In contrast with my earlier travels through Andalucía, this phase of my trip was marked with larger and larger distances. After Lisbon and my Sintra/Cabo da Roca side trip, I wanted to visit Galicia, starting with Santiago de Compostela a good 335 mi/540km due north from Lisbon. Stopping in Porto happened more out of necessity than […]
grand european adventure
The Edge of the World
Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point in continental Europe. It’s marked by a large monument, fields of wildflowers, and ocean that reaches unbroken to the horizon.
Sintra
When I heard about Sintra, it was always suggested as a day trip out of Lisbon. I stayed overnight, and I still didn’t have enough time. Though, to be honest, I pretty much spent my whole day at the Quinta da Regaleira taking pictures (despite print guides saying it only needed two hours). Sintra itself is […]
Lisbon
I found myself in a strange new country where I didn’t speak the language at all, wondering what have I gotten myself into?
Cádiz
The rain stopped for real the day I left Gibraltar, but I was still sick. Fortunately I had a relatively long stay in Cádiz (5 days) for some beach therapy.
Homeward Bound
I am sitting in Heathrow Airport waiting for my flight home. It’s astonishing how fast the past 3 months have gone. During this trip I visited 25 towns and cities (more or less) across 5 countries, visited countless monuments and museums, and taken thousands of photographs. But the best has been the people who have been part […]
Crossing the Line: Gibraltar and La Línea de la Concepción
By the time I left Jimena de la Frontera every single item of clothing I owned had been worn at least once, not everything had dried from my search for the Moorish Queen’s Bath, I was starting to get sick, and it was still raining.
Jimena de la Frontera
Following Ronda, I stopped in another one of the “White Villages”, Jimena de la Frontera. The train ride between Ronda and Jimena is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s worth doing just for the train ride alone! Unfortunately it’s not so easy to take good pictures from a moving a train, so here’s the best one: Jimena clings […]
Ronda
After Sevilla, I headed onwards to Ronda. By this point the rain had picked up and it was raining heavily and steadily across the entire Iberian peninsula. Ronda is one of the “White Towns of Andalucia” – a collection of mountain villages in and around the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park characterized by their whitewashed walls […]
Sevilla (Take Two)
Jumping back in time a bit, after Córdoba, I had intended to go to Ronda. However, Jeanne, one of the people I met in Córdoba, convinced me that it would be more fun to divert to Seville with some of our new mutual friends. (As she put it “It’s up to you, but you have […]