Great European Roadtrip: Going home for the last time…

Well, I hope it wasn’t my last visit to Madrid, but next time I’ll have little claim to calling it home. After returning our van to the agency I still had a set of keys …

Great European Roadtrip: An error

It was only minutes before I was due to board my flight to Switzerland that I discovered that my flight did not go to Switzerland. The so-called Basel airport is actually located just west of …

Great European Roadtrip: Sigüenza

Credits: Long walk to the castle / Lucas. Van before castle / George.

Great European Roadtrip: Figueres

On Monday Lucas was so eager to return to Spain that he drove for eleven hours, through three countries, four language zones and numerous wine and cheese producing areas in time to reach Figueres …

Great European Roadtrip: Going home for the first time

As the sun threatened to dip below the hills to the west Saturday afternoon, George and I bade Ximena goodbye and sped east out of Lausanne. We found a French-language DJ on the radio who …

Great European Roadtrip: When in Zürich…

Great European Roadtrip: Late late late lunch in Lausanne

After our delay at the border we met my friend Ximena, who I met 9 years ago at a science camp, for a very late lunch on the lake in Lausanne, which also happens to …

Great European Roadtrip: Swiss hospitality

Saturday at the border we met a welcoming committee of two stiff-backed gentlemen in peaked caps, one with a trim French moustache, the other with a clipped accent and both blessed with a keen sense …

Great European Roadtrip: Lyon revisited

I last spent time in Lyon back in the late summer of 2002 when, being jobless, my circumstances confined me to an austerity diet of a sandwich or two a day and water from the …

Great European Roadtrip: Tetris in Montpellier

After leaving the snowy mountains of Puigcerda Friday morning, we reached Montpellier in time for lunch on the main square. Then we went for a brief promenade and found ourselves in the middle of a …