Soaking up the sun in Spain!

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During the second half of our tour with the students we saw a lot of Andalucia and also some of Castilla y Leon and Madrid. They cannot go back home and say they didn’t see much of Spain!

In Andalucia we were treated to a hotel within walking distance of the Mediterranian which is always nice. We were able to swim and enjoy taking in some rays! After some solid disfrutando in the MED we made our way to Sevilla. Sevilla is one of the most picuresque cities in the Spanish speaking world. Many white buildings, small medieval streets and a lot of history too. We were able to get a great view of the city from the Cathedral and we also toured the Royal Palace. At night the whole group went to a Flamenco show, a true Spanish cultural experience!

On Friday we went to Cordoba and saw la Mezquita. An amazing building, a Mosque which was built in part with Roman columns and then converted into a Cathedral. The neat thing about the Mezquita is that it is a microcosim of Spanish history representing it’s 3 main periods. We also had time to enjoy the town Cordoba. I went with Fran where he showed me some of the local specialties. My favorite was salmorejo which is a cold tomatoe soup … may not sound good but it was GREAT. Then we took the AVE train back to Madrid. This is the fastest train in Spain traveling 180 MPH.

Saturday we toured 2 other cities, Segovia and El Escorial. Segovia is such a nice city and of course you have to love the amazing roman aqueduct, one of the worlds most impressive carrying water over 13 miles. We also saw El Escorial which is a monastary in Spain and one of the neat things is that it contains the tombs of many of the Spanish kings.

Sunday morning we waved adios to our GREAT group of 17 SHS students and fellow chaperones Brian and Leah. This trip with the Sparta group has been really fun and we have seen and experienced so much of Spain with them! We couldn´t have asked for a better trip or group to share it with! Nos vemos!

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Photos

El rio de Sevilla...
Remember this street Katie and Jim?

Salmorejo
yum yum... if only there was grilled cheese to go with!

Back in Madrid
Plaza Mayor

Look who showed up?
Sarah and Vanessa... from our same village! And Whitney, from a different village.

Churros y Chocolate
Fran took us to the best place for churros y chocolate in Madrid. We could get used to this treat!