More Gaudi

The Sagrata Familia is one of the most beautiful churches I have ever been to. Another building I have never seen anything like before. The building is only 60% finished, however still attracts visitors who are willing to stand in an hour-long queue to get in. (We ordered our tickets online and got to skip the queue! Always a good idea to check if this is possible because we’ve skipped a few extremely long queues with this trick!). The pillars on the inside of the church are built to look like trees, giving visitors the feeling that they are in the forest. The use of huge stain glass windows lets in quite a bit natural light, another thing Gaudi is always trying to do.

That day was so beautiful we decided to head to the beach! On our way there we found the pier, so we never actually made it to the beach because we laid on the pier in the sun so long.

Then we got some sangria (because you can’t go to Spain and not try Spanish Sangria!) and a snack before heading back to our hostel for dinner. The dinner was amazing every night. The hostel was so homey and the people were so great.

On our third day in Barcelona we decided to stray away from the hustle and bustle of the city. We headed towards the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya where we got yet another beautiful view of the city. The building and cascading waterfalls surrounding it were just gorgeous.

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya 

We then climbed a bit higher to the Montjuïc castle on an even taller hill than the park were we could see the city on one side and the coast on the other.

We met many people at our hostel in Barcelona and got the chance to chat with them during dinner. A couple of guys had been travelling for months! It is exciting and fun to travel around Europe like we have, but I can’t quite imagine living out of my backpack for that long. The longest I've traveled Europe so far is two and a half weeks and we are going to embark on a month long trip soon, but I'm sure I will be ready to be back after that trip. 

Barcelona was beautiful and warm and the full of palm trees. We happened to be there around the time my family made their annual trip to Sanibel Island, Florida, so seeing the palm trees and being in such sunny weather made it much easier to be missing that trip. Barcelona was one of my favourite cities that I have visited thus far I'd have to say. 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, salud! ~Laura 

Hola Barcelona!

It was great to spend the entirety of four days in Barcelona. It’s the city I have spent the most time in thus far (other than London of course). We finally got to soak up some sun and warm weather, and eat outside! Getting to our hostel was a bit rocky as it was about 9 o’clock at night, so very dark, and we barley spoke the language. We had a map and directions but we had to ask a couple of hotel receptionists for better ones. We also felt a bit vulnerable wearing such large backpacks, targeting us as being obviously foreigners, but we made it to the hostel and dinner was waiting for us when we arrived. Yes, that’s right, the hostel we stayed in provided dinner, which was cooked every night at 9. So we ate and then waited for Liz and Megan to arrive.

The next morning we let ourselves sleep a bit after travelling the night before, before setting off to explore the city. We first headed to La Rambla, a street with many shops and outdoor booths and food, which we frequented the next four days.

La Rambla

We took the day mostly to wander and ended up finding a gorgeous church.

Liz outside the church 

Pictures don't do it justice

My new favourite architect is Antoni Gaudi. Our first day we came across a house he designed, called Casa Batlló. The outside is like nothing I’d ever seen before.

Casa Batlló

We decided on a whim to take an audio-guided tour of the house. I am very glad we did because it is a gorgeous house with every nook and cranny carefully planned to give one an under the sea feeling. There are no 90-degree angles in the house and the splashes of colour are so vibrant.  

Flower pots in the courtyard 

The walls surrounding the main stairwell are covered in blue tiles, which get darker as you proceed upwards to continue with the underwater theme.

It was so beautiful and warm out we decided that going to the park was the best plan. So, of course, we headed to Park Güell, which was also designed by Gaudi. Situated at the top of a hill, we had an amazing view of the city from the park!

We walked around for quite a while and did not get to see then whole thing. It is just so huge and like the house, there was so much detail from the structures to the mosaic used to decorate it to the flower gardens. Oddly enough there was no grass at this particular park, only sand. However, this did not take away from the splendour of the area.

We could even see the Sagrata Familia, a church also designed by Gaudi, which we visited the next day. More about Barcelona to come!

La Sagrada Familia

Have a wonderfully marvellous day, salud! ~Laura 

Easter weekend in Ireland

Liz and I made our way back to the bus station to head to the Cliffs of Moher. I was excited to see the Irish coastline, as I had not been to the ocean or other large body of water in quite some time. I must say I enjoyed the tour guide on our first tour much better. He was a smoother driver on the windy Irish roads, as well as much funnier and light hearted. Don’t get me wrong this tour guide was great, just not quite as likeable. I am amazed by the amount of information these tour guides know and how often they are driving buses. Many of them give the tours 5 or 6 days a week and the bus leaves at 10 and does not get back until after 6! Not a career I would aspire to have; however these guides seem happy and energetic.

We first stopped at the Aillwee caves. These caves predate the Egyptian Pyramids and were discovered in the 1940’s by a farmer taking his dog for a walk. His dog chased a rabbit down a hole and the farmer went in after him discovering the amazing naturally made caves. They are full of stalactites and stalagmites. These are those bits of minerals in caves, which look like drip sand castles or hang down from the tops of caves like icicles. Our tour guide described them well. He said stalactites are things that drip from above and stalagmites are things that tend to get dripped on.

A waterfall in the caves

Me in the caves!

We then made our way to the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs rise 120 metres above sea level. We walked to the very top. A bit later in the season, puffins can be spotted living on the cliffs. We were disappointed not to see any, Liz more so than I, however it was still totally worth seeing the cliffs. The pictures don’t give them justice.

