It was a dark and stormy morning...

Sitting at the dining table with my laptop this morning, praying for the power to stay on. 

I guess the Pacific NW is in for a wild weather weekend. 

Have a good one everyone, wherever you are!

Ziggy.

A throwback Thursday of sorts. Cleaning off my refrigerator and found these preserved behind a photo. Still a favorite!

Last stop: Estepona, Spain.

After such a whirlwind month of traveling, I planned to spend my last four days at a condo on the south coast of Spain just relaxing before flying home. It was a perfect way to wind down. I walked on the beach every morning before it got too warm, and I ate, drank and slept a lot! I've been home almost a month and I still feel a bit of Europe in me. It's been fun to sort through my photos and continue to savor it.

 ^That's the Rock of Gibraltar in the background to give you an idea of where Estepona is...not far up the coast from Gibraltar, on the Mediterranean side. 

The view from the condo at different times of the day...

We took a very worthwhile little day trip up to the hillside town of Ronda...

Portugal.

From Bilbao we drove to Porto. It was our longest day of driving, which was about seven hours, but that included almost an hour of trying to get out of the city. We got stuck in a one-way system and passed the same buildings three times! At the time, we were all ready to cry, but we can laugh about it now. We loved Porto, unfortunately our second day was super rainy and curtailed our sightseeing a bit. So off to Lisbon in the rain. It was only about a three hour drive and the roads and Portuguese drivers are great.  Finding our Lisbon apartment took some effort, but Isabel was awesome on the GPS, we found a nearby parking garage, and Peter figured out the trick to opening the apartment front door. Up two flights of steep, narrow stairs, another coded door that opened to the most wonderful, spacious, light-filled and quirky apartment. My bedroom was up another narrow set of stairs, but it was so worth the climb! I celebrated my 55th birthday in this fabulous city and it was my favorite stop on my month of travel. A few pics...

Lisbon trams.

Right in Lisbon, the drivers are a little crazy! They double park and block streets everywhere....except in the path of the trams. Operating since 1873 and with cars from the 1920's still in service, it is quite a remarkable and widely used system.

Lisbon tile, or azulejos.

One of the things making this city so beautiful are the tiled buildings. Check this travel article out from the BBC for a little history. I love pattern!