This journal is written daily, usually after a day of driving and sightseeing, so the spelling and grammar may not be the finest because it was written when I am/was tired. The photos have had the basic Tony Morganti Lightroom treatment.

Monday 2nd May 2016
We arrived at the airport just before 7:00am and checked in with Singapore Airlines with no problems. However we had to wait until 7:45am before Customs opened and we could move to the transit lounge. The plane was an A330-300 and it left Adelaide just before 9:30. The service was excellent and the flight was uneventful. I watched two movies, The Revenant and how to be single.
We arrived in Singapore, Terminal 3, just before 3:00pm local time. Took the bus to to Terminal 2 and discovered that we were not able to go on the free 6:00pm Singapore tour because our flight left Singapore before 11:00pm. No amount of convincing could sway them that our 10:45pm departure time might qualify us for a space on their tour. So we had nearly eight hours to kill in Changi Airport.
 l have been window shopping at the airport.
The Australian dollar is on a par with the Singapore dollar. One for one.
Canon 5D Mk3 camera with 24-105 L glass lens on sale for $4,995
512 GB SDXC card 95MB/s ... $765
Most normal speed SD cards are selling for about a dollar per GB
It all seems a bit pricey to me.

Tuesday 3rd May 2016
Our Swiss Air flight left Singapore at about 10:45pm for the 13+ hour journey to Zurich and then another 2 hour flight to Madrid. All up our journey here took us about 31 hours.
We were met at the airport by our guide Fernando and taken to the Exe Hotel in the centre of Madrid. The hotel is very high tech with lights that go on and off when you walk into a darkened area etc. However, it is easy to open the windows and this sends the airconditioning system into "melt down" and requires the front desk to reset the temperature settings before it will work in the room again. The shower is wonderful, dropping multi litres of water on you. There seems to be no shortage of water in Madrid!

 We freshened up and explored the market opposite the hotel and wandered around the local area taking photos.
 

Thinly carved prosciutto

A very long escalator in the Market

The Fishmonger

Fishmonger in Madrid

The street opposite the Hotel Exe

Fernando took us to a place for dinner that is probably best described as a food hall. The building looked like a converted wool store with little shops selling meals from booths on two of the three levels. A couple of the stalls sold drinks. So one could buy a beer and a meal for about €10.00.
 

The place where we had dinner

One of the small booths selling meals

Wednesday 4th. May 2016
It was a fine cool morning in Madrid. We had an excellent breakfast and were on the bus for a tour on Madrid by 9:00am.
 

The Madrid Bullring	Monument outside the Bullring	Monument outside the Bullring
Statue of Don Quixote & Sancho	Statue of Don Quixote & Sancho	Statue of Don Quixote

 We traveled around the city for an hour or so, watched part of the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace, before getting off and doing a walking tour of the old part of the city.
 

Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace	Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace
Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace	Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace
Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace	Changing of the Guard at the Royal Palace

Many of the Squares and outdoor cafes were full of Manchester United football supporters who were in town for a match against Real Madrid this evening. After walking through the narrow streets and various town squares we left our local guide and wandered off towards the Prado Museum.
 

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

The old part of Madrid

We stopped on the way and had some lunch. Instead of going to the Prado with the others, we headed off to the botanical gardens, which were not as spectacular as we had hoped, and then onto the Parque Del Buen Retiro. This is a very nice park with plenty of shady trees and lawns. We watched people rowing their hire boats up and down the lake, took a few photos and walked back to our hotel. We arrived at the hotel at about 4:30pm.

Frog in Botanic Gardens, Madrid	Boating on lake in front of Monument to Alfonso Xll
Couple taking selfie in front of Puetra de Alcala	Puetra de Alcala, Madrid

We all walked about 200 metres down the street to a restaurant for the Bunnik's welcoming dinner. It seemed that no matter how many times the steaks were returned to the kitchen for recooking the cook failed to produce a medium to well done cooked steak. Each time it returned to the table lightly seared on both sides and completely raw in the middle 2/3rds. But apart from this little misunderstanding it was a pleasant meal.

