fried rice, Christmas lights and everything nice

16 November 2004

We were so happy when we discovered fried rice that we can purchase at a supermarket for our meals. And it was sold by weigh. So we packed back to our rooms quite a few times, because it was always hard to decide what and where to eat. We also discovered that Christmas decor and music was already up in Lisbon. It was mid way in November, and it felt so Christmasy.

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The elevator/tramway/bus ticket is nice.

frozen nose and toes in Madrid

10 to 15 November 2004

After the pleasant weather of Andalucia, we entered the freezer weather of Madrid. What’s worse was that the first day we reached Madrid, we had a hard time hunting for a room.

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This is the other side of the paella box postcard.

My sketch of Cuenca. I was so excited about the many cliff faces and walls here. Sigh… I could have climbed here…

And then we were in Lisbon, Portugal.

town-hopping around Nice, and then two overnight trains to Granada

04 to 09 November 2004

Nice to Villefranche Sur Mer to Monaco to Nice to Cannes to Antibes to Nice
to Eze to Menton to Nice… to Barcelona to Tarrangona to Barcelona to Granada…
to Seville. That was a lot of places in a few days.

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With dog shit everywhere, walking around was not very nice.

What a beautiful stamp!

We bought a Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary.
It would proof useful for a huge part of our trip.

This is a postcard I made from a box of instant paella.
See next entry for the other side.

from Italy to France in the rain

01 to 03 November 2004

Our last day in Italy was a rainy and windy one. Then it was another train ride, another country, another town. Our next base, Nice. From there, we explored the region using Nice as base camp.

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It was so wet outside that I have to draw Monterosso
from inside our room.

We visited Monaco from Nice. And bought their pretty stamps.
The France stamps on the previous page are nice too.

every trek leads to Cinque Terre

29 to 31 October 2004

The tiny coastal villages of Cinque Terre National Park ~ Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso ~ is my favourite part of Italy. These five towns are linked along the coastal line, and easily accessible by short treks.

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This is my sketch of Riomaggiore.

This is Manarola. And Corniglia. And our groceries.

This is Vernazza. Our laundry drying over the heater.

The cooking of hotdogs in our sink.
It was the last day of October 2004.