Europe 2000
I don't recall where the idea came from, but Peter and I where in need of a vacation. Jason was already heading to the UK for a few weeks. And dad, well he's retired and had no excuse to not join. After some very serious planning on the living room wall, the four of us set off for a whirlwind tour through France, Andorra, Spain and Portugal with a day in Morroco.
Dad, Peter and I rented a car in Paris and headed south through the Loire Valley, Bordeaux, Toulouse and on up to Andorra. We moved pretty quickly, pausing only to do a bit of wine tasting in Margaux, Pauillac and Medoc.
FRANCE
Oct 8 Fly into Paris and drive to Chartres
Oct 9 Drive through the Louire Valley to Tours
Oct 10 Meander Bordeaux and on to Mossaic
The drive over the Pyrenees through Andorra was pretty, although a bit misty and gloomy. I guess it is popular for skiing, but the snow hadn't yet come down all we saw in the only city were streets full of duty-free booze and cigarette shops.
SPAIN
Oct 11 Over the Pyrenees to Lleida
Oct 12 Barcelona for Jason, then to Zaragoza
Oct 13 Pamplona and the coast to Castro Urdiales
Oct 14 Through the twin peaks of Picos de Europa to Leon
I really enjoyed the Medieval towns of Northern Spain near Andorra. Too bad we didn't have more time to spend there, but we had to run to Barcelona to pick up Jason in Barcelona. We were in Zaragoza for the holiday shared by Columbus (he's from Zaragoza) and Las Fiestas Del Pilar, celebrating the Virgin Mary's miraculous appearance here in the 1st century. The 9 day festival centers around a giant pyramid flowers for a statue of the Virgin.
After running through Pamplona (without bulls), along the North Coast and through the beautiful mountains of Picos de Europa, we found ourselves in Leon and then over the hills into Portugal. We started with a cool medieval walled city and then the college town of Lamego, where a group of Chinese tourists figured the should bother Peter, the only other Asian in sight. 
PORTUGAL
Oct 15 Lamego
Oct 16 Sintra
Oct 17 Lisbon
After a quick run through Portugal, we were into the South of Spain.
On our way to the south coast from Sevilla, we saw a sign for "Moron de la Fronterra" (even Babelfish translates it as "Moron of the Frontier"...) and immediately took a detour to see what it is all about. While there, we found quite a bit of evidence to the name, including two cars backing into each other right in front of us..
SPAIN AGAIN
Oct 18 Aracena
Oct 19 Seville
Oct 20 Moron de la Fronterra, Estepona
Oct 21 Tangiers and back to Marbella(?), Spain
Oct 22 Granada
We did an obligatory day trip to Tangier and used our boredom on the ferry as an excuse to wake Matt up at 4am to prove that cell phones work everywhere! Back from Morocco, we saw a gruesome bullfight...it really is quite sad. To ease our pain, we had a steakburger and moved on to the Moorish palace of the Alhambra in Granada.
Oct 23 Tilting windmills to Toledo
Oct 24 Toledo
Oct 25 Quick visit to Madrid, out to Avila
Oct 26 Disney castle in Segovia
Oct 27 Motailla
Starting with the Don Quixote's windmills of La Mancha, we explored the medieval Spain surrounding Madrid. In Toledo, we did business with a 7-fingered swordsman..The walls of Avila are impressive, but Segovia's castle and downtown are probably my favorite medieval memories of Spain. Madrid....bah.
Oct 28 Long day to Sitges
Oct 29 Barcelona from Sitges
Oct 30 Montserrat
Sitges and Barcelona were great fun. We even coerced dad into participating in exporting a couple of Dam beer mugs. And no matter what any of you guys say, that car jumped out at me and deserved to have its mirror knocked off!
Our final stay in Spain was at the misty mountain monastery of Montserrat. The four of us sleeping in a monastery...spooky.
France
Oct 31 Villafranche sur Saone
Nov 1 Paris
Nov 2 Paris
Nov 3 Paris
We were back in France for Halloween dinner at McDonalds. Scary. After a drive through the Beaujolais wine region we finished off our trip with a tour of the usual sights of Paris.
I hadn't yet committed to modern technology and the digital camera for this trip. So I'm stuck with 20 odd rolls of film that I need to scan in someday. Until then, thanks to Jason and Peter's foresight and letting me steal all their digital pix.
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