We had allocated about 1 1/2 weeks to travel through Southern Spain. We originally had seven destinations to reach but quickly realized we were going to stretch ourselves too thin. We opted to rearrange our itinerary so we could have a bit of downtime too. It all worked out perfectly. We were definitely on the go and covered a lot of ground but we had a good mix of exploring the cities and sipping a few wines & enjoying tapas.
SEVILLE
The first stop was Seville. We didn’t know what to expect from Seville and it is safe to say we were blown away. It is hands down one of the most beautiful cities we’ve ever seen. From the stunning Moorish architecture, orange trees lining the streets, and cobblestone streets that offer an abundance of tapas and good wine, Seville is a city we fell in love with almost instantly.
We spent 3 days exploring Seville. We arrived in the late afternoon from our drive from the Algarve in Portugal. In the evening we wandered through Parque de María Luisa and came to the Plaza de España. It is a popular square with beautiful architecture.
It was extremely hot. This was the first day that the true heat of the European summer hit us. We wandered further through town and quickly found ourselves a spot in the shade at a restaurant nearby an ordered ourselves well deserved cold beers. As sardines are a popular snack in Spain, we decided it would only be right to give some a go! Fair to say, a couple on your pizza isn’t too bad, but having 30 or so of them to get through is a little bit rough but we paid for it so we ate it! After wandering the central city, we got our bearings and decided to make our hike across town to our “cheap eats” dinner spot and boy, it was a long walk! Especially in the 35-degree heat. Our dinner was fantastic and ticked the cheap eats category for us! Fortunately, the cheap eats restaurant wasn’t too far from our camping spot so shortly after dinner we retired back to our van for the night.
We started our second day in Seville very early! We were up at the crack of dawn in hopes of catching the train to the town of Cordoba, however, as we reached the train station we were gobsmacked to discover the cost of a return ticket to Cordoba!! We decided to scratch that idea as it was cheaper for us to drive to Cordoba for the night. With that plan in motion, we headed off to explore the rest of Seville for the day.
We visited the Metropol Parasol and paid €3 for entry. The best part was, you could show your ticket at the bar and get a free beer (which of course we made the most of!!). The free wifi was a bonus so I finally managed to FaceTime Jonny in Japan. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the cobblestone streets of Seville, soaking in the sights. We were meant to do a walking tour at 3 pm but to be honest, we canned that idea and made our way back to our van. The heat had reached an all-time high for us and we were a hot sweaty mess! All we wanted was to collapse on our beds. That evening, we had a low key night as we were up early again as we had tickets to the Real Alcazar.
On our final morning in Seville, we made our way to the Real Alcazar Palace. We wandered through the palace and the beautiful grounds. Dorne from Game of Thrones was filmed here so it was awesome to see the places come to life that we had seen on our screens. It was really beautiful and had a very different vibe to that of the Palace of Versailles. They are both unique and equally as beautiful in their own way. After exploring the grounds for a few hours, we got on the road and made our way to Cordoba.
CORDOBA
We arrived in the mid-afternoon and were hit by an almighty heatwave. We though Seville was hot… Cordoba was next level. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves!! The hottest we have been the entire trip. Due to the heat, we didn’t leave the van that evening.
The next morning, we woke early again to get into the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba before opening time. Through reading a few blogs I discovered that the Mosque was free to enter between 8 & 9 am (perfect when you are trying to keep on a budget!!). The Mosque was really beautiful and again, totally different. I quite enjoyed it but to be honest, Morgan was a bit “palaced out” by that stage which is understandable as we had been through a few and still had another to do. We went up the bell tower which was great to get an overview of the city. We then spent about an hour or so wandering the streets. We came across a sweet little street with pot plants hanging on the walls. This was the “Cordoba” I had heard about. I had wanted to do a garden tour and see all the lot plants on the houses but didn’t realize it was an actual event only open once a year.. that was a bit disappointing! We honestly didn’t spend too much time in Cordoba before being ready to move on. I think if I had come at the right of the year (for all the gardens) I would have enjoyed it far more than I did. Oh well, on to the next place!
RONDA
As we made our way from Cordoba to Ronda we came across the most incredible sunflower fields. Driving through Spain we had seen a fair few and I always wanted Morgan to pull over to photograph them however we could never find a spot to pull in. This afternoon, however, Morgan started yelling “should I pull in?!?!?” to which my answer was “YESSSS!!!!!”. We ran across the road and straight into a field with sunflowers that towered over both of us. I was in absolute awe!! I managed to climb onto a mound of some kind to photograph the sunflowers from above. The field went as far as the eye could see. It. Was. Stunning. We have seen many sunflower fields since that moment and those were by far, the tallest, largest and most vibrant sunflower fields! So happy we managed to stop there.
We arrived in Ronda in the mid-afternoon. We waited for the sun to cool off and head off into the town to explore. We knew about the massive bridge (which Ronda is famous for) thanks to our good friends travels a few years back (thanks Jase!!). The bridge connects the new town with the old town over a large gorge. We found the perfect spot to enjoy the sunset while overlooking the bridge. It is incredibly unique and a must-see if you ask us! Ronda itself is a sweet little town with a cool vibe. After an epic sunset, we found a great bar that spilled out into the cobblestone alleyway where we enjoyed a few beers and people watched as the night went by. We made a short evening stroll back to our camp spot for the night, with the town being about 400m above sea level the temperature dropped down quite nice for the night. We had a great nights sleep and woke early yet again for the day ahead.
