I promised I would move on to my next series and here it is: Sumptuous Spain!  I am digging back through my archives a bit as I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from readers on it.  So, I am going to go for it even though (a) The trip was 8 years ago (b) I had to scan every single picture as it was before I had a digital camera, and (c) I am going off my old, leather-bound travel journal as memory.  (My own brain is way too foggy for a trip in 2004, especially after two kids). 

Thus all in all, this series of posts will not be anywhere near as detailed as my recent ones on Guatemala, China, Nepal, Morocco, Costa Rica or Argentina, all relatively recent travels.  But on the bright side of things I don’t have many pictures or stories written down thus it will mostly be a few fond memories per city.  So here goes nothing, Hasta Spain!

Photo credit: Wikipedia Free Commons

I have been fortunate to have visited Spain on two separate occasions before our twelve-day trip in May 2004.  Once back in 1993, my mom and I took the night train from Paris where I was studying abroad and spent a fun-filled week in Madrid, Segovia and Seville, where we have lots of fond memories yet hardly any pictures to enjoy. The second time was a year later while I was spending a summer living and working in Marseille.  My friend and I took the slow train down south all the way to Barcelona and visited the lovely towns of Girona and Figueres on the way.  Again, it was quite the adventure yet since I had to keep all those rolls of film in one, large green backpack, there weren’t many rolls to develop four months later.  It amazes me how much technology has changed every aspect of life and travel.  I can only imagine how many pictures I would have from all my travels if I’d had a digital camera….thousands upon thousands.

Here are two oldies but goodies from my earlier trips to Spain…many years ago. 

Segovia, 1993.

Barcelona, 1994. 

My husband Paul had never been to Spain and we were on a mission to see as much as possible before having kids.  We had planned out an exhilarating twelve-day trip starting in Madrid and focusing on the southern tip of Spain known as Andalusia.  Little did we know that I would be expecting our first child on the trip.  Definitely not the best timing nor ideal way to travel, especially in a country that centers around late-night meals, lack of public toilets, and sangria.  But we made the best of our jam-packed trip and somehow I secretly enjoyed the fact that I brought my son Max with me in a sense (even though he was the size of a pea!).

Our route for the trip was as follows:

• Fly into Madrid and spend two days.
• A day trip to nearby Toledo.
• Fly from Madrid to Seville where we would rent a car for our driving tour of Andalusia.
• Spend a night in Seville and then depart the next day heading north to Cordoba
• Spend a day and a half in Cordoba and then drive south to Granada.
• Spend a day and half in Granada and head southwest to Ronda.
• Spend a day in Ronda and then head south to Costa del Sol.
• Spend a day and a half in Costa del Sol and then drive around back to Seville with a stop in Gibraltar along the way.
• Fly home from Seville.

It sounded doable but little did I know it would end up being way too much, especially for a pregnant me.  If I had to do it again, I would either cut out a few cities or make the trip longer with two or three days in each place.  I also would try not to go during such a touristy time of year as the busloads of tourists took quite a bit of charm away from it all.  You wouldn’t have the most pleasant weather however not having to crane your neck to see the sights or try to wade your way through the hordes of people would probably make the trip better.

Over the next several posts, I’ll share the highlights of each city with a few spruced up photos.  I am going to skip Madrid, not because I don’t love it….I do!….but because the only picture I have from there is the one on my header for this post!  It is a great city but I think I’ll need to reinvestigate it at a later date in order to fairly write about it!

So….stay tuned…next stop Toledo!  A gorgeous town that I adored, right up there with Segovia which I saw back in 1993.