Thanksgiving Dinner

Due to the large amount of students traveling Thanksgiving weekend, the Wake program scheduled a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us that Wednesday. They hired a restaurant that did a wonderful job at providing an authentic taste of Native America.

Los Arribes del Duero

The river Duero, which runs along the border with Portugal for a good bit is surrounded by a national park on the Spanish side of the river. We visited the national park there, took a tour of the river (which is very old and dammed up and has extremely steep walls — on one side is portugal and the other, spain) and stopped at winery and had a wine and cheese tasting.

Galicia

We spent Halloween weekend in Galicia, in the northwest corner of Spain, north of Portugal. We spent a lot of time in Santiago de Compostela, where there is a Roman Pilgrimage Church housing some relics of Saint  James. Lots of history. Lots of architecture. We also spent a good deal of time traveling around the Galician countryside, even touching the coast. We took a boat ride and had some fresh-cooked mussels and white wine. We stopped in several almost untouched, very tiny towns to eat and explore, which was a nice break from the more organized tours that we always go on.

Roman Pilgrimage Church of Santiago de Compostela

Ronda

We stopped in Ronda on our way from Granada to Sevilla on October 9th.

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plaza de toros

plaza de toros 2

a real live bullfight

Arab baths entrance

inside the arab baths

Granada

The main thing we saw in Granada was la Alhambra, the 14th century palace and fortress of the Moorish rulers of Granada.

view of Granada from inside la Alhambra:

and a couple of pictures from outside of across the way, looking at la Alhambra

and a far tower of the compound, looking out over Granada

here’s el Palacio de Carlos V, built inside the compound after it was reconquered:

staircase leading up to the second level of the balcony around the circular patio of Carlos V

view of a military tower from inside the palace of la Alhambra

here is el patio de los comares, in front of the tower of los comares

a row of columns around el patio de los leons

the renovation of the fountain en el patio de los leones

and now a few close-ups of all the detail from around the palace

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and the entrance to a garden/courtyard within the palace

and finally a group shot!

Córdoba

We arrived in Córdoba the night of Oct. 5th, and we spent the morning of the next day touring the city, arriving finally (if you don’t cat La Mezquita de Córdoba.

Just outside of the old wall of Córdoba

Just inside of the wall, down a street

el Alminar (bell tower) of la Mezquita (mosque) of Córdoba

the patio of la Mezquita de Córdoba

inside la Mezquita de Córdoba

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a pigeon in the patio

On our way to Granada, we stopped at the ruins of a castle to just kind of take in the Andalucían countryside; needless to say, it was a really cool experience:

Mérida

From October 5-12, the Wake program took all of us on a weeklong tour of Andalucía, the biggest province of southern Spain. We travelled through Mérida, stayed in Córdoba, stayed in Granada, travelled through Ronda, and stayed in Sevilla. There will be more to come on all the other places, but I’m going to go in order. Here we go:

While we are on the road the first day, we stopped in the province of Extremadura to look at the historic area of the capital, Mérida. There were a bunch of ruins from Roman rule, including an amphitheatre and some gardens, as well as a museum built above some tombs.

Amphitheatre:

The group descending to the tombs:

Columns in the tombs:

Ruins from the gardens:

Barçelona

Susan and Kelsey (both go to wake and are studying here in salamanca with me) and I went to Barçelona this weekend and met up with two girls from Vanderbilt (Leslie and Steph, studying in Madrid) that we know serendipitously through at least 3 distinct, random connections from all over our lives. We all stayed in Hostal Marîtima, which might sound fancy, and which actually was in a pretty big not-too-old building in a very good location, but was very very sketchy. It turned out all right though. But I wish I had gotten some pictures of our beds. The five of us were in a 10-bed room, along with 5 Italian fellows who were there for about a week. They were fun. I’ll post links to videos and whatnot that we have of them. I might even steal a couple of pictures of them from the other four that were there with me. Anyway, here we go with the photo tour:

OK I stole this from Susan’s Facebook. It’s us and los italianos on Friday night in Barça. We got along great. Which was fortunate on account of the proximity of our beds.

La Sagrada Familia

A building in the city designed by Gaudí

The ceiling of the inside of a different building designed by Gaudí

Just a building in Barçelona in this little plaza with some cool lighting

The front of the last building where it met two others (and two streets in both the spaces)

A lamppost with pigeon and shoes outside the Picasso museum

A street leading to Gaudí’s Parc Güell (a high-up park with an amazing view of the city and a bunch of strange little architectural innovations. Didn’t do much for me, but apparently it’s really cool? Anyway, I liked the lines and light and shadows so i took it.

The four on the way to Parc Güell (left to right, kelsey, steph, susan, leslie)

Another shot of a Barça street closer to the Gaudí buildings

A leaf!

Toledo

On 15 september we traveled south from Madrid to Toledo, stopping first at a scenic overlook to get pictures of the city as a whole. Next we took a pretty all-inclusive tour of the city, including stopping at a building devoted to El Entierro del Conde Orgaz (The burial of the Count of Orgaz), which is considered one of El Greco’s finest works. We also saw the main Cathedral of Toledo, which is the building with one spire in the first picture. Overall, Toledo was very interesting, and pretty much a staple Spanish site/sight. The tour guide warned us at one point that the streets are so narrow and so curvy that if one of us gets separated, we probably aren’t going to make it back that night. So that was fun. Anyway, here are the pictures:

This was my best attempt at the scenic overlook:

A typical Toledo street:

The main entrance to the Cathedral of Toledo:

A wider shot of the spire of the Cathedral:

El Palacio Real de Madrid

After a short panoramic bus tour of the city, we visited el Palacio Real, constructed in the 18th century under the reign of king Felipe V. There are 2,800 rooms, and I would say we saw about 50 or 60 of them, maybe a little more, maybe a little less.

Front view of el Palacio Real

from the left side el palacio real, showing how it is very much in the city of Madrid