Lovely Lagos (Portugal)

May 13, 2015

 

On May 13th, we waved good-bye to Spain, and boarded a bus bound for Faro, Portugal.

Bus is not our preferred method of travel.  Initially we planned to keep our rental car and drive the 4.5 hours from Seville to Lisbon...  Until we discovered there would be a 300 euro drop off fee to leave the car in another country (no thank you). Then we thought we'd take a train. But guess what?  Portugal's train system is older than Spain's,  and so many of their train lines don't connect. In fact,  to take the train  into Lisbon,  you have to backtrack to Madrid and take an overnight train  to Lisbon,  making the 4.5hr journey more like a ten hour journey.  Also,  no thank you.

 

So,  the bus it was. Tom and I woke up bright and early and made our way to the bus station,  which turned out to be one of the most confusing parts of the trip. Our bus ticket didn't match the name of the bus company of the departing bus,  so it took us a while to figure out where to go.

 

After an uneventful hour and a half ride,  we crossed the border into Portugal.  I have never crossed a border in a bus, so that was interesting. The border guards came into the bus and took a quick look and everyone's passports. They told the Japanese couple,  "Konichiwa",  which clearly pleased them immensely.  They escorted one man off the bus,  and after ten minutes,  let him get back on the bus.  Off we went. 40 minutes later,  we arrived in Faro.

 

Faro was a short stop for us.  We took a taxi to the airport and picked up rental car number two. The rental agency you gave us a VERY thorough overview of how their electronic highway toll system works,  and then  an even more thorough overview of how the car and all its gadgets work. Then they merrily sent us on our way.

 

Rental car #2. BMW!

 

So,  we were on our way to Lagos-- a recommendation from my brother-in-law and sister-in-law.

We spent the afternoon in Lagos,  and I could have stayed a few more days. If you count all the places I could have stayed "a few more days," we would have been gone for a month! When we exited our car,  we were greeted by this meowing cat.  She was hanging out in the shade, making a racket. We wanted to say hello, but were suspicious of her level of manginess-- so we settled on a photo.
 

Our cat friend.

 

Lagos is a beach town with beautiful karsted carbonate cliffs. There are carbonate arches and columns,  and isolated beaches,  grottoes and coves. We spent some time ogling the rock formations. And Tom was VERY interested in climbing our way down to one of the isolated beaches. I maintained my reputation as Amanda "No Fun" Greig, and vetoed the idea of climbing down the rocks.

 

Lagos coastline.

 

Isolated beach.

 

There were people on kayaking tours that we watched from up on the cliffs. They were trying to make their way through the waves crashing on the shore back to their boat.

 

Kayaking group.

Since we were unsuccessful finding a way down to the beach, we used trusty Google Maps to find a nearby man-made entrance on to the beach. Ah, nothing beats good ol' stairs!

 

Nearby beach access.

 

In Lagos, we purchased our only souvenir from the trip-- a beach towel with a cartoon map of Portugal and it's major historical attractions. We used the beach towel to relax in the sand.

 

I think we can all agree that we definitely should have stayed a couple days in Lagos.

Beach view.

 

By 5pm we were packing it in so we could finish our drive to Lisbon. The highways were freshly paved and empty, so we made good time when we dropped the car off at the Lisbon airport. Our hotel was conveniently located off the Metro system (which connected with the airport), so we hopped on a train, and made our way to our hotel. It all worked out seamlessly!

 

Lisbon was our last stop on the trip, but we also made a day trip to the town of Sintra. So you have two more travel blogs coming your way!

Pueblos Blanco - Ronda

May 11, 2015

Ronda, Andalucia, Spain.

On our last day with our hideous rental car, Tom and I took a day trip on the Ruta de los Pueblos Blanchos (Route of the White Hill Towns) to Ronda. As you have probably surmised, Ronda is town of white washed houses located on a hill. But what you might not have suspected is that the town is straddling a deep limestone gorge. And what a lovely sight to take in!

Main bridge crossing in Ronda.

Of course, Tom and I did not miss the opportunity to hike down into the gorge so we could take a look around. The water coming out under the bridge looked lovely, clear and refreshing... When we hiked in behind, the water looked very scummy and stagnant...

Tom under the gorge bridge.

As we looked around, we saw signs of a via ferrata (Italian for "iron road"), a set of iron rungs set into the rock that can be clipped into for climbing. We didn't see any one using them, and we couldn't tell exactly where they went.

Via ferrata cables.

The town was initially established over the gorge for practical reasons-- it provided the Moors an strategic defense position. Unfortunately for the Moors, the city was taken by the Spaniards in 1485, and has remained a relatively small city, with approximately 40,000 residents.

