From Florence to Madrid...

After leaving Florence, Paul and I spent the next 4 days trekking across the Italian and French Riviera.

The first day we drove from Florence through Tuscany and over to the Italian coast where we past through Pisa and then made our way up to the Italian and French boarder where we stayed the night in San Remo. On the way we saw some amazing sites including the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa and the amazing five coastal villages that make up the Cinque Terre.

Day two: After spending the night in the small coastal town of San Remo, we caught a train to Nice. The train ride was a little under two hours and it was a very scenic ride. We past through many small cities right on the coast as well as some more well known destinations such as Monaco.

We then spent the day in Nice. We were very fortunate because the day was unusually warm. It was about 70 to 75 F all day so Paul and I were running around in T-shirts. There were even a number of locals sun bathing. Sun bathing in the middle of December... amazing.

Day three we woke up and picked up a rental car in Nice. We then made our way down the windy coastal road that makes up some of the most scenic parts of the South of France. After a long days drive we spent the night in a small town off the highway just past France's third largest city of Marseilles. We had a little trouble finding a hotel as we were off the beaten track and neither of us spoke French... it's just all part of the adventure though.

Day four was another day of driving. We left early and made our way down along the coast to the French and Spain boarder. It was another scenic day of driving although it was full of marshy and flat lands rather than the cliffs we saw around Nice. We saw a lot of native birds though including wild Flamingos. We eventually made our way to Perpignan on the French side where we dropped off the car and caught the train to Barcelona.

We then spent the next four days in Barcelona which was amazing. Barcelona is now my favorite city in Spain and was a highlight of our trip.

Barcelona is a very international city that is always active with visitors. There is a popular center called Las Rambles where people are walking the streets all day and even into the wee hours of the morning. In Spain, people don't go to dinner until 9 or 10 pm and the restaurants stay packed until midnight or 1:00 in the morning. We went to dinner at 11:00 pm on the first night and still had to wait to be seated. People then stay out until 6 or 7 in the morning... it is really quite a sight. Of course they also close shop from 2 to 5 pm every day for siesta.

In Barcelona we saw a number of things. Some of the highlights were the Barcelona Coast, the Picasso Museum, Park Güell, Casa Milà, and the La Sagrada Familia Church.

We left Barcelona last Wednesday and took the 5 hour fast train to Madrid. This was another very scenic ride. We took it easy on Wednesday night and then yesterday we took the 30 minute train to Toledo. Again, we were fortunate with the weather and we enjoyed a nice sunny day walking around the city.

Last night was the graduation of the students getting their MBAs here in Madrid so there was a lot of celebrating. Tomorrow we all head out for different destinations; some home for the holidays and some coming back home from other exchanges. Paul and I will leave tomorrow for Amsterdam for our last few days abroad. We will be there until Tuesday and then Paul comes back to Madrid and I head back to Copenhagen. There will then be some celebrating there and some goodbyes and then it's back to the good old US of A.

Here are the pictures from this leg of the trip.