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We had an interesting drive back to Madrid, through Catalonia, Aragon and into Castillo-LaMancha. We stopped in Lleida to visit the massive fort and cathedral on the hill in the center of town. As a punishment for rebellion, Felipe the V turned the cathedral into barracks in 1707, and it is just being renovated...
We passed through much farmland with small stone villages and a few larger towns. We climbed into the mountains and back down a few times, and passed through many tunnels. Nearly every small mountain or high hill has a castle, or fort, or watchtower on it...
As we got deeper into Catalonia, more Catalonian independence banners showed up, and more Catalonian flags. It was interesting reading and hearing Catalonian, because it is very close to Spanish, but with different endings to words, and sometimes completely different words...most signs are in both languages, but it was hard entering addresses into the GPS, since I couldn't tell if it understood Catalonian, or even which language the address was actually in!
We stayed in a beautiful hotel near the airport, having managed to return the rental car without incident (except for Lynn getting upset in Spanglish-French with
the rep who charged us over $150 for a small ding in the windshield...). Check-in the next morning with a Iberia was not pleasant (lack of signage is a big issue in Spain....especially for Lynn), but the flights were fine (except for Lynn having the wrong time in Chicago, and thinking we were going to miss our flight), and we arrived in Seattle around 6:00pm, where Luke met us and gave us ride to his place to pick up our car...drove to the Ruskins to fetch Betty the cat, and made it home by 9:30pm....There were no traffic issues even with the I5 bridge still out...
I woke up in the night, and tried to remember where the bathroom was in this hotel room....and slowly had the happy realization I was in in my own bed!
Thanks for traveling with us once again...
Surprises
• The depth and extent of the links between Spain and Morocco
• Catalonian
• The popularity of old American R & B; it was being played everywhere!
• The popularity of a very unnatural red hair color seen on women of all ages all over Spain
• The popularity of Western dress for men
in Morocco
• The amount of open space in both countries (looked like Eastern WA at times...)
• No police on the autoroutes in Spain (and by that I mean not one, ever)
• Umbrella pines...so beautiful!
• The decision to place very, very large black metal bull cutouts on hills all over Spain
• A crazed woman screaming from a small door in an alley in Tetuan...never saw the door unlocked again, and we passed it every day...
Best
• Combining Spain and Morocco in one trip, because of the co-mingled history.
• Hike to the Berber village, and lunch in the Berber home
• Perry and Lizette's wedding
• Sevilla
• Meeting Mouhssine, Hafsa, and Njimat on the train to Fes
• Hiking and doing plant ID with Delphine and Sylvain
• Wandering medinas
• Excellent Spanish autoroutes, and public transoportation
Worst
• Cigarette smoke with every meal
• Not being fluent in Spanish
• Euro-shock...
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Errol's mom
non-member comment
Thank you !
Thank you once again for taking the time to post your trip online. Looked forward to your posts every day. Glad you made it home safely! Michele, Errol's mom.