Good-bye Spain!

We returned to Madrid in the evening of Monday May 13th.  We had a hard time getting to our apartment--again because of their crazy and confusing freeway system and exits, and then also their insanely crazy and confusing city streets.  I don't even know how we eventually found our hotel, but we did.  We were there much later than we wanted and expected, but thankfully we were pretty well packed and ready to fly home the next day.  We did have a few errands to run that night and we wanted to get to bed early...but that didn't happen.  The next morning my parents' flight was at 11am, so Paul drove them to the airport with the rental car, then dropped it off, and then caught the metro back to the hotel just in time to take the taxi with Glenn and I and all our stuff to the airport.

We were so excited to be on our way home.  We took a couple pictures at the airport--we liked the rainbow of colors on the support beams.

 

Merida, Spain

Monday May 13th we left Portugal and made our way back to Madrid.  We had just one more stop.  We stopped in Merida.  It was a city founded by the Romans and so we wanted to see the ruins that were there. 

Spanish and Portuguese Countryside

I wanted to share a few pictures that we took from the car.  

We loved seeing the lavender flowers...

Lisbon, Portugal

We left Seville in the evening and crossed the border into Portugal as the sun was setting.  We tried to get a picture of the country sign...

...well you'll just have to believe me that it said Portugal. :D

Seville, Spain

Around 3:30pm on Saturday May 11th, we said good-bye to Gibraltar and headed to Seville, Spain.  We then got to Seville around 6pm maybe.  

Gibraltar

After leaving the Alhambra we grabbed some quick and easy dinner--how thankful I was for McDonald's.   We then headed south--and in the right direction--towards Gibraltar.  We spent the night in Spain, just across the border, in Algeciras I believe.  (This wasn't our hotel, but it was just across the street and we thought it was a pretty cool building.)

Granada, Spain

The main thing to see in Granada is the Alhambra.  It is a HUGE site and it only gives out tickets for certain entrance times.  We had quite the experience there...oh boy!

Thankfully we were ahead of schedule so we weren’t late getting to Granada, but we did have to pick up our tickets to Alhambra by a certain time and our opening to Alhambra was at 4pm.  So thankfully we got there just in time for Paul to go pick up the tickets and for us to get what we needed from the car and meet him at the entrance. 

So after waiting in line to get the tickets, we met him and then waited in line to get them scanned and go in.  Well the line to go in was kind of strange—it wasn’t just a single file line because there were groups and people just going in and the guy didn’t take our tickets even though we were next in line.  They scanned our tickets but we realized that one of them didn’t have a bar code so it couldn’t get scanned, therefore that person couldn’t go in.  We thought it was Glenn’s ticket and we kept trying to ask that since he was free, did he really need a ticket?  He kept saying that it needed a bar code so he could scan it.  He wasn’t understanding and he told us that we needed to go back in line to get another ticket.  But we just waited in that line!  I don’t remember all the things but I got pretty frustrated.  Paul and Glenn went back into the first line, my parents had gone in and then waited for us, and I went to an information place to ask him to see if he could help us.  I tried explaining it to him and maybe I wasn’t doing a good job because I feel like I was getting the same response.  He walked with me over to Paul to look at the tickets.  Then he said that the one with the bar code was for Glenn and so the reason why we needed to get another ticket was because it was an adult ticket.  It had printed wrong—and it was just frustrating that they didn’t catch that before giving them to Paul.  When we got to a lady to ask her for a new ticket, it took a few minutes because she had to check things and get a supervisor or something to check it too.  And then we had to go walk around to the entrance again.  Paul and I were finding all kinds of things wrong with their system and our experience kind of tainted our time there.  But we tried to enjoy it as much as we could.

My mom waiting just after the entrance for us to get our tickets all worked out.

Countryside in Southern Spain

Well we had quite the adventure after leaving Cordoba.  We looked up directions to Granada because that was the next city on our trip.  Thankfully we were ahead of schedule...because we went the WRONG WAY!

