Seville and Sagres

Our trip was a little bumpy but we are finally here and having a great time. Mike and I had a layover in Düsseldorf that was an hour long but seeing as our plane was an hour and a half late, we spent a couple of extra ours in the German airport, causing us to miss out on Cordoba. Over all, a small price to pay as we found Jessica and Yan almost immediately and started on our adventure. Our new first stop was Seville. We made it just in time to see an amazing flamenco show, and get situated. Note to the tourists - its really hard to avoid the deep fry in Seville - but Mike and I didn't think that the snails (caracoles) which were in season were all that great either.

We ended up sleeping until the afternoon of the next day and were very pleasantly surprised that we managed to get out of our apartment before the cleaning service who were supposed to arrive at noon (more on that later). We spent a very pleasant day walking around Seville.  We stopped in to the cathedral, which was closed for the most part, and spent our day walking around Alcazar palace and gardens. It is absolutely amazing. We could have spent several more days looking at it. While walking in the palace gardens we encountered a few peacocks and ran through a garden maze. Not bad for a first full day! Unfortunately we had to leave Seville that night so the only other thing we got to see was the Metropol Parasol which gave us an amazing view of the city. We said our goodbyes to the city and travelled for 3.5 hours to Sagres, Portugal to our hotel where we were told we didn't have reservations until the next day. Somehow with all the excitement we didn't realize that we had another whole day in Seville and left a whole day early. <palm to the face>. We made up for it by having a late dinner and trying barnacles - a local delicacy

I have to be honest that our first day in Sagres, I really hated it. We woke up late (after all the tours had already started) and it was windy with a high of 72. Mike and I really did not do very much and I got a little stir crazy. In order to prevent Day 2 of Sagres from being painful we scheduled a whole slew of activities and it was simply amazing. We started our morning off with a 30 km bike ride through Sagres. Sagres is a national park with the most beautiful nature. The first hour and a half we biked through amazing fields of wild flowers - it took my breath away. We also visited the Cape of St. Vincent ( the south westernmost point of Europe) and old fort, and an old school of Henry the Navigator. Out tour was just us and two tour guides which was absolutely amazing. 50 yards from the end I had total leg muscle failure and we ended up walking our bikes in - oh well.

After our tour we just had time to check out and eat before goin on the boat tour of the southern coast of Sagres. Again 0 the beauty of the nature around those parts is absolutely astounding. seeing a couple of storks on our tour and make it into several grottoes and caves. The shore is mostly sandstone and the wind from the ocean does a number on it. Yan and Jessica were feeling very adventurous and took a dip in the middle of our tour, but Mike and abstained. On the way our of Sagres we stopped by a sand sculpture festival. The festival has been going on for a decade during the high season in Pera. 40 tons of sand are used annually and the area of the sand city is 15,000 square meters. This year's theme was music and I think Yan took some nice shots. There was even a rendition of the famous "Thug Life" graffiti of Tupac. Score!

This is our first night in Lisbon. We only had time to eat, walk around the center for 40 minutes and check in to our hotel room, but I am definitely picking up a Ljubljana vibe from here. Hope I'm right. Good night!