Lisbon is one of those places my spouse and I’ve discussed on many occasions. It is intriguing because it is close to the things we love in Europe. But we seldom meet anyone who has been there. As an unexplored place we decided to visit as part of a recent trip to Spain...

La Herradura is a small (3,500 off-season and 15,000 high-season) Med-side community an hour east of Malaga, Spain. The best way to get there is by train from Madrid to Malaga and rent a car at the Malaga train station. The Back Roads Wanderer found this gem through a mutual friend who’s Ex owns an affordable three bedroom condo hanging off a cliff with just the Med and you from his wide terrace. It is not on most tourist agendas...

What can you say about Alhambra? It is as unexpected as it is magnificent. We arrived by car after an hour’s drive from La Herradura, a small village on the coast an hour east of Malaga. We were told you need to buy your tickets a month in advance...

While in Madrid, we changed our itinerary at breakfast on our second day. Rather than spending most of the day at the Prado Museum, which most of our party had visited previously, we chose to take a day trip down to Toledo...

As an experienced rail traveler in Europe, I thought I had the system down. But Spain is an exception to every other experience I’ve had. First a friend told us there are two train stations in Madrid and that we needed to go to Estacio Madrid d’Atocha to travel to other major cities...