I am about to head out for a weeklong trip to London for CIEE’s fall break, so in the spirit of travel I thought I would share a little bit about the places I’ve been so far. After four days of class a week, I have been traveling every weekend to different parts of Spain! It’s an incredibly diverse country with so much history and I have seen so many beautiful cities, old cathedrals, and lively markets! So far I have visited Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, and a tiny town called Guadaleste that’s in the mountains near Alicante.

Valencia: I took the train (about two hours) with my two best friends here and we arrived at dusk, getting a bit lost on our way to our hostel. We finally found it, dropped off our stuff, and found delicious tapas in an outdoor restaurant in the old neighborhood. The next day we walked around the city and saw the old cathedral, the beautiful Mercado, and one of the city’s art museums where we saw a lot of amazing medieval Spanish art. We walked a lot, ate a lot of ice cream, and enjoyed the city’s park that runs through downtown in an old dried up riverbed.

Guadaleste:  This tiny historic village has less than 300 real residents and is only accessible by car and then by foot. It is topped by a castle and 400 year old house that belong to the ruling family of the village until it was converted into a museum. It is a big tourist trap but worth the trip for how beautiful it is!

Barcelona: My friend Robin and I hopped a Ryanair flight to spend three nights in Barcelona at a rather nasty but super cheap hostel! We arrived in the evening and got a bit lost on the trains but found our way and helped a lost English couple too. That night we ate Indian food at the first restaurant we found because we were so hungry. The next two days we spent walking everywhere (trying to save money on the metro and also afraid of getting lost again), eating bread and fruit that we bought from local markets, and sightseeing as much as possible. The first day we visited La Sagrada Familia cathedral and saw several other buildings designed by Gaudi, Barcelona’s most famous art nouveau architect. We also visited the oldest cathedral in Barcelona and spent an hour sitting on the roof writing postcards. We did a little shopping and found a teahouse in the old neighborhood, Barri Gotic, and found a three-course dinner for 6 euros. The second day, we were at the Picasso Museum when it opened and spent several hours there looking at the extensive collection of early Picasso art that they have there, much of it donated by the artist himself. Then we walked several miles uphill to get to Parque Guel, the public park designed by Gaudi. It was incredible in a sort of fantasy world way, but maybe the best part was when we climbed up the huge hill behind the park, which had no path at all, and got to see all of Barcelona spread out below us, as far as the eye could see. It was magnificent. This trip was so exhausting because it was so much tourist stuff and so much walking, but I was so glad I got to see all this amazing art.

Granada: This weekend trip was sponsored by CIEE, so we all drove from Alicante to Granada in a bus together and got to stay in a really nice hotel, which was nice after the hostel of the weekend before! It was raining for most of the weekend, which was different, but I loved Granada anyway. It was the last city that Isabel and Ferdinand conquered when they united Spain in the 1400s, and Granada still has a lot of Islamic and Arab influence. We toured la Alhambra, the amazing old Islamic city and palaces with their intricate tile work, carvings, and gardens. We also got to see a Flamenco dance show in the gypsy neighborhood, which is probably the most beautiful part of the city, full of tiny winding cobblestone streets. I visited the enormous and beautiful cathedral in Granada as well as La Capilla Real, which is the adjoining chapel where Isabel and Ferdinand are buried. We sampled Granada’s famous tapas and churros with chocolate and enjoyed the city’s great shopping and then had a slumber party in the hotel rooms, since that’s something we all miss about American culture. I loved Granada- it just had a lively, magical flavor to it, from the intricate cobbled sidewalks to the misty rain.