Toledo - Of swords and churches.

I've chosen to go to Toledo, I can't remember why. Vague memories of Don Quixote, from a novel by Cervantes maybe, long ago read but residing somewhere in my brain. It's the town of steel, famous for it's sword making back in medieval days.

I alight from the train to an amazing station. Ir's very Moroccan, intricate brickwork, fretwork, ironwork. I look at the ticket desk and I am yet again transported to the twenties.

I get a taxi and we circle upwards to the top of the hill, stunning views of soft ochre and salmon coloured roofs and a river snaking beyond. My hotel is close to the old town and I walk up through the 35 degree heat, the medieval alleyways, hot and treeless. I knew El Greco, the Greek artist lived and painted here and as ever on the art trail, I find his one painting here. I'd forgotten how dark and tortured his paintings were, his people elongated portraits of saddened humanity.

I struggle to get through to the magical Spanish hour of eight when restaurants suddenly come to life, although it's much too early for Spaniards to eat. I am the tourist alone, eating at the ungodly hour of eight on the dot.

I wonder back home in the European endless twilight, swallows are crying out and diving low against a background of paling pinky gold. The night is warm and milky with moonlight. Another bed, another town and always the same thought - I've booked one night too many here. If I had company, it would be different, we could drink our way through the tapas bars, talking and discussing life. On my own is a different story and I wonder if I did the right thing travelling alone but my anxiety still hovers around me, and it's easier not to have to stress about someone other than myself.

The next day, I wander throughout the small centre of old Toledo. It's a town of mosques juxtaposed with Catholic churches and Synagogues, sword shops, marzipan cakes and figurines; and many shops of jamon, Spanish ham that is treated with a great deal of respect.

I find an outdoor restaurant where I eat chorizo sausages and roasted peppers. I walk across the medieval bridge to a castle and that night I find a restaurant open at 7.30! The tapas is amazing! Big mushrooms filled with chicken, manchego cheese and cream; fried green tomatoes; goats cheese with homemade fig marmalade. On the way home, I stop and buy some of the marzipan that this town is so famous for and eat it sitting on the cities old wall, looking out over the fields, in the company of the playful swallows. I am not entirely alone.

Seduced in Barcelona.

I'm off to meet the daughter in Barcelona - as you do. She's booked us in to see Mumford & Sons. Very excited. On the plane to Spain,I'm seated next to a very large Slovenian man who starts chatting to me. I keep having to turn to listen to him and and suddenly he takes a selfie with me and then asks for my number, asking me to visit in Slovenia where he will show me a good time. All said in a very strong accent. ! I say no and for the rest of the flight we sit in uncomfortable silence.

Our hotel.

The hotel is over the top, turn of the century. I've booked it for two nights in celebration of meeting up with the daughter but after that we're moving to a cheaper one. This one , we find out, has a twenty four hour buffet! Yes, you heard correctly, so we will save on food. Every surface of this hotel is covered in wallpaper, beautiful fabrics, surrounded by gold elaborate framework and mirrors. Our room is apricot from the carpet to the covered roof. The buffet is phenomenal, especially the crunchy almond nougat which we practically live on.

I'm on a Gaudi mission, the talented Catalan designer who was way before his time. I drag the daughter off to Casa Battlo. I am awed. She's a bit claustrophobic as it is packed with tourists. It is a creation of organic forms, of sea-like curves and waves, of glass panels that somehow distort the reflected tile work into free form watery patterns. The woodwork, art nouveau style ,is sinuous, snaking throughout, on stairs, on walls. It is a marvel.

We have walked far and wide and the buffet bar seems to far away for dinner so we go to Taller Tapas. We have Cava sangria with apple liquor, a far different drink to the sangria jugs in Australia. We have fried eggplant cubes with goats, drizzled with honey; hot chorizo baked in cider; fried Brie with raspberry puree and upon arrival home, some more of the almond nougat.

Next day we go to Park Gruell. Another Gaudi masterpiece. He lived here during the construction of this 17 hectare public park creating amazingly diverse structures and mosaics. You would have thought he was an early hippie but he was a devout Roman Catholic and never married. In later years, religion took over his life and he died after being hit by a tram on his way to the church that he created, Sagrada Familia. No one recognised the dishevelled old man that he had become after he became obsessed with religion and mysticism.

