Category > Spain

May 14, 2012
Spain
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Opposites

Santander, Spain

After a night full of crowded streets (football match, Bilbao lost) and a lovely morning walk through Bilbao’s Casco Viejo – and of course, more pintxos, for the last time – it was time to head out of Basque Country. A two hour bus ride through some very beautiful coastal roads (I wish I had taken more pictures) brought me to Santander.

Despite my hostel being literally one block away from the bus station, it took me almost half an hour to find it! Fail. I didn’t have a map…and neither did my hostel. The tourism office closed very early on Sunday, and I couldn’t get a map there either. For the first time, I just walked around aimlessly. Continue reading →

May 12, 2012
Spain
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Exquisite snacking

San Sebastián, Spain

Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to take a night bus out of Barcelona to San Sebastián… I left at 10:15 pm and arrived at 5:30 am, having not fallen asleep at all the entire time. My hostel didn’t open until 9 am – actually, not even until 9:30 when I called, after no one answered the door. But I sat at the bus station (it’s literally an outdoor bus stop, thank goodness the weather was okay) until the sun rose just before 7, then walked around town, a little weary after three consecutive days of little sleep.

My first view of the Playa de la Concha…and my jaw just dropped. All the tiredness went away. Continue reading →

May 9, 2012
Spain
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Directions

Barcelona, Spain

It’s amazing how quickly I veered from “What am I doing here?!” to “Can I live here already?”

Well, I’ll start from the top. What happens when you lose that spark, the one that makes you want to keep travelling?

It’s certainly a odd time to have this moment, at the beginning of a trip. But in essence, this is the middle of a longer one.

I walked for ten hours on my second day (first full day) in Barcelona. Went from tourist site to tourist site. Everything was there, everything was wonderful! I started my day out in Parc Güell, designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí, whose work runs prolific around the city, walked the Gràcia neighbourhood, the sprawling Passeig de Gràcia with La Pedrera and Casa Batllo (two more works of Gaudí, and I went inside La Padrera), Plaça Catalunya, La Boqueria (one of many markets in Barcelona that could give Granville Island in Vancouver a run for its money), Las Ramblas, Plaça Espanya, Torre Agbar, and a bunch of other places in between. I got lost like 10 times trying to follow my map. (If you know your Barcelona geography, you’ll realise that many of these places are very far apart. I walked to most of them.) Continue reading →