Lunch time view.

We ate lunch on a gorge-side patio, and enjoyed the warm weather (about 30 degrees), and beautiful views. We had gazpacho, melon wrapped in jamon iberico (the Spanish version of proscuitto), and a salad between us.

Our lunch spot was on the opposite side of the gorge bridge, so we got a slightly different perspective of it.

Opposite side of gorge bridge.

After lunch, Tom took the photo below of a pile of garbage. Sometimes... It's better not to think about where you lunch came from. *Sigh*

Remains of Spanish cured ham-- jamon iberico. 

Ronda's second claim to fame is that it is the home of modern bullfighting. There were no bullfights going on the day that we visited (and honestly, we probably wouldn't have gone to it if there had been), but we took a walk around the stadium, and perused some of the displays in the bullfighting museum.

Ronda bullfighting ring.

All in all, it was a pretty relaxed day. As we headed back to the car, we were able to take in one last linger look at the countryside around us.

And Andalusian view.

We took the car back to Seville so we could drop it off at the rental lot at a nearby train station. We had the rental car for nine days, and an hour and a half before we dropped it off, we drove through a speed trap. It was photo radar, and I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before we receive THAT ticket in the mail.

Ronda wraps up our trip in Spain. Next, we're on to Portugal!

Sweltering Seville

Ah, the not-so-sweet effects of jetlag. It's 4:30am on Monday morning, and we are home-- but I am wide awake. After 24 hours of travelling, I was beat, but I don't think I'll have a good rest until tonight.

May 9 - 13, 2015

Tom and I spent three sweltering days in Seville. Sure, 15 degrees at 8am sounds pretty nice. How about 36, 36 and 37 degree highs during the day? I don't think I've ever sweat so much in my life-- and that includes all the half marathons that I've run! Seville was HOT. Too hot for me.

Sunny in Seville.

Tom and I arrived in Seville on May 9th. From Granada, the drive should have taken about 2.5 hours, but we swung south into Nerja, a beach town on the southern coast of Spain, also called the Costa del Sol. We considered cutting our days short in Seville and spending a couple days 100% dedicated to the beach, but changing our plans at the last minute did not work out. So instead, we settled for a beach front lunch.

Beachfront lunch view in Nerja.

Although the views were stunning, this was basically the worst meal I had in all of Seville. It was a mixed salad comprised of wilted iceberg lettuce, canned asparagus, canned olives, hard boiled eggs, tuna, strangely pickled (but not quite pickled?) carrots, shredded beets and deformed corn. Sounds delicious, right? This was the only meal I had to choke down.

Balcon de Europa (Balcony of Europe), Nerja.

The first thing we noticed in Seville were the beautiful purple trees. After a bit of googling, I discovered they are called Jacaranda trees, and they are a sure sign of spring when they start to bloom (ha, although where I come from, it's not 36 degrees in spring!).

 Jacaranda trees bloom in the spring in Seville.

Our first stop was a stroll through Plaza de Espana. This beautiful red brick building was used for the set of Star Wars, and is also being used for the set of Game of Thrones. Plaza de Espana was absolutely crawling with people! It was a Sunday, and there was some sort marathon/half marathon/10km race going on, and the finish line was in the Plaza. Again-- I want to mention, it was about 30 degrees when people were crossing the finish line. A bunch of crazies, running in the heat! I guess... You just get used to it?

Plaza de Espana

Plaza de Espana is attached to Parque de Maria Luisa, and we took full advantage of the park so we could stay in the shade. There were many grimy ponds and pools in the park, and also a lot of birds-- like this guy (or gal?)!

 A really ugly bird.

The cathedral in Seville was absolutely beautiful on the outside, but lacking some of the splendor that we've seen in other major cities (again-- apparently I'm now a cathedral snob!). A service was going on in the morning when we visited, so we got in for free, but the cathedral was cordoned off so that church-goers were not disturbed by annoying, camera happy tourists!

Cathedral de Sevilla.

We spent a good portion of the afternoon in the Alcazar, the royal palace originally developed by Moorish kings. Some areas of the palace are still used by the royal family when they are in residence in Seville. The architecture, plaster work and tiling were similar to what we saw in the Alhambra in Granada, but not quite as ornate. The Alcazar was used as the set for the court of the King of Jerusalem in the Ridley Scott movie, Kingdom of Heaven. And it will also be used for several shots in the fifth season of Game of Thrones. The Alcazar was named a World Heritage Site in 1986, along with the Seville Cathedral.

Wall tiles in the Alcazar.

A closed courtyard in the Alcazar.

And ornate domed ceiling in the Alcazar.