Thursday 5th. May 2016
It was an overcast morning with the temperature about 16˚C. We left the hotel by bus at 9:00am but had to return when one of the group discovered she had left her passport behind. We finally set off for Burgos at 9:30am. We arrived at Burgos just before 1:00pm and had a tour of the cathedral. Like most other Catholic cathedrals it was very ornate inside. There was a unique clock in one corner, high up on the wall that had a couple of animated characters that struck bells every hour. This is the resting place of El Cid whose claim to fame was ridding the Moors from Spain. Construction on the Cathedral began in 1221 and was completed in 1567. It is a Gothic-style Roman Catholic cathedral.
We then had lunch at a local restaurant, after which we explored the town for about 3/4 on an hour.
I took a couple of photos of a young girl busking and playing the fiddle. It was hard to get her to engage with the camera but when she did she had huge white eyes.
At about 3:45pm we climbed back on the bus and headed to our hotel for the night in Bilbao.

The Erchilla Hotel may be conveniently located close to the centre of Bilbao, but the first problem was having to carry our luggage down a set of 20 or so stairs to reception. Although there was one porter on duty to do this task (the usual lift had broken down) he was somewhat overwhelmed when 16 of us arrived at the doorstep with our luggage. So most of us carried our own luggage down the steps and into the hotel.
When we went to our room, we discovered the air conditioner wasn't working. The technician arrived and discovered that it had been turned off at the switchboard. To us this was a signal that perhaps another technician had already discovered a fault with the air conditioning unit and had put the unit into a safe mode while spare parts or something were ordered in. Anyway, the staff assured us that the reading on the wall unit of 24.5 degrees was the current room temperature and that it would cool down to the required 19 degrees within an hour.
We went out to dinner at a tapas bar in a large square in the old part of town and returned to our room at 9:00pm to find the room temperature was now 25.5 degrees. The Manager gave us a new room, but even in this room the air conditioner seems so ineffective that we have opened the window and door to let some of the evening 20 degree cool air into the room.
Another member of our party had been given a room that had obviously been used by smokers but didn't want to complain that it wasn't a non smoking room as had been requested. All in all the hotel rates quite lowly on our scale.

Burgos Cathedral

Burgos Cathedral

Burgos Cathedral

The unique clock high on the wall, Burgos Cathedral	Burgos Cathedral
Another church in Burgos. Cathedral in the background	Small village between Burgos and Bilbao

Burgos Cathedral

Busker in Burgos

Busker in Burgos

Friday 6th. May 2016
It was about 16˚C and overcast when we left the hotel at 9:00am to do a bus  tour of Bilbao. When it was founded, Bilbao was a centre for iron ore production and processing, as well as ship building and a port. The heavy industry has now all gone and the buildings cleaned of the grime that coated them for centuries. One of the drawcards, now, is the Guggenheim Museum which was inaugurated in 1997.
Our route took us past the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum with it's glistening  titanium cladding (designed by Frank Gehry) which is shaped as ships to remind people of Bilbao's shipbuilding heritage. We made our way up one of the many hills that overlooks Bilbao. Next we returned to the city and were shown an old warehouse that had been converted to a gym with a glass bottomed swimming pool that formed the roof of the atrium. So that when one stood in the atrium you could see the swimmers in the pool some 20 metres above you. From here we did a walking tour of the old part of the city. Like most European cities these areas have narrow streets, remains of city walls and really look much like each other.
We were given over three hours free time to explore the old part of the city but Briar and I decided to catch a taxi and explore the outside of the Guggenheim Museum. We took a lot of photos and then returned to meet p with the rest of the group. It was then that we heard that one of the group members had had her bag snatched as she sat in one of the parks. To our disbelief, when we returned to the hotel later, we found someone had handed her passport, keys, credit cards etc in at the front desk of the hotel, minus the cash!
We returned to the Guggenheim Museum and spent about 2 hours exploring and looking at the exhibits. There were works by Andy Warhol, Picasso, Miro to name a few as well as a series of huge flat steel curved sculptures which must have been 50mm thick of solid steel. We returned to the hotel just after 7:00pm.

