gelato, fall leaves, cool evenings, gorgeous architecture, amazing art!  since the kids are such great students at Español, we all were in agreement that this oct. break would be a trip to España.  it is a beautiful country.  we visited three cities all unique to one another and we are so glad to have experience the nuanced difference.  first we visited barcelona, which is currently testing the idea of independence from spain, we saw many Catalan flags flying vs. the Spanish flag.  next we visited madrid: bigger, busier and slightly less friendly, but hey bigger city!  the 3rd city was the ancient walled and former capitol of spain, toledo.  each city had museum(s) that we wanted to visit and see their treasures.  museo picasso first thing in barcelona!  since no photography is allowed my only capture is of the signage outside.  the collection is amazing so we bought postcards of our favs (which we do when photos are a no-no.) picasso's Guernica is in Madrid, housed in museo reina sofia - so same protocol, no photography which is understandable but it would be fun to share how grand it truly is in both message and enormous size.  unlike many of the museums in italy, these docents seem to be on their toes and not asleep in their chairs, so no sneaking at all.  long walks, high speed train,  golden fall skies, tapas, cobblestone streets, crazy fast taxi's, beautiful alley ways, & street performers all encompassed our trip.  oh, and the vin0 tint0 rivals italy, truly.