Sevilla es maravilla!

Sevilla es maravilla as Spaniards says. Probably it is when day is sunny and hot - not as rainy as it was about noon on 7th of April when we arrived to the city.
Don Paco hotel was not so easy to find, but after circulating the city for about 15 minutes I've found it! I've chosen this hotel, because they offered a parking space. Of course it was true. They've underground garage for... 5, maybe 6 cars! And hotel is really big! About 30-40 rooms on each of 3 or 4 floors. Can't imagine where people park their cars considering crowded and narrow streets around the hotel.
Another advantage of the hotel is its location in walking distance from the city center. Actually it's about 30 minutes to the Cathedral (and Giralda), but you've to get through the most beautiful old part of the city or a more modern commercial district passing stores like El Cortes Ingles and others.

First we headed to Parque de María Luisa located next to Plaza de Espana, Hotel Alfonso XIII and Universidad. I insisted on stopping by Hotel Alfonso XIII and it was a good idea. Hotel is really nice and encouraging to stay. Next time I'll think it over, because it's even not so expensive off season (considering its 5 stars rating). Then we get through Universidad and headed to the park. Again had no luck - park was closed - I still don't know why?!?! In this circumstances we had to spend time on visiting Plaza de Espana that is really great and has a lot of interesting details to look closer.

Next destination was the area close to river Guadalquivir. It was not as interesting as it seemed to be, so we quickly went for some late lunch in Starbucks Coffee. After short break we had a closer look at Cathedral, Real Alcazar (closed on Mondays!) and Giralda. Unfortunately it was too late to enter the Cathedral and see it from inside.

The only thing we had time for was a flamenco show. This time we prepared better and called the Casa Carmen Arte Flamenco to make some reservation. It was a good choice. Casa Carmen is located in the small venue that usually has a role of nightclub, but early in the evening it transforms to flamenco show that lasts about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Besides the flamenco itself, they had a good choice of tapas for people coming an hour before the show (20:00). And what's even better, they allowed to take some pictures at the end. If you want to see a good, traditional flamenco in Sevilla, I can definitely recommend Casa Carmen Arte Flamenco. It's really worth 16 euro you've to pay for ticket (picture on the right).
After the day full of attractions we came back to the hotel and early morning left it for Malaga Airport. This was a really nice weekend in Spain and I definitely would like to get back there soon for some longer stay!

Jerez de la Frontera

Hotel El Horcajo was a bit surprise - situated in the green valley among high mountains and fields reminded some kind of ranch. Rooms looked like horse corrals adapted from the old stable. You could feel very nice atmosphere of the old village. And chirping sparrows didn't stop even for a small moment. Luckily that was only the atmosphere - room was quite comfortable and adequate to 3-star rating of the hotel. Had classic bathroom, big bed and tv.

Hotel is located literally in the middle of nowhere, but it's what makes that atmosphere! And what seemed to be worse, we had to eat dinner in the hotel's restaurant. They had not so rich menu - only two positions to choose from, so decisions were quick. Happily food was fresh and very good. They even had their own wine! Really good!

In the morning we had a chance to try some andalusian specialties like cheese and cured meat. It was also very good. Only taste of coffee damaged rather positive image of our breakfast.

Next day we had to get to Jerez de la Frontera to visit some Bodegas and Flamenco Show. Although while driving to Jerez, we changed our plans and went to Cadiz. Sunday morning in Cadiz was a very interesting experience. You could see a lot of people selling different things on the streets and walking around the city. We visited very funny park (picture on the left) and passed Gran Teatro Falla (picture on the right).
Cadiz has some kind of Arabian influence you can feel in the air. I can't perfectly name it, but it reminds me what I've seen in the movies shot in the north Africa.
After spending few hours and walking few kilometers around Cadiz, we finally headed to Jerez.
It's not far away and roads are really good, so it took us about 40 minutes. This time my Garmin helped me to find Hotel Guadalete really fast. After arriving to destination, we quickly unpacked our luggage and headed to the nearest Bodega - Tio Pepe. On the way we started to feel some hunger so stopped by for small tapas. Finally we reached Tio Pepe front door about 16:00 and read that on Sundays they work only till 15:00! Damn it! All other bodegas had similar opening hours, so we gave up and started to admire the city itself. It's quite interesting city, but you can see it in maximum 2 hours or so - later you can only drink sherry or watch flamenco. Although not always...

Before leaving the hotel I asked lady at the desk where we can go to Flamenco show and if we should make any reservations? Response was simple - you can just go and it's 15 minutes away from the hotel. Great. We had no problems to find the recommended flamenco place - at the door it was a message that they open at 22:30 for the show. Ok. We get back to hotel for a glass of sherry and some rest. In the evening we headed to flamenco place, but it was closed even at 22:45. So we decided to get back to the hotel - streets were empty and Jerez was like dead city.
Summarizing I don't recommend going there for more than few hours and not planning ahead your visits to flamenco or bodegas.

