Thursday, September 24, 2015

Adventures in Spain with Carmen...Part II! {Granada & Uleila del Campo}

The second weekend of September we went to Granada, Spain- which is about 3 hours away. I wasn't exactly expecting a whole lot since I'm not a big city person but it was actually pretty cool! We stayed right downtown in this apartment complex that was part of a hotel group, which was nice! We walked everywhere from our hotel. Granada was so pretty...I loved the architecture everywhere in the older parts of the city and how quaint it was even though it was a big city. We spent a lot of time just walking around, following some "tourist path" in our travel book :) We hit some fun spots though and enjoyed our time there. The big thing to see there is the Alhambra, which is a cool fortress/palace up on one of the hills in Granada. We didn't go into the actual fortress area because they have a petty strict restriction on the number of people there at a time and you have to get tickets farther in advance than I checked. Plus I didn't really want to take the kiddos in there...it's a long tour! We instead took a tour of the garden area next to it, which was good enough for us and the kiddos :)


this was in the market area....it used to be where they sold silks, etc. but now it's all touristy stores but fun to walk around

lots of Moroccan influence

bakeries everywhere of course :) 

near a bridge/river that goes under the main street in Granada

the Alhambra 

Carmen is having me work on my "selfies" :) :) :) 

pano view of the Alhambra from the neighboring hill at sunset! it was beautiful





super cute streets in Granada

The Generalife Gardens


more flat fountains...just asking for little kids to go in :) 







more beautiful views...

and beautiful details...









Old Entrance to the Alhambra


this poor girl was exhausted! it was so sad/cute

of course more ice cream :) 



We stayed in Granada from Friday to Sunday but Saturday morning we took a bit of a drive to my family's ancestral town in Spain called Uleila del Campo, which was just shy of 2 hours away from Granada. The drive was beautiful though...lots of mountains and beautiful little towns tucked away on hills. We, along with some other family members, are trying to get some family history started on that side of the family so I knew when we moved to Spain we had to go there. We chose this weekend because we found online that they celebrated their town saint the second Saturday of September and we figured that would be a good time to go. It turned out not to be exactly the best...both the church and Townhall were closed so we weren't able to look up any records or talk to anyone there about where to find them. Also....the celebration was to last over multiple days and most of the events/activities for Saturday were later in the day or outside of town (bike race). So that was kind of a bummer...but it was still cool to go!

We were super lucky in finding a local (she grew up there and was visiting her mom for the festival) who knew English fairly well and was super friendly and nice enough to walk us around town and try to help us in figuring out a little bit of our family tree. She took us to the cemetery and, although there were still some misunderstandings in what we were trying to do, she tried to help us in the right direction of who we would be related to and wouldn't. The Spanish custom of using the mother and father's surname and the order they fall in are pretty darn important and imperative in getting the right person so that's something we have to work on finding :) So although we didn't get a whole lot accomplished it was still pretty awesome to go to the town and walk the area and get a start on the whole process. We'll definitely have to go back another time and find actual documents for our search!
on the drive to Uleila...it was a beautiful day!


The beautiful little church in Uleila! 

I peaked in and got a shot of inside :) 

Carmen and our helpful tour guide :) :) :)

it was so fun to walk around this quaint little town!


I loved it :) :) :) 
This is how the Spanish do their cemeteries...kinda weird having it all above ground but it was kinda pretty in a way!

we passed this roadside strip mall of ceramics on our way to Uleila and luckily had to get gas at this stop on the way home :) :) :) It was pretty cool...so many things to choose from!


driving around Spain is so fun! It's amazing how a little town will pop up out of nowhere set on a hill...sometimes I'm like...why in the world would they have a town over there? I didn't get pics of some of them because we were driving but this one we drove around half of it so we got to see more of it..it was SO pretty! Set up on the hill with this beautiful church. SO Spain




Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Adventures in Spain with Carmen....Part 1! {Chipiona, Sanlucar, Rota, Seville, Vejer}

My wonderful niece Carmen arrived in Spain at the end of August for a long stay with us! We were so excited to have her come and are excited for all the fun things we get to do while she's here! So far we've done mostly local stuff since school started but we've gone to Seville for a day trip and then a weekend trip in Granada. So here's the first leg of her trip! :)

After a little hiccup on the last leg of her journey (plane troubles :/ ) Carmen made it! :) 

For local stuff we've shown her around Chipiona and a little SanLucar and a dinner out in Rota.

