“We have many otters here in Portugal,” our guide mentioned casually as we drove through a fog-shrouded forest west of Lisbon.

Wait, what?!  I perked up in a way I hadn’t since the start of our trip.  “Really?” I asked, a little too quickly.

“Oh yes, many otters…  Lord Byron, Hans Christian Anderson, William Beckford and many others, all lived here in Sintra.”

Oh authors, not otters – my ear for accents is not exactly sharp.  What a disappointment!  I mean it’s cool and all that a bunch of authors lived in the area, but the possibility of spotting an otter would have been way better…

 

 

Marie and I had kicked off our trip in Barcelona and then used trains and buses to make a whirlwind counter-clockwise loop around Spain and Portugal, with quick stops in Madrid, Salamanca, and Aveiro before Lisbon.  I loved seeing the Iberian countryside, and all the places we visited were interesting, but more and more I was realizing that – for the most part, at least – cities just aren’t my thing these days.

The cities in most developed countries strike me as being a lot more homogenous than they were in the past.  The spread of global brands, the pervasive influence of western (especially American) media, the hordes of other tourists – all those things have ramped up significantly over the past decade or two.  Madrid, in particular, just felt like any other big city to me.  During a quick walk near the Plaza Mayor we passed Starbucks, H&M, Burger King, Five Guys, Zara, KFC, and multiple McDonald’s.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand that Madrid and all the other cities we visited are full of amazing history, art, food, nightlife, and culture, and that any lack of appreciation of those things results from my own failures as a traveler (and a person).  Visiting briefly, hanging out in touristy areas, and not engaging much with locals isn’t the best recipe for having “authentic” experiences.

And I did enjoy some aspects of our city visits quite a bit.  Despite the rain and cold that followed us for most of our first week, Marie and I had fun trying all the different tapas in Barcelona, wandering around Salamanca’s Old Town, seeing the canals in Aveiro, checking out the Palácio da Pena in Sintra, and climbing up to St. George’s Castle for panoramic views of Lisbon.  The clouds finally parted as we made our way from Portugal back into Spain, and it felt great to shed our coats in Seville and have drinks as the sun set behind the Canal de Alfonso XII.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Seville we took a bus down to Algeciras to catch a ferry over to Morocco.  There was some drama when our bus driver warned that striking farm workers might block the road and force us to turn back, but we made it through without a problem and boarded our ferry with time to spare.

The ride from Algeciras to Tangier turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip for me.  I was fascinated to see Gibraltar (which I knew best from reading World War Two history), and I hadn’t realized how incredibly close the southern tip of Spain is to the northern tip of Morocco.  At the narrowest point only eight miles separate the two continents, and Morocco is easily visible from Algeciras.

 

 

I’m really glad we had a chance to see so much of Spain and Portugal.  Marie hadn’t been to either country before, and everything except Barcelona was new to me.  But visiting north Africa would be a first for both of us as well, and I’d been counting down the days until we got to cross over to Morocco.