Blogs from Andalusia, Spain, Europe - page 296

We are off to Seville! We departed from Madrid’s Atocha train station, traveling to Seville via the high-speed AVE train. We went first class, which was a fun experience, and included in our ticket cost was meal service, including wine. It took us only a short 2.5 hours to get from Madrid to Seville. We arrived in Seville and had a short cab ride to our hotel. The Hotel Simon was formerly an 18th century mansion and is decorated with period antiques, has a charming inner courtyard, and is located a block away from the cathedral in a very central location. With the afternoon still free, we took a cab to the northern Seville area to visit the Basilica de la Macarena. We got there just in time for siesta closing, so decided upon a refreshment ... read more

At 8am on Saturday morning, Laura and I took a bus ride to the 19th century. Well, not quite, but pretty close. We headed for Sevilla to see their festival that occurs every spring. The women dress in Flamenco dresses and the men in three piece suits or riding outfits. Horses and carriages line the streets, filling quicker with each hour, and the sidewalks are transformed into city-like blocks with ¨casetas¨lined from one street to the next, back to back with others, for five blocks one way and five blocks the other. In these casetas, there is dancing, the traditional flamenco, eating, drinking and fellowship with friends. However, for people who aren´t from Sevilla, it´s not as fun as it sounds. These are casetas privadas, or private areas, where you must be invited in or have ... read more

Hello and welcome to Mark and Gills travel journal. Apologies to all who expected this site to be running months ago, but as most of you will appreciate we're not the most organised of people! We started our 'journey' in Spain, spending 4 weeks in Algodonales, in the south, and then travelling around the coast for 2 weeks. While in 'Algo' we spent 3 weeks with Fly Spain (in conjunction with Lijar Sur - Spanish school), and qualified (thanks Rob and José) with a 'Para-pro 3' paragliding pilot rating, (equivalent to elementary and club pilot in England for anyone interested). For anyone considering paragliding we'd recommend this region of Spain and the school. Set in the Grazelema national park with 3,500 ft mountains, the flying is amazing. We completed our course with a number of breath ... read more

Now that we´re a full week into March, our semester is about half over and Laura and I are in disbelief...where did the time go?! Anyway, this last weekend we went with our program to Sevilla (Seville), a city 3 hours from Granada where we found more sunshine and higher temperatures...woohoo!! We got there Friday afternoon and spent some time wandering in Plaza de España where we ate our lunches and enjoyed seeing the sun--quite a change from Granada´s rain. Then we took a bus tour of the city, stopping at the Alcazar (the royal palace) which consists of 3 different palaces, all built at different times. Then we went to the cathedral in Sevilla that is the 3rd largest in Europe next to St. Peter´s in Rome and St. Paul´s in London. It is the ... read more

So we end February with a rainy weekend in Granada. Today is Monday and we didn´t have classes because of the political holiday: Día de Andalucia. However, we toured some of the city we hadn´t seen: Parque de las Ciencias, Cartuja Monastery, saw some movies and found fun coffee shops where we sat to dry and enjoy each other´s company. This week, Juanma, the 17 year-old boy, had his birthday so we celebrated by having a white cake, cream in the middle and fresh chocolate drizzled over the top---which, by the way, we ate still warm! Then they sang ¨Cumpleaños Feliz, etc.¨ It was fun to see that their tradition instead of 17 spankings is 17 ear tugs--a little nicer, I must say. Lately we have made some day trips around Granada, ie Ronda of which ... read more