Day 1: Madrid
This day had two different purposes, the first was to regroup after St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, and to explore Madrid because I was certain that the tour that started the next day would not highlight anything in the city itself. In order for me to fill both of those purposes, I decided to take a hop-on hop-off bus tour through the city. It did a great job explaining all the historical buildings in the town and it also kept me dry from the rain. For lunch it was recommended for me to go eat at a small Asian restaurant that was literally underground in the car park entrance for Plaza Espana. They had really good and fairly priced food, I ended up ordering egg fried noodles (similar to lo mein but with rice noodles) and steamed vegetables.
Plaza Mayor
Some of the street signs
One of the buildings found on the tour
my lunch!!
That night for dinner the hostel had a representative from a group called Mad Ride come and recruit people for a Tapas and Flamenco Crawl. I was one of three people that showed up for thus event and the three of us plus the guide had a great time talking with each other and just enjoying what the night would bring. We started off at a restaurant that served four amazing dishes of tapas. they gave us a dish each of sausages, potatoes, meat and cheese, and goujons. After spending around 1 hour there, we made our way over to the next stop of the night for the flamenco show. It was a cute little 1 hour performance where they had a guy and a girl perform dances on the stage with a vocalist and guitarist staged further back. While the show lasted an hour, they performed a good amount of dances together and as soloists. After their performance, the last stop of the night was to join up with the pub crawl in Madrid and hit a couple bars before going to bed. The pub crawl itself was fun because we were able to meet up with more people and continue to have fun but with a safer environment. The group of us spent about an hour in each place enjoying the atmosphere and whatever drink special they had before moving onto the next bar.
Tapas dinner!!
Flamenco Show!!
Day 2: Cordoba
The guided tour started this day and we left Madrid around 9 in the morning to travel 250 miles to our first stop of the day. About halfway through the drive we stopped at a rest stop for a break and lunch. When we eventually got to Cordoba the weather was looking a lot better and we were all just glad to get off the bus and explore more of Spain.
Views of olive bushes the whole drive down to Cordoba
In Cordoba we had some free time to walk around the city and do some shopping before the guided tour started. We then had a guided tour of the Mosque and the Spanish quarter from a local guide. The Mosque is this beautiful massive building that has been used for religious purposes through history in the Christian and Islamic faiths. It is dominated by beautiful arches made from marble and stone and in the center of the building, you can find that a cathedral was built and they had two amazing organs that were still playing when we arrived. They still had portions of the building dedicated to the Islamic faith even though most of the building had been transformed back to the Christian faith. The amount of architecture and the attention to detail in the place was breathtaking and you could spend hours just looking at everything and enjoying all the pictures and mosaics.
one of the organs
the arches that seem to go on forever
Unfortunately, we had to leave after a couple hours in Cordoba so that we could make it to Seville in time for us to get our hotel rooms and regroup before we ate dinner in the hotel.
Day 3: Seville
This was our free day in the city of Seville. It started off with a two hour walking/bus tour of the Expo '29 area and the Jewish Quarter. The Expo area is filled with different pavilions (buildings) created by different countries showing off the pride and architecture of that country. Each building had some unique feature and you could see the beauty in all of them. The major piece in this area is the Plaza de Espana. It really is the big semi-circular plaza that represents Spain and all of its people. Along the main building they put together big ceramic mosaics for each province showing a big moment of their history and a map of that province. The Jewish Quarter was very picturesque with its narrow streets and cute little shops and houses.
Argentinian Pavilion
Plaza de Espana
Ceramic Mosaic of Malaga
It was after that where we all went in our own directions and did whatever we thought would be fun. I decided that doing another hop-on hop-off is the best way to see everything so I took that around the city a couple times and got off a couple times to see things that seemed interesting to me. The first time I got off was in the Expo '29 area because they had this cute little science building. While the place was small, it did have some great stuff in there for the smaller children and I was more fascinated with the architecture of the building than the exhibits inside. The rest of the time was spent just walking around the city and exploring some of the side streets and the local shops.
Torre del Or
inside of the Casa de la Ciencia
Day 4: Ronda and Costa del Sol
This was the last day of the guided tour through Spain. We left Seville after breakfast and made our way down to the coast through a small town on a cliff side called Ronda. Even though we came on a cloudy day, the views of the mountains and even of the town were amazing and covered in the nature that surrounded them. The town itself is split into two different parts both physically (through a valley between the two cliff edges) and historically. On one side is the urban city where you can find the Plaza de Toros de Ronda and where I happened to spend most of my time. On the other side is the old city where you can find more of the mining station and quaint buildings. These two sides of the city are connected by one bridge.
view at over the landscape
view of the old city from the bridge
I decided that after a great lunch to walk around the bullfighting arena and the museum to see the history of the sport and some of the beautifully decorated costumes and horse apparel. The arena itself was pretty big and you could imagine all of the people cheering on the men and the whole atmosphere that would take the place over.
Plaza de Toros de Ronda
some of the costumes with a cape in the background
inside of the arena
We eventually had to leave though in order to get down to the coast in time for me to part ways from the group and try to get some time on the beach with the sun. I was lucky enough to get down to the beach and checked into my hotel with the sky clear and the sun out. I then spent a couple hours just walking along the beach and enjoying walking in the water too. My day ended at a restaurant on the beach with a nice kebab dinner.
view of the distant coastline
so pretty!! with the grass umbrellas
kebab dinner with some sangria
Day 5: Torremolinos
Torremolinos is the town in Costa del Sol that I stayed at for the two nights. And I lucked out with finding a hotel that was really cheap and just across the street from the beach. I even lucked out with getting a room with a balcony and a partial view of the sea.
View from the balcony of my room
However, it decided to rain the whole day, so I was stuck under an umbrella and on the sidewalk the whole time. After a disappointing afternoon of walking along the coast and standing in the rain, I spent the rest of the day just relaxing and reading in the airport before my flight back to Dublin.
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