Deciding to Travel
Barb & I have recently arranged our lives so we can spend more time traveling. The COVID situation was not part of our plans so we had to decide how we were going to react to it. We had so many places in the world that we wanted to go that we thought we should get started taking the precautions that were appropriate. It didn’t hurt that the tour companies were offering good prices on their packages as well.
We made sure that all the cancellation options were in place, and we booked the trip with lots of insurance as well giving ourselves are much flexibility as possible. We had been down to Costa Rica only a few months ago, to welcome our granddaughter into the world, so we felt we were ready to move ahead with more travel.
Spain and Portugal seemed like a good place to start since the vaccination rates were high and the borders were open to Canadians. Our trip originally included time in Morocco, and that was a country that did not have good vaccination rates, so we were happy when the tour company decided to remove it from our list of destinations. They suggested we stay in the Costa Del Sol for an extra week, and we agreed that would be a good way to modify the trip.
We have been asked lots of questions about our recent travels and so I thought we should record some of our motivations, findings, and experiences in a way that we could share them. When we mentioned to a few people that we were getting ready to leave we heard “Wow are you two brave!”. We never thought of ourselves as brave as much as we were impatient and wanting to get on with life. It was our belief that if we were careful, life while traveling could be just as safe as life at home.
We also made sure that we were as healthy as we could be having had our vaccinations, taking our vitamin C & D and keeping up with our regular exercise.
We booked our trip through Wingbuddy, and this is our original itinerary:
Wingbuddy.com – Spain, Portugal and Morocco
As mentioned our trip was modified, so we stayed in Spain and Portugal and did not go to Morocco as planned.
To make it easier to read we gathered our observations into the following topics:
Traveling during COVID
Traveling General
Using Technology
Traveling around
Spain & Portugal Observations
Adventures & Activities
Traveling during COVID
We were very happy with our overall travel experience. In general, everyone we met were respectful of others. This included fellow travelers and the people we met in Spain and Portugal.
The airplanes were surprisingly full given that the government was not recommending non-essential travel when we left. (It has since been lifted). There were both business and pleasure travelers with us on the plane. On all the flights they asked us to keep our masks on when we were not eating or drinking. They also requested that we put our masks on when we were talking with airline staff. We did not see anyone resisting this or causing trouble with these policies. The European airlines required surgical masks and did not accept the cloth masks we see so often in Canada. The cheap blue or black surgical masks were very prevalent, but a few people were wearing the N95 style masks. These types of masks were more common in the streets as well.
Whenever we went into a building, people put their masks on without exception. Very much like here in Ontario. Also, whenever you were inside a bus, taxi, or uber you would have your mask on. Outside we were surprised to see that more than 50% of the people had their masks on in some places. This varied a bit by city, and we found that in general, the people of Spain wore their masks more than those in Portugal. The higher vaccination rates in Portugal may explain that.
When we were walking outside in a crowd, we found ourselves putting our masks on whenever the crowd got to be higher density. We also noticed that younger people, those in their 20-30’s, seem to wear their masks less often.
One of the good side effects of COVID cleanliness is that we found the washrooms to be very, very clean. You still need to travel with a handful of toilet paper, (just in case it has run out), but the washrooms themselves were well maintained, and cleaned often.
In order to fly back to Canada, we were required to get a COVID PCR test. This was quite easy and was arranged by the travel agent. The process was quite easy and this cost us about $100 each. We had the results in ½ a day, with lots of time before we traveled home.
We heard from some of the tour guides that when we were traveling the number of visitors was down significantly. They said it was only at the level of 30% of the normal visitors. We noticed many people from the UK and Germany traveling with us. Some of them mentioned to us that it was only a $150 flight from their countries and was very convenient. One couple from London said that they normally would go to Paris for holidays, but that the costs there were just too high so they were now traveling to Spain. We never met another Canadian on the trip at all. We did meet 3 people from the United States.
The lower number of visitors seems to impact the companies offering services, but we did benefit from this. Our tour was quite a bit smaller than we expected, and as such, we had very good service. We were the only 2 English-speaking people on the tour. The tour was not a consistent size and changed from a low of the 2 of us (in Marbella) to 7 people when we were going back from Torremolinos to Madrid. Because of this small size, we were traveling by car, or van or small bus. The thing we found interesting was that the other people on the tour with us were all from South America. We met people from Columbia, Chile, and Puerto Rico.
The lower number of visitors also meant that there were fewer visitors to all of the places we went. No lines, better pictures (fewer people standing around), and more personalized service. I also suspect that there were fewer pickpockets because there was no crowd to hide out in.
