Palma de Mallorca

Second stop on the cruise tour, Palma de Mallorca. Palma is the capital and major port city of the Spanish Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. It's a popular vacation spot for many Spaniards and other Europeans alike. I had heard, and after visiting there confirmed, that it's a major destination for Germans.


Here's a view of Palma and Bellver Castle on a hill north of the city from the window of our cruiseship; I think we were having breakfast at the time.

Here's Palma's port and bay seen from the hilltop Bellver Castle.


La Seu, or the cathedral, of Palma is a massive gothic structure. The pillars inside were especially towering although slender at the same time. Next to the cathedral is the Palace of the Almudaina which used to be a Muslim palace which was later converted over to a Christian palace after the Muslims were expelled.

Here's a view inside the Palace of the Almudaina.

Big Vacation with Mom and Rae!

Oh man, it's time to write about pictures... here we go.

This was the first part of my big nearly four week long vacation with my mom and sister Rachel. They came into Spain via Madrid and managed to catch the bus up north to Logroño. Since both of them had been in Logroño before, we took advantage of the first part of the vacation to visit some places in the northern autonomous community of the Basque Country. The Basque Country, or Pais Vasco, is divided into three provinces known in English as Biscay, Guipuscoa, and Alava.

The Basque Country has a different climate than La Rioja, as the latter where I live is much drier and hotter in summer. The Basque Country gets quite a lot of precipitation as it borders the sea to the north. It's a fairly mountainness or hilly region with a lot of vegetation and forests in the north. There are also a lot of nice beaches along the coast that are completely different from the more famous Spanish beaches on the Mediterranean. The northern beaches are more natural, with hills, trees, rocks, and a more temperate climate, than those more well known beaches like around Barcelona, Valencia, Malaga, Cadiz, etc. that tend to be flatter, larger, and more artificial.

This is Mundaka; it's not too far from Bilbao in the province of Biscay, or Vizcaya. The tide goes up, creating a river running inland, and down, revealing an expansive beach for surfers, sailboats, and suntanners alike.

This is a church outside of Mundaka called San Juan. It can only be accessed through the skinny stairwell that winds out from the shore to its peninsula location. The tide comes up and the stairs go away.

This is the castle of Butron located in Gatica of the Biscay province. The fairytale like castle dates back to the Middle Ages.

We owe many thanks to my flatmate Juan for taking us in his car to the many places we visited in the Basque Country. Here we are on the beach of Bakio, very near Bilbao in Biscay. Its close location to the metropolitan city leads it to be a very fashionable place for people to relax and catch a tan.


Here we are in front of the monumental vineyard hotel Marques de Riscal in Elciego of southern Basque Country in the province of Alava. The architect is Frank Gehry, the same man who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the similarity between the two buildings is quite clear.

My mom is eating a pincho in Logroño with our friend Tony.

Laguardia: medieval village just north of Logroño in Alava, known for its hilltop location, vineyards, wineries, and beautiful narrow stonepaved streets.


Juan and the girls in the main square of Laguardia.


Lastly, here's Juan strolling through a portal in the center of lovely Gernika in the Biscay province. Gernika is most famous for being bombed by the Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War in an effort to overthrow the Basque and Spanish Republican governments. Pablo Picasso painted perhaps his most famous painting 'Guernica' in commemoration to the bombing.

Sintra and Cascais

Sintra is a fairytale village near the western coast of Portugal, not far from Lisbon. It used to be the home of Portuguese royalty, and a lot of money came there from Portugal's glory days of exploration and colonization. There's an ancient Moorish castle that sits on top of a mini mountain and also a famous palace. The town itself has been remarkably restored and many of its wonderful palaces and homes are more colorful now than ever before.

Here's a view of the Moorish castle hovering over Sintra.

Walking up the mountain to the castle, it was surprising to see how green and tropical-like the forest was. They weren't sure exactly how old the original castle was, because before the Moors were expelled from that area of Portugal they abandoned the castle because it had lost strategic importance. Thus the Portuguese took it over once again and rebuilt it.


Here's me with Sintra below. The biggest central building is the Palace of Sintra.

And here is the more impressive Pena National Palace, an increible structure of many colorful towers.

One of the guardians of the palace.

It was windy, and I had yet to get a haircut.

Several Portuguese royal families lived part time in the Pena National Palace. It was the project of one of them, in the mid-19th century. Some 400 years earlier, actually, the original site belonged to that of an ancient monastery and chapel (over which the newer palace was constructed).

After I visited Sintra, I took a bus to the nearby coastal town of Cascais, one of the most westernmost cities in all of Europe. I went outside of town to get a better view of the Atlantic Ocean so that I could watch the sunset, but unfortunately it was a cloudy day. It still made for some nice lighting, however, and the surrounding nature was quite beautiful.

A little lighthouse on the edge of town.

The port of Cascais, with many colorful little fishing boats.

There were several nice beaches in Cascais also, which practically touched the ocean (the Tegus River flows into the ocean just past the city).