Marbella & Ronda

Night was quiet, but short. I woke up at 7:40 and decided to walk around and take some pictures:

Then went back for breakfast. It was great. A good choice of cured meats, cheese, jams and all that classic stuff you can usually have for breakfast in hotels. And coffee. It was really tasty.

Finally we left the hotel and headed to Marbella. It was first time I used my Garmin 60CSX for serious road navigation. I have to say that Magellan Meridian was muuuuuuch better - Garmin user interface is crappy and you have to spend a plenty of time to do simple thing. If you take a wrong turn, it takes ages to correct your road to destination. Besides I can't find in Garmin the feature that searches a place by name nearest to selected location (not your current, but some other). It means that if you don't know the address of the hotel near Ronda, you can't find it on Garmin - at least I'm too stupid to do this. Using Magellan you can do it in 5 seconds and it's very intuitive. But ok - let's stop complaining about Garmin. After figuring out our way to destination Marbella, we arrived there about 10:30. It's not easy task to find a free parking space in Marbella even off season. Fortunately we found a temporary parking few hundred meters away from beaches and the lantern.

Short walk along the beach was a real pleasure for both of us and it was very hot, so we decided to go farther - Ronda. On the way to next location, we came across many nice villas and lands for sale. It became my dream to buy some piece of land here in the future.
At last we arrived to Ronda being very hungry. Just after parking our car in underground facility, we raised above the surface directly to the restaurant. They had Tapas Mixtas and some other staff that we immediately ordered. After literally 5 seconds everything was on the table! Service was really quick and food quality very good. Then we started roaming through the city. It's great city with plenty of old buildings and relics of the past. They've a lot of interesting souvenir shops . We've found interesting plates and castanets, but failed to buy them. Just lack of ability to take quick decisions.

After seeing everything you can see in the city, I insisted on taking picture of the famous bridge from the bottom. It wasn't easy to get there, but finally we found the way and I've taken few pictures. Hopelessly the weather changed for the worse and most of the pics are crappy:

From Ronda we headed to the hotel El Horcajo. Garmin showed it's weakness again - I couldn't find a hotel address. Probably because the address had a form of some KM on some road. Of course Garmin was not able to find hotel by name! Luckily my memory based on maps.google.com is reliable and after few minutes we arrived to the destination - El Horcajo...

Villa Guadalupe

So today we arrived to Malaga. Flight was a bit wearisome, but we bore it somehow - plane from Warsaw to Munich took off at 12:55. We landed in Munich about 15:00 and had flight to Malaga at 16:05. First plane was a bit tight and loaded with people - standard of Lufthansa is confirmed to be one of the worst in the world. The plane from Munich to Malaga was much better - Condor airlines appeared to have much higher standard than Lufthansa. Besides it landed at the destination airport ahead of schedule! Great!

Then we headed to car rental stands. I had a reservation in Avis. We got Nissan Note. Small, but quite nice car. Unfortunately it was a diesel and driving such a car is a strange experience. I'm not a fan of diesel engine. I can't understand why people are so delighted about diesels? Happily we arrived to the hotel in next 20 minutes or so.

It turned out that hotel is in really great place and the web page is completely right about location and views. From our room you can see the whole Malaga and Mediterranean Sea - it's very captivating view! I spent next 20 minutes on the balcony watching the landscapes:

Then we went up to the restaurant for "la cena" (dinner/supper in spanish). I was trying to speak spanish all the time, so got spanish menu. My wife got english menu. Of course I can't understand most of the meal names in spanish, so had to choose something unknown and ordered some soup and one starter. Choice was good and food was perfect. And wine - it's just wonderful. I had 3 or more glasses of it and would like to drink more, but they had to close the restaurant.
Later we had cheesecake for dessert and left the restaurant in good moods. I can definitely recommend hotel Villa Guadalupe and I would like to stay here again. It's really beautiful and people are nice - they even survived my spanish.

