Skiing the Pyrenees Mountains

Hi. So alright, this is a skiing trip that Abby and I went on. We found out through some friends about a company that provides transportation and lift tickets to some ski resorts in the Pyrenees Mountains (east of where we are in Spain). We decided to go on a day-trip to the province of Huesca in the autonomous community of Aragón. The ski resort was called Formigal, and it was fairly big... with somewhere in the range of 30 runs or more. We left early in the morning and came back after it started to get dark.

The weather wasn´t all that favorable. It was a little windy and cold, but still sunny, and it warmed up in the afternoon. There wasn´t a lot of snow, and so it was quite icey... also because a lot of the snow that they did have was artificial. It was still a good time, and we skiied until we felt our ankles could handle it no more. It was a Sunday, and so the mountains we fairly busy. We have to navigate through boarders and skiiers of all kinds of levels... teams of beginners, young kids, speedsters, tricksters, and we even ran across a squad from the Spanish army practicing climbing the mountain with their supplies and winter gear.

We have coffee and drinks later with our tour-guide, a ski fanatic who had traveled all over the world to ski and who led the groups himself, named Juan. He told us that Aspen was the best in the world. He also liked practicing his English with us, which was at a passing level. For those who are able, the Spanish people love to practice their English with a native speaker. I suppose they don´t often get the opportunity, and so they like to take advantage when they meet us. This I don´t mind, because they don´t mind if we speak Spanish to them, and then they´re more likely to help us with our Spanish and to translate some words we don´t know.

Pamplona, Navarra

Wow! I forgot to bring my camera to Pamplona! Abby took pictures though... I will have to see if I can borrow some for my blog. She will put pictures up on her blog too.

Pamplona is famous for its 'Running of the Bulls'... el encierro. The Running of the Bulls takes place every morning during the Fiesta de San Fermin... the biggest festival of the year in Pamplona. The festival takes place every year during the first week of July. The bulls run several kilometers through the center of town and end their run in the Bullfighting Ring where, later in the day, there will be Bullfights... corridas. Only the biggest bulls from Spain are used during San Fermin, and the Running of the Bulls through the streets is actually illegal in everywhere in Spain besides Pamplona. There are mini-Bullruns other places... but they are with smaller bulls with sheered horns. The bulls that run in Pamplona are bigger and have their sharp horns intact, making them ultra dangerous.

The Fiesta of San Fermin was a local festival until Ernest Hemingway discovered it and wrote several important and famous novels about it, thus telling the world about little Pamplona and it's spectacular party. Today, because of the influence of Hemingway and his stories, the Fiesta de San Fermin is famous worldwide, and there are literally seas of people who go to the week long festival. In order to reserve a room in Pamplona during the festival, you'd probably have to book a place a year or more in advance.

Pamplona is a small city (about 200,000). It is the capital of the autonomous community of Navarra (northeast of Logrono and La Rioja). We took a bus to Pamplona for a day, and it only took a little over one hour to get there. It's a region known for its geography (the rivers, the sea in the north, the valleys, and the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains) and also for its history as an ancient kingdom of Spain (the Kingdom of Navarra).



Abby and I walked along the path that the bulls and the crazy people take when they run through the city. We saw the beautiful, giant, old bullfighting ring (Plaza de Torros), which has also been restored. We visited several of the fine parks in the city, and also an ancient area of castle walls known as the ciudadela, which is Spanish for citadel.

Burgos, Castilla y Leon (Spain)

Abby and I visited nearby Burgos in the neighbor autonomous community (province) of Castilla y Leon--also the largest province in Spain. Burgos is on the east side, however, and so it was only about a two hour train ride from Logroño. We left on Saturday morning, got a hotel, and came back on a late afternoon train on Sunday. It was plenty of time to see the city.

Burgos has around 200,000 people, which is a little more than Logroño. It also has a small river running through it, not unlike Logroño either. The top things to see in Burgos are the Cathedral of Burgos, the Santa Maria Arch, and the Monastery de las Huelgas. We had a tour of the Monastery, which is special because it is actually a royal monastery (there are kings, queens, and other royalty buried there), and it is pictured below.


This monastery is from the 12th century. The inside is very well kept and has got beautiful chapels and altars. It´s called Monastery de las Huelgas because it is located on the outskirts of the city, and because this site used to be where the farmers had their little plots of land, which are called Huelgas.


These cool trees are actually trimmed constantly to look like this. There are really nice pathways on either side of the river there lined with these trees. You walk underneath them and notice how some of their limbs have actually grown together--I don´t know if they were helped to do this or what.



The most famous site of Burgos is its cathedral. It´s a Gothic style cathedral because of the rivoted spires and tall portals. It´s located in the center of the city in a nice plaza surrounded by restaurants, touristy shops, and basically everything else. You can walk up a hill and look down on the cathedral and the rest of Burgos from above. It´s a very cool sight with the cathedral amidst all those red tiled roofs.



The picture above her is of the Santa Maria Arch, a gateway into the city center. Walk through the arch and you´ll be in the plaza with the Cathedral of Burgos. It´s a really pretty little city, and it´s usually a lot colder there than in Logroño. They frequently have snow every winter. Abby and I were lucky to score a few days with hot sunny weather!


