some downtime for rest and laundry. We quickly adopted the tradition of having pintxos around 7:00 although we made it dinner and called it a night rather than also eating a huge dinner at 10:00 pm! On the way home we met Anouk with whom we will share an adventur

Packed up and said a sad goodbye to the lovely Chantaco hotel. Took a taxi into Saint-Jean for some last minute shopping and a funny breakfast. A quick bus ride took us to San Sebastián, Spain, a very pretty city. Met up with other Austin friends Mike and Liz Dundov who will be traveling with us for the next eight days. Had a late lunch, as is the custom in Spain. Attempted to exercise off the meal with a long walk through the old city and around Concha Beach. Happy hour at t

As had become our custom, we enjoyed coffee in lobby. Took a nice long walk along the Nivelle River into Saint-Jean and signed up for afternoon boat trip. Walked along quay surrounding the pretty, well protected bay. Explored fun shops, the thrice-weekly outdoor market and Les Halles, the daily covered market. Bought some stuff, sampled lots. Had a very good lunch overlooking the bay then meandered over to the docking place for the Nivelle V for our boat ride south as far as

Drove to the beautiful little town of Espelette for coffee and an excellent almond croissant (made even better by the addition of chocolate!). Lots of fun shops to poke around in - we all especially loved the spice store with over a hundred blends and the most amazing smells. The Centre d’Interprétation de AOP Ossau-Iraty cheese info center was a disappointment but the subsequent visit to a cheese farm was fun. Sheep-herding by bicycle! Who knew? Next stop, La Bastide Clairen

Happy to be with car, we headed out for the day. First stop, Ascain, for the Post Office and great pastries. Took the Petit Train de La Rhune (cog railway) up the mountain where we enjoyed a picnic lunch, some fabulous views and nice hiking. After descending we visited a couple of small towns with the official French government designation of Most Beautiful Villages: Sare (meh), then Ainhoa which we found to be charming and quite picturesque. Back to our hotel for some downti

Returned to the covered market to buy our train picnic. Train from Lourdes to Bayonne delayed at the outset for an unknown reason and later for either goats, taxis or both on the tracks in protest of who knows what. Missed our connection but were automatically assigned to a later train to Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Once there we lucked into a rental car after all the previous “nos”. Drove to our beautiful hotel in time for cocktails on the terrace (gorgeous with trickling fountain an

A bit of a “joy of travel” day. The four of us headed off by bus to the Lourdes-Tarbes airport quite confident our rental car would be waiting for us. We were quite wrong. No car today, no car tomorrow! That means no scenic drive in the mountains, no fondue/raclette lunch! It was a bit of a blessing in disguise, however, as it started raining late morning and kept it up all day. Back on the bus to Lourdes and a great burger and salad lunch. Also, why not find a laundromat and

It being Sunday in a good Catholic region, our rental car company is closed. This left us unable to execute our planned activities which involved buying a picnic, driving up into the Pyrénées mountains and hiking to a waterfall, the Cascade du Pan. We did hit the covered marché for picnic ingredients which we ate up on the lawn by the Sanctuary. Afterwards we took a city tour on the Petit Train then (urban) hiked to the funicular up the Pic du Jer. At the top we took in the b

After an uneventful 5-hour train ride we arrived in the town pilgrimage town of Lourdes. We dropped our bags at the hotel and headed out to see the famous Basilica. The streets on the way there were jam-packed with soldiers and it turns out we happened to be in town during the annual International Military Pilgrimage. It was just amazing! Some 40 or so countries were represented from the Vatican’s Swiss Guards to the U.S. Navy in the dress whites to many in casual fatigues. A

Started today’s touring in the 14th arrondissement, one we haven’t spent a lot of time in. First stop was the extensive outdoor marché August-Blanqui and a nearby bakery where we bought things for our picnic lunch. Then on to the last two stops on our “most beautiful streets” exploration. They did not disappoint! Enjoyed our delicious “pique-nique” in the beautiful parc Montsouris then returned to the Saint-Germain area to buy items for tomorrow’s train picnic. Happy hour at

Continued our tour of Paris’s most beautiful streets in the area near Montmartre then had a fun lunch at Bouillon Pigalle. Popped over to Neuilly-sur-Seine to stare longingly at our former apartment and neighborhood. Walked a good portion of the nearby Île de la Grande Jatte, a beautiful island in the Seine beloved by the artists Seurat, Monet and Sisley. Took our tired selves back to our hotel for chill time then happy hour in the lobby. Yummy crêpe dinner à short walk away

Woke up in time for a very nice eggs Benedict breakfast and our almost on time arrival in sunny Paris. Quick trip into the city and nice walk to our hotel. After leaving our bags we headed out to see the first of several planned “most beautiful streets of Paris”. Namely Rue Crémieux in the twelfth arrondissement, a short but quite pretty street lined with Easter egg colored houses. Made our way to our lunch spot, Café Marly, at the Louvre. We had just finished our lovely lunc

Late afternoon flight to Houston, overnight at an airport hotel. Up early, early for our flight to LaGuardia. Uber to Newark where we had several hours to kill which we accomplished by wandering the terminal, having lunch, standing in line at La Compagnie check-in desk for a boarding pass that would give us the TSAPre privileges we’ve come to appreciate. All you can eat and drink in the airline’s private lounge then boarded the “all Business Class” flight. Such a treat! No di

Sadly, the end of our trip is in sight. We sweated through the heat and humidity on a long walk along the Esplanade in Cairns, had a nice al fresco lunch, then headed out to catch for our flight to Sydney. Quick dinner at our airport hotel then early to bed. Final thoughts - Australia and its people are awesome. It’s beautiful. You should go!

Organized tour to the Barron Gorge National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Kuranda village. The trip up to the village was by SkyRail gondola over the rainforest with awesome views. There were two stops along the way, first at Red Peak for a (board)walk in the primordial forest which we were told was 180,000,000 years old. Second stop was at the Barron Falls overlook. Wow, the Falls, huge and deep, deep in the gorge, were really spectacular! We had several hours to

Most of Hamilton Island is owned by one company. As such, there was well organized transportation to airport. Our next destination was Cairns (curiously pronounced “cans”), to our north but still in Queensland. However, “yuh can’t get there from here”. We had to fly 559 miles south back to Brisbane in order to fly 1054 miles north to Cairns. We checked into our hotel and were led 1/10th of a mile to our room via secret elevator - worth it for a corner room with a wrap around

This was Anzac Day, a national holiday rather like our Veterans’ Day but taken much more seriously. Scott attended the dawn ceremony and found it very moving. The rest of us, having, as mentioned previously, over-indulged the day before opted to sleep in. Tricia and Don had some quality time with a koala and then went on a plane ride to view more of the Great Barrier Reef. Scott and I spent a lazy morning with pool time. After lunch we met back up with T&D at the marina to ob