You cannot imagine how thrill we are of going again to Spain, we really love Spain , specially now that we are determine to spend most of our time in small villages.Madrid and barcelona are in our itineraries only because we have to fly there. (Nothing against them...) I also looked into the renefe and come to the following conclusion, however I would love to hear your opinion, because I am not familiar with some of provinces we will be visiting.

Arriving in Madrid, we are staying only two days, then driving to Picos through Salamanca and Leon , then I will need your help regarding the 2 days driving between Picos &Bilbao, I was thinking of sleeping in Santillana del Mar in the Parador, ....

Bilbao we would go specially if you think we can meet for dinner or something, in other words if a GTG seems possible we are talking of being there aprox. May 2( by the way is May 1 st a Holiday in Spain?)..do you think that the GTG is feasible,??? :-) I would love to eat your delicious sea food with you as a teacher... wouldn t mind visiting your lovely old town and that fantastic Guggenheim....

we are not thinking anymore in taking a train from Bilbao to Barcelona and instead we are thinking of driving to Barcelona, again I would please ask for your advise, we would stopping in Fernando 's home town ( not that I like him too much, I rather have Isabel any time) Sos del Rey Catolico, and find our way to Barcelona bordering the Pyrinees staying in either small towns or again in one of the paradores.

We will be heading not to Barcelona exactly but to Ripoll to visit some friends.. Spend one night, in Ripoll and the next day after lunch drive into Barcelona, return the car and take the train Pablo Picasso that leaves for Torino in the evening. ( WE will visit Barcelona and sleep in it on our back to take the plain back to Miami)

Sometimes we do not really know what we want!!!!!, I thought we wished to go to Italy, but when the opportunity of 2 tickets that could be up graded with miles to Madrid poped up, Gino and I looked to each other and knew that we really wish to visit Spain ....

The Pablo Picasso train seems a good solution for avoiding the long drive through France, the Snefe offers a lot of discounts and the tickets even in the Gran Clase seems resonable and in Torino we can pick up another car and do what we had planned in Italy.

Thank you . Muchas gracias. Graziella.