Excellent tour. Great shout out to Fernando the tour leader. Fun and entertaining and steered the course between not annoying the experienced traveller with unnecessary caution and not worrying the overanxious. He also provided interesting commentaries on ordinary Spanish society, food, beer wine. In particular he handled four "emergency situations with care and expertise, in particular the medical evacuation, where he organised the trip and kept the rest of the group informed as to what had to happen. In particular he helped me when my pocket was picked in Barcelona the day before the tour began. He had arrived that afternoon and when informed by the hotel of the situation he contacted me and gave me good advice and took me to the police station to make a report, whilst there he cut through the red tape and helped me fill out the form etc. Very much appreciated.
As to the trip I thought it was quite good in where it went and what it covered. You can always see more but it was good balance. I liked the small towns we visited and the :events" like the wine tastings, which normally I don't think much of , were all interesting and enjoyable, because of the locations and differing process explained. The trips could always be longer ,but where do you end. I had not been to Spain for 40 years and was a bit surprised at the distances we travelled.
A couple of issues,. Earlier on in the tours the baths in the hotels with the showers above were slippery and dangerous. I was not the only person to notice this, cured this risk by putting a hand towel down and standing on that, but it could have turned nasty. Maps. If you have free time you really need a good map to make the best of the visit. I know people have maps on phones but I did not have romeing and in any event I find those maps difficult to use. The maps we were given varied in quality. Some were very good allowing you to easily find where you were and what was available, others were pretty useless, those that just had few street names and drawings of monuments were often pretty confusing and basically useless. Local events. Some times there were local festivals that restricted what was open in the town. Perhaps some warning of this could help you plan around any restrictions that impinge on your free time.
