Niece picture

Meet Chloe. Not the finished article yet. More like a work in progress...

Dinoseen

With toes the size of footballs and brains the size of a walnuts, dinosaurs can't have given a fossil where they walked. But for us little people now running things on planet earth, it will always be fascinating to know where they did. So when I heard biologists were dusting off dino footprints in Alpuente, two hours northwest of Valencia city, I put in a call to the mayoress. Thankfully, she was able to pick around my dusty Spanish and find the bones of a question. It must have sounded something like: "Can I want walking with footprints? Thank you!" but she understood perfectly and arranged an unforgettable prehistory lesson to help with my article. It will run in the June issue of the easyJet magazine (www.easyjetinflight.com). If you want to cut out the middle man (or reduce a carbon footprint) organise a visit yourself through Alpuente's Museo Paleontologico (museopaleontologicoalpuente.com)

Rollin' on the river

This was a fun piece to do. Three of us headed down to Valencia's dried-up riverbed (Jardín del Turia) with a picnic and some Easy Rider-style two-wheelers. What else? One of the most unique parks in Europe, this green belt runs for over 8km through the centre of town ending up at the foot of Calatrava's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias. The super-cheap, super-cool bikes at Ben and Vivekka's Soul Cycles (Barrio del Carmen) made the story, and Gurpal's digital camera made it look good on paper. Wrote it up for this month's easyJet inflight magazine (easyjetinflight.com).

Captain's blog

I hadn't heard of him either, but he's an absolute legend over here. Invented by Victor Mora in the late 1950s, El Capitán Trueno is a 12th-century knight who travels the globe fighting despots and tyrants. Considering Spain was being ruled by one of the latter during the comic's heyday you can imagine how the character represented a more wholesome role model. I wrote an introduction piece for CNN Traveller magazine to flag up the new English-language film adaptation, Thunder Captain, being shot in Spain next year. Have a look what the experts say about him (capitan-trueno.com)