Fariones Playa Suite Hotel Puerto Del Carmen

... note, there is no possible way to travel and be on a diet at the same time! We caught our train that afternoon and I spent those three hours discussing some of the many complexitites of life with Reid haha.
All in all, I'd have to say that the pace of Cadiz was much slower than the pace of Cordoba, So things are the same in Spain - things just slow down at the beach. It was a wonderful, relaxing weekend - my first traveling venture! Plenty more to come....

So today we didn't have an excursion because we had our own private tour guides in Rachel's host family from three years ago. They met us at the pier and were so happy to see Rachel it was great! They took us on a walking tour of historic Cadiz and we had breakfast at one of their places they like and we had churros an coffee with milk. Loly knew everyone we walked by it seemed and although they spoke no English and we speak little Spanish we were ...

Today was the second and last excursion we did through Holland America. Jacqui had wanted to see the Andalusian horse show, and we could also get in a sherry tasting with it!

First off was the tour of the Gonzales Byass winery. I'm not a big fan of the normal sherries, but I love the sweet sherries. And it was cheap. I got a ...

... something to see. After the show we headed to another white village town called Arcos de la Frontera. This was another cobble stoned hillside town set among 2 churches and a convent. We had a nice lunch and walked around the town. The streets were narrow and tiny and mike did a great job of navigating through the narrow roads (he's getting much better)...we left and started our 2.5 hour drive from there to Nerja our destination for the next 7 days ...

July 13-15



Monday was a road trip to get to our next stop, Arcos de la Frontera, but we took the indirect route, swooping down to Gibraltar and looping back up the Atlantic coast through windy Teneriffe.. The route took us through another valley dotted with white villages that spill down the mountainside. The towns were sometimes under defensive castles; there were Renaissance towers ...

... streets at night. There might have been several million of the carnaval people in Cadiz that night, I think.

By the way, the most original and interesting costumes were of Lego; there were also a few people dressed up as Mario, the pope or Heineken bottles, but my personal best was a guy dressed up as Facebook. He was unbeatable.

Our train was scheduled for the evening, when it was already dark, and when the festival was actually about to begin. I ...

Joe and I took a three-hour bus one very early morning and rode it all the way to Cadiz, on the Costa del la Luz. When we got off the bus and into a taxi, our driver told us that Cadiz really is the oldest city in Europe (originally settled by the Phoenicians). It is a walled city, and the driver said that when Napoleon invaded Spain, he just couldn't get into Cadiz. Poor old Napoleon... Cadiz is a very nice and quaint town filled with students both American and ...

... aangekomen heb ik die mannen mijn kamer afgestaan (ge ziet ik ben goe opgevoed he) en ben ik bij Magdalena gaan liggen, vermits die ook een kamer heeft met twee individuele bedden en Kris is in de zetel gaan slapen. Het nadeel was wel dat Magdalena er om 7u uit moest, wat ff hard vr mij was, vermits ik er pas om 6u in lag, achja, naar goede gewoonte, mij uiteraard omgedraaid en trug int slaap gevallen tot 11u en dan maar opgestaan en de mannen nog wat gaan vergezellen. Heb ik ze nog ...

Spain I'm at a point now where only days after leaving Spain, I've forgotten some of what happened. Finals have started and work has commenced. I'm a little tired and all of these countries have melted into one another. Whose currency was chat? Where did they wear longyis? Which countries oppressed Muslims? Let's see how much I can remember...Day 1 I spent the day in Cadiz, next day in Sevilla, then 3 and 4 in Barca and then back to Cadiz. Okay, but what did I do? Cadiz we wandered ...

... attempt at taking a taxi to get there, the driver got us lost up some narrow streets (drivers in Spain can navigate a street better than a surgeon). When we finally found it, we experienced the Spanish plight of "closed for siesta". We managed to stay another night in Cadiz before heading off to Ronda, but at the expense of one pair of pants that apparently got 'lost'. Well, chalk one up to the adventure and soon we were on our next bus to Ronda.