Iberia Idyll Imminent

At this juncture Peregrinations goes incommunicado for a time. On Sunday we depart for Barcelona and a 19-day adventure in Spain, including a week of hill-climbing in Catalonia and most of another in Granada. The hill portion features climbs of as much as 800 metres or so and distances of up to 22 km. Gulp. Let’s hope this summer’s constitutional hikes to Dalem Lake and the time we’ve recently spent slogging up some of Cape Breton’s steeper hills with Lynn and Louise has us ready for our latest European adventure.

The draw in Granada is not just the celebrated Alhambra but family ties too: nephew Michael is three weeks into a six-month sabbatical there with Alice, Ana and Rex. We’re keen to remove the rust from our ability to order cold beer in Spanish, and to look for new birds too. Maybe even one we’ve sought in vain before: the outlandish, garishly attired hoopoe.

If all goes according to plan, we should return intact to this side of the Atlantic October 4. No doubt Jan and I will think of something to write about soon thereafter.