Safety in Sevilla, water shoes in Poland

This week I plan to begin my short trip to Spain. It means I'll finally reach Sevilla among others. Browsing the internet I came across very interesting link about safety in this old city. You may also consider this link interesting, so I decided to mention it here:

Sevilla Safety

And getting back to my US phototrip I still have a lot to arrange. One of such thing are water shoes. Till yesterday I was sure it's not possible to find such shoes in Poland, but it appeared that's not true anymore! You can find two models in Intersport chain - they've Salomon Techamphibian and Merrell Gauley. Of course my first choice was Teva, but we don't have a serious Teva dealer in Poland. It seems that I'll have to stick to Merrell. Salomon Techamphibian doesn't look well and my first impression was neutral. Or the other choice is to wait and buy water shoes in US - the only problem is time. We'll arrive late evening and the next day we've to get to Page - over 500km. It means time for shopping is very limited.
And what's all the buzz about water shoes? The problem is with two expeditions - one to Subway part of Zion NP and the other to Beaver Falls (see picture on the left) in Havasupai - never been in the first one, but lack of proper shoes was the main problem in the last one during my recent visit. Trail from the Hilltop parking to the campground is rather dry and you can use plain hiking boots until you want to take few pictures of famous Navajo Falls. The only way to get close to the waterfall is to wade through the water, put your tripod on the bottom of it and start taking pictures. You've to stand on very stony bottom all the time and if you're barefoot, it can be a bit tricky. I know it's much better to have some shoes that'll allow you to feel more comfortable. Of course you can't just use your hiking boots. You need something more specialized. One of the answer are water shoes.
The other trail, where water shoes are the must, is the path from the campground to wonderful Beaver Falls. To get there you have to cross creek many times and take your shoes off and putting on all the time. This is very time consuming and annoying process, so I definitely don't want to get through it again! With water shoes you just go and take pictures. Moreover you are on the not so easy trail, so you must have water shoes and hiking boots in one. I hope that with Vibram sole I'll feel safe and stable on the trail and in the water.

Ronda

My trip to Andalusia is coming very quickly. And it's only two weeks ahead of the "Phototrip". I had to make some arrangements in Spain. We'll land in Malaga late evening, so I've made a decision to stay there for first night. Browsing the internet intensively I've found quite a nice looking hotel - Hotel Villa Guadalupe. It's reachable only by car, but I hope panorama of the city is worth staying there. Advertised price on Venere.com seemed to be really good - only 71 EUR for such a nice place? Of course it appeared later that you've to pay for breakfast separately. It's quite expensive - 6 or 8.5 EUR depends on what kind of breakfast you want.
I though over my plans for the farther trip. We'll not head to Gibraltar, but instead decided to see Ronda and pueblos blancos around. As far as I heard from my friends and read over the Internet, this city is definitely worth seeing - I hope to put here some pictures of it in the very near future. Because I want to have few hours to visit Ronda I've chosen "Hotel El Horcajo" for the second night. It's located about 20 km away from Ronda, but it's on the way to Jerez de la Frontera which is considered to be our next stop. Moreover this hotels costs only 60 EUR and price includes breakfast. It's really cheap and hope it's worth the money.

This picture of "Hotel El Horcajo" is very appealing:

Trip to Andalusia

As I mentioned few days ago I'm on my way to go to Andalusia very soon! I've just "bought" my tickets for miles and it's even sooner. We (I'll go there with my wife) will have 3 full days for visiting such a nice places as Marbella, Ronda, Gibraltar, Sevilla and maybe Cadiz. It's too much for such a short trip, but I treat it as a kind of reconnaissance. It means I plan to get back there in the future for a bit longer and maybe take my children with us.
Besides, there'll be a good opportunity to check some of the photo equipment before "Phototrip". Moreover Canon has just announced a photo competition called CANON, THE ASSIGNMENT and I've registered. It means I should have a good (or even better :) picture before 1st of May to upload and have a chance to win. It's not easy task, but I'll do my best!
It's also first time I should be able to report my daily activities from the trip - good try before "Phototrip". Hope I'll have Internet access en Espana. You'll see more pictures then, because now this blog seems to be a bit boring...

Below is the map of planned trip:

View Larger Map

Weekend in Andalusia?

Maybe I'll spend a weekend in Andalusia soon. It appeared that in one of the airline loyalty program, I've enough miles to go with my wife to one of the European cities. Moreover if not used, they'll expire in June.

Because I learn spanish and was in Spain only once, my dream is to visit this country as many times as possible. Internet search showed that for my miles I can go to Madrid, Malaga or Barcelona - Unfortunately can't go to Sevilla. To spend even less miles for a ticket I should buy it two weeks before departure, so if I'm lucky enough, I'll have my tickets till the end of the week.

Since I've decided to go there and have never been there before, I'd to buy some guide. You can find at least 5 Spain guides in polish, but all of them are very general and have only few pages describing Andalusia. Luckily we have a chain of American Bookstores in Poland and they've good choice of guides. Furthermore they've had a new arrival of books recently. I've found Eyewitness Travel Guide: Sevilla & Andalusia from DK Publishing.

Yesterday I browsed the book and it seems to describe all the interesting places. When I'm back from the trip, I'll be able to give you final recommendation on the book. Keep your fingers crossed for my trip! See you soon...