In my ongoing world borders series I bust down border crossings to their simplest form to ensure you can all easily replicate my journeys, cross the same borders as me and realise there is more to travel than flying in and out of countries on a 6 day holiday (as much as I love that…
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After exploring magical Donostia in the Basque Country, I ended up in the city of Bilbao. Bilbao is the largest city in the Basque Country and also the liveliest. There’s always something happening. The city is built around a river and some hills, giving it a real feel of city identity. No countryside or scattered…
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The sun sank over Malaga and I sipped an ice cold beer on my return to Spain after my 100th country celebration in Tunisia and Algeria. I realised that it was back in 2003 when I first backpacked in Spain that there is a part of the culture here that I just love – the…
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The Basque Country is a place that has always interested me. Officially part of the Kingdom of Spain, however this is a country with its own language, flag and ways of life. I decided to head to the city of Donostia to check it out. Donostia is the name in the local language, to the…
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Believe it or not but 101 countries in, 709 cities and towns backpacked through on my journeys yet Madrid in Spain had somehow escaped me until 2015. Along with my time in Rome (Italy), it seemed that two of Europe’s most famous cities had failed to entice me thus far. But after my Tunisian and…
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I recently found myself backpacking in Spain and headed to the capital city Madrid. Madrid is famous for a lot of different things down the years such as Real Madrid, the gay scene, Franco’s parades but did you know that Madrid has the world’s oldest restaurant? Neither did I until I turned up here, neither…
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You might be surprised to see me do a top 5 of a really popular city and one that has ben covered so much on travel blogs, but it was my first time to tour Barcelona this year and I was quite impressed by it so I thought I’d get a top 5 typed up…
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Barcelona shouts “tourist city” to me and while I can see the reason why it attracts more travellers than Valencia, I still knew I could escape the crowds and get to some off the wall places. While backpacking in Catalonia I heard about the village of Gracia which is housed inside Barcelona’s metropolitan area yet…
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Let me start with a shock for you. Obvious European cities never did much for me. I never had any intention of visiting places like Paris, Munich, Rome, Madrid and Barcelona. But the travel lifestyle is unpredictable. While looking for a cheap flight from New York to Europe, Barcelona and Madrid came top. I opted…
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After touring Andorra and loving my first week in mainland Europe for over 5 years, I decided on doing some quirky and unusual things when my backpack and I hit the Catalonian city of Barcelona. Officially and politically I was in Spain of course, but the locals love their Catalonian heritage and hence red and…
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