I left the country for spain at the end of april. My wife and I walked the Camino. The full version is 700 km over a month, but we did the 117 km version which takes 5 days. Made it ok, except for a blisters and a detached toenail. If you are planning a long walk, get the Compeed blister patches. The other brands are worthless. After that, we rented a Seat Ibiza and toured around.

In the 3 weeks in spain, I saw exactly 3 porsche sports cars - a 981, a 996 and a recent turbo cab. There may have been cayennes and such, but these don't show up on my radar. The spanish cities are beautiful, and make toronto look like a provincial backwater. I suppose what it means is that canada's wealth is private wealth, whereas spain has public wealth.

We're now in athens, and in 4 days have seen one 996, and one ferrari.

Fuel is 2 euros a litre in both places

 

I periodically drive through the US, through Michigan,Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico to Arizona.

There are great stretches where you never see a 911. Myself and my co-driver sometime bet on how many miles before we see one. Toronto is a big city, and we do see the odd 911 around larger cities, but when we get to Scottsdale they are like flies- all sorts of them.

 

There isn't much wealth in Spain as a whole....

 

Spain doesn't have quite the international student contingent that van/to does

 

Since Spain was a dictatorship until 1973, it was hard for those not in power to accumulate wealth....

After that things became much easier, but still a lack of parking in the cities and on street parking tends to damage cars...

Spanish natives please speak up, but my buddy's father was a university professor during Franco times, Capitalism was not really tolerated...

If I was a new grad in Europe today, Barcelona would be my target city, Stunning!!!

Cheers!

 

One advantage of a lack of porsches is the almost total absence of bloated pickups and suvs. Ive seen only one huge pickup in almost one month. We saw some dictator roll into madrid. Instead of a fleet of Excursions they arrived in a dozen Mercedes sedans

 

The extended wheelbase S class in black seems to be the "standard" of all VIP's in Europe....

 

I was at the Vimy Ridge Memorial the other day and some VIP showed up in said Black S class with driver