Granada

So after Sevilla we hopped on a train for Granada, we were hoping that it was going to be a smaller town type of place but we came to find out that it is quite huge. However, even as a large city it was really cool. It was organized into neighborhoods, each of which was a different culture. It was really amazing to experience them all.

This is a view of the hillside coming into Granda, we saw more olive and almond trees than we ever knew existed. Chances are if you are eating either of these things, it came from here.

The next shot is of Lisa enjoying the scenery on a train ride. I liked it cuz of the the old sepia feel.

When we arrived, we headed up to a viewpoint to check out the city layout. After negotiating the narrow unlabeled street system we made it to St. Nicolas plaza with a view of the Alhambra and the rest of the city. This is a shot of all the other people that were there doing the same thing. There were a ton of performers there too with music filling the air. It was great!

Granada Continued...

We made our way to the Alhambra to get tickets to check it out. Turns out that 8000 people go to see this thing every day. The tickets are for a specific 30' entry time and if you miss it you're out of luck. The place is well worth it though. Everything is decorated with water, in every way you can think of , because to the people who made it water was a very valuable commodity.

This is a cool shot I took of the first waterfall that we saw wehn climbing the giant hill up to the entrance.

This next shot is just a quick example of how narrow the streets were. Everybody who drove through here, and it was a lot of people, scrapped their rear view mirrors.

This is a shot showing the amazing rock work in all the streets and side walks of Granada. It is all made from different colored rocks. They must have spent centuries organizing and placing all these stones.

The Sierra Nevada Mountains loomed huge in the background of the city. We almost headed up there to go skiing but we couldnt find a snow pant rental place. It was cold in the city and we figured it would really be cold up there.

Granada Continued...

The Alhambra was truly amazing... the water was used in so many interesting ways and the topiary art was really cool too...

Here is Lisa discovering the inside of the palace. It was filled with secret rooms and passageways. Just imagine all that these walls have seen.....

The ceilings were once painted with vibrant colors that have all since worn away, but even without the color the amazing and intricate art of the surface itself was really something.

Even the most simple pillar holding up an awning was ornately sculpted into something to study for hours. There was so much to this place that it was like a city in and of itself.

Granada Continued...

The mountains really formed an amazing backdrop to the Alhambra.

This was a forum, that they used for meetings and speeches. It would sure be neat to have lived here back in the day!

This was a bathroom. Pretty extensive for a bathroom eh?

We really explored a ton of places in Granada, it was a cool city, but in the end we still prefer the country over the city. Seems like after a while you just need some open space and some quiet. We really enjoyed the food here, we found an amazing tapas bar that was really friendly and cool and we ate there a couple of times. It was really neat the way that when you ordered a beer you got an apetizer with it. If you wanted to you could just drink and eat all night!

A Stopover in the Mediterranean

Since we had no set schedule for our honeymoon, our great friend/old roommate in Alaska...Sergios, had mentioned many times that we should visit him in his home country in the Mediterranean - Cyprus. So, we took him up on it since we were relatively close :). We've had a crazy time with flights, a story we'll share later, but our last 2 days in Cyprus with Sergios have been AWESOME! Look for pictures soon, but for now we're arguing for the millionth time with Lufthansa Airlines - DONT EVER FLY WITH THEM!!!!

Sevilla

K, so my post about Sevilla is going to be short just like our visit there.... The train ride from Toledo was really cool, Lots of these trees! I think that they are olive trees....

The countryside is filled with them, everywhere. It is beautiful and gets even better the further south we go from Madrid, the rolling hills really add to the landscape.

The castles are getting cooler too! I think that we should have booked a few nights at this place. could have been really cool.

Instead we went to Sevilla, and let me say that it was a bad choice, should have just stayed in Toledo, the food sucked and the place was a crowded dump. Soul my toukas. Ok so we didn't really give it that good of a chance, but after our initial experience we just decided to move on. Maybe if we had tried harder we would have liked it more, but who has the time for that.

