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Published: January 16th 2007
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Flying on Christmas Eve is an experience not to be missed… once you finally make it to the airport! After flagging down a taxi when the one we booked didn’t turn up we made it to the airport to join the hustle and bustle of every person in Dublin trying to check in at the same time. We were the last to check in for our plane and were told to run to the gate and still managed to beat over half the other people on our flight. We eventually took off only about half an hour late, which wasn’t too bad for Xmas Eve. After an uneventful flight we landed in Barcelona to be greeted with lovely clear blue skies and the first chance to wear sunglasses in a good few months!
We managed to hire our rental car and then cruised on down to Valencia. On the way we discovered that NZ’s most famous export could quite possibly be Crowded House, it was fantastic to hear a familiar song thrown in amongst all of the Spanish songs.
Valencia is a wonderful city and we got to see it close up whilst we drove around for a good
couple of hours looking for our hostel. We eventually managed to find that but our next mission was to locate some dinner which proved to be as much of a challenge as the Xmas Eve is a time for the Spanish to celebrate with their families and most restaurants and food places were closed. We managed to finally find a small pizza restaurant for our first Spanish meal.
Christmas Day before we left Valencia we went down to the America’s Cup Village and saw the Team NZ base, unfortunately they must have all been busy eating Xmas dinner and didn’t want to take us on as a couple of grinders. It was a very nice location for the village and we hope to head back over when the Cup is on.
From Valencia we cruised down the coastline to stop and have our Christmas dinner which consisted of omelets, salad and chips on the beach - a bit more like a kiwi xmas than the buildup in cold Dublin that we’d had.
We passed through Alicante before finishing up for the night in Almeria which is a beautiful coastal town. The view when driving into Almeria at
night was amazing and we went for a wander when we had settled in and climbed up a hill above the city for a breathtaking view and a big statue of Jesus lit up behind us. Unfortunately our trusty camera decided not to work that evening!
In the morning we had a look around the Alcazar (castle) - only about 1000 years old and were witness to a fireworks display that came out of the blue in the middle of the day just outside the castle. We then managed to stumble across a parade of people in traditional outfits to celebrate Xmas.
We had purchased tickets to visit the Alhambra in Granada, which is an Islamic fortress, it includes a palace and gardens. You have a 30 min slot to visit the Palacio Nazaries (the palace) and are free to wander the rest of the site for as long as you like. As we were driving towards the Alhambra a scruffy-looking local man flagged our car down and told us that the official car parks were full and that we could park in area that was designated as no parking. We weren’t too keen on parking there but
were unsure of the consequences if we didn’t so we left the car and began to walk while the man’s sidekick followed us and asked us for €5, we decided not to pay the lovely men and got back in and moved our car and went to the official Alhambra parking which was only €1 per hour. It is a very impressive attraction, you first wander through an extensive garden before investigating the other parts of the temple, all with impressive views over Granada and out to the Sierra Nevada. I came across one very well prepared family who came equipped with walkie talkies so they could keep track of one another if they got separated!
We headed out of Granada for the 250-odd km drive to Seville at around 5pm. We managed to get to Seville at a reasonable hour but due to a lot of closed roads and an inability of any map to mark one-way streets it took us around three hours to locate our hostel. We finally arrived and checked in, to find that when we tried to find something for dinner, most of our options had closed and we were left with good old
BK.
We had one full day to spend in Seville and it definitely didn’t disappoint. We were treated to 24 degrees and a chance to break out the jandals. Whilst here we managed to see the Alcazar (dating from 913AD), we climbed to the top of La Giralda - a massive cathedral that (is meant to) contain the remains of Christopher Colombus, and took a tour of the Plaza de Toros (bullring), which is one of the most well-known and biggest in Spain. The highlight for me was definitely Plaza de Espana, it is just the most massive building and so beautifully constructed, unfortunately the moat and fountains had no water in them whilst we were there but it is still bloody impressive! Seville is a beautiful city and a must see if you head to Spain.
This was our last stop in Spain before venturing into Portugal... stay tuned for episode 2
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