Category: Travel

Tuesday May 10:Carnoustie to Edinburgh: Last day in UK

Reverse of journey here.

Monifieth the next town, where we had a great pizza at the Italian restaurant.

Dundee: Broughty Ferry. The old route across the Tay before the bridges were built. Having breakfast in Jolly’s Hotel. 

   
   

  1. Broughty Castle is the site of the Railway Ferry across the Tay. The history of the castle dates back to 13th century.  A free museum at Broughty Castle shows pictures and models. The museum curator is enthusiastic about the history of the Ferry and was keen to share his passion for history in general.

After crossing the Tay into Fife driving along the Fife coastal road. 

  
The other side of Ferry is Port Tay.

   
 We stopped briefly at St Andrews to stand on the sacred ground of Scotland’s famous golf course.

   
 
Eventually we made it to Edinburgh airport and are now in a B &B in Iceland!

Seville

This blog has not done justice to our two-day stay in Seville or the interesting drive from Alcaucin to Seville. This is due to the poor wifi connection at our Seville accommodation.

This will attempt to fill the gaps for April  19 to 21.

April 19 

Seville

The capital of Andalusia, Seville is a sprawling historic city on the river Guadalquivir. It is a world heritage site with many places to visit. Like most ancient Spanish cities, its heritage is a mixture of old Moorish architecture and Renaissance Roman Catholic, Gothic and Baroque. 
We spent two nights here. Not really long enough to full justice to all that can be seen here.

The day we drove here was a beautiful sunny day. The first part of the journey from the mountain village of Alcaucin to Alquivera was the same route taken the previous day when we went to see the rocks at El Torcin. Everything looks so much better in sunlight.


Driving into Seville was a nightmare because traffic was heavy. The road into the city parallels the river with large bridges crossing it giving a similar appearance to Florence. By more good luck than judgement, we took the right bridge to the Trianna area and found the hotel immediately. We parked outside the door, but were almost ticketed as it was a no stopping road. The hotel staff offered no advice or suggestions, so Mike had to spend about an hour driving up and down narrow streets looking for a parking place. Meanwhile, I had to wait while they cleaned the room. Although the hotel was quite big with about 4-5 floors, we were given a pokey little room near the reception desk. I think it might have once been a broom closet! The space was less than we had in our cabin on the cruise without space under the bed for the luggage. But we are travelling on a budget and all accommodation in Seville is higher than other places. So it was clean and convenient for getting to the cathedral and Alcazar Gardens. But as mentioned, and the reason for this afterword on Seville, is because of the lousy wifi signal. Another reason is because we did so much in a few days. 

The night of our arrival in Seville, we strolled around the city area around the cathedral. At this time the main cathdral was closed, but we did have access to the parish church adjoining the cathedral. Parish Church. The size of Seville Cathedral is breathtaking. It is reportedly the largest Gothc cathedral in Europe. Even the attached Parish Church is as big as many other cathedrals.

We strolled along the river and had a meal at one of the riverside restaurants. As we ate, the sky darkened and soon it was raining hard. The rain continued all of the next day and the morning we left Saville for Codoba, where it was still raining since our last visit.

So our Seville visit was all in the rain!
Nevertheless, despite the rain, we did enjoy the Royal Alkazar Gardens and palace, originally built by the Moors and taken over and added to by the Spanish royalty. The top floor of the palace is still a royal residence for the present King of Spain when he comes to Seville. 

The pouring rain did not stop people lining up to get in. We did not buy advance tickets, but our line seemed to move faster than the prepaid line. I felt sorry for the horses standing in the rain waiting to give carriage rides. Not so popular in the rain!


Again there is far too much to describe about the palace architecture, paintings, and decor. Similarly, the extensive gardens with fountains and formal Renaissance box hedges are best seen in pictures. I will add some of my pics but recommend you search for Alcazar, Saville for more. 



This is the link to Wikopedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcázar_of_Seville

Seville Cathedral


The tomb of Christopher Columbus

Chinchon

After returning to Chinchon from Aranjuez, we explored this attractive city.

The most prominent feature is the circular main plaza, the Mayor Plaza. This plaza has been used in many Spanish films and some American. The most notable, Around the World in 80 days and two directed by Orson Wells, ‘The Chimes at Midnight’ and ‘Immortal History’


They still have bull fights and bull running a in the plaza. The 3 storey buildings form a circle and the balconies at each level form a spectator’s gallery.

