Luxury travel: Necessity or root of all evil? We know people and travel companies who say they are all about luxury travel. Others practically have steam-clouds of indignation coming out of their ears at the mention of luxury. Is luxury high thread-count sheets? A butler with a silver tray (and an imperious attitude)? A personal sommelier? Someone who unpacks for you, … [Read more...]
The Salvador Dali Museum in Figueres; a fun day trip from Barcelona
Barcelona is such a beautiful and fascinating city that you may think we're daft to suggest you leave it for a day trip . Well, we are a bit daft, but you should not get this close to the Dali Museum and not see it. It is literally unlike any other museum. Not only because of its contents but because Dali did not allow it to be catalogued or arranged in any logical fashion - … [Read more...]
Calella de Palafrugell; a seaside jewel on the Costa Brava in Spain
We spent 9 weeks on the Costa Brava in Spain in less than a year. We explored, and were charmed by, many of the seaside towns. Our absolute favorite was Calella de Palafrugell. It's understated posh (meaning people who are there must have money but don't flaunt it), small and so easy to navigate that even Brunette could kind of find her way around after 3 weeks. … [Read more...]
3 free fun things to do in Barcelona
Barcelona is the favorite city of both Blonde and Brunette and one reason is that, although there's no shortage of interesting places with high admission fees, there is also a good selection of free (and legal) things to do. The nightly music and light shows at The Magic Fountains top our list of attractions. On our last visit to Barcelona we stayed in the Sants-Montjuïc … [Read more...]
Three continents – Three spectacular botanical gardens
In our travels Blonde and Brunette have found botanical gardens to be oases of tranquility and beauty and good places to hid from the cops. OK, the second part isn't true but we didn't want to be gushing girlishly about flowers and ruin our reputations! Brunette got indoctrinated into the botanical garden fan club on a long ago visit to Phoenix, Arizona. She … [Read more...]
We are off to collect more beautiful ceilings!
As Blonde and Brunette prepare to embark on our next adventure we hope to bring back memories of food, nature, architecture, horrifyingly inappropriate giggling fits, high falutin' hotels, nervousness navigating customs out of our comfort zones and fabulous ceilings. Ceilings? Blonde is a sleeper who would sweep the gold medals if the Olympics included sleeping as a sport. In … [Read more...]
2013 in review – no wonder we’re tired!
It was a dark and stormy night. No wait, it was a bright and sunny day and Blonde and Brunette were out and about on a dolphin-delight wave runner tour of the Everglades with Captain Ron's. Brunette had purchased a condo on Marco Island, Florida in the summer of 2012 and this was her first official snow-bird winter. Simultaneous with Brunette's fun-sucking husband getting onto … [Read more...]
Home Exchange – Wish we knew then what we know now
Don't we all! For one thing we wouldn't have married the men we did. Whoops - got off topic - sorry! This is supposed to be about our home exchange experience! Late last year Blonde listed her (then) Boston home on HomeExchange.com . A fellow blogger had convinced her to take the plunge. The process is like Match.com. You put a picture of your home looking better than it ever … [Read more...]
Capture the Color Photo Essay Contest
For a change we will try to leave the speaking (primarily) to the photographs: White: We were visiting Turkey but had no plan to see whirling dervishes. We thought they would just be cheesy shows put on for tourists. But our guide took us to an evening show at a caravanserai outside Cappadocia. There was nothing cheesy or fake in any way as we watched in fascination as … [Read more...]
Valencia: Slightly quirky, very hot and with much to offer (like us)
When Blonde and Brunette began to plan our home exchange trip to Spain we wanted to throw in a few extra destinations. Much consternation ensued as to how to get from place to place with one firm decision being that we would drive from Calella to Valencia. At least until we found out that sounded tedious. Then we switched to taking a high speed train - which we missed by two … [Read more...]