Sprawling gardens in the Alcazar.

We went back to the cathedral in the afternoon to climb (what we thought) would be the steps of Giralda Tower. This is one of the better vantage points in the city and we wanted to take in the views. The tower functions as the bell tower of the cathedral, and has been standing since 1198. It's hard to fathom a building that old, considering at home, the oldest building is from 1876. Surprisingly, you did not have to take stairs up the tower, but a set of spiraling ramps. This meant that enterprising Spaniards and tourists were taking their strollers up the tower. There wasn't a tone of room to maneuver up there, so it was a tight squeeze.

Giralda Bell Tower at the Seville Cathedral.

View of the Cathedral, city and river from Giralda Tower.

On our last day in Seville, we had planned to take a day trip to Cordoba. We had planned to take the train-- an easy 45 minutes from Seville. The train turned our to be considerably more expensive than we thought it was going to be, and we decided not to go. In retrospect, we should have gone anways... When are we going to have the opportunity to go to Cordoba again? Who knows!

Instead we caught some tail end sights in Sevilla that probably wouldn't have otherwise piqued our interest. We walked about 40 minutes to see the Metropol Parasol, some strange mushroom-like wooden structures over a plaza in old town. The structures were finished in 2011, and created much public controversy due to cost overruns, location and appearance. The engineering company who built the structure informed municiple authorities that the structure could not stand as it was currently designed because many of the materials could not withstand that load that would be required of them. Some estimates say the structures cost about 100 million euros!

Metropol Parasol-- the mushrooms.

Cityscape from the Metropol Parasol.

We also visited the Casa de la Ciencia, but we were disappointed by how small the building was, and with the lack of English translation.

Seville was not our favourite city in Spain, but the city had many warm nights and plenty of sights to offer.

Although we didn't make a day trip to Cordoba, we did make a day trip to a hill town called Ronda. So stay tuned!

Grandeur in Granada

May 7 - 9, 2015

Ah, Granada. *Sigh* I wish I was back there again. Now that we are (currently) in our last stop of our trip, I can say with authority that Granada was my favourite city in our trip. I find it hard to think of something that I didn't like in Granada. The weather was great, the sights were amazing,  there was a full Orchestra playing an open air concert in a Plaza beside the Cathedral, the Sierra Nevadas are a stone-throw away, and we saw an open air theatre where an opera was being played on a big screen.  There was a market,  and most notable of all,  the Alhambra.

Tom booked our tickets the Alhambra at least two months ago. And even when he booked them,  all the morning tickets were already sold out for the day. Popular place, eh? There is a limit of about 8000 people per day that are allowed through the site.

Be warned,  this post is going to have a lot of photos.

When we arrived on the afternoon of the 7th, we relaxed in the hotel before we made our way to San Nicolas Plaza and viewpoint. Our tour book touted this spot as a marvelous vantage point on a hill to take in the Alhambra as the sun sets.  Apparently in 1997 Bill Clinton brought his entire family to this spot to relive memories from his travels as a youth.  I can only imagine what the security was like for that trip...  I wonder if they shut down the area to the rest of the public. Can you imagine how pissed you'd be if you had one night in Granada,  and you find the Plaza closed off because Bill Clinton and his family are there!?

 View of Alhambra at sunset from San Nicolas Plaza. 

And of course,  we shared this sight with several hundred of our closest tourist friends. And all of them seemed to be smoking and blowing their smoke directly at us.

 Crowd of onlookers (like ourselves).

We stayed until the sun had mostly gone down, because Tom wanted to see if they lit up the building at night (they do!). 

Sundown on the Alhambra.

In the morning,  we ate a late breakfast,  and took our time heading out.  Tom wasn't feeling so well,  and we highly suspect some sandwiches we ate at a highway service station the day before.  It probably seems crazy to eat at a service station,  but we had so many delicious sandwiches at highway Autogrill's Italy,  we were actually excited to eat  them again in Spain. 

As it turns out,  roadstop sandwiches in Spain are as bad as you would expect. I guess Italy was an anomaly. 

We went into the Granada Cathedral,  and wandered through the Albayzin market, and then went back to the hotel so Tom could rest before our 4:30pm Alhambra tickets.

The Alhambra is one of the last (and best preserved) remaining Moorish palaces left in Spain. It reached it's peak of grandeur in the 13th and 14th century, and was the last Moorish stronghold before it was overtaken by Christians.

The building is designed for functionality, yet the many courtyards were peaceful and isolated within the walls. We explored the palace (Palazios Nazaries) and the fort (Alcazaba) within the Alhambra walls, as well as the Generalife (say it, hen-er-al-lee-fay) gardens outside the walls.