Another Menú del Día... the common Spanish restaurant meal for lunch. The ´Menu of the Day´is basically a three course meal with wine and bread. It seriously kicks butt if you find the right place, and it usually costs anywhere between €10 to €15 (Euros), which is $15 to $20. Here I think I have some Lomo a la Riojana (Pork loin with red peppers and potatoes). Abby´s got the chicken and fries.


Burgos, like Logroño, is also on Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James)... the second most famous Christian pilgrimage toward the legendary resting place of St. James (Santiago) in a western Spanish city called Santiago de Compostela. Abby is sitting with a bronze pilgrim who liked Burgos and the cathedral so much he decided he´d rest there for some hundred years or so.
Saludos a todos! (Greetings to everyone!)

Lisboa, Portugal

View of the Lisbon coast from on top the Discoveries monument. They had a nice 'Golden-Gate' like bridge, and lots of sail boats all over. The boardwalk you see was also packed with bikers, walkers, fishermen, and people of all types. As you can see, we had great luck with weather. It was early February when we went there, and we experienced near 70 degree temperatures during the two days we were there.


This is the monastery of San Jeronimo with the city in the background and a nice park in the foreground.

Monument of the Discoveries. For all of the famous discoverers who came from Portugal... I remember Vasco de Gama... what a guy. We actually went on top of this monument too to get some cool shots of the surrounding city and coastline.

This is the Tower of Belem. Really old. It's complete with a dungeon and an array of ancient canons that used to shoot the living daylights out of anything that entered Portuguese harbors.

We decided a while ago that we wanted to visit Lisbon, Portugal, because it's close, and because we figured that if we're going to take a trip around Europe that Portugal is kind of out of the way. So, we figured out a quick trip to go there and visit for a three-day weekend. We flew there from Madrid, which didn't take long (a little over an hour, actually, and we got that hour back flying across a time zone).

Lisbon is a very beautiful city that has its own definite style and flavor apart from Spain. Some of the colors of the city and the look were similar (for example: the stone tiled walkways, the red tile roofs, the apartments upon apartments, the grand plazas, the outdoor cafes, etc.), however, many things were very different. The language, for one, which on paper looks a lot like Spanish, is virtually unrecognizable for a moderate level Spanish speaker like myself. It sounds like a mix of Chinese and Spanish. Abby and I got by on a mix of English and Spanish. It was quite amusing actually, because I think that many people were confused as to just who the heck we were and where we were from.

Lisbon is a very international city. We saw people from all over while we were there, including a number of different couples from the States. We had been told before going there that Portugal was a little behind the rest of Europe as far as restoring all of their old buildings... and after going there, I guess I would agree. Everything seemed to need at least a fresh coat of paint. We didn´t see as much construction or restoration there as anywhere else we´ve gone. Maybe this is because they´re not getting around to it at this moment. I don´t know.

The style of their buildings and apartments is simpler than the Spanish style. Many Spanish buildings have a romantic twist to them, whereas the Portuguese were more basic... more flat.

The castle is on the hill (Castillo de San Jorge, I think). Anyways, we saw it from the top of this famous elevator (Ascendor de Santa Maria). There was a nice little cafe and live music at the top of this elevator in the middle of the old part of Lisbon. The view was definitely worth the ride up.


Here I am standing in one of the main plazas in the south of the city, near the harbor. In the background are a couple of other famous monuments in Lisbon--dude on a horse and the Arch.

Our timing was impeccable, and we caught a nice sunset going down under the bridge on our first night.

This is the elevator of Santa Maria that I was telling you we went to the top of before. I think that it's around 100 years old... which is pretty incredible.


This is the tower of Vasco de Gama. This is located in the new part of the city, next to malls and restaurants and modern hotels. There's also a really long bridge there by the same name (Vasco de Gama) that I swear must be at least a few miles long. We were there during night, so it was difficult to see it in its entirety.

Carnival in Madrid

It's been a while since I last wrote... I know... so I will have to talk about a few things that I've done since the last post.

First, we went to Madrid to pick up a friend of Abby's who came to visit us (Amanda), and we spent the weekend there. It just happened to be the time all of Spain and the world was celebrating Carnival--the holy week including Martis Gras.

There were lots of parades, performances, and events going on in Madrid. Among the things we saw were soldiers marching (dressed in traditional Roman costumes and other such groups), dancers from South America and Africa, show horses from Andalusia (southern Spain), and, in general, large masses of people.

Here are some more pictures of Madrid. The first is in Buen Retiro Park. This park is Madrid's equivalent to Central Park in New York. There are several large ponds inside the park. This pond also offers row boats that you can take out.

This next photo is of a street leading into the Puerta del Sol (Sun Plaza, or Square)... which is the center point of the city and the entire country. There's always a lot of people there, and usually when something is going on in the city, like Carnival parades or New Years celebrations, they take place in the Puerta del Sol. The equivalent to New York's Time Square I guess you could say.

The last photo for this post is from the Plaza de Cibeles. This is a night shot with the fountain of Neptune in front and the townhall behind.