The Iberdrola Tower, Bilbao

The Foyer of the Guggenheim Bilbao

Anish Kapoor sculpture, Bilbao

Richard Serra, (part)The Matter of Time, 1994–2005

Richard Serra, (part)The Matter of Time, 1994–2005

Jeff Koons, Tulips, 1995–2004, Guggenheim Bilbao	The Guggenheim Bilbao Museum
Jeff Koons giant floral Puppy sculpture	Bilbao viewed from a hilltop park
The church and the bridge that symbolises Bilbao	Maman created by Louise Bourgeois

We discovered just after midnight that our newly allocated room was directly beneath, what seemed to be, the nightclub room. We were both awoken to the vibrations from the bass guitar and the drums. This went on until about 3:00am when the music stopped. The room was then rearranged and we could hear furniture being dragged across the polished floor above us. At about 4:30am there was a sound like rats gnawing in the ceiling above us. I don't know what that was! Then at about 5:00am all was silent.

Saturday 7th. May 2016
We left the hotel at about 8:30am in light rain which continued the whole way to San Sebastian. We took the funicular to the top of Mount Igeldo, took some photos in the rain and took our bus down to sea level again. Fernando then took us on a guided walking tour of the old district of San Sebastian. The rain continued to fall during the whole walking tour. It stopped raining at about 1:00pm, while we were having lunch and a glass of white wine in one of the numerous tapas bars.
After lunch the sun broke through and the rain stopped. We got some good photos near the Aquarium and la Concha Beach. We then walked around to Buen Pastor Cathedral and took more photos.
 

Choir Practice, San Sebastian

Bronze Statue, San Sebastian

Scrubba in San Sebastian

Overlooking San Sebastian from Mount Igeldo	Marina in San Sebastian
Learning to use a surf ski in san Sebastian	Paddling in San Sebastian

Knot, San Sebastian

Busker in San Sebastian

Buen Pastor Cathedral, San Sebastian

At about 3;30pm we boarded the bus again and headed out of The Basque Country and into Navarre and the city of Pamplona. Just after 5:00pm we began another walking tour, this time we explored the old part of the city of Pamplona. We more of less followed the 850 metre course of the running of the bulls and ended up, like the bulls, at the bull ring.
We checked out the various bars and places frequented by Ernest Hemmingway.
Pamplona seems to be a very vibrant place with a lot of young people out and about, and bands and music everwhere. The tour finished at about 6:45pm and we headed off and had some more tapas and wine for dinner.
The Hotel Maisonnave, Pamplona, is very comfortable and is located right in the middle of the old part of town. The streets outside are packed with people.

Café Iruña, Pamplona, where Ernest Hemmingway used to eat	Impromtu dancing in the streets of Pamplona
Beer garden in Pamplona	Part of the protective railing for the running of the bulls

Church in Pamplona

Mercaderes Curia, Pamplona

Resting place for Pilgrims

Outside our hotel, Nueva Street, Pamplona

Our walking tour in Pamplona

Sunday 8th. May 2016
We left Pamplona at about 8:30am. The weather was warm but overcast and it soon started to rain. It took about 2 hours by bus to reach the city of Biarritz. I'm not sure why this city was included in the itinerary but we spent about 2 hours there, walking around the beach in the light rain. We came across some kind of military commemoration parade at the top of one cliff. There was a band that played a very solemn version March of the soldiers of Robert Bruce. The Celtic aire seemed slightly out of place in the south of France.

Beach at Biarritz, France	Coastline at Biarritz, France
Biarritz, France	Coastline at Biarritz, France

Bandmaster at Biarritz parade

Local model on photo shoot

Biarritz, France

We then drove onto the city of Bayonne. This city has a population of around 50K and is the capital of the French Basque region.
There was a Basque festival on in another town not far away and so many of the people of Bayonne had gone for the day and many of the shops and restaurants were closed. We found a restaurant for lunch and afterwards walked around the old part of the town, visited the cathedral and a small market set up adjacent to the Cathedral.

Bayonne Street, France

Bayonne Street & River, France

Busker alongside Bayonne Cathedral

Bayonne Cathedral, France

A fellow going into Bayonne Cathedral

We left Bayonne at about 4:30pm for the two hour bus trip to Bordeaux. We checked into the Mercure Bordeaux hotel about 7:00pm. Our room is huge, but the airconditioning is a bit suspect so we have opened the windows.
We had dinner at a restaurant just down the road from the hotel.