We were surprised to come home to five inches of snow!
Before we moved here, Josh told me (repeatedly) “it doesn’t snow in Holland, or when it does it doesn’t stay for more than a day.” I no longer believe that! It’s true that it doesn’t snow often, so roads don’t get cleared effectively and everything turns into a slushy mess. We don’t own a snow shovel, and it looks like none of our neighbors do, either.This is our back garden, with the fishpond somewhere underneath the snow. It took some work to melt a hole in the pond to allow for gas exchange, as the ice was six inches thick.
I am used to doing all my errands by bicycle, but I’m scared to bike through the thick slush. I’ve already discovered that biking on ice doesn’t work. The snow cramps my style! But, it is beautiful.Josh is busy at work again, and it only took me one day of running the washing machine continually to get through all 18 days of laundry. It’s good to be back to normal life.
Since we needed to cross the Pyrenes to get home anyway, we stopped in Andorra for a day of skiing. Josh loves to ski but I’ve never enjoyed it much. Mostly I fall down the hill out of control.
Skiing in Andorra is surprisingly affordable compared to the US, and it’s a beginner-friendly place to learn to ski. So we got up early on January 4, bought ski passes, rented skis, and took the gondola from our hotel to the top of the slopes.
The next day we headed to Lyon, France. France has expensive tollways, but at least there are frequent rest stops! Most of the highway rest stops had squat toilets, which I’d heard about but never actually seen. (There was usually one handicapped toilet which was closer to what we’re used to.)
One French rest stop even had a shower! Out in the open!
(We found that in much of Spain and France, toilet seats and toilet paper were not always available. However, restroom availability was better than in Belgium. Some highway signs for roadside rest stops in Belgium have a picture of a man urinating against a tree. Women driving through Belgium have to hold on until France.)
And then we went out for a proper French meal. Our guidebooks said that eating out is the main tourist attraction in Lyon. Our meal was impressive and took over three hours. We had pig trotters, salad, onion soup, puffy pike soufflé things, potato and leak casserole, local cheese, and grapefruit sorbet. It was all delicious, and quite different from what we usually eat. We were most impressed by the huge pepper mill, which was almost too big for me to use.
Just one more day before we get home…
Horseshoe-shaped arches are very typical in Moorish architecture, as are geometric patterns.
The Alhambra also has some nice gardens and fountains.
The top of the castle gives a good view of the city of Granada.
After Granada, we set out for a couple days in Barcelona. Although Barcelona is in Spain, it is in the region of Catalonia, and a different language (Catalan) is spoken. Catalan sounds like a hybrid of Spanish and French.
And a modern cathedral called the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) that is not yet completed. It was started in the 1880s, and construction should be finished in about 50 more years.
Our favorite thing in Barcelona was the big market downtown. There were so many tasty treats to choose from!
We could also buy suckling pigs:
Or freshly skinned rabbits:
The lobsters and prawns were trying to walk off the tables:
There were black truffles for sale, for the bargain price of 200 Euros per kilogram:
The sheep heads looked tasty (?) (How do you cook a sheep head???):
I have no idea what these are. It’s probably best that I don’t know.
With all those tempting choices, we stuck with dried fruit. It’s hard to go wrong with dates and figs.
January 3 was our last day in Spain. In the evening, we drove on to our next country…
Of course Gibraltar is home to the Rock of Gibraltar, which was shrouded in fog while we were there.
A cable car takes you up the Rock to the top, where there is a nice view of the surrounding docks. The Rock is also home to a colony of 200 Barbary apes, the only wild primates in Europe.
The apes are a definite crowd-pleaser as they are not afraid of people! But, you have to be careful. We saw several apes jump onto people’s backs, reach in pockets, or steal backpacks looking for snacks.
After Gibraltar, we drove to Nerja, a town on the south coast of Spain. Nerja has the “balcony of Europe,” a walkway with beautiful views of the Mediterranean Sea.
Further down the road, we found more gorgeous views as the sun set.
On the way to our next stop in Granada, we stopped at a supermarket to once again admire the Spanish ham. We just can't take enough pictures of racks of Spanish ham...
Even though camels aren’t used in Tangier, we took the mandatory Tourist Camel Ride.
We saw the Caves of Hercules, where there is a hole looking out to the ocean shaped kind of like Africa.
The caves also have a pool where women come to bathe if they hope to have children…hmmm…
The Mediterranean beaches are beautiful.
Then we went into the heart of Tangier, which is a busy, bustling hub of activity. The buildings are close together, making most of the roads too narrow for cars. Most women wore headscarves, and many men wore long robes. It was very busy. At around noon the local mosque sounded the call for prayer, which could be heard throughout the city.
Our favorite part was the market. Butchers had all kinds of meat hanging up for us to choose from, and each butcher stand had a hopeful cat waiting by it. There were lots of produce stands:
There were stands that sold dozens of kinds of olives:
And dried fruit stands with strands of figs strung together for decoration:
Tangier was probably the most memorable part of our trip. At sunset, we headed back to the ferry dock to sail back to Tarifa. We had to rest up for the next day…
And the lovely cathedral:
As well as another Moorish palace (Alcazar):
The gardens in Seville were delightful, full of orange trees:
And with Moorish fountains and benches:
The best part of Seville was the flamenco show we saw in the evening. Flamenco music is sung with guitar accompaniment, very full of emotion. Flamenco dancing involves lots of intricate foot-stomping.
The next day we headed out and spent some time in Arcos de la Fronterra, one of the “white hill towns” of southern Spain. All the buildings are whitewashed to be cool in the summer.
Many of the roads are very narrow, sometimes with arches between buildings to keep them from falling over in earthquakes.
Like every other town, there is a beautiful old church:
And a couple nice vantage points where you can see the surrounding countryside:
Then we drove to Tarifa, a small town on the south coast of Spain. Tarifa is a good base for a day trip into Morocco!