That night we make our way out of the city to where Mumford & Sons are performing. We discover that a big game of soccer is also on so getting there isn't easy. Again we are dropped a long way from the event and walk another twenty minutes to get there. It's a glorious warm, spring, sunset of an evening and the concert is mind blowing. Their headline act, an Aussie group, Gang of Youths, are also fantastic, the things the lead singer can do with his hips! If only I'd been sitting next to him on the plane.

Getting home is another issue. No taxis so we just follow the crowds and the noisy fans of the soccer team that won. Eventually we find a taxi rank and after waiting in an endless line that doesn't seem to move, we end up walking home through the back streets of Barcelona, accidentally finding ourselves in the Red Light district and finally, exhaustingly making it back to our hotel, only to discover that all the almond nougat has been eaten!

The next day we move, the daughter chooses to rest at the downgraded hotel and I go to Casa Amatller. Amatller chocolates began 220 years ago. I have bought their beautiful tins in Australia. The family commissioned an architect to create an art nouveau extravaganza of a house and so it is. I emerge an hour later, exhausted from over stimulation of all my senses. An Amatller hot chocolate is included in the ticket price. At the bottom of the beautiful staircase I sit and order the cinnamon flavoured one. It comes in beautiful pale pink cups with toast for dipping.

I spend the rest of the day wandering this art nouveau paradise of a city. The beautiful shop fronts, the glorious architecture, interesting Tapas, friendly people. If this is what Spain is like, I'm going to enjoy the next week of visiting a few towns here as the daughter returns to University life in Italy.

Auronzo - Falling in love.

This place has never done a great deal for me, I’m a child of the cities where I can walk and watch people, look at art and search for creative inspiration. This place is all limestone mountains, earthed by size and holding in lakes and streams, fir trees and a sense of feeling tiny and insignificant against the backdrop of these giant grey mountains. But somehow, this time, this village communicates with me directly, settles me, earths me, draws me along its edges and down it’s slopes and up its steep hills. My emotions flow with the waters that trickle over the white rocked waterways that lead to the dam; the colours caress me, deep jades and cerulean blues. I am briefly calmed. It's the first spring we've had here. Our days take on a quiet rhythm. We walk, shop, cook, eat and walk again. The brain starts to align again.

I walk with the daughter up the back of the house and up through a pathway that in thirty years I’ve never been on. Maybe that’s symbolic of my life at the moment, making new pathways, seeing things previously unseen. I have to crawl the last few steep metres, moving sideways, crab-like to reach the pathway that’s cut into the hillside. The sound of bees amongst the spring blossoms, songbirds, yellow and white butterflies alighting on dandelions, chasing each other up the hill, it’s as if I’ve seen nothing up to this point of my life.

It's Easter, Friday and there's a procession of people at 8.30 coming down our street carrying a cross and stopping at the various stations of the cross that are scattered about the town. They sing as they go and in a way, even though I’m no longer of the christian persuasion, the simplicity of their actions, going back centuries, are beautiful and give me a sense of place.

I wait impatiently for the moon to rise, I see a lightening to the east of the mountain and after a while, a voluptuous big moon quickly appears, over the church that is all lit up for Easter, the lake silvered by its presence.

The next day the daughter leaves to meet up with a friend in Vienna and I go for a long walk along the new walkway, passing glimpses of the aquamarine stream, the white pebbles, the tall emerald pine trees, perfumed wild violets nestling in amongst the dandelions, low to the ground white and mauve crocus appear along the river bank. It's the first Easter Sunday I have spent on my own in my entire life! I take myself out to lunch - I have a radicchio and speck lasagne which is light and tasty. I go back home and share a Sicilian cassata with my sister-in-law which is sent to her twice a year from Palermo, encased in a beautifully decorated tin and is spectacular. After a large slice, I head back down to the lake with all the other Italian tourists who've probably consumed too much food.

It’s a perfect day, almost a heatwave for this region. I find a grassy patch on a hill and watch the river make its meandering way through different entrenched courses. I’m happy just staring. That worries me, as I’ve always been a mover and a shaker and yet here I am, content to be still. It’s a good thing, I think. It’s very zen, it’s meditation. I am warmed by the sun.

Two days later, I have left again. But that's my life now. I am gypsyfied, forever on the move.