Paris - Day 3

LAST DAY!!



Sacre Coeur
The last real day in Paris. We started the day off by heading to the Sacre Coeur Cathedral which happened to be about a 5 minutes walk from our hotel. We also happened to visit during mass which made the atmosphere even more beautiful.



Notre Dame
Next stop - Notre Dame - one of the most famous sites in Paris. You wouldn't believe the line there is to enter! I can't imagine what it's like in the summer. During our visit, a youth choir was having a concert - nice for atmosphere. We also took a free tour here. We've gotten in the habit of taking the tours in Spanish because there are less people in the spanish tours. It also turned out the spanish was way more useful than english for asking for help - who knew? Last stop was dinner by the river bank - so beautiful with the pretty leaves. If you ever get a chance, visit Paris. It was worth it!

Paris - Day 2

Walking Tour
Day two in Paris began with a free walking tour. We were shown all the major buildings of Paris in record time. It was really fun and very informative.







The Opera House
If any of you have seen The Phantom of the Opera, then this place sounds familiar. The opera house is lovely on the outside and some of my friends went inside say its lovely on the inside too. When I return to Paris, I will make sure to see an opera!



The Lourve
On Friday nights, the Lourve is free!! The Louve has an amazing amount of art - too much to really appreciate in a few hours. The Mona Lisa was fun to see (even though I think she's rather ugly) as were all the other famous works of art.









Arch de Triumph
Last stop of the day. The arch is rather large and very beautiful. All in all, another good day in Paris!

Paris!!!

Last weekend, our school gave the ESDES (language students) students a weekend for Viajes Independientes. For this lovely weekend, I went with five other friends to Paris!! So much fun.

Versailles
First real day in Paris! I think we did an amazing amount of stuff in this day. First thing we did today was head for Versailles. Versailles is beautiful! The palace itself is lovely but I really liked the gardens the best. What really made it amazing was the fall colors! Turns out Versailles is more than just one palace and large gardens. It includes all the other buildings on the estate. We didn't have time to all of them but we saw a good portion. Its super hard to imagine real people lived in places like this - all the stuff on the walls would make me go crazy!

Eiffel Tower & River Seine
After Versaille we headed to the Eiffel Tower. It’s amazing to see an image like that in real life. It was blue and lit up with stars because the EU was in town. It also lights up every hour on the hour. After the tower (which I didn’t go up sadly), we were freezing but that didn't stop us from heading down to the river for a boat tour on the Seine. Really beautiful, especially at night. It’s amazing how many important buildings are right on the river in Paris.

La Gira - Dia 6, 7, & 8

Time is getting away from me so its time to summarize:

Saturday ~ Sevilla

The morning was spent in church and then we were off on another walking tour which took us around the park of Maria Luisa and the Plaza de Espana. The Plaza is cool because it has a section for every part of Spain. Saturday night was spent walking around with friends around a festival of nations - yummy food and shopping!

Sunday ~ Sevilla - Cordoba

The last morning in Sevilla was spent in the Reales Alcazares. This is the oldest palace still in current use (the prince had been there a week earlier). Another pretty building with a mix of arab decour - the gardens were especially nice. After the palace we left Sevilla and spent the afternoon driving to Cordoba.

Monday ~ Cordoba - Sagunto

The last day of la gira. The main point of interest of this day was the Mezquita. Cordoba was the capital of the Arabs when they occupied Spain so the is makes since that there would be a large Mesquita here (This is the building famous for the red arches). Again, another nice building. After Cordoba, we the long 6 hour drive back to school. But at least we got to watch The Interpreter and My Big Fat Greek Wedding (in Spanish of course).

Home at last but such a fun trip!!!

La Gira - Dia 5

Sevilla!

Most Spaniards agree that this is one of the prettiest cities in Spain. Beautiful parks, neat buildings and lot of places to shop. Our first stop in Sevilla was the Catedral. This church is the 3rd largest Cathedral in the world and has the casket of Cristopher Columbus. Another interesting tidbit is that part of it was built by the Arabs (this becomes obvious when you see the large patio outside).

Today also happened to be my birthday and my nice friends took me out to eat. Nothing like being in Sevilla on your birthday!

La Gira - Dia 4

Marruecos Today was Morocco!!! Probably the coolest day of the trip. We left fairly early and headed to the ferry that would take us across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier and then by bus to Tetuan.

First exciting experience came about half way to Tetuan - We stopped on the side of the rode for camel rides!! So fun! Just as a side note, Morocco is really beautiful – nice mountains and gorgeous beach. However, the main part of interest was the old city in Tetuan called the Medina.

It was like a different world. People dressed in robes everywhere selling all kinds of crazy stuff: spices, robes or whole chickens. One of the interesting things I learned is there are several bakeries in the Medina where people bring their home-make dough just for baking. And of course, we made a stop by the rug store (Morocco is famous for their rugs just in case you didn't know).


Morocco was a really cool experience and hopefully I'll get to go back some day!

La Gira - Dia 3

Spent most of this day TRAVELING and RELAXING. We visited two towns along the beach - Marbella & Puerto Banus. The first thing my friends and I did once we arrived was to the beach. So pretty! It was nice to just walk along the beach and relax. Eventually, it got to the point where we needed food and we stopped at the first restaurant along the beach.

We all ended up ordering Tapas for the first time! They were pretty tasty – we all wanted the same one which meant, sadly, that we didn't get to try a variety – Garlic Mushroom. (For those who don't know, Tapas are like mini appetizers popular here in Spain).

Puerto Banus was really pretty too – the boys decided it was a great place to jump in and take a swim. Apparently these places along the beach are where the rich and famous come to spend their money. This becomes apparent when you seen the types of stores.

The last major stop of the day was Gibraltar. The rock of Gibraltar is pretty and you can pay to go see the monkeys on the rock. Gibraltar wasn’t my favorite place we stopped at but it still fun to visit, especially since we were technically visiting Great Britain!

La Gira - Dia 2

Granada


Day 2 was the busiest of the entire trip. Wow! We started the day off by doing a walking tour of all the major sights in Granada.

Major sights worth mentioning: Capilla Real - This was really interesting because it housed the tombs of Fernando and Isabel as well as more of their relatives. Sadly, we couldn’t take pictures. Next was the Catedral. I REALLY liked this Catedral, my favorite I’ve seen so far. Everything was white – a good color for a church I decided.

After this crazy morning we were given a tiny bit a free time to grab something to eat and then we were off to La Alhambra. The Alhambra was amazing. The gardens were beautiful and the palace was amazing. Hard to imagine how they did the detail of some of that stuff. The day ended with a walk around town – after a day like this my feet were killing me! But the pain was worth it of course!