Parador Arcos de la Frontera

... 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. <br> 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! <br><br>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 ...

... show was actually really good - she just got very bored, very quickly. you see one horse dance you've seen them all...Mike took her outside to play in the courtyard. The arena is set in a beautiful garden with a fountain. They had a ton of fun running around the garden and I thoroughly enjoyed the dancing horse show. There are 8-12 horses and horsemen who come out in the arena and do the most amazing horse dances all to beautiful spanish music. It is ...

We decided today we would stay in the area and just go driving. We wanted to check out some wineries and take a cave tour. But we didn't get a chance to do either one. The cave tours were 5 hours long. The caves are amazing but not sure Shae would be able to hang that long. my guess is not. And we drove and drove and didn't find one winery. I think we got close one time. But anyway the ride was beautiful and there was a great restaurant in a white village ...

... The following morning, we visited Iglesia San Pedro, which was filled with wacky things.....being no experts on religious figures, it was a bit odd for us to see an altar with a baby sleeping on a skull, or another one with a strange looking skeleton. Hmmm... Now not to be mean or anything, but when it comes to translations, sometimes you just can't do it. We went ...

Arcos De La Frontera We took a 2 hour bus ride to Arco de la Frontera from Sevilla for a few days of R &amp; R and Running with the Bulls!!! The bus ride was gorgeous with rolling hills of green fields, rural areas, small mountain ranges, farms, tiny villages and some poor areas as well. We arrived to our hostel and visited with the owners for a bit, they are from England and have lived in Arcos for nearly two years. Our room is our own again, we are ...

... with performers. Eventually we made our way to La Plaza de la Catedral, which was the main square. It was packed like woah. We hung out there for awhile, meeting new people and taking pictures with people in funny costumes. There were a lot of costumes that I didn't expect - things that I just figured were American like Native Americans or Bert and Ernie. We also saw a lot of people with black face - like back in the day when white actors would paint ...

I staid up all night so that I could catch the 4:45 train to Stansted to catch my 715 flight. I said goodbye to Kiri before I left, but I will see her again in Sept. So I caught the train and made it to Stansted (which I now understand why flights are so cheap from there, it is way out of the city). While there I had this awesome peach/ passion fruit smoothie and a rasp/ white choc muffin that was good too. I slept ...

Still in Madrid but had to check out. Put much of our luggage into a locker at Atocha RENFE station. Did some more sightseeing including the Bull Fighter Stadium. The season had just ended the week before. Tried getting into the Ritz Madrid but were promptly ...