Valencia and La Tomtina

The view from our room onto the main plaza in Valencia

A Busabout bus took us to Brunol - home of La Tomatina Festival

Pre fight...

45,000 people squeezed into one street

Let the tomatoes fly, 5 trucks with 100 tons of tomatoes roll through and empty - then it's game on

Mid fight

You should have seen the other guy..

Dom fired up too

Almost knee deep in water and tomatoes - lucky we were wearing cheap clothes and shoes that were all thrown out

Post fight

Walking out of town the locals were there to hose everyone off

Our camera was drop proof, snow proof and water proof, looks like they forgot to make it tomato proof! Luckily for us our holiday had only 3 days to go...

La Manga

Our two weeks in La Manga consisted of:

Wake up 2pm

Lunch 3pm

Swim

Siesta

Wake up 8pm

Dinner 9pm

Carpark or plaza for Botello 1am

Disco 4am

Breakfast 7am

Sleep 7.30 am

Repeat for two weeks straight

A huge thank you to Maria and Jose for the keys to your apartment - it was perfect!!

The view of the beach from the apartment at sunrise

The view of the small sea (Mar Menor) at sunset

Second cousins Carlos and Pablo with their parents Carlos and Ana

At the Discoteca with Carlos and family friends Pilar and Ana and Ana's boyfriend Anton. Anton and Carlos will be in Australia in November for 4 months

Dom's new favourite fruit - Spanish melon

La Manga was just too hot to keep it. One last photo before the 3 month beard was removed.

Granada

Granada is famous for the 600 year old Moorish palace and fortress called the Alhambra

The whole Palace is covered in hand carved stone

Hundreds of rooms, columns and ceilings covered with Islamic verses and symbols

The detail is insane

The 'Generalife' is the gardens for the palaces where food was grown. Water flowed everywhere around here, down steps and the handrails and around rooms and hallways. It created a very relaxing place

The view of the old town from one of the many sun rooms

Cordoba

We day tripped it to Cordoba hoping to escape the heat of Seville - the only relief was the hour in the air-conditioned car...

The main attraction there is the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Originally a Visigoth church from the 600s AD, it was then converted to a mosque in the 700s then a Cathedral in the 12th century... A very interesting place

In the middle of the mosque is a huge chapel

The churchy mosque from the outside (the chapel spire can also be seen)

Cordoba is another very cool place with soooo much history

Seville

Being August in Spain meant that everyone was on holidays including the bulls so a tour of the bullring was as close as we got to a corrida

Ole!! Clap clap clap click click click clapclapclapclap!!!

After the show and a few sangrias... need I say more

It was a little warm... This was at 9.30pm - it never really cooled down

Lisbon

Portugal was proving to be a very cool country. The famous No.28 tram that twists its way up and down the tight hills surrounding Lisbon

Inside the old and historic tram

Dom with the first two of many pasteis from Pasteis de Belem, then we worked out how much better they were with cinnamon so we had to buy some more!

They sell over 20,000 each and every day

The Tower of Belem, a draw bridge separated it from the mainland

Dom pondering what it would have been like to be there in the 16th century

Me looking like I was there in the 16th century! Grrr!

Fatima

Between Porto and Lisbon we passed through Fatima famous for where three children claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fatima and heard Her apparitions.

Looking back from behind the alter where almost 1 million people gather on special occasions. The Pope has also said mass from here.

The position of the Mary statue is the exact position where the children saw Mary in 1917

A gift shop lining the street. It only fits one person at a time - lucky there are 30 of them in a row!!

Porto

On the big brigde that joins the town side of the river with the Port wine brewing side

Looking back at the hilly town with the port breweries at the bottom

Many of the houses are decorated in painted tiles

I wish we had more time here to explore this place. We ate at some very good cheap restaurants and there would be so many more to find

We waited half hour for the sun to set behind this tree... and the bird just tops it off.

Salamanca

Between Madrid and Porto we stopped for lunch (empanadas) at Salamanca. Very laid back town with lots of history. The Old City is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site it is that cool

It also has the nicest Plaza in all of Spain. We just wished we knew this before we were there and we could have checked it out!

The arm of a Priest who died in 936AD. Its a little shrivelly (click the photo to enlarge).

Madrid

Dominique's family, and more specifically Gonzalo on the very left made sure we had a good time in Madrid. Between drinking, eating and swimming we managed to squeeze in some sleep and on the fifth day we actually saw a little of Madrid. A big thank you to Antonia and Louis for your hospitality. It was very appreciated!

The Royal Palace

The Crystal House in Parque del Retiro