Blogs from Spain, Europe - page 1092

Wow. Paris is cool. Our three day weekend was amazingly well spent considering the last minute plannage that went into making it happen. We managed to see and do a lot considering how little time we had there. I really enjoyed it and immediately fell in love with the city regardless that it was only sunny for about 5 hours total during our trip. We also managed pretty well considering what little to no French we know and everyone we met was very friendly and willing to help out. I want to try to keep this as short and simple as possible due to the amount we did, so I've broken up our trip into our three days. Being concise about my adventures though isn't really my style, so bare with me if I dive into ... read more

How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards... ~ Spanish Proverb Hola people! Welcome to our Spanish travels...and as if a trip to Spain was not enough, a very special added bonus was that we stopped off in London to see my sister and Andrew's cousin, and then checked in on my brother in Kuala Lumpur on the way back home. In Spain we predominantly spent time in enchanting Andalucía in the south, but could not resist a few days in Barcelona as well. I have to apologise for the delay in uploading this travel blog, we got so so so caught up in the places we went to that sitting at a computer was not very high on the agenda, but I did manage to write about 80%% of the blog while ... read more

La Mussara Sixty kilometres north of Tarragona, Catalonia. The mountains of Prades: an amazing, vast, green and rocky landscape with small villages perched on top of hills and cliffs. Over a thousand metres of altitude. I stayed in the friendly refugio La Mussara, which is also the name of an area marked with several houses in my climbing guidebook. I quickily offloaded my bike and took the way to the village hoping to find an open market, maybe also a bakery... To my surprise La Mussara is a ghost town! Judging by the size of its ruins, a church and several stone houses, what remains today can only murmur in your ears imaginary stories of a busy, lively and even wealthy past, high up on a cliff overlooking mountains, little villages and the sea all the ... read more

And holy it is...Pretty much every which way you look is either a church, mosque, or synagogue. Laurel and I took a daytrip there on Saturday, which was only a half hour by train, but felt like a time warp, because Toledo is Medieval style precious. We went to the Cathedral first, which gave me a neck ache from all the looking up I had to do. The architecture in this place is AMAZING. It was built over a period of 250 years, so it combines Gothic, Baroque, and Neoclassical styles. We spent about two hours in that place (thanks to our self guided Rick Steve's tour), and probably could have spent more. Other Toledo highlights included world famous marzipan, seeing el Greco and Goya masterpieces, and one heck of a calf workout (that whole city ... read more

On Thursday I went to Finisterre with my friend, Essie. Finisterre is a small fishing town that is famous for its impressive lighthouse. It is usually the last stop for pilgrims completing the Camino; it’s traditional for pilgrims to burn an article of clothing when they finally reach the end of their journey. We took a bus, which took 3 hours because it followed a coastal route. Once we got there, we walked around for a bit and found a really nice little beach. Then we started walking. Along the way we found a map. Unfortunately, it was pretty much useless because it didn’t have a “you are here” indicator, so we could point out the lighthouse but had no idea where we were in relation to it. But in the end everything worked out, and ... read more