Madrid, Spain - Part 2

Before leaving London and knowing that we had several blog posts in the backlog to clear whilst traveling around Europe, Mei carefully selected all the photos relating to each trip and uploaded them into draft posts. However, for this particular trip it appears that the photos didn't save. So this post will be retrospectively updated once we return home and are reunited with the photo archive. Our trip to Madrid for the second time had two purposes: 1) To escort Mei's parents to the hotel where they would start a tour of Spain; 2) To eat tapas. There was a third motive: To watch Real Madrid play at the famous Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Santiago de Compostela is the capital city of Galicia in north-west Spain, near the border with Portugal. The city attracted our attention as a travel destination for a few reasons: amazing seafood; medieval UNESCO listed architecture and cheap flights as it is only a short distance from the UK across the Bay of Biscay. However the city's main claim to fame is the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great. Pilgrims from all over the world have been travelling the 'Way of St James' route starting from Portugal or France to Santiago de Compostela from as early as the 9th century.

Valencia, Spain

We selected Valencia as a travel destination on the basis that we loved eating paella and felt the need to seek out its origins. Back in Australia we had only associated Valencia with oranges (great when used in sangria) but on our travels we had heard good things about this Mediterranean city. We had tasted different types of paella on trips to Madrid, Barcelona and even Cafe Brood in London's Borough Market; but the original home of paella excelled over all others and ensured that we thoroughly enjoyed our gastronomic weekend away.

Barcelona, Spain - Part 2

When a weekend trip includes ticking off an activity from the master 'to do list', the lead up to the travel date is full of excitement. Olie was like a kid waiting for Christmas morning prior to this trip to Barcelona. The reason for his eagerness? It wasn't the paella or works by Gaudi that had him bouncing around on the Easyjet flight. It was the anticipation of watching FC Barcelona play at Camp Nou. So out came the matching scarves we had purchased at the Camp Nou tour in 2012 and we were ready for some La Liga football action.

San Sebastian and Bilbao, Spain

Our trip to the Basque Country in Spain was almost completely focused on eating, drinking and indulging completely in one of the culinary capitals of the world.
The Basque Country spans the area of northern Spain and into France that is home to the Basque Autonomous Community.
Of the three provinces on the Spanish side - Alava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa; we travelled to the latter two that are home to the capital cities of Bilbao and Donostia-San Sebastian.

Malaga, Spain

On the second last day of our whirlwind Easter break around Andalucia, we arrived in Malaga. Compared to the other cities we had visited, Malaga was a delight in terms of weather.
We arrived on Easter Sunday and had timed our entrance to ensure that the streets had been reopened after the festive parade - otherwise we would not have been able to access our Hotel. We also had a minor hiccup trying to find our accommodation when we accidentally walked into a Hostel on the other end of the street with a similar sounding name.

Cordoba and Granada, Spain

Leaving Seville, we headed north by train to Cordoba - a city dating to Roman times and in the 10th century was the most populous in the world as the center of education under the Islamic Caliphate. Cordoba was a stopover destination as we had booked the night's accommodation in nearby Granada. In contrast to the 'modern' cities of Seville and later destination of Malaga; we found that Cordoba and Granada retained more of its interesting historic architecture contrasting Western (Christian) and Eastern (Islamic) influences.

Seville, Spain

During the Easter long weekend, we decided to select a travel destination where we could visit a number of historic cities. We selected Andalucia and targeted the cities of Seville, Cordoba, Granada and Malaga.
We were also keen to see the local Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations that are hosted by each city. Week long street processions draw in crowds of bystanders and curious tourists. The experience provided us with a more cultural insight into traditional Easter celebrations without chocolate eggs or fluffy bunnies.

Madrid, Spain

Our trip to Madrid was 'memorable' due to the actions of protesting baggage handlers that delayed our incoming flight by an hour; and our outgoing flight by just under the 2 hour trigger point for Easyjet to offer compensation.
Anti-austerity sentiment was the driver for the industrial action. However to a plane full of tired tourists, with only one working toilet and a desire to get home quickly - there wasn't a lot of sympathy offered for their cause. Nevertheless, it was a sobering reminder that future weekend travel may be at risk if there are ongoing Euro issues.

Barcelona, Spain

So how many paellas and jugs of sangria can you eat over a 3 day period?
Olie's answer: Four different types of paella and four servings of sangria.
Our weekend holiday was highlighted by awesome food, warm weather (a sunny 21 degrees adding some colour to our London sun-starved skin) and a trip to Camp Nou - home of the FC Barcelona football team. Barcelona, as a city has now made its way into our 'top' list as we loved so many aspects of the Catalan culture that we have promised ourselves a return trip.

Majorca, Spain

Booking a short weekend trip to an island in the Mediterranean promised us some respite to the cold English winter. Unfortunately for us, the promised 'warmth' was too short in duration with less than two hours worth of sunglasses time and t-shirt worthy sunshine. Initially the weather forecast had promised clear sunny skies; however we were denied seeing any blue sky by a thick layer of cloud cover that threatened rain and brought some familiar chilly gusts of wind. So we traded in our sunglasses for a puffy goose down jacket, gloves, cap and scarf - dressed just as if we had never left the UK.