We heard an excellent story about the Alhambra site when they were reopening. After COVID, they first opened up to local people, then their local province, then their region, then the country, and only recently did they open to people from other countries. We actually had to carry our passports when we were there. The people from that region said it was amazing to visit there because you could hear the birds and the water running without all the visitors.
Traveling General
Overall, we had a very good experience. We liked the fact that the tour we were on had a basic agenda and often arranged for a city tour, but we were left alone for more than half of the time to fend for ourselves. We like to keep busy and had a plan for every day. One thing we learned was that it was important was to have a plan but to be flexible. We found that one area had a huge celebration going on so we decided to visit it a day early so we didn’t get caught up in the traffic. The day after the celebration we planned to rent a bike and ride along the waterfront. We went to the bike rental place and no one was around to open the door. We later had a message from the guy saying that his battery had gone dead and he didn’t open the door. (We think he was likely hungover from the party the day before…) We just changed our plan and decided to walk along the waterfront. It ended up being a great day and we took a boat ride back along part of the way.
We were very lucky that the weather was perfect every single day. We never had to make adjustments for the weather.
Paying for things was easy and Euros were all you had to carry. For Canadians, the current exchange rate is 1.48 CDN$ to one Euro, so we just used a rule of thumb of 1.5X. If you needed cash you could get it from one of the many ATMs located in the main centers. Using a bank-based ATM would normally save you a bit of the “convenience charge” for the conversion. You could also use your credit card at most locations. Most times you will get a chance to charge the bill in Euros or Canadian dollars. We found that booking it in Euros would save us a bit for each transaction. I also added a Credit card to my iPhone Wallet so that I didn’t have to carry a credit card.
Our day would often involve sampling some of the local wine. We would walk until we were tired, then stop in a place where we could watch some of the locals. Barb was excellent at finding places where the locals were hanging out. This was normally an indication that the food was good, or the wine was cheap, or often both.
We quickly learned that when you ordered wine, they provided you with something to eat with it. Some form of tapas. The most common was a large bowl of olives. After the first few stops, we found that you could order a bottle of wine for 12-15€, and it would be excellent. In Spain we loved the Rioja region, Ribera del Duero (Shore of the Douro River). and in Portugal, we loved anything from the Douro Valley region.
The places we visited in Spain and Portugal also offered a great opportunity for us to keep active by walking. We often walked as much as 6-7 km a day. For this, it is obviously important that you pick good walking shoes when you are in this area. Much of the walking you do in the older cities are on cobblestone walkways which can be hard on the feet.
We also noticed that many of the places we traveled on this tour had separate bicycle paths and encouraged an active life. The other thing that we noticed here, and hear is an issue in many big cities, is the fact that there are many battery-powered motorized scooters littering the streets. People just seem to dump them when they are done with them and leave them on the streets. They have names like Lime and Bird and I even saw a few with Uber stickers on them. We also saw a large number of electric bikes for rent, and we considered trying them out. Although we were intrigued, we didn’t have enough time to do the research and take a bike or a scooter out for a spin.
We really didn’t figure out tipping. Some people seemed to expect a tip others didn’t. Most of the other people we traveled with didn’t tip. We did. When we had a tour guide we would tip between 5€ – 10€ per person, depending on the time they were with us and how good they were. For the tour drivers, we normally tipped 5€ per day per person. In the restaurants, we eventually figured out that most of the prices included a 10% tip.
Using Technology
For those of you who know me, I am a bit of a technical person, so I like to take advantage of technology when it makes sense. Here are a few suggestions that I think everyone could take advantage of when they travel.
Adding a SIM card to your existing active phone can mess up your settings, and cause some configuration issues as we learned on a recent trip to Costa Rica, so we brought one of our old cell phones with us to Europe. The second day we were there, we purchased a local SIM chip which was good for all of Europe for a month. It cost us $20€, (about $30 CDN). That also included 30Gb of data, compared to the 3Gb of data we get at home for a much higher price… (don’t get me started on that one..). We had to turn on our Canadian-based phone for the first day, just to make one emergency phone call and that cost us $15. Obviously, the SIM chip paid for itself in just 2 days.
On the phone we used, we turned off all of the email activities and then used it as a local hot spot. That allowed us to keep getting our email and social media feeds on our main phones, (we each carried our own phones). We used our travel phone for any active maps, and phone calls. If you have not set up a hot spot on your phones before, try it before you travel so you are familiar with the operation of this feature.
WhatsApp was used quite a bit in Europe so we always tried to make sure we knew if the number they provided could also be used as WhatsApp. If you are not familiar with this, I suggest you set it up before you travel so you can get familiar with using it when you travel.