Another big attraction of Ronda is that it is home to one of the oldest Spanish Bullfighting rings. While we did not pay to see a bullfight (thank goodness) we did, however, pay to walk the grounds and stadium to learn about the history of the “sport” and the ring itself. We were both quite sad after walking through the grounds after learning more about this horrifying pastime event which is still so ingrained in Spanish culture. We will save you the details but as I’m sure you are aware it is a poor excuse for a sport and is torture for the bulls. It did leave us quite shocked and saddened leaving the grounds. It felt like a massive downer following the great evening we had the day before. We felt as though we, the “dumb tourists” contributed to keeping the sport alive by paying the entry fee. We took our heavy hearts back to camp and got back on the road as we drove to Granada.
GRANADA
We had very limited time in Granada. Looking back now, we wish we had a wee bit longer to explore. We had booked another Palace tour – Alhambra. In all honesty, it was beautiful but very similar to the Real Alcazar in Seville. We went through the palace pretty quickly and again, jumped back in the van and started our two-day journey to Barcelona.
JOURNEY FROM GRANADA TO BARCELONA
This was a long two days! We drove 7 or so hours from Granada to a little town just outside of Valencia. We had a cool little Aire that was just across the road from the beach. This was the first time we had seen the ocean again since the Algarve in Portugal! We were both happy to see the ocean again and even happier that the ocean was warm! Such a stark contrast to the water in Portugal.
The next leg of the trip was another long drive from our aire near Valencia to Barcelona. We were happy to have that drive behind us. We took turns doing a few hours of driving each. And yes, I can drive a 7m van!!
BARCELONA
Hmm. Very mixed views about our time in Barcelona. I feel like this blog post is about to take a wee bit of a negative turn but this is all about our experience. Maybe we would have had a different view of our circumstances were different, who knows?
Anyway, we had planned to spend 4 days in Barcelona. I’ll save a wee bit of back story but it ended up working out we had an extra day up our sleeve. We stayed in an Aire (which was great) that was about 40 mins on a train outside of Barcelona. Being in a big van, it is near impossible to stay in the city center and there weren’t too many options. The first two days we were there it poured down. Massive thunderstorms were almost constant for two days so we stayed at our Aire relaxing and catching up on some sleep from our full-on days of driving.
On our third day there was a break in the weather, still drizzling but we were getting cabin fever so head into the city. We walked around to the popular attractions like La Rambla street, La Boqueria market, and the Barcelona Cathedral. Don’t get me wrong, they were cool but we didn’t feel like it wasn’t something we’d already been and done. The heavens opened up again so I rocked my NZ poncho (thanks Steve & Nine!). By this stage, we had been walking around Barcelona for a few hours. Honestly, it just felt like a normal, built-up metropolitan city. Every shop was either an H&M, Burger King or designer brands that I could never afford. It was like Auckland City on a bigger scale. We left feeling pretty underwhelmed and dear I say it … a bit overrated.
Our last full day there the weather had cleared up (always the way, isn’t it?) so we booked ourselves into a walking tour. The walking tour gave us a different perspective of Barcelona and a new appreciation for the city. Our guide was so informative and incredibly passionate about Barcelona. He was an American guy who relocated here 9 years ago.
We then made our way to La Sagrada Família. La Sagrada Família is something I have been wanting to see since I was young. It blew my expectations.. the architecture is out of this world and probably one of the most incredible buildings I’ve ever seen. The architecture is so intricate, you almost don’t know where to look! That was a highlight for me and was the main driving force for us to come to Barcelona in the first place.
The final place for us to see before we said adiós to Barcelona was Parc Güell. Parc Güell a public garden with mosaic-covered buildings & sculptures that were designed by the famous Catalan architect, Gaudí. I was pretty excited to see it as I had seen pictures of this beautiful mosaic park for years. Tickets were reasonably priced but we had heard it can get incredibly crowded. We came across a wee secret about how to enter the park for free. Being on a budget, we are up for anything free. If you go to the Park before opening time or once it is closed, the security gate is taken away and the park is left open to anyone. We were a bit unsure about this because it wasn’t public knowledge and I couldn’t find any information about it elsewhere. We decided we’d try our luck anyway. We turned up just before closing time to find a whole bunch of people waiting right outside the gate! This little secret was not as top secret as I had thought. They took the gate away and everyone went running in. It was a shit show if I am being totally honest!! People went mad. We tried to skip the crowd and go elsewhere in the park. We managed to make our way around the park (where the sculptures are is small) before we head back to the mosaic bench where we had to fight to get a spot & a photo of it. If I am totally honest, we think Parc Güell is incredibly overrated and we are so glad that we didn’t pay the €14 for us to get in. The part where the big mosaic bench is located on a gravel area and then the bench, which half of the bench was under construction! The mosaic was pretty but I don’t know why, but I think I expected something so much more than what it was. One positive was that the view was nice. Anyway, we didn’t stay long. We said adiòs to Barcelona and made our way back to the van.
Unfortunately, Barcelona was a bit of a miss for us. I’m sure if circumstances were different and we were there to wine and dine then we probably would have enjoyed it. La Sagrada Família was stunning, definitely the highlight but other than that, we felt pretty deflated! We did, however, really enjoy the other beautiful cities we visited in Spain! I think they were more of our vibe.
Our 1 1/2 weeks in southern Spain flew by. With many more beautiful destinations to come, we hit the road again towards a destination that we have been dying to go to ever since we discovered it. Stay tuned!
Great Han, loved reading it and great shots. Xxxx
Thank you! Was really happy with how the shots turned out!