Spain!!!!(I've been to Madrid and Barcelona but would LOVE to go to Ibiza...and back to Madrid)- Greece
Italy(Went to Assisi, Florence, and Rome but would love Venice (April 2016 and Milan)- Egypt
France(visited Cannes, Nice and Monaco but I'd like to do traditional Paris...Finally made it to Paris in 2016)EnglandAmsterdamPuerto Rico(I went to PR in March 2012 and had an AMAZING time!)- Australia (thanks to my Australian "hubby" from spring break last year)
Mexico(Memorial Day Weekend 2017 in Cancun)- Morocco
- Israel
- Portugal
- South Africa
Vegas(I've been DYING to go forever - Finally made it for a bachelorette party this past June)- Canada
- US Virgin Islands
- India
California(I've oddly never been to the West Coast...Made it to LA in 2017 but I'd love to go back to San Francisco and maybe San Diego one day)- Germany (Does a layover in Germany count? Didn't seem like a friendly place tbh)
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Updated: My Top 20 Travel Destinations
I'm sitting here bored as all hell so I decided to post a list of the top 20 places I want to travel to before I die. Originally it was gonna be 10 but there are too many and I keep adding more. In actuality it could easily be a top 50 but I'm trying to narrow it down. I'm fortunate enough to be able to cross some of them out but I'd love to go back. Here we go.....
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Eurotrips and Such: Spain
So as I said in my preview post, I recently returned from 2 weeks of touring in Europe. I went with a tour group of about 40 people to Spain, France and Italy. I haven't decided yet if I want to give the name of the tour group I went with. I'll know by the end of this post. I'm not sure how to go about this so I think I'll break it down by country and give you my highs and lows.
Spain:
This was by far my favorite part of the trip which is good because that's what I was most looking forward to. We went to Madrid, Barcelona and a little town called Zaragoza. To be honest I thought I would like Barcelona the best but it was somewhat disappointing (largely because of the hotel location). Madrid however was a very pleasant surprise. The good thing about Madrid was that our hotel was in a very good location with tons of little shops and restaurants all around. It was also walking distance to a lot of things like the Prado and Reina Sofia Museums. In fact, the Reina Sofia was located directly behind our hotel, all you had to do is walk out the back entrance and there it was.
We were also very close to Retiro Park where we had a fun and interesting day of row boating, the mafia and bunnies. A crazy combination I know, maybe I should explain. The row boating is pretty self explanatory, you pay a few Euros and rent a boat for 45 minutes, nothing complicated. After the boats we went walking around the park and ran into an older (maybe 30s-40s) Spanish guy named 'Carlos' with a rabbit on a leash. Her name was Lolita. He pretty much showed/followed us around the park for the next few hours. The most interesting thing is that he barely spoke any English and we barely spoke any Spanish which was actually kinda fun. The good news is that he showed us a cheap place to eat and we found our way to another part of the park with a little lake with swans, turtles, frogs and a waterfall. While there we asked for a picture and he said he couldn't because he was in the mafia. Red flag much? Not that we ditched him right away. We saw some other tourists and offered to take pictures of them when they told us to ditch Carlos because he was probably a pick-pocket. Soon after that we ditched him when he told us to follow him through the park somewhere and we walked in the other direction. All in all, it was a good day.
Barcelona was cool but I honestly liked Madrid better. For starters, we got upgraded to a 4 star hotel in BCN which sounds like a good thing but it turned out not to be. The only REALLY good thing about that hotel was that the breakfast was more like what we have in American hotels, ie. eggs, fruit, meats, etc. The other hotel breakfasts mainly consisted of bread in the form of croissants and pastries. My main issue is that this hotel was far away from everything, which was really annoying considering that our previous hotel was walking distance to everything thing. As if the 10 mile trek up the hill to the hotel wasn't bad enough, there was absolutely nothing fun or even remotely interesting to do nearby. Correction: There was ONE really good Italian restaurant down the hill with the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Otherwise that place was a bust.Other than that, La Rambla/Las Ramblas/La Ramblas or however you say it is a pretty cool little area. Lot's of shops, restaurants and bars. It's really busy and always full of people. I think the most interesting part was the big food market La Boqueria (I think). There's all kinds of animal parts, fruits and other food for sale in there. I recommend trying the coconut smoothie. Very good.
Of course no visit to Spain is complete without a little Sangria.....
If you're planning a trip to Spain, here are the places I recommend:
Madrid
-Retiro Park
-Royal Palace
-Gran Via
-Debod Temple
-Hotel Mediodia (nice central location in my opinion)
-Plaza Mayor
Barcelona
-La Ramblas
-The beach (obviously)
-La Boqueria
That's all for now, the next post will be about my brief encounter in France.
(ps: Hold tight to your purse, pick pockets are rampant in Spain and it's ALWAYS crowded as hell)
Spain:
This was by far my favorite part of the trip which is good because that's what I was most looking forward to. We went to Madrid, Barcelona and a little town called Zaragoza. To be honest I thought I would like Barcelona the best but it was somewhat disappointing (largely because of the hotel location). Madrid however was a very pleasant surprise. The good thing about Madrid was that our hotel was in a very good location with tons of little shops and restaurants all around. It was also walking distance to a lot of things like the Prado and Reina Sofia Museums. In fact, the Reina Sofia was located directly behind our hotel, all you had to do is walk out the back entrance and there it was.
 |
| Where the row boating took place at Retiro Park. |
We were also very close to Retiro Park where we had a fun and interesting day of row boating, the mafia and bunnies. A crazy combination I know, maybe I should explain. The row boating is pretty self explanatory, you pay a few Euros and rent a boat for 45 minutes, nothing complicated. After the boats we went walking around the park and ran into an older (maybe 30s-40s) Spanish guy named 'Carlos' with a rabbit on a leash. Her name was Lolita. He pretty much showed/followed us around the park for the next few hours. The most interesting thing is that he barely spoke any English and we barely spoke any Spanish which was actually kinda fun. The good news is that he showed us a cheap place to eat and we found our way to another part of the park with a little lake with swans, turtles, frogs and a waterfall. While there we asked for a picture and he said he couldn't because he was in the mafia. Red flag much? Not that we ditched him right away. We saw some other tourists and offered to take pictures of them when they told us to ditch Carlos because he was probably a pick-pocket. Soon after that we ditched him when he told us to follow him through the park somewhere and we walked in the other direction. All in all, it was a good day.
 |
| Lolita |
 |
| Smoothies in the food market, they have all kinds of flavors. |
 |
| Not sure why the pic came out weird after I rotated it...whatever. |
Madrid
-Retiro Park
-Royal Palace
-Gran Via
-Debod Temple
-Hotel Mediodia (nice central location in my opinion)
-Plaza Mayor
Barcelona
-La Ramblas
-The beach (obviously)
-La Boqueria
That's all for now, the next post will be about my brief encounter in France.
(ps: Hold tight to your purse, pick pockets are rampant in Spain and it's ALWAYS crowded as hell)
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