My favorite place

When discussing travels recently, someone asked what was my favorite place. I said, "It depends."

For nature, Costa Rica. For wildlife, Katmai. For history, London. For communism, the Soviet Union. Etc.

Spain — Oct/Nov 2023

 

Victor and Rodney with the royal palace of Madrid in the background

Link to more photos. There are three photo albums in all: Below are links to separate photo albums for the Alhambra and the Picasso Museum. As always, view the photos individually to see the captions.

We took this tour of Spain. It went well, although it was colder than I expected, and we could not visit Gaudi's Parc Güell which was high on my wishlist (see below).

In Madrid, I was impressed by the underground highway that goes for miles. I was surprised by graffiti worse than L.A. I was somewhat disappointed by the Prado Museum, since I'm not much into classical paintings. It also remains behind the times with a "no photos" policy, and I found no water, and you couldn't leave and re-enter.

We toured the mosque-turned-cathedral of Cordoba, and the huge cathedral of Seville. By this time, I was no longer surprised by the new-to-me urinals we were seeing in every hotel. (See the photos.)

In Grenada, the highlight was the Alhambra, of course. As expected, I loved all the elaborate geometric decoration. Link to a photo album solely of the Alhambra. Similarly, in Valencia, I liked the City of Arts and Sciences designed by Santiago Calatrava.

Our last stop was Barcelona. We began with a city tour, including some architecture by Gaudi and others. With free time the next day, I wanted to visit Parc Güell, but I discovered that you need reservations and purchased tickets and it was all sold out for the day. I never thought that a public park would need tickets. If only I had known, I could easily have bought the tickets long ahead of time. Sigh. The other major sight I wanted to see that day was the Picasso Museum. That went well. Link to a photo album solely of the Picasso Museum.

Long flights, even in cramped economy seats, never used to bother me much, but now they are not very enjoyable.  Our return flight from Paris to L.A. was more than eleven and a half hours. I got up and walked and stretched a bit three times, but it was increasingly uncomfortable.