Advertisement
Published: March 30th 2011
Edit Blog Post
P1000419
Alhambre Have finally found an internet cafe, where the computers are not 20 years old, so there´s hope😊 Getting back to the previous entry, we had an interesting trip down through Germany and France, observing how far spring had advanced. In Denmark the scenery was very stark, basically no green colour at all, but as we drove down through Europe it slowly became greenner and greener. Sunny it was too so all very pleasant. Mind know, we have a brand new van with a very good heater so the colder nights were taken care of😊
In Toulouse we had a lovely time with Agnes, who always looks after us extremely well. Upon our arrival she brought out pate, lovely French cheeses and, of course, a good bottle of red wine, life doesn´t get much getter. Well, we always enjoy our discussions with Agnes about politics, travels and society itself. The French certainly have a different work pattern to ours. They work from 8.30 in the morning until 7-8pm at night. This means that school children are often picked up by a carer from school and looked after by this carer in the children´s home until their parents come home. To make up
P1000503
Aipujarras for those long working hours, they enjoy long holidays, 7-8 weeks that is.
In Toulouse Agnes makes sure that we get the best croissants and, well, yes, the best of everything so it was quite frustrating that we both suffered a bout of gastro while there. Here you are in the land of gourmet food and you cannot eat for a day or so!!! Anyway, with some rest and a bit of help form Agnes´doctor we revcovered quite quickly, so no worries.
Then it was off to Madrid to expand our cultural horizon. Well, it certainly does exactly that. It´s an amazing feeling to stand in front of your first ´real´Picasso or Dali etc. We were both very taken by Picasso´s Guernica, not just the painting itself, but all the drawings he did in preparation. It was cold the first couple of days in Madrid, so we spent most of our days at the galleries, Prado, Thyssen, and Reino Sophia. In the evenings we ventured into the old tapas bars, which was a lot of fun. Travelling is not just about places but very much about people for us. The first evening we met this bright and out-going American
P1000506
Hiking in the Alpujarras lady, now living in Ecuador. She´s involved with the indigenous people in the jungle, how to educate them to enable them to fight the big mining companies for their rights. Well, if we wanted we could go there tomorrow and become involved, a very inspiring lady. The following evening Real Madrid was playing Lyon,(soccer) and where is the next best place to watch the match if not getting tickets to the real thing, an Irish bar in the old centre of Madrid. Amazing how people get around these days. In this bar we met an Israeli couple living only 10 minutes from the kibbutz I went to after finishing high school. Great to catch up with what´s happening in their society, lovely people😊 As a whole I think we´d describe Madrid as a ´people´city, people go out late and party all night, ie, young people, not us, but it´s very friendly and has good wine and tapas😊 Just a note to say that we left our van 40 k´s south of Madrid and then cought the train to the city. It was fantastic to stay right in the middle of the city.
Toledo was next, a beautiful city with a
P1000508
Having lunch in the Alpujarras mix of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish influence. It´s often likened to a mini Rome, which is true, there´s something to look at around every corner.
Granada was our next stop. Seeing Alhambre just blew us away. It´s the biggest Arabic palace complex in Europe, it´s just amazing. After all this we went into cultural information overload, so we decided, well I did with the help of Lonely Planet, to go to the mountains south east of Granada, the Alpujarras. It´s such a beautiful area with lots of white villages and not many tourists, just our kind of thing. We ended up staying 6 days, did lot s of hiking and met up with the locals at the local taberna. They have this marvellous system that you get a free tapas every time you order a drink😊 How they make money I don´t know, bit´s good for the customers. At this local taberna we met a Greek couple, she was doing a Master´s in Psychology in Granada, he was visitng from Crete, so interesting converstaion re Greece as well. In the area there are also a few expats, alternative people, often involved in cfraft, you could call it a bit Byron
P1000517
Travelez, claims to be Spain´s highest village Bayrish, stimulating people. There was also another group of people, English, who could not afford to live on the coast anymore and therefore had moved their demountables up into the mountian, they were not so happy.
Time to clean up so We´re now in a caravan park 100 m from the beach in Fuengirola, about 25 k´s west of Malaga. We´re having a little rest before we´re heading up into the mountains again ot the Pueblos Blancos. Adios Amogos😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 55; dbt: 0.0472s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dorte
non-member comment
Det ser bare rigtig hyggeligt ud.