We’ve changed travel plans. Originally we were going to spend 3 months in Spain but we’ve changed out minds, due to the uncertainty of immigration officers and their understanding of the Bilateral Agreement.

It’s not Spain we’re worried about, it’s out next move to Italy which would enact that rule and we’ve heard dodgy things about Italian immigration. So best not to risk it. Originally we were going to go straight to spend 3 month in Spain and spend 3 months in Italy straight afterwards because the Bilateral agreement superseded the Schengen agreement… but it comes down to the immigration officer and who’s on that day.

Plus, this is going to sound crazy, but it’s a bit weird to stay in a place for 3-months. I think it’s because it doesn’t seem as exciting because it’s a bit too easy. Scotland feels very similar to NZ in the winter, we can read the signs and everyone speaks the language – we can’t always understand them however. So we’ve made a call rather than 3 months in Spain, we’ll do 2, and then maybe we go back? There is a lot to see in Spain and we want to stay there, but we are also pretty anxious to get to Italy.

So this is the plan – currently

Seville, Barcelona, then Rome! Then we have to leave and ‘drain the clock’ which is likely to be Croatia (a must), Bulgaria and Romania. We have other options like Turkey, Egypt and Morocco as our ‘drain the clock’ countries. But, we might leave those ones for a bit and revisit them later and hope things settle down in that region of the world.

Turkey is a must see for me, so we’ll go, we just want to wait and be a little bit sensible on that one.

Why Rome? Only because we FINALLY (technically) got 19 Euro tickets to Rome from Barcelona on Ryanair! I’ve been trying to get those deals for months. The catch of course, is that we have to take bags with us. We add bags and that turns a 19 Euro flight into an 80 Euro flight, so almost 300 Euro for the 4 of us. Sucky.  It’s still the cheapest flight out. I feel like I didn’t nee Mama’s help (i.e. Martina) on this one.

We’re catching the train to Barcelona (5.5 hour fast train, which is about the same to fly!). The train costs more than the flights to Rome. Bloody hell, just can’t win. The train was a better deal than flying internally, plus we love train travel. We don’t have to be paranoid about the weight of our bags, we get to see the sights a little and we can move around. Lennox is excited that it’s a fast train too.

We don’t know where we’re staying in Barcelona, the chances are it won’t be in Barcelona but about an hour outside, as they are the cheaper places to rent. There aren’t any housesits at that time (of course). All the housesits are in NZ and Aussie at the moment. We’ve also decided that since we spend so much time at home with work and school, it’s better to put the money in the house and move further out of town.  We haven’t tested this yet but intend to on this next move.

After Barcelona we fly to Rome (Feb 11th). Oh man, Rome! We’re all excited about actually seeing Rome. Even the kids want to see “old stuff”. All those Asterix books have paid off finally. We’re only there for a short stint before we have to leave (Croatia?) but we’ll come back and do the one thing that I HAVE to do, that started it all. The Lamborghini museum/factory. To be fair, if we don’t get there I won’t be crushed, but it would be weird to do this trip and not go there.

So Seville, Barcelona, Rome and then – who knows?

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Alice Rae-Flick

Latest posts by Alice Rae-Flick (see all)

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