A courtyard in the Palacios Nazaries.

The ceramic tiles and plaster work were a sight to behold. The intricacy of the designs were like nothing I've ever seen before!

Colourful tiles over an arching doorway.

Detailed plaster work on a column.

Amazing plaster ceiling in the Palacios Nazaries.

The Alcazaba was the fortified portion of the site. There is not much left but crumbled walls and a few towers, but the towers offered excellent vantage points for sweeping views of Granada.

Remains of walls within the Alcazaba.

A view of the Granada cathedral from the Alcazaba.

A view of San Nicolas Plaza from the Alcazaba.

The Generalife gardens took up a huge portion of the grounds, and we spent our last hour winding our way through the paths of every flower you can imagine. I've only included a couple photos from the gardens, but there are probably 50 of them on our camera. Tom photo-documented the gardens very thoroughly!

Roses in the Generalife gardens.

More flowers in the Generalife gardens.

It's too bad we only had one full day in Granada. I think we would have been content with a couple more days to hike in the Sierra Nevadas, or wander in and out of the streets of the city. Oh well, it only gives us a reason to come back again!

La Capital, Madrid

May 5 - 7, 2015

In 2011 when Tom and I went to the UK and France, we hit 7 cities over the two and a half weeks we were on vacation.  We both agreed that that was too many places for the amount of time we had, so when we went to Italy in 2013, we went to five cities in the same time frame. I think we both felt that that was the perfect amount of time in each place... So why we thought it would be good to hit six cities on this trip... I'm not sure. It was just so hard to cut places out!

As a result of our ambitious itinerary, we were only able to spend two days in several cities. We would arrive after a travel day, spend a whole day sightseeing, and then move on. Madrid is one of these speed-sightseeing cities.

There were two main attractions that we wanted to see, the first being the Royal Palace, Palacio Real de Madrid.

Palacio Real de Madrid.

The Palacio Real is said to be the third most elaborate palace, after Versailles and Vienna. It was built by King Philip V, who wanted to make his own personal palace that would rival the Palace of Versailles.

I can tell you first hand, the palace is ridiculous. It has 2800 rooms, and what we saw was lavishly decorated with tapestries, carpets, marble, chandeliers and porcelain. In this day and age, the royal family doesn't live in the palace, they live in a mansion a few miles away. The palace is used for ceremonial purposes, such as state receptions and royal weddings. I'm sure tourists frequent it more regularly than anyone else!

Inside the courtyard of Palacio Real de Madrid.

You know you've been in Europe too long when you begin to be unimpressed by cathedrals. Cathedrals are by nature, impressive structures. But I found myself unmoved by Madrid's Almudena Cathedral. After seeing Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, this cathedral couldn't compete. This particular cathedral is relatively "new". It opened in 1993, nearly 100 years after construction began.

Almudena Cathedral.

The one thing that I did love in the cathedral were the colourful ceiling tiles. I zoomed in as best I could with our camera, but the photo still doesn't really do the tiles justice.

Almudena Cathedral ceiling tiles.

Our second major stop in Madrid was the National Archaeological Museum. This was a (HUGE) beautiful museum containing a chronological exhibit on the history of Iberia. It started with prehistoric humans in the area and moved into present time. It gave us a great overview of some of the sights that we would be seeing (e.g. Alhambra in Granada), and had some fantastic multimedia displays.

The section on neanderthals had some really graphic artwork. For example, in the image below, some neanderthals appear to be cannibalizing someone... One of the females is eating a finger!

Disturbing depiction of neanderthals.

We eventually had to cut our time short in the archaeological museum. There was so much to see, and not enough time!

Everyone else and their dog would probably have gone to see the Prado Museum, but Tom and I decided against it. Neither of us have too much of an interest in art, and we didn't think we would appreciate it enough to warrant a visit.

We did take a stroll through Retiro Park (the equivalent of Central Park in New York). It was bustling with activity-- teenagers, joggers and cyclists. We stopped at a monument for King Alfonso XII, and rented a row boat for 45 minutes.

King Alfonso XII Monument.

We ate apples and people watched, and were continually spooked by some large (disgusting looking) fish that kept leaping out of the water to catch bugs.

Me rowing.

Tom checking his phone while I do the hard work.

There was a couple-- likely in their late 40's or early 50's, that spend about 25-30 minutes intensely making out in a boat near us. INTENSELY making out. It was a bizarre sight to see, and they seemed totally oblivious to the fact that there were dozens of people floating and rowing around them.

We enjoyed Madrid, but I think we were both expecting more grandeur in the capital. We probably could have done with another day in the city, if we were to plan our trip again.