   
 The city has a castle which was first built in the late 1400s, but was destroyed by the commoners in 1520. Many years later a Count of Chinchon rebuilt a castle on the same foundations. In 1705 during the war of succession, the castle suffered more damage and in 1808 it was set on fire. It is now closed to the public, but was used as a distillery to make the liquor anise for which this area is famous.

      
The church reportedly has a painting of Goya whose brother was pastor at one time. But the church was closed when we climbed up.

   
 

Royal  Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso

We will probably return to see more of the sites of Segovia, it’s Gothic Cathedral and its many old churches. While the weather was good, we wanted to get to Ildefonso where the Royal Palace of La Granja is located. This was a palace that was properly finished with French style formal gardens in 18th century style. 

It is still early spring, here in the foothills of the mountains. The leaves are not yet fully open on the trees. The beech tree hedges are still bare and the roses are no way ready to bloom.

The big attraction are the many fountains and statues. At 5.30 every day, the fountains are turned on and crowds of people come for the ‘show’

   
   

Segovia

After leaving the Hunting Palace, we went on to Segovia. This ancient settlement dates back to Roman times and is famous for one of the oldest and still functioning Roman aqueducts. As usual, finding a parking space was difficult. We had decided to leave and return early tomorrow, when a car moved out. 

   
   
We walked up to the top for a good view of the city and back down through the medieval Jewish section. Jews were expelled from Spain by the Catholics. 

Saturday, April 23, 2016

Cercedilla to Segovia via the Hunting Palace for Spanish Royals

The Hunting Palace was a huge unfinished palace built for Phillip V (I think). I am finding, in this part of Spain, a less welcoming attitude towards tourists and staff at these government run places are like the type of people at border crossings, rigid about rules and not at all friendly or happy. I did not like the hunting palace as one half was a museum of stuffed prey for hunters with lurid paintings showing various animals torn apart by dogs. The other half showed some of the rooms with lots of plaster copies of Roman statues. Although the palace had a good view of the mountains only one window was open, the rest all shuttered. The place had lots of rules including no photographs. When I took a photo of the mountain view, a guard came running telling me “no photos”. I said I was just taking the mountain view and she told me “it was not allowed”. I thought this was very petty and there wasn’t much inside the palace worth taking!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Madrid to Cercdedilla

Today, we checked out of the Madrid apt and walked across the road to the railway station where we checked our luggage in left luggage lockers. The apt. was an excellent location close to Del Prado, Botanic Gardens, Railway station, and the museum of modern art, Reina Sofia. Because this is where the Picasso is exhibeted, we decided to spend the morning there.  I should add that Seniors in Europe get much better deals than in Canada. Entrance to Reina Sofia was free with documents to prove age. The Botanic Gardens where 50 cents each and Del Prado was 2 Euros each.  So one advantage of not travelling when young and fit! The con side is the aching feet and too many stairs to climb!

This museum contrasts greatly with the realistic images in Del Prado. Whereas the subject of most of the works in the  Prado were religious or of royalty in Reina Sofia, the images here are  more social and political statements. These artists’ works speak about the ravages and horror of war, the political upheaval of civil war.  Art was changing rapidly moving theough surrealism,  cubism, magic realism and, quite frankly a lot of it made no sense to me at all! I am a philistine when it comes to modern art. 

However, I was moved by seing Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. I had no idea it was such a huge canvas 3 x 7 metres. In many ways his images of the devastation by war is more horrific than realistic images or photographs. 

After leaving the art gallery, we returned to the railway station to pick up our luggage and take a train to the airport. A train goes every half hour to the airport at Terminal 4. From there a shuttle bus takes passengers to the other terminals. We needed Terminal 1 to pick up a rental car. Terminals 2-4 are quite a long way away.  Even so, public transport is so much better coordinated  than Toronto! We rented a car at the airport as it is cheaper and easier when we need to return it before we fly from. Madrid to Scotland.

So we are now back in the mountains. It is cold and wet still. Hope the sun shines tomorrow. We did have a lovely rainbow across the valley an hour ago. 

I will upload photos separately as not sure how strong the wifi signal is here.