Return to Lisboa...

I went to Lisbon last year but was only there for about two days, and so for my Easter vacation this year I decided to go back to Portugal. I went back to Lisbon specifically so that I could explore some of the cities nearby the capital city that I had heard were really beautiful.

This is a picture of downtown Lisbon. These trams are all over and are really helpful when you want to climb the cities many hills.

Here's a view of Lisbon's hilltop castle, Castelo di San Jorge.

So many of the houses and buildings in Lisbon have this colorful tiled style. It looks especially nice when there's bright sunny weather.

I ran into one problem while I was walking around the most famous old neighborhood of Lisbon, the Alfama. I was mostly taking pictures of buildings and streets and whatnot, but I snapped a couple pictures of some of the Portuguese people talking on the street. I wasn't discrete enough, and one of the men saw me and took offense. He wanted me to show him the photograph I had taken. Of course I didn't show him, me being alone and all. His friends told me to beat it; I dunno whether they were mad too or whether they just wanted to give me some advice. Anyways, I was careful not to blatently take people pictures after that.

A picture of the place from which I took the other picture of the castle... this picture is taken from that castle.

These people didn't see me; so it was alright that I took their picture. Behind them is one of the long bridges that cross the Tejo River.

Here's a typical pastry from Portugal (and specifically from a town near Lisbon). It's a pastry of "Belem", and I went to the town of the same name to taste this cream filled delicacy.

Among the most famous art forms in Portugal is the tiled design of the 'azulejos'. These blue and white ceramic murals are planted throughout the country in churches, museums, and other places where it's obvious that the people had/have money.

A view overtop the center of Lisbon from another gardened hill.


It was a typical spring in Lisbon: sunny some hours, rainy the next few, sunny again, cloudy...

Prague, Czech Republic

Fantastic! Utter brilliance. Prague made it through the World Wars without many of its beautiful buildings getting destroyed. Nicely done, Praha; you managed to save one of the most picturesque cities in Europe. The architecture is once again outstanding, as is the river location, which is eerily similar to the layout of Budapest: a river in the center (in Prague's case it's the Vlatava) and a hilltop castle on the western shore providing stupendous views of the entire city and surrounding landscape. I think it's a pretty good format to structure a city; I'll probably model my own after this one.

Me with the Vlatava River. There are many bridges joining the two halves of the city.

The oldest most famous bridge is called the Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge is like Las Ramblas on a bridge. No kidding. There are tons of artisans selling their art, there are musicians playing, and street performers dancing, not to mention the fabulous statues of saints of religious figures adorning all sides of the structure and the outrageously cool views of the Prague Castle up on the hill and the unique designs of the entrances to the bridge on both ends. It's a party smashed onto a bridge. Sound like a good idea to you? Maybe not, but it works.

Here is one of those gateways to the bridge that I'm standing in front of. The color and style of buildings like this one (there are more like it in Prague) is something that I had never seen before. It may appear a little strange at first, but I really think that these structures are special in a good way.

We took advantage of another opportunity to climb the highest thing in the city to get some cool aerial shots. Not only are we on top of the highest hill, we're on top of a mini-version of the Eiffel Tower on top of the highest hill. They told us that it was near the exact height above sea level that the actual Eiffel Tower was at (since it has the advantage of being on a hill). Anyways, this is a photo of the Prague Castle. The castle district contains a palace-museum, a large church, an old old neighborhood of shops, dungeons, towers, and fortress walls.

Nearby our hostel was a rock-out restaurant-tavern called Jama. They served Czech food along with lots of other stuff too, but I just had to try to "Czech Feast". I actually didn't finish this one, so those who know me know how big it must have been. The "Feast" included pork, steak, chicken, red-apple kraut, roasted potatoes, and some biggy dumplings. Yes, there was gravy; yes, there was Czech beer.

The inside of the Prague Basilica which stands within the walls of the great castle. An immense Gothic style church, it dwarfs everything else inside the castle district.

The Prague Basilica from the outside. It was a nice day that day, wasn't it?

From the hilltop castle district we had some nice views of the city. Compliments to my photographess.

Oh, here's a good one. Some statue near the castle of a young boy. Some of these statues you see around are lucky to touch, for some reason or another. The lucky part to touch on this boy just happened to be his penis (you can tell because the dark bronze gets really shiny from everyone touching it). These Japanese guys thought they were pretty funny. And so did we.

One of me standing on a different bridge. That's the more famous Charles Bridge straight behind me and the boat. The Old Centre of the city is to my left.

I am standing in the Old Centre of Prague right here. I couldn't help but grab a Czech beer while we walked around and marveled at all of the wonderful buildings within this old square. The big black structure behind me is the Town Hall. We didn't get the chance to go inside, but that's all the more reason to return someday.


Ab is doin her thang in the Old Centre square, Town Hall to her right, and the tower with big cool clock to her left. I think that I could spend more time in that square than just about anywhere else we visited.