Anita & Sam

Sunday, May 04, 2008

SPAIN - Our Last Europe Trip

Hi!




We just visited Spain for a week and it was our last trip before we start our journey home very soon - yay! We were excited to visit Barcelona as everyone we've spoken to have loved it. It was easy to see why. Thankfully the weather was better than the last trip and warming up a bit. Anyway Cathy (Sam's mum) suggested Sam write the final Europe blog so here he is...



Hello!


We're a bit sad that this was our last trip but certainly excited to be heading home soon! Barcelona is a really cool city which we both enjoyed very much. It had nice long beaches and a cool old Town. The first few photos are of the old town.


This is Placa Reial, just a cool square in a part of the old town that has loads of restaurants and bars. I think its a pretty famous postcard shot of Barcelona. We had dinner here one night because we discovered that the best restaurants have 100m lines in front of them and a restaurant in this square had a great menu cheap! It was a really good meal although I had a starter that turned out be raw slices of beef, I ate half of it hoping it had been at least smoked but no, it was red raw!






This is Columbus tower at the end of La Rambla. La Rambla is full of street performers and has markets all the way along from the city centre to the port. Some of the things they were selling was pretty crazy. Anyone want a pet Hedgehog..., Iguana? What about some blue roses then?




This is the start of the Port. This is where we had dinner on our first night and ate some overpriced Tapas! The Spaniards have a bit of different lifestyle and don't seem to eat dinner until like ten o'clock. Restaurants don't even open till 8:30 - 9ish! They like to have their siestas and we discovered that we did as well! I could get used to that lifestyle! The sangria is pretty good too!


We headed off to the beach the day after we arrived and had a nice walk all the way into town. We stopped for a couple of drinks and nibbles at a couple of beach hut style restaurants along the way.



This is just some photo of what some of the streets look like. Surprisingly to us though the whole city seemed to be spot less, probably the cleanest city I've ever seen!

This is back along the Port heading back towards town, we had a couple of drinks on this boat behind Anita, it's a cool idea for a restaurant.

This is back at the market area near La Rambla, just on a side street is a bit of an under covered fruit and deli market.




I bought some dried strawberries.





These photos are back in the old town and in and around the Cathedral.












IBIZA

Next we flew into the party island IBIZA about an hour south of Barcelona. Funny though, this island
runs only 6 months a year and we arrived just before the party season started. It would have been cool to experience the party atmosphere of the island but I think we had a better time having it to ourselves! That's what it felt like at least. The beaches were nearly empty only a dozen or so locals not many tourists, it was great. We hired a car and just drove around the whole place. Everything was really cheap too because it was out of season. Still warm and sunny though!



We hired the car the first afternoon we arrived. The days last bloody long, I don't think it got dark until 9! We would find nice spots with cool restaurants and bars about like this one. Really good view!



Anita with her glass of wine just before sunset.


After, we headed off to another spot to catch the sunset, nice!



This is some caves that we had a little tour of they were quite interesting!



The view from just outside the caves.






We went to a hippy market which runs every Tuesday. People were mainly selling clothes and accessories.



This is the car we hired. Driving around the island was great fun. Really windy roads on edge of cliffs made an interesting drive and there was lots of places to pull over and take in the scenery.



Some of the crystal clear water of the Mediterranean ocean.


Another point we pulled over at.


A really great little beach had a spot where the fishing boats dock with little sheds built onto the side of the cliff. Anita's standing on the edge of the makeshift dock.



We drove into Ibiza town on our last afternoon of having the car. At first we didn't think much of it then we explored a little more and found that it was a great little town!






Well this is us at a little cocktail bar at San Antoni near where we were staying. We had just dropped the car back and were enjoying the last sunny afternoon that we'd be having in Europe for some time!


Bye for Now!