My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
This morning we had breakfast at our hotel and then drove to Salvatore Dali’s house and museum on the coast in Port Lligat.
Next we toured the inside of the house. Originally it was a tiny fishing cottage but eventually Dali expanded it extensively.
From Port Lligat we drove to Aiguablava where we are staying.
We have never stayed at this parador. It was closed for several years while they completely renovated it. It just reopened. we had a great dinner at the parador.
Today we had a fairly short drive further northeast towards the Parador of Guadalupe, another new Parador for us. We drove through the mountains.
Guadalupe is the site of the Royal Monastery of Guadalupe. It has been a pilgrimage destination since the fourteenth century. At the location where pilgrims first crested a hill and looked down on Guadalupe there is a Hermitage.
The Parador of Guadalupe is right next to the cathedral.
The view of the Parador and the Cathedral from the balcony of our room blew me away when we walked in.
We have to leave here fairly early tomorrow to meet Roger and Gail at the airport in Madrid. So this afternoon we drove back up to the Hermitage and recoded Duke’s second car review of this trip.
When we got back to Guadalupe we went exploring.
We had a picnic in our room for dinner.
The view from our room is pretty at night too.
Tuesday morning in Badajoz, after breakfast Duke and I walked to the rental car office and picked up a new rental car. Then we went to a Corte Inglés outlet store and bought a new jacket for Duke because he left his jacket somewhere n Lisbon.
After we checked out of our hotel we stopped at a laundromat to do our laundry.
Finally we left Bandjoz and headed northeast to Trujillo. We are on our way to Madrid where are will meet our friends Roger and Gayle on Thursday. Tonight (Tuesday) night we are staying in the Parador of Trujillo.
This is the 72nd Parador we have stayed in. Paradors are hotels owned and run by the Spanish government. They are usually in historic buildings like monasteries’ convents or castles. Some Paradors are in modern buildings in exceptionally beautiful locations. There are currently 98 Paradors in Spain and one in Portugal.
The Parador of Trujillo where we are tonight is in the former convent of Santa Clara. We wandered around Trujillo exploring a bit after we arrived. The Plaza Mayor is the impressive central square. There is a large statue of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro on horseback in the square. He was born in Trujillo.
We are dinner in the Parador Bar. We shared a cheese plate and fresh hot croquettes. The left over cheese will be for lunch tomorrow.
This morning we left Granada and drove about 110 miles west and a little south to the white hill town of Ronda. Along the way we took a short break at an overlook to eat some of our oranges.
Ronda is one of my favorite places in Spain. There is a gorge running through the center of town. The gorge is spanned by a stone bridge. Our Parador overlooks the gorge and the bridge.
The weather today was perfect. We enjoyed sitting outside overlooking the bridge for our welcome drinks.
We wandered around Ronda a bit.
Before we went down to dinner we checked out the full moon coming up over the bridge.
We had a great dinner in the Parador.
Here is the link to my video with a few of the sites we saw in Barcelona and Valencia.
This morning we picked up a rental car in Valencia and drove 210 miles west to Almagro in the Spanish region of La Mancha. One of the highlights of our day was when we stopped at a grocery store in a small town to buy some picnic food for tomorrow. The staff behind the meat and deli counter were super friendly. They gave us cheese and ham to sample and showed us a few of the many things they stock.
The young woman behind the counter is a expert ham carver. She has competed in competitions and won many awards. She showed us her album.
The Parador we are staying at in Almagro is a former Franciscan convent that was originally built in 1603. It was expanded in the 17th and 18th centuries but was in ruins when in 1977 they began the work to make it a Parador. The reconstruction took seven years.
We spent quite a bit of time exploring after we arrived. We had our welcome drinks in the former wine cellar.
We had a delicious dinner in the Parador restaurant. We had steak for our main course and various yummy deserts.
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