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Published: July 20th 2008
We last caught the blog up while we were still in Bordeaux. Since then we have crosed the border into Spain! Our last month will be spent seeing what we can of the Iberian Peninsula (we are still trying to work in a couple of days in Portugal).
Our first stop was Pamplona. Yes, this is where the bulls run. No, we did not see them run. We had the option of Bastille Day in France or the running of the bulls in Spain, and we chose France because we could get accomodation in France. Our trek accross the border was not without its own difficulties though. We actually got a train that took us to the French side of the boarder. From which we had to catch a "connector" train to the Spainish side. The only problem was that we didn´t know this, so by the time we could have gotten on to the commuter train, we would have missed our train to pamplona. So, we changed our tickets to the later train, unfortunately there was only one other - it was 7 hours later. So, instead of exploring Pamplona for the day, we got to see every inch of the Irun train station! The scariest moment was when three plainclothes cops came up to us and flashed their badges. They asked us for our passports. We both handed them over, hoping to god that they weren´t pretend cops who would just run off with them. They were indeed cops and they tried to grill us on where we had been and why, but we didn´t know enough spanish and they didn´t know enough english. By the time they left we breathed a huge sigh of relief that we weren´t in trouble for something, and we continued to sit for another couple hours. By the time we made it in to Pamplona it was 7pm. We had to find our hostel by way of bus maps at the little bus stations. Miraculously we made it. After a meger supper we fell into a deep sleep. Since niether of us set an alarm we ended up sleeping till 10am the next morning. After a brief worry that we were missing seeing Pamplona we got up to go explore and not waste the day away. We soon realized that really one afternoon was just fine to see ALL of Pamplona.
We saw the old fortifications in the city centre, which have now been turned into a fabulous park where you can walk among, in, around, or on the walls (we saw some people rock climbing the walls). It is quite impressive. From there we wandered into the centre of town to find the bull fighting arena. From there we found the road that the bulls are driven to the stadium from. After pretending to be bulls and bull fighters we headed back into town for something to eat. There was an amazing smelling bakery, so we joined the half an hour line to get muffins. Unfortunately our communication skills are still a bit lacking and we got four of the wrong muffins, but whatever, they were still good (more importantly we were hungry!) After that we found the one cathedral that our guide book said was of interest but it was overpriced and not that interesting. It ended up being a good way to kill some time though, because after that, there really wasn´t anything else to see in Pamplona. We contented ourselves to looking for dinner and an internet place (which we were happy to find for cheap because we were able to book our next almost month´s stay in Spain)!
Burgos. Oh Burgos. Well we had a bit a trouble getting to you too, didn´t we? Yup, so the Spainish trains are not of the quality that we are used to. Because even though we were 3 hours early to the train station to make sure that we could buy our reservation for the train, we still couldn´t get on - it was full. So we had to wait yet again at a train station until we could go. This time it was only 6 hours, lucky us! 😊 We passed the time with cards, journals, and Jan is teaching me to hack. The train ride itself was a bit stressful because the catch with taking the later train (we were headed to Burgos) was that we had to stop at a random train station and transfer over to another train. Our layover time was 5 minutes. But miracles of miracles we actually made it! Thank goodness for late trains! 😊 After a 2 hour ride we were in Burgos. After a bit of a trek for our hotel we went out to find dinner. On the way we actually found a festival going on in one of the squares. We came back to it with our Kebabs and Icecream. It was a good way to end the day.
The next morning we were out early enough to go see the sights that our guide book recommended. It wasn´t much, just a cathedal and a monestary, but the monestary was out of town and we couldn´t make it. So we went to the Cathedral. It was the Cathedral where the legendary warrior El Cid was burried. We spent most of the morning there, just because it was massive, and because there was an attached museum. By the time we strolled the pretty streets of the old town in search of lunch we were out of time. We headed back tothe hotel to grab out bags and lug them up to the train station. This time we had purchased our reservation early and just had to wait for the train. We were off to Zaragoza.
We got into Zaragoza at 7 last night and got our train for Barcelona arranged. Our hostel was easy to find, which was good. After travelling all day we were famished and fortunately for us our hostel has a kitchen, which is a great bonus. So we cooked up a storm and had some geat pasta.
Today we went to see the sights of Zaragoza. Like all the other Spanish towns that we have seen the primariy one was the Church. This one was a good sized one, or as me and Danielle have come to refer to them as BFC´s (Big F´ing Church). This one did fit the bar, it was quite large, with many towers pertruding from it and massive dome. This one was free which made even nice to stroll around. However, much of it was under restortation, while other parts just appeared to be in disreappear. But we did manage to see a fresco done by Goya, along with a statue to Mary that has a skirt they change EVERY day! After that we went to see the roman museum, which show cased what everyday roman life would have been like. Alas it was all in spanish so we declined to see it. Instead we went to see the ruins of the Roman theatre for free and than onto the Muslin palace. The palace was very cool, and to make things better it was free because it was sunday. We love free things! The Palace/Castle was quite impressive but over the centuries of Christian rule had fell into serious disrepair. What we saw was mostly a reconstruction of the original castle with various peices being restored. The outside looks like an ordinary castle with round towers and walls, but inside was beautiful ornate Muslim decorated columns, doors, and windows. We were allowed to see the museum and the old royal rooms which were very impressive (Dont worry we took lots of pictures). After strolling around the palace we went through the corrisponding gardens towards the Expo. We did not know about this when we got to Zaragoza but apparently there is this big international Expo held here about Water and conservation, which is very ironic because here in Spain they literally hose done the streets with water to clean them... Talk about wasting water... Anyways, there were alot of new things that appeared to be built for the event like this cool curved pedestrian bridge, or the massive brand new train station. Also many famous artists like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith have come to play here. We thought to stroll through would be pleasent but it costs over 30 euroes to get in... So we walked back and took advantage of the free laundry at our hostel and write this blog.
Tomorrow we are off to Barcelona.
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Courtney
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Oh now I am totally jelous!
I love Spain and I am so glad that you guys are spending as much time as you are there, you will LOVE Barcelona. I swear even the bums wear stillettos. Ahh Espagna! Well I miss you both but you guys are on the last leg of your trip! Enjoy it!