Stop #28: One of my favorite cities on this trip was medieval Guimarães. We stayed at an old monastery converted into a hotel. In the fact, the history of the monastery is described below. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a 2012 European Capital of Culture. You will see a picture below […]
Stop #27: In Pinhão, we stopped at the local train station to take photos of the 25 large azulejo panels depicting scenes from Douro rural life. While Portugals buildings are often covered in these tiles, the scenes that were included at the train station tell a story about every day live in the Douro Valley, […]
Stop #26: Santiago de Compostela, Spain is the main attraction along the pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago, the camino francés, which crosses the Pyrenees from France and heads west across northern Spain. The city’s Cathedral is very impressive, although it was under construction/renovation when we visited. Santiago de Compostela has more than 4.5 […]
Stop 25: Lugo is Galicia’s oldest provincial capital most noted for its 1.5 mil) Roman wall with 71 towers. The walls are 33-49 feet high. The third century walls are protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Cathedral in the background of the cover photo is a mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, baroque, and neoclassical […]
Stop 24: Oviedo is the capital city of Galicia. We didn’t spend a lot of time here. We built way too much into our interary to take full advantage of this city. But honestly, other cities in the area were drawing us in. And again, the highlights here are mostly churches. We were exhausted from […]
Stop #20: Just when you think you’ve seen enough churches to last you a lifetime, you stumble upon a town called Burgos, with one of the craziest churches you have ever seen. It was stunning! This small city has some of Spain’s most outstanding Medieval architecture. This is also the city of El Cid, the […]
Stop #19: In the middle of the plains, Segovia pops out the middle of nowhere with yellow orange stone buildings and Roman and medieval monuments. Segovia has a long history with Romans, Moors, and Christians all living here. Isabella the Catholic (married to Ferdinand of Aragón), was crowned queen of Castile here. Segovia’s castle (the […]
Stop #18: Ávila’s walls are still intact from the Middle Ages. Begun in 1090, shortly after the town was reclaimed from the Moors, the walls were completed in only nine years, but it took 1,900 men! The walls have nine gates and 88 round towers. We took the advice of several travel books and crossed […]
Stop #16: We started our trip to Toledo in Castile– La Mancha, the land of Don Quixote. You will see the windmills in the photos below. In Toledo, everything seems to be about El Greco’s paintings. But driving into Toledo is a wonderful experience, with views of the walls, fortress, churches visible for miles. Toledo […]
Stop 15: Fodor’s says that Alhambra is Spain’s most popular attraction. It has three main parts: the Alcazaba, the Palacios Nazaríes (Nasrid Palaces), and the Generalife, or ancient summer palace. We didn’t spend any time in Generalife, but we did spend a good bit of time in the Palaces and Alcazaba. Alhambra’s history dates to […]