So we just sat and kissed, hiding ever so effectivly behind and orange? It was fun. The whole city did smell of oranges and that was cool. Off to Granada in the morning.

TOLEDO!!!

We left the craziness of Madrid for a much more relaxed and quaint Toledo, boy is this place breathtaking! The moon rose over the city as we went out on the town. The narrow city streets just ooze character, and each one whispers to you as you go by. It's impossible to walk down to many of them. We pretty much zigzaged our way throughout the entire town the first night. We stayed at a really great little hotel right inside the city walls, it was nice and quiet, except for the spanish lesson from the locals as they come home from the tapas bars at 7 in the morning laughing and carrying on. The major sights that we took in were the alcazar and the cathedral. Both spetaculo.

It was hard to find a bad place to take a picture here... tell me this isn't a postcard.

This is the giagantic alcazar that dominates the city. It was on the highest hill, but when you are walking the narrow streets you have no idea it even exists!

Here is the view from our hotel room... Toooooo coool.

toledo

This is a shot of the biggest cathedral in Spain, it was quite impressive, even at night. The inside was amazing as well, we loved the courtyard that surrounded it. Kids were playing soccer there well into the night.

Remind you of any movies? Pretty much everybody in Europe controlled this city at one point in time and it was evident from the very diverse setting and culture...

Here is a shot of another part of the cathedral.

One more angle, so many towers and domes... it was quite a sight.

toledo

The streets were a bit tight for delivery trucks like these... People really had to duck into doorways to avoid being run down, it was nice to have less traffic in this city though.

We also found the most amazing Marzipan ever. And when we say ever we mean it, this recipe dates back to the 15th century or something like that. They have been making it at this shop in Toledo since the 1800's.

We also went to an amazing restaurant in Toledo, the best food we have had in Spain by far. I had a 5 course chef selected meal and Lisa had some amazing pork dish. It was outstanding, and we ate in this ancient cellar, it was like being in a european food magazine or something.

We window shopped for a long time in Toledo and found this amazing house, made entirely of cookies... It was pretty cool, We are wondering if you want to try to make one of these for next years fall fest V?

Toledo

The city was like stepping back in time with castles and moats and walls everywhere, the whole place has been deemed a historic site. Some new art has managed to creep into the ancient walled city, like these sculptures above, can you find lisa in the photo? I couldnt, seemed like three of the same sculpture to me...

This is a government building inside the city walls and the awnings that you see in front of it are a series of six escalators that we rode to get up and down the hill. The whole town is one rolling hill after another.

This is a shot of the river that surrounds 3 sides of the city.

Here are the falls...This bridge was awesome, linking the old walled city with the newer houses and streets outside the historic town...What an amazing place, we liked this low key old school life a lot more than the hustle and bustle of Madrid and it's go zillion people!

A little more Madrid

Have a lot of Madrid pictures, so I thought we'd post a few more.

Here's Ben below Vasquez, the artist. We took a tour of the Museo de Prado - LOTS of paintings!

One of the many little streets we found ourselves lost, on purpose, on.

The view of Plaza de Santa Ana, below our hotel window, at night.

We finished the night off with a Flamenco show - very fun! As you can see, moves so fast, you can't even tell it was Lisa dancing!!! Just kidding, an amazing show with amazing dancers and singers.

Spain Day 1

We got to Spain today, it was a looooooong trip. when we got in we took a cab from the airport as we were about 10 miles from the hotel. We decided to walk around a little bit as it was still early for check in. We toured around and saw the plaza mayor and the Royal palace and it's gardens. It was amazing... we are pretty tired though and we headed back to check in.

This is the view from the hotel room window. Pretty awesome, probably the best it is going to be for a while as we are splurging to recover from the trip with this first stay of two days.

This is the royal palace that we saw. And above is a shot of Lisa in the Plaza Mayor.

We are about crash for 9 hours or so and then go our for dinner.... Look for more action later!