On Mittwuch, (Wednesday) a 35-minute train trip found us in Basel, the 3rd largest city located in northwest Switzerland where the Swiss, French and German borders meet. Pronounced Basel in English and German and Bâle in French, we found this dynamic city easy to navigate and a joy to explore.
Annecy and Voiron are both beautiful little towns that we wanted to visit so we booked our train tickets and off we went exploring. Trains are comfortable, spacious, fast and timely making traveling around France sooooo easy.
Barcelona has been in the news recently with demonstrations for and against Catalan separation and demonstrations regarding ‘overtourism’. We have focused our explorations primarily on beautiful southern Spain but despite the tensions in Barcelona, we wanted to make a brief stop in this north eastern city.
Sevilla, Spain is a majestic city and we are thankful we saved it for our final destination in Andalusía. We often awoke in the morning to the soothing sounds of horses clip-clopping past on the street below. We found this to be a soothing sound and one we quickly got used to hearing.
Jerez de la Frontera or Jerez is known for its flamenco, horses and sherry but this wonderful town of Spain has much more to offer. There are castles and magnificent churches and where we were introduced to the “Secret language of the Spanish fan”.
We have spent 3 weeks exploring Jerez de la Frontera and felt it was time to spread our wings. The city of Cádiz, home port to the Spanish Armada (navy), beckoned and is just a short 30-minute train ride south.
In August we celebrated our 6th month of full time travel, so we planned to relax and enjoy the beach life. However, by the third week we were itching for a new adventure. A perfect time for our first road trip.
It’s time to pack our bags and journey on to our next destination. As we say adiós to Málaga our memories will be of the fantastic views of the Alborán Sea (a subdivision of the greater Mediterranean Sea) from our apartment.
Our 200 year old apartment was midway up a steep hill in the Albaicín area, Granada’s oldest Arab district and we were lucky to face the impressive Alhambra on the hill opposite. The Albaicín is made up of narrow single-file alleyways, pretty fountains in nearly every square and, of course, sensational Alhambra views.
While enjoying a wonderful lunch and refreshing iced tea in an Arabian teteria (tea house) in Granada we met and had a great conversation with a couple vacationing from Austria. One of their recommendations to us was to visit the city of Córdoba, Spain.