This is the beautiful chapel on the beach on Chipiona

They had pony rides in the square in Chipiona and since our original plans to watch the parade (it was a festival day) fell through, we let them ride the pony instead :) 






Ice cream time! we eat a lot of ice cream.... ;) 

remember the Barbie display with the Feria dresses? Well we walked by it in Rota and they had a beach scene...

which of course included a topless one....oh Europe... :/ 

dinner with some church friends :) 

Seville is amazing and we all enjoyed our visit there. We got to see a couple places we didn't on our first visit there so that was nice. It's such a cool town and only an hour away so that's always a plus!

Our first stop was the Cathedral, which had a super long line last time so we didn't even attempt to go. The line was long this time too but luckily moved quickly. Inside you just wandered around looking at all the splendor and awesomeness of the huge building. According to Wikipedia, it is the largest Gothic Cathedral and third largest church in the world. It's amazing. The details put into it are just so crazy awesome...kind of mind boggling to think of the workmanship and craftmanship they had to build it! Beautiful... Inside was amazing too. I loved the arches and beautiful little chapels/altars. The treasure rooms were also amazing...beautiful gold and silver pieces and the artwork the had was awesome too. They also had quite a few tombs...including Christopher Columbus.
we hit up Starbuck's before we walked around :) 


Entering the Catheral!

This place is so amazing

stained glass windows....

tombs...


I love the arched ceilings...they're SO TALL

the altars and chapels all throughout were so amazing


the organ

more amazing ceilings

treasure room! 

Andrew was so excited for the treasure ;) 


and the most intricate/detailed/amazing altar we saw...it was crazy


One of our favorite parts was the tower...which was quite a feat pushing a stroller up (it was ramps all the way up except the last flight of stairs). But the views were spectacular and so worth it!

through one of the windows going up













 Next we ate lunch at a little cafe next to the Cathedral where Carmen enjoyed some disgusting looking squid....although she liked it so I guess that's good ;)
yuck...

Lizzie ate a piece too

we stopped for a minute to watch some Flamenco dancers

someone was getting cranky/tired
not even ice cream made her happy
she finally conked out though



 After lunch we went to the Plaza de Espana which was also amazing! I loved it there....it's a beautiful open plaza with this awesome building wrapping around half of it. There's tons of beautiful tile work EVERYWHERE. There's stairs and bridges over this little waterway (where Mark took the older two kids on a little boat ride on it which they had lots of fun). Then the whole arch of the building is lined with benches from every Province in Spain which is pretty cool. We found the province we live in (Cadiz) and the province my mom's ancestors is from (Almeria).



I love the bridges!
and all the painted details on the tile...so pretty


















On Labor Day we went to a little town nearby (a white village) called Vejer de la Frontera...I have a lot of people recommend it because it is the epitome of a white Spanish village and they all love to go to this Moroccan restaurant there. It's just shy of an hour away so it was a nice little day trip to do. The town was super cute...set on a hill so it was quite a good day's exercise hiking around the hilly streets. We had lunch at the Moroccan restaurant, which was good, but not as splendid as everyone was saying...it's not my favorite cuisine though so that's probably why :) It was fun to go though and we enjoyed the town and the views from it.

ready for our little drive :) 

it was such a pretty day!



the Plaza de Espana in Vejer ;) 












beautiful white village!







the views were beautiful












I loved the tiles here


the little tile clock I got in Vejer with the tiled name I got in La Rambla