Wifi was almost everywhere, (like at home), and with the addition of the roaming hot spot, we always had access to the Internet. On some of the longer bus rides, I would use the hot spot to post the pictures from the day before.
We always had a spare battery pack with us every day we went out. That ensured that we could activate the hot spot or charge our phones. I used my iPhone XR for the pictures we posted and had to make sure that was charged.
Google translate is a truly remarkable app. I suggest that you download any languages you will run into on your tour before you leave. This allows you to do translations without being connected to the Internet. On our trip, we needed both Spanish and Portuguese.
There is a camera icon on the Google translate app. It takes a bit of getting used to, but you can hold your camera over some text on a sign, or ingredients in a can, or anywhere, and it will do a “real-time” translation. The English version of the words will float over the other words on the image.
You can also type in the words you want to be translated, like perhaps “Where is the cold white wine?” and it will translate it to the appropriate version. Even better, when you turn your phone sideways, it enlarges the translated words so you can flash your phone from the other side of the store and they can point to the proper cooler. (Yes… this actually happened).
Traveling Around
Traveling between cities is quiet and peaceful. Traveling within the cities, especially the largest ones, is anything but peaceful. In fact, with all of the scooters, and electric bikes I mentioned, things can be quite crazy.
In Penetanguishene we just had our first roundabout installed. These are a common occurrence in Europe and almost every main intersection is a roundabout. That would be OK if they hadn’t modified them to add stop lights, taxi, and bus lanes, and pedestrian crossing lights into the mix. That made the experience just nuts!
On our way over on our trip, we seriously considered renting a car and doing the driving ourselves. Specifically in Marbella, where we would be for a full 6 days. After doing the math, and experiencing the craziness that existed in the bigger cities we decided that would just not make sense.
We found Uber to be everywhere and very, very convenient. During our 6 day stay in Marbella, we used 26 Uber trips for a cost of $370. Renting a car for just 4 days was over $1,000. Also, we didn’t have to worry about finding parking, or dealing with the crazy traffic. We also recognized another benefit when we were hiking. We came to the side of the road after hiking for over an hour. We didn’t really know where we were. We dialed in a ride and a few minutes later an Uber was picking us up at the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere. We really appreciated that flexibility and would sometimes just call an Uber when we got tired of walking.
Seatbelts in Ubers are good ideas. I don’t know why, but they like to go as fast as they can from location to location. I guess that way they can pick up their next fare sooner. Zooming around a roundabout at high-speed weaving to miss the scooters and cyclists is not for the faint of heart. Again seatbelts are a good idea.
Uber prices change based on the demand. Sometimes you will price out a ride and find out that it is 2.5x more a few minutes later. During those times you may want to consider a Taxi as an alternative. In Madrid, they actually had integrated the Taxi drivers into the Uber system. Sometimes you would have the option of a taxi ride (for one Euro less), or waiting for an actual Uber car.
One thing to keep in mind in the older cities. Some of them have “No travel zones” where an Uber cannot pick you up. The app will not specifically tell you this, but it may indicate that you must walk a few blocks before you can be picked up. Keep an eye open for this. I think the streets are marked, but when they are written in a foreign language it can be easy to miss.
We also used Google maps when walking. You can ask Google to give you a street-by-street guide and it will tell you which way to go. I have the great ability to walk the wrong way, but if I keep my eyes on Google maps, it will show me the error of my ways.
Spain & Portugal Observations
In many ways Spain and Portugal are similar, and in other ways they are different. I will try to capture the things that we found to be interesting.
Wine. Both countries have a fascination with wine. They grow it, they drink it and they sell it everywhere. It is also very inexpensive. It was hard to find poor-quality wine, but they did exist. When we have traveled in Italy in the past we found that many of the places had their own table wine served in jugs. That was not the case with Spain or Portugal. In the places we stopped, they always were willing to show you the bottle of the wine you were drinking. I used my Vivino app to figure out exactly what we were drinking.
We did our best to sample as much wine as we could in a day… after all, we were never driving so it was a perfect opportunity to enjoy the local beverages. If you wanted a bottle to take home to your room, you could find one at the closest “supermercado” or supermarket. (Same word in both Spanish and Portuguese). Although we never tried them, you could find wine as low as 2 Euros. We would normally spend 8-12 Euros and have a very nice bottle of wine.
Portugal had a different colour of wine on many of the menus. In addition to Red and White, they would very often offer Green wine. This is a special wine grown in the Douro Valley and was referred to as Vino Verde. We found this to be a very fresh alternative. It is closest to white wine and has a very fresh flavour.