Yep.    And we didn't realize it until after we had driven for awhile.  Dad was driving; Paul had given him directions and then fallen asleep.  Mom and I were kind of dozing in the back, but I remember seeing signs and wondering why Seville's name was on the list of cities...but I didn't want to be a backseat driver.  We had had some problems with Mom and I making comments prior to this experience.  But I kept having this feeling that we were going the wrong way.  Dad kind of did too, but he ignored that thought until finally we were almost to Seville--which is totally the OPPOSITE DIRECTION as Granada!  And if you remember from my previous posts, their freeways aren't set up like ours.  They don't have easy turn arounds if you start going the wrong way.  You have to just keep driving and driving until you can find one that will let you turn around.  Well, about 10 miles out from Seville, there was a road that we could turn on that would then take us to Granada, so we took it.  We were all kind of annoyed at this, but we couldn't do much about it.  So we got an extra dose of the southern Spanish countryside. :D

Cordoba, Spain

After Consuegra, we drove for about 2 1/2 hours until we arrived in Cordoba.  We arrived there at about midnight and were happy to sleep in soft beds.  We had an early start on Friday, May 10th because we had a lot we wanted to see.  

The Mezquita, or Mosque-Cathedral

Consuegra

After leaving Toledo, we continued south, heading to Consuegra.  The only thing that we wanted to see there was the famous windmills from the famous novel Don Quixote by Cervantes.  I was afraid that we wouldn't see them with our late start, but actually we saw them just before the sun went down, and consequently a beautiful sunset was the background for many of our pictures.

Toledo...(Again)

We finally left Madrid around 6pm on Thursday May 9th.  That was later than we expected, so we didn't have as much time to see some of the other places we wanted to show my parents.  So we did a quick little tour of the old city by car this time, and of course we wanted to show them the spectacular views of Toledo.

La Plaza de Toros, Madrid

Thursday May 9th was our last day to really see things in Madrid.  We backed our bags--in preparation for our southern Spain trip and then home to the USA.  We only had time to see one thing.  We hadn't quite decided what we were going to do and then we walked slower than we thought and we missed a couple of metro trains and yeah...it was one of those days.  

But we did get to see the Plaza de Toros, the bullring there in Madrid.  

Reina Sofia Museum and Madrid Train Station

Wednesday May 8th, my dad ventured out to El Escorial and Segovia, and then to the cities that we had seen the day before.  We hadn't bought any souvenirs and Dad was willing to go again.  When he got back to Madrid, he and I went to the Reina Sofia Museum.

Avila...(Again)

After a few hours in Salamanca, we made our way to Avila.  

Salamanca, Spain

After Burgos, we headed back to Madrid.  We arrived after midnight and were pretty worn out.  We had Sunday to rest, but then Monday we had more to do.  I did laundry and grocery shopping.  My parents went on the Madrid City Bus Tour.  Since Glenn and I had already done that, and because we were pretty tired, we didn't join with them.  They had a good time and saw most of Madrid.  They had much better weather than we had when Cheryl was visiting with us.  So that was good.

The next day, Tuesday May 7th, we took a day trip out to Salamanca.  It took us about 2 hours to get there.   We enjoyed the scenery as we drove there too.  I guess all that rain that we had in March turned the landscape all across Spain very green. 

I won't complain about that!

Burgos, Spain

Our original plans hadn't included Burgos, but as we read more about it in our guide book, we decided to stop there.  It was on our way and we would need a place to eat dinner anyway.  And we were so glad we stopped here!  The cathedral was absolutely amazing!  

The Pyrenees Mountains

After spending Saturday morning (May 4th) at the beach in France, 

we headed back into Spain.  

The Atlantic Ocean

After all of our Roman sight-seeing in Nimes, we drove and drove and drove to the west coast of France.  We stayed in a hotel there and then in the morning--Saturday May 4th--we went to the beach to dip our feet into the Atlantic Ocean!  It seemed incredible that just two days earlier we had been at the Mediterranean Sea.  We put a lot of miles on our rental car, that's for sure!

After checking out of the hotel--we were getting used to that--we bought some French pastries and ate them on the beach.  Mom stayed in the car--she wasn't feeling well--but the rest of us braved the cold water and the sand.

Nimes, France

Friday May 3rd we spent in Nimes.  Nimes is a very old city in France and has been inhabited for thousands of years.  The Romans were there and built many large structures that are still around today.  And those were our main focal points of the day.  

Jardins de la Fontaine

This was not a Roman creation, but was built in the 18th century on the recently discovered ancient site.  It was very much French in its creation--the statues and vases. 

It was so green and beautiful!

Pont du Gard

After walking around Avignon, we drove out to Site Pont du Gard (still on May 2nd).  

It is the Roman aqueduct of Nimes out in the countryside that is very well preserved.