We only spent a few days in Porto but it was enough to enjoy this beautiful city. Not as chic or as gentrified as Lisbon, Porto had a real old world charm. The down at heel suburbs by the river had an almost Dickensian feel to them. One of the highlights of the holiday was to sit on the waterfront sipping a cold white port enjoying the warm early evening sunshine. Here’s the view from the bridge over the river…
We hired a car in Lisbon and then took off for Central Portugal. We had booked a holiday cottage in the village of Alvorge deep in untouristed central Portugal. Nearby is the pretty village of Penela. We were surprised by the amount of pristine forest in Portugal as can be seen from this view. There are many windmills in the area. Some old… …and some new In May the countryside is alive with colourful wildflowers including these pretty rock roses…
We went to Portugal for three weeks in May 09. Our hols kicked off in Lisbon where we stayed with our friends Jo and Nigel. We enjoyed several days of warm spring sunshine and the highlights included a day at the beach and some tram rides up and down Lisbon’s famous hills. Here’s the view from the plane flying over the river Tajo (Tagus) and coming in to land. As well as the distinctive yellow trams, this is a funicular…
Food is a major highlight of any trip to Spain and here is a collection of delicacies we enjoyed in Andalucia
Another day, another train trip. This time east to Granada, which in many ways was the highlight of the whole holiday. Granada is very attractively situated at the base of the Sierra Nevada and as we pulled into the station we could see the snow capped mountains in the background. Our Pension - Pension Landazuri was very handily situated in the centre of town and on the road to the Alhambra, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world…
Another train trip. The first hour was a blur of golden sunflowers as we passed the southern plains of Andalucia. For the second hour the scenery changed as we passed along the coast over marshland and towards the spit of land at the end of which is the ancient port of Cadiz, more like an island bastion than part of the mainland. The train station is near the entrance to the old city which is still encircled by huge thick…
We had to get up early, ready for the train trip to Seville. Unlike the UK, the train station and train were spotless and all in all a very pleasant experience. Leaving in rain, we arrived in Seville a few hours later basked in sunshine. The station is in the new town but it was only a 15 minutes walk to the heart of the old town and our hostel – El Buen Dormir. Although the title is hostel, like…
Not an auspicious arrival into Spain – torrential rain. We were, however, met by our friend Ben at the airport to take us to his apartment in central Madrid and by the time we ventured out for the evening in search of sustenance the rain had turned to drizzle. The was my first experience of Spain and my first impression was that everything was…small! Inner city apartments in a European capital city are necessarily small for anyone but multimillionaires these…