We found that the food, wine and activities were all reasonably priced, and there were always lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. They also like their cured meats. If you travel this area you will find many shops that offer cured meats right still on the leg. We anticipate that if we were to be there for a period of time, we could find even better places to buy low-cost food.
After wine, the Spanish people seemed to be fixated with their olive trees and their olive oil. We heard from many different people that they were the largest producers of olive oil in the world, with over 60% of the olive trees. Even some of the largest producers of Italian olive oil get their supply from Spain. As we traveled around the inner parts of Spain we would see acres and acres of olive trees planted. In Seville, we had an olive oil tasting, which was so good we ended up bringing home 5 different olive oils. The Spanish were also proud of their breakfast routine which was to put a slathering of olive oil on toast in the morning, sometimes with a tomato paste as well. That would be the basis of their breakfast, and a great way to start their day.
We had heard that the people from the north of Spain were normally more aloof, and the people from the south were a bit more friendly. That was also our experience. People in Portugal were almost always friendly. Almost everyone will try to speak English, or at minimum find you someone who would talk to you. We were also told that if you are in Portugal, it is better to speak English than poor Spanish. Although the two languages are close and share a few words, they can also be quite different in key ways.
Traveling in this area we found the hotel rooms to be small but very functional. That has been our experience in most of our travels in Europe.
People eat very late in both countries. We were surprised to find that many of the restaurants didn’t even open until 8:00 in the evening. As you might also expect, lunchtime doesn’t start until 1:00 or 2:00.
Our favourite location of the trip was clearly Porto in Portugal. It was a vibrant city that had a lot of history to offer, lots of great restaurants, oceanfront trails, and an active riverfront. It is on the Douro River, just down from the Douro Valley where they produce some of the best wine. The city was large enough to offer a great deal but small enough to be able to get around. The transit system was excellent, and the main downtown station was beautiful with many blue tiles everywhere.
It also seemed to be designed to promote active living with lots of bicycle lanes, and lots of people running. After doing a tour of the city in a bus, and a port tasting on the other side of the river at Calem we had time to see the sights ourselves. The people we met were very friendly, and the city seemed quite safe.
Because of the river, we recognized this as a good place for boating or at least boat tours. This also was quite comfortable for us.
We found a restaurant called Mistu online that was down an industrial street in the downtown. The reviews were great, but we were not able to book online so we wandered by at 5:30 pm. The restaurant did not open until 8:00 and although they were full, the bartender who was opening allowed us to book seats at the bar at 8:00. The food was some of the best we have ever had, and the service was excellent as well. We strongly recommend it if you can get in.
If you are a foodie, and you know your schedule in advance, I suggest you pick your restaurants and book them in advance to make sure you can get in. The best places are always booked up, and as things open up again, I am sure it will get even worse.
Adventures & Activities
As I mentioned, our tour company booked us driving and walking tours around the major cities. We also booked a few of our own adventures on our own to supplement our experience. We found viator.com and Airbnb were good sources of these activities.
We booked a wine tasting in Seville, (big surprise), a Paella cooking class near Torremolinos, a hike in Marbella and we also did our own hike in the countryside that we found on AllTrails, the local hiking app.
We were traveling with someone who was doing “free tours” in some of the cities. The guides would take a large group around the city, often for 2 hours, then just allow them to tip if they had value. These can be found on freetour.com. Although we never had a chance to try them, the person we traveled with thought they were great.
Some of your greatest adventures can also be impromptu. We were wandering the streets of Lisbon one evening and headed to the waterfront. As we looked around we saw Nelson, a tuk-tuk driver. He said, “How about a ride to the top of the hill to see the sunset”? That sounded fun so we jumped in. A tuk-tuk is really a motorcycle with a covered body and 2 wheels on the back. It can also be called an auto-rickshaw. Many of them have now been converted to electric drive, but this was one of the older ones with a small capacity two-cycle engine. The name tuk-tuk comes from the noise that the engine makes. Nelson was an expert at getting the most speed out of this device and winding his way up the narrow streets that did not permit cars. Although it was getting late, he was confident he could get us to the sunset on time. He told us stories and explained the development of the many parts of the city. He also wanted to point out each of the seven hills found in Lisbon. We were heading to the highest one with the best view.
His efforts rewarded us with a spectacular view overlooking the city with an equally spectacular sunset. The pictures we took really don’t do it justice. We shared that space with other people who had come for the sunset with their tuk-tuk drivers.
These are the type of experiences that make traveling worthwhile.
Coming Home
Coming home to Georgian Bay is always a welcome part of the trip. We love where we live and being away only seems to make us appreciate it that much more. After sleeping in many different beds, it was also nice to be back in our own bed and our own sunsets. We look forward to an active summer next year with time out on the bay.