It was a bit windy! 

The Cliffs of Moher 

Liz and me at the cliffs!

After our tour we took the 3 hour bus ride back to Dublin to be there for the weekend. It was very cool to be in Ireland for Easter weekend, because everyone takes the Christian religion quite seriously. Did you know that it is a law in Ireland that you can’t serve alcohol on Good Friday? Well, it is. Our hostel was quite loud well into Friday night because people couldn’t go out to drink, so they partied in the Lobby instead. Liz and I were exhausted from the tour so we went to bed in anticipation of a long Saturday because we figured most things would be closed Sunday so we wanted to do touristy things Saturday.

We set out on Saturday to see three things: 1. The Book of Kells 2. The Natural History Museum and 3. The Guinness Factory. We were lucky enough to see it all! As well as do some meandering and see the city a bit.

The Book of Kells is in the Old Library which houses thousands of books old and new. The building is beautiful and the books are in great condition.

The Old Library

The Natural History Museum was quite educational. It was awesome to see some owls!! I do love owls. 

Owl

And Liz finally got to see her puffin. Not quite the same as seeing a real live puffin, but pretty close. 

The queue to get into the Guinness Factory went on forever. But since Liz and I bought tickets online we got to skip it! That is really the way to go. We got to see how Guinness is made, from the grain to the hops to the water and mixing it and letting it sit, it's really quite the process. 

Lovely day for a Guinness!

We decided to search for a pub with live traditional Irish music for our last night in Ireland. We came across the Arlington Hotel, which we didn’t realize would have quite the show. We got to see two different bands play as well as a professional Irish Step Dancing team! The music was great, we even recognized a couple songs and the dancing was impressive. We shared a beef and Guinness stew with a side of chips to go with our last Guinness and it was delicious.

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Sláinte! ~Laura

Galway and Kylemore Abbey

How to win the heart of an Irish boy: bring him home and cook him up a pot of potatoes! Or as they say in Ireland: spuds. That’s what our first tour guide said anyway. A friend from UVM named Liz (yes it gets confusing with the two Lizs) made the long journey to England and we met at the airport before flying to Dublin and then making our way to Galway. We arrived on Tuesday and realized just how small it is. Especially compared to London, which I am now used to. There are many adorable shops, pubs, and restaurants, including gelato in the area, but not a lot of touristy things to do so we decided that a day tour to Kylemore Abbey was a good plan. So we bought tickets and got up to leave at 10 Wednesday morning. Our bus driver and tour guide was very good at manoeuvring the bus through narrow winding streets while he told us stories and facts about Ireland. He was very funny, threatening our lives if we talked too loudly, left rubbish on the bus, or broke the law.

Our first stop was Kylemore Abbey and the Victorian Walled Garden, the largest walled garden in Ireland located in Connemara, which was right next to . The Abbey was what drew us to go on the tour. It looks like a castle, settled at the foot of a very large mountain. The Abbey has quite the history, originally built by a man named Mitchell Henry for his wife, Margaret, who unfortunately died shortly after and didn’t get to live there long. It was then converted into an abbey and then most recently became a boarding and day school for girls, which closed in 2011.

Kylemore Abbey

Liz and I outside the church 

The garden was huge, with many pathways through the green grass. I can’t even imagine how beautiful the garden would be in the spring and summer months blooming with hundreds of flowers.

The Venetian Gardens 

The Irish countryside reminds me a lot of home, with some added sheep. The roads are like the roads we travelled on in Greece, narrow and windy. Mountains stretch high towards the clouds as far as the eye can see. The people who live in these parts depend greatly on the land. Much of it is bog land full of turf, which can be dried out and used in the wood stove for heating houses. Acres and acres of fields are owned by farmers who grow spuds, which are eaten or sold to make a living.

The bogs of the Irish country side

We also went to a town where much of the movie "The Quiet Man" was filmed. I haven't seen the movie, but I loved the town.

We spent the next day exploring Galway via a self guided walking tour. Our hostel, Barnacles, was located brilliantly in the centre of the town and the sites surrounded it. Galway is home of Claudah, the popular claudah ring is named after this area. This is where the cornamellla marble is found. This is a green stone, which is used to make jewellery, among other things. I believe we went into every jewellery store multiple times to look for the perfect rings. We did finally find rings with the marble in them, all a bit expensive but locally made.

We have this coffee shop in Portland, ME 

The streets of Galway

An older Irish man made my day in Galway. He stopped to ask if we were lost because we were looking for a specific jewellery store and he commented on our American accents. We told him we were okay and he asked where we were from. After explaining where in the states he said he’d been to Maine and liked it very much. He then stated that I looked Irish, more so than Grace and Liz who I was with. I told him I was, and my last name and he replied that he had in fact last met a Curtin in Galway! I did not realize I had such Irish features, but proud to be told as such.  

That evening Liz and I sat in an Irish pub called The Kings Head, had a couple of beers and chatted for a couple hours. It was great to hear some live music being played, even though it wasn’t Irish, and enjoy a Guinness. We decided we did not need another day in Galway, as we’d seen it all so we planned another day tour for Good Friday. So we went to bed on the early side to ensure enough sleep to make the next day enjoyable. 

Have a wonderfully marvelous day, Sláinte! ~Laura