Oh, Porto!

Last weekend, we traveled to Porto (sometimes called Oporto). Portugal's second largest city after Lisbon, Porto is situated in the north of the country. Even though we knew it was going to be a long trip, it sounded like the perfect driving vacation for the holiday weekend. So the whole family, Chloe and Cora included of course, loaded up in the Mini. And despite raining most of the time (including some really epic weather Saturday morning) it was a fantastic weekend!

If you like your European cities large, clean, modern, and sophisticated...Porto is not for you. But if you want a small city, an old port town, full of character, winding streets, and brightly tiled buildings that tumble down steeply towards a river that is lined with restaurants and port tasting cellars, where the noise is a mix of car horns and sea gulls...you will fall in love with Porto.

Flashback Friday: Cordoba

¡Feliz Friday! For the second week, we're continuing to be timely with our procrastination, by putting up some pics that were taken a while back but that we still want to share. Last week it was our trip to Barcelona, this week it's Cordoba. We've actually been twice, but these pictures are from our first trip in  November. Cordoba is known for its stunning mosque, which is preserved inside of what is now a church. Beyond that it is a lovely town, filled with Moorish history and architecture.

Flashback Friday: Barcelona

Hola and feliz Friday! We've had a full week - Graham has been busy with work, grad school courses, and golf. Meghann had her first horseback riding lesson, has been volunteering at the animal shelter, and taking care of a foster dog with a broken leg that is on the mend. And we've been filling any spare gaps with watching the Olympics (even if that means lots of badminton, archery, and table tennis, thanks to the fact that we're watching East Coast television coverage).

So, we don't have another blog post put together for this week. But since we're such great procrastinators bloggers, we do have some pictures from our trip to Barcelona way back in November that we'll share with you. Let's call it Flashback Friday and we might make a habit of it, because we love alliteration (almost as much as we love procrastination).

Lisbon, Part Uno

After our unexpected stop in Castro Verde, we made it to Lisbon in the early evening, checked into our hotel, then hopped on the metro downtown to find something to eat. And drink, of course. The area around the triumphal arch is called "Baixa" and most of the streets are pedestrian. 

Shoppers and people just out for a stroll on the Rua Augusta.

Roadtrip Random: Castro Verde

Our last couple of posts have been about our trip back to the States and what we ate there. This is our attempt to catch up with our blogging and also to get back to posting about life over on this side of the Atlantic. On our way to Lisbon (yeah, we went to Lisbon, last year, over Labor Day weekend, we know, we're terrible) we planned to stop for lunch about halfway through the 6 hour drive. Meghann thought that meant somewhere around Albufeira (you can see it on the map, the town right before we started heading north), but Graham did not and just kept driving. Which resulted in one of those arguments discussions about how we're both hungry and there's no place to eat and we're in the middle of nowhere and we're going to starve. We both turn completely cranky and unreasonable when we haven't eaten. So, Graham pulled in at a gas station and asked where the closest town with a restaurant was. And that is how we found ourselves in Castro Verde, Portugal - possibly one of the best, most random, roadtrip discoveries ever.

Despite being hungry, we were instantly intrigued by the little town and had to check it out. We parked the Mini on uno of the cobblestone streets and took a short walk.

Bruges: beer, beauty, and bicicletas

Over the MLK Day long weekend, we headed norte to Bruges, Belgium.  It only took a car, plane, and train to get there.  

Our first train ride together, from Brussels to Bruges.

After checking into our hotel and getting the great news about the arrival of our niece, Abbi, we headed out to get dinner and some celebratory beers.  On our way to the pub, we passed through the main square.  Even though Christmas was weeks before, some of the buildings still had lights and decorations up.  We could see why the city is such a popular holiday destination, even without it's Christmas market.

Get thee to a nunnery!

No, it's not a Shakespeare post.  (10 dork points if you knew that was Shakespeare, 10 bonus dork points if you know which play.)  That hombre was English and we're sticking to Spain in this post.  We didn't forget that we had mentioned an "impromptu stop" in our Arcos post. Graham was driving and Meghann was snapping photos (as usual) when we spotted a church on a hill outside of Jerez.  Before a decent photo could be taken (hey, it's difficult to take decent pictures while going that fast, which we're sure you've noticed from our blog) we went around a bend and it was out of sight.  All of the sudden, Graham pulled off onto a gravel shoulder, which turned out to be the parking area for the church.  And the church turned out to be a monastery.  An incredibly beautiful, 15th-century, still actively used, monastery.  You can read mas about the La Cartuja de Jerez aqui.  We didn't go inside because we didn't want to get struck by lightning disturb any services that might be taking place.  Here are some photos that we took while (very quietly) looking around the grounds.  (Hamlet, by the way.)

Ronda Roadtrip: Pastries and Puentes

No road trip has truly started until you have your fat-kid snacks.  In the States, we generally stick to swedish fish, sour patch kids, crab chips, and diet Dr. Pepper.  But since we started our drive in the morning (and because crab chips and Dr. Pepper are unavailable in Spain - we've been told that the delicious 23 flavors taste like medicine...que?!?) we went with pastries instead.

"La Perla" is Spanish for "shop around the corner that sells baked goods and puts up with our terrible Spanish."

We washed these tasty treats down with a Coke Light...which we swear tastes better than Diet Coke.

Our first Spanish road trip, to Arcos, was only 45 minutos away, so this time we decided to venture a little farther, to Ronda.  Located in the rocky hills of the Malaga province, Ronda is a larger city, part of which is a traditional pueblo blanco, similar to Arcos.  You can read more fun facts from the interwebs aqui.

Our 2 hour route

Arcos de la Frontera Day Trip

Right now we are diligently working to unpack our household goods (that were delivered yesterday - hooray!).  Ok, actually we just took a siesta and will be heading out to dinner with friends in a little bit.  Hey, we're easily distracted by food and cocktails immersing ourselves in Spanish culture.

Anyway, before we head out for dinner and tinto, we figured we would post some pictures from a day trip we took several weekends ago to Arcos de la Frontera.  Arcos is a quick drive from Puerto and is a typical "pueblo blanco."  It normally takes about 45 minutes to get there, but we made an impromptu stop which we will blog about luego.  So, after our Garmin-navigated country drive, we arrived in Arcos.