Introduction

Day 1: Arriving in Madrid
Day 2: Madrid to Toledo to Cordoba
Day 3: Cordoba to Granada
Day 4: Granada to Costa del Sol
Day 5: Costa del Sol
Day 6: Costa del Sol to Gibraltar to Seville
Day 7: Seville
Day 8: Seville to Lisbon
Day 9: Lisbon
Day 10: Lisbon to Salamanca
Day 11: Salamanca to Madrid
Day 12: Madrid
Day 13: Madrid (extra day after tour ends)

Summary/Conclusion

The Toronto Reunion (plus additional links)


The bell tower of the Mosque of the Caliphs


The "keyhole" entrance to the Mosque




Inside the Mosque


The Mosque clock tower from the Street of Flowers


Around Cordoba


The view across the Rio Guadalquivir


Some of the Contiki crowd at the Alhambra Palace






Pictures in and around the Alhambra Palace


View from the Alhambra Palace


The maze-like gardens at the Alhambra Palace

Wednesday, August 30, 2000

Breakfast this morning was slightly better than the one we had the Hotel Praga. However, as usual, the bread had the consistency of granite, which seemed to be the norm all over Spain, as we would find out. While I ate breakfast, I didn’t see anyone else from Contiki coming into the eating area, except for our bus driver Manuel, who sat down at my table to eat. I thought it might have been just because I was up a little earlier than everyone else. As I walked out of the eating area to the main lobby, I saw a huge crowd of Contiki people just sitting on the couches. “There’s breakfast in the room over there,” I pointed to where I came from. Everyone then all shuffled off like hungry cattle to eat as I sat alone in the lobby.

We all then checked out of our hotel, with our bags picked up to be taken to the bus. We would realize that the morning air everywhere we would go during the trip, was fresh, crisp, and usually quite cool (usually less than 25ºC). Whenever 10:00AM or so would roll around, the temperature would jump up past 30ºC and usually higher. We all took a brisk walk through the twisty and narrow streets of Cordoba to the Mosque of the Caliphs. The streets were so narrow that the outside walls of the buildings had a concave cutout about waist high to allow for cars to drive through without destroying their side mirrors. On the way to the Mosque, we rubbed the foot of the statue of Ben for good luck. The Mosque was rather unique and a nice change from the standard cathedrals seen all over Europe. One interesting fact was that Catholics had taken control of part of the Mosque at one point and had added elements usually found in Catholic cathedrals, such as statues and other various Catholic imagery that just completely clashed with the original and rather simple design of the Mosque.

Before we were off to wander around Cordoba for a few more hours until our bus picked us up, a number of us gathered for several group photos with various people’s cameras.


The first instance of group bonding in front of the Mosque...
Back: Linda, Mary Cris, Mandy, Magda, Me, David, Audrey, Naureen, Antonietta...
Front: Shirin, Delia, Alex, Armando, Niko, Lynda...
Behind the camera: Bash

Some of us decided to head to Calle Flores (Street of Flowers), where Jacquie had told us we would get an excellent view of the bell tower of the Mosque peaking out between the buildings. After getting lost trying to find it, a Spanish gentleman was nice enough to actually walk us there. The size of our group gradually diminished as a handful of us went to see a small synagogue back near Ben’s statue and then even smaller as we wandered through the shopping district in Cordoba. Eventually it was just Lynda and myself. Lynda was from Australia and was on her third or so consecutive Contiki trip. We made our way to a grassy area near the Rio Guadalquivir near where our bus was to pick us up. We had made our lunch at breakfast with some not-so-hard bread and cold cut meat. Lynda spent most of the time lying on the grass recovering from drinking a little too much from the previous night. Some more Contiki people joined us as we waited for the bus. We witnessed about 10 near collisions on the street in front of us before our bus showed up to pick us up and take us onward to Granada.

Granada was much hotter than Cordoba and also slightly less clean, but it still had some charm to it. It was probably around 38ºC and this was the late afternoon. We checked into the Hotel Aben-Humeya. I had a room on the ground floor, so I didn’t have to bother fighting with anyone else for the elevators. With some time available until our tour of the Alhambra Palace, many of us went a few doors down to an Internet Cafe to check and send e-mail to jealous family and friends. We then boarded the bus which would take us to the Alhambra Palace just outside of Granada. We were split into two groups, each accompanied by a different local tour guide to take us through the palace. The Alhambra Palace was simply stunning, rivaling the Palace of Versailles in Paris in detail and design. We then headed back to our hotel for a late night dinner. Dinner was better than the night before. We started with asparagus/egg soup, followed by breaded pork with a side of the usual greasy french fries. Again, the best part of the meal was the dessert plate of chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

Most of us weren't ready to retire for the night and so we headed out on the town, looking for a bar or a club. We found ourselves at a bar called Van Gogh, where as usual, we were the only ones in the place. The music was extremely loud and rather annoying, most thought. Bashar (or "Bash" as he is more affectionately known as) from London, did his very best to get people dancing in the small confines of the bar, but he was not successful. Some even compared his dancing style to the Saturday Night Live characters from the movie Night of the Roxbury. Some of us eventually left Van Gogh, lead by some Spanish guy we found there, who took us through the streets to another very small bar/dance club. Again, we were the only ones in the place and the music was a slight improvement. The strangest and definitely funniest moment of the night happened when somebody apparently requested that the DJ play some English-language music, to which the DJ responded by putting on the "Friends" TV theme. Most just stood in disbelief and signalled to the DJ to quickly change the song. A few more patrons other than Contiki people came and went, and eventually we all got onto the dance floor. After a couple of hours, a small handful of us decided to head back to the hotel, while others stayed and then eventually moved on to another place, which from all accounts was better the place we were at. This would be a rather tame night compared to the one that was to follow in the Costa del Sol.

> DAY 4: Granada to Costa del Sol >