Eep - so behind!
Lisbon was really cool. We spent day two there just wandering the streets. There's a Moorish district, which is sort of medina-esque, but with plumbing and minus the scary men, and we found a great viewpoint over the harbour. It was interesting because it had a lot of similar characteristics to Seville, but wasn't as obsessively maintained so it felt more lived in and authentic. Like the city wasn't obsessing over its history, was just living around it. Very cool.
We got an evening train to Porto and got to our hostel about 9.30pm and I'd been a bit sick so it was an early night and a late morning then just four hours walking around Porto. A really lovely city, it just felt comfortable. It's a university town built across a big river with hills on either side so there's lots of stunning scenery and neat sights, but also a lot of hills to climb! It was one of those places you say "Yeah, I could live here." You know, with caveats like employment and speaking at least a little of the language.
Wednesday we headed to Coimbra, which is also where our night train was leaving from. It's meant to be a really lovely pretty town and it seemed quite nice but the heatwave struck and we melted! It got up to at least 35 degrees, and there was a mean, scorching edge to the direct sunlight so we made our way sloooowly up the hill to the university (which dates from the 1200s and is one of Europe's oldest, oooh) and then bought icecream on our way down but I don't think we took much in. A few degrees less heat and it would have been great! So night train left at 7pm and we were on our way back to Spain. We really loved Portugal. I keep telling Peggy to move there so I have a reason to come back, and she's pretty tempted :)
Arrived in San Sebastian at 6.30am yesterday and made it to our hostel to dump our bags then left to track down breakfast. Nothing really opened until 7.30 at the earliest so we grabbed a couple croissants to tide us over but eventually found a pretty decent breakfast, including hot drink. Peggy got their specialty of brioche and jam while I got the "catalan" breakfast of tomato and olive oil on toast - delicious. We spent the morning dragging ourselves around the city. It's really really pretty and there's lots to see so we did have fun, but we were so tired (this particular night train sucked - uncontrolled children and argumentative couples, ick) that everything was hilarious. So, yeah, good times had by us. Check in was 1pm so we ate lunch and took naps after that :) Went for another walk but didn't get up to much in the evening, just food and bed.
Today we went to Bilbao, to see the Guggenheim Museum there, which is amazing. It's all fluid metal that looks like it should move or grow. It was a really beautiful building that pictures don't really do justice to. After that a tram to the old town and to go to the Basque (Euskal) Museum. There wasn't a lot of info in English but it was really interesting. The Basque language is fascinating because it's not related to anything around it, as you can tell from reading signs - nothing in it is familiar. It's not even an Indo-European language, which is so mind-blowing. I'll definitely be doing more research there.
This afternoon we walked up the only hill in San Sebastian, which has a big statue of Jesus on top. The game all the way up was "Have you found Jesus yet?" and then when we found him he had a big cell phone aerial out his head, which I thought was hilarious and so practical! I mean, say you live in a reasonably flat coastal town surrounded by hills, cell reception has to be a bitch, right? So your options are build a big ugly tower on your nearest hill, ruining one of your town sights because there's an old fortress up there, OR you could adapt the big statue someone put up a couple hundred years ago so Jesus is not only watching over your city, he's also connecting your calls. Smart, I say, and just a little disrespectful. I respect that.
Tomorrow Barcelona, on the 7.30am train. Ouch.
Lisbon was really cool. We spent day two there just wandering the streets. There's a Moorish district, which is sort of medina-esque, but with plumbing and minus the scary men, and we found a great viewpoint over the harbour. It was interesting because it had a lot of similar characteristics to Seville, but wasn't as obsessively maintained so it felt more lived in and authentic. Like the city wasn't obsessing over its history, was just living around it. Very cool.
We got an evening train to Porto and got to our hostel about 9.30pm and I'd been a bit sick so it was an early night and a late morning then just four hours walking around Porto. A really lovely city, it just felt comfortable. It's a university town built across a big river with hills on either side so there's lots of stunning scenery and neat sights, but also a lot of hills to climb! It was one of those places you say "Yeah, I could live here." You know, with caveats like employment and speaking at least a little of the language.
Wednesday we headed to Coimbra, which is also where our night train was leaving from. It's meant to be a really lovely pretty town and it seemed quite nice but the heatwave struck and we melted! It got up to at least 35 degrees, and there was a mean, scorching edge to the direct sunlight so we made our way sloooowly up the hill to the university (which dates from the 1200s and is one of Europe's oldest, oooh) and then bought icecream on our way down but I don't think we took much in. A few degrees less heat and it would have been great! So night train left at 7pm and we were on our way back to Spain. We really loved Portugal. I keep telling Peggy to move there so I have a reason to come back, and she's pretty tempted :)
Arrived in San Sebastian at 6.30am yesterday and made it to our hostel to dump our bags then left to track down breakfast. Nothing really opened until 7.30 at the earliest so we grabbed a couple croissants to tide us over but eventually found a pretty decent breakfast, including hot drink. Peggy got their specialty of brioche and jam while I got the "catalan" breakfast of tomato and olive oil on toast - delicious. We spent the morning dragging ourselves around the city. It's really really pretty and there's lots to see so we did have fun, but we were so tired (this particular night train sucked - uncontrolled children and argumentative couples, ick) that everything was hilarious. So, yeah, good times had by us. Check in was 1pm so we ate lunch and took naps after that :) Went for another walk but didn't get up to much in the evening, just food and bed.
Today we went to Bilbao, to see the Guggenheim Museum there, which is amazing. It's all fluid metal that looks like it should move or grow. It was a really beautiful building that pictures don't really do justice to. After that a tram to the old town and to go to the Basque (Euskal) Museum. There wasn't a lot of info in English but it was really interesting. The Basque language is fascinating because it's not related to anything around it, as you can tell from reading signs - nothing in it is familiar. It's not even an Indo-European language, which is so mind-blowing. I'll definitely be doing more research there.
This afternoon we walked up the only hill in San Sebastian, which has a big statue of Jesus on top. The game all the way up was "Have you found Jesus yet?" and then when we found him he had a big cell phone aerial out his head, which I thought was hilarious and so practical! I mean, say you live in a reasonably flat coastal town surrounded by hills, cell reception has to be a bitch, right? So your options are build a big ugly tower on your nearest hill, ruining one of your town sights because there's an old fortress up there, OR you could adapt the big statue someone put up a couple hundred years ago so Jesus is not only watching over your city, he's also connecting your calls. Smart, I say, and just a little disrespectful. I respect that.
Tomorrow Barcelona, on the 7.30am train. Ouch.
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