pintobean97

April 14, 2012- Last night we tried to book ourselves into a tour offered by our hotel to Gibraltar, but it was booked. So I did some Internet research to try to find another tour and I didn't have much luck. SO... I decided I would rent a car to drive us to Gibraltar. This morning we had a leisurely breakfast before Emily's tour of Gibraltar pulled out of the station. We hopped onto the one highway and one hour later, we got off the highway. The Spanish seem to pretend that Gibraltar doesn't even exist, since they lost it to the English in 1704. The highway signs don't even mention Gibraltar, rather the little town on the Border called La Linea de Conception. So we meandered our way thru the town and got ourselves into line ... read more

April 12, 2012- Our hotel stay included breakfast and we were eager to check out the spread. Two items of note were the standard "Pan de tomato" and something we like to call "Pequena Debbie". The tomato bread is a tomato spread that you but onto toast. It tastes similar to brushcetta, and is delicious. We have been trying all different variations on this trip. The other item we discovered this morning was similar to a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll, but better. Amy and I split one. After breakfast, we headed out to visit Ronda during the day. Our first stop was the tourist information center. Just as we were walking up, I saw two buses chock full of tourists pull up in front...so I went from a normal pace to hyperspeed in order to ... read more

April 10, 2012-   The Hotel Corona de Granada boasted a breakfast buffet and we were all eager to check it out this morning. The buffet was similar to other buffets we have enjoyed in Europe and we were happy to have access to it to start our day off with the most important meal of the day. Our tour guide picked us up at the hotel this morning for our tour of Alhambra. We were excited to be the first ones on an open top bus. We pretended that we were rock stars going thru town. Amy did her best Vince Vaughn impression (from the movie The Breakup). She shouted to the streets of Granada..."Say it like you mean, don' t make me say it twice... Are you ready to see Chicago? You might be ... read more

April 8-happy easter to us... We slept in until 10am. We got ourselves together and headed directly for mass in the cathedral. The cathedral is so large we actually watched the mass on a tv screen. After getting right with god, we used Amy's guide book to pick a place for brunch and it didn't disappoint. we had a lovely meal on the second floor of a swanky cafe. Our waiter was delightful. Our next stop was alcazar, a moorish palace that is still one of the homes of the royal family. The palace was beautiful and we had to spend large amounts of time taking pictures in the tiled courtyard and gardens. We wandered around the attached park and found a peacock wandering free. The palace was really beautiful and inspiring, so we made a ... read more

April 6,2012-We slept well on our last night in Barcelona and we were ready to start our day. A quick breakfast and then we were out the door. We started with the Block of Discord. This is a wonderful city block filled with sumptuous mansions. Each of the home owners wanted to show up or out do their neighbors so they hired architects to go all out. Each house is more elaborate than the next but the most outrageous by far is the one designed by Gaudi. He created something that looks like it is out of The Nightmare Before Christmas.  It was amazing to see the amount of thought and consideration that the architects put into each house. A quick subway ride took us to a tram to make the climb up to Mountjuic. When ... read more