It's been way too long since our last post, apologies for the delay, we've been travelling all over Spain, Germany, Paris and London since our last post! I'll try to summarize the last 2 months to give you an idea of what we've been up to and why we've been neglecting our blog! We began in Madrid, the capital of Spain back in mid February. After 7 days in Madrid (see our last post for details) we took a train to Sevilla, probably our favourite place in Spain! We explored the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, the Real Alcazar (royal palace) and caught a traditional Flamenco show. We stopped at a ton of plazas for tapas and wine in the afternoons and chilled out on the roof top bar at our hostel with fellow nomads. To top off our stay we spent some time in the Plaza Espana, a large park and building complex built for the 1929 expo. From Sevilla we rented a car for 10 days and visited Cadiz (oldest city in Western Europe), the current British territory of Gibraltar (see what Brexit has to say about this), Ronda, Malaga, Granada and Cordoba. I've included some pictures below of the highlights from these places. The history here is unique to south Spain with Moorish Muslim rule for hundreds of years. The English Catholics reconquered Spain ending in Granada in 1492, converted most of the mosques into Catholic cathedrals and started the Spanish Inquisition that drove out the Muslim and Jewish population. This unique history is show cased in South Spain with Roman, Moorish and Catholic designs fused together to create some of the most beautiful places in Europe. After a fantastic few weeks in the South we flew north to Bilbao, home to the Gugenhiem. Before the Gugenhiem was built Bilbao was not a popular vacation spot, often over looked by San Sebastian just an hour away and our next stop. However Bilbao was a nice surprise, on top of having one of the best modern art museums we've ever been to it was really beautiful little city! We bused up to San Sebastian after a few days in Bilbao to enjoy the foodie capital of Spain! The downside to the world class Pintxos is that Chris is allergic to basically all of them! Finding food in Spain was difficult most of our time but reached new levels in the North. We managed to find a Quebec crepe/ Canadian food restaurant near our hotel which served up some of the only food in the city Chris could eat! The beach and views in San Sebastian were fantastic the first day of our visit, sadly the second and third day rained so we hunkered down inside mostly and took a good ol' siesta. Next we trained over to Pamplona, home to the insane annual event of running with the bulls. The city is nuts during the festival however the rest of the year, including during our visit, it's a sleepy little town rich with history and fun places to relax. We didn't get up to too much here aside from walking around, eating, drinking and relaxing in the cities beautiful fortified park. We ended our 5 weeks in Spain with a 5 day stop in Barcelona, another favourite of ours! Between the Sagrada Famillia, Park Guell, Beaches and more Barcelona was fantastic! It was an excellent way to end our time in Spain. We headed up to Nurnberg from Barcelona to visit our friend Rashpal. The highlight aside from seeing our friend was definitely the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. The Museum was a great surprise with an excellent exhibition explaining the rise and fall of Hitler and the Nazi Party. The tour ends with a view into the old rally grounds where the Nazi party would gather in the thousands each year. It is an intense and tough history to revisit and this museum did it with tact and respect for those affected. That weekend the three of us flew to Berlin for a few days. Berlin is an awesome city! We went and saw the Berlin wall at several places, East Berlin street art, and enjoyed Berlin's Sunday Markets. It was really great to catch up with an old friend and spend time in this super hip city! After a great few days visiting Rashpal we headed down to Paris for a couple days! Chris wasn't feeling very well on the first day in Paris so we just went for a nice walk by the Louvre/ Notre Dame before heading back to our AirBnB. We ended up getting a Museum pass to make life a bit easier and cheaper and managed to fit in the Louvre, L'Orangerie, Musee d'Orsay and Rodin Museum over 2 days. We ended our second day off with a relaxing afternoon sitting on the grass by the Eiffel Tower with some drinks. It was a really lovely few days with great weather. To finish our time in Europe we headed up to London to visit our friends Derek and Ali! It was great catching up with them and we also got to see our friends Emma and Brad! A very productive visit plus we did a bit of the usual sight seeing. We've both been to London before so we kept it pretty relaxed and enjoyed our 3 days. We're back in Canada now! We spent a couple days in Montreal with Chris' brother before heading to the County to visit my family. We've got about 6 days here before we continue and finish our around the world journey in Costa Rica! It's our last stop before we return to our old lives. Mostly we love travelling and it's been a really awesome 8 months but a big part of us is craving our old life back and we're excited to see our way back home soon!
1 Comment
Bing
4/8/2017 01:20:17 am
Love reading your blog. Hope everything ok - return to Canada before finishing yr trip??????? Much love to you both, Bing xxxx
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