What We Did > What We Did (19)
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Tapas breaks!
How can you not spend a lot of time in Spain eating tapas and hanging out!?!? We brought our books almost everywhere with us, and would spend some time each day eating and sipping on cafes. The pig is big in Spain. . .
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Exploring the city!
Of course we did the touristy Puerto del Sol area, explored the Golden Art Museum Triangle, as well shopped around the Salamanaca district (which was closed b/c of siesta time), discovered Chueca and Fuencarral street (mostly a gay neighborhood with great clothing stores), tried to find a particular restaurant on Calle Baja and Calle Alta one night, and spent a lot of time in Plaza Santa Ana (by our hotel).
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Plaza Mayor
Hung out here one afternoon at a cafe and read our books and people watched.
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Palacio Royale
We only saw the palace from the outside. It was a nice walk from our neighborhood here. This day we circled around and found some off the beaten tracks neighborhoods, which we would later come back to and try and eat dinner in (however the restaurants we wanted to eat at was closed -- we were bummed considering we walked around for over an hour trying to find it!)
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Late Night Dinners
Being that Jason and I are typically an early evening couple, we really felt like the 11pm dinners were an event. It's been over a week that we've been in Spain, and I think that every meal has been past at least 10:30pm.
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El Retiro Park
AKA the Central Park of Madrid! This was one of my favorite days here, since we relaxed in the park all afternoon long. The picnic we attempted was a little stressful, especially since bees attacked our bocadillas, but we ened up having a relaxing reading session under the shade of a tree.
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Cathedral Seville
This is the largest Cathedral in the world, and was really beautiful inside. We even climbed to the top of the tower to look out over the entire city.
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Parque de Maria Luisa
We spent a good part of the day exploring this great park.
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Plaza de Espana, Seville
This beautiful ornate plaze nestled in the park was wonderful to explore. For some strange reason, there weren't that many people around, thus we got to enjoy the serenity of the beautiful area.
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Walk along Guadalquivir River in Seville
Beautiful afternoon walking along the river, exploring the little neighborhoods around it. Realized we actually like the other side of the river from where the central area is, since it's much more calm. Also, the architecture was gorgeous over there.
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Trying to Figure out "Where Are We!?!?!?", Seville
We have always been pretty good with navigating our way through a city, BUT Seville is just a whole different ball game. We have gotten lost each day for at least a good chunk of time. I'm not talking like kind of lost, but more along the lines of freak out, where the heck are we sort of lost. This town is so confusing -- almost every single person walks around with a map and a confused look on their face.
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Exploring Granada
We spent many hours wandering the streets of Granada, taking in the very cool scene there. We really enjoyed the lack of tourists compared to the other cities we were in, as well also took advantage of the night life and good food in this town.
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Climbing Up and Exploring La Alhambra
This beautiful and sprawling compound of gardens, fountains, temples, and fortresses is definitely worth a trip to Granada. We spent a wonderful afternoon here, even managing to get some time in to sit in the shade and read our book.
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Las Ramblas in Barcelona
Although this is the very touristy part of Barcelona, it's certainly worth a walk down this pedestrian street filled with restaurants, street entertainers and mobs of people. We got it out of our system after our little jaunt down the walkway this afternoon.
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Walk along Barceloneta aka The Fisherman's Quarter
This was a very, very hot day, and after being in the sun for a couple hours, our main task was trying to find the metro. However, we were able to check out the boats in the harbor, and watch all the people on bikes and rollerblades enjoy themselves. We were just really ready to get on a metro and go home after walking for hours on end!
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Parc Guell filled with Gaudi Structures
This was a wonderful afternoon exploring the unique and beautiful park. The bottom area contained these interesting structures that the architect Gaudi conceived. We decided to climb to the top of the park where we discovered an amazing spot with a view of the entire city.
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Hike to the Top of Park Guell
This was a great way to escape the mobs of people gathered below. We just sat up top for a while and looked out taking in the enormity of the city.
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Tram to Castle Montjuic
After walking through the Parc Montjuic for some time, trying to find the tram up, we stumbled across it. We took the scenic ride to the top of the area, which gave us amazing views in a 360 range of all of Barcelona, including the coastline.
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Sagrada Familia Cathedral
This unique looking cathedral designed by the famous Gaudi creates quite an impression on many people. I actually really enjoyed this structure, since it was unique from the hundreds of churches we've seen throughout the world. It's estimated that the structure won't be completed for another 30 years. We were a little disappointed after we paid over $20 to get into the building, to realize there wasn't much to look at except the construction going on.
