Exterous' vacation to Spain, including the Canary Islands and Morocco

[Exterous]

Things have been very busy over the past year so I've got a bit of a back log of photos to share now that we've finally been getting around to selecting and editing them.

This was my first flight with Air France alone let alone in business class. The seat was comfortable, wide and the footwell had a ton of space - which is uncommon but greatly appreciated as I have rather large feet. Food and wine was quite good as was the service. Definitely a step above my more traditional star alliance (Air Canada, Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss) flights to Europe

We landed in Seville just after Christmas so some of the decorations were still up:

 

[IronWing]

Is the Seville Cathedral as brutally oppressive as it looks from the pics? I was reading up on it a couple months back (Wiki rabbit trail) and back in the 1890s, it was estimated that with all the perpetual endowments and side altars, that five hundred masses were being said every day in the cathedral.

 

[Exterous]

After Sevilla we made our way down to Tarifa for our ferry to Tangier Morocco. Similar to our previous trip to Africa where the checked bag carousel was about 4x more packed than any carousel I've ever seen before, the ferry was full of various TVs, computers, and other electronics families were bringing home from Europe. One thing I would note here is that, apparently, FRS (Ferry company) doesn't email or otherwise warn you of schedule changes. Our return ferry to Spain later in our trip (also the last one of that day) got moved back over 2 hours after we purchased it and we didn't find out until after we arrived at the ferry terminal. We also found it odd that, while Tangier runs about 8 ferries to Spain a day, no one at the terminal spoke Spanish. I get its not their national language but it sure would help when the terminal people are trying to figure out how we have tickets for a ferry that doesn't exist and we're trying to understand how the heck we're getting back to Spain. (It took about 40min and 4 different people to learn that another ferry was in fact coming that evening and we could get on it)

As the trip to Morocco was filled with electronics the ferry back to Spain had a surprisingly large number of people with minimal luggage and dressed up like they were going to a night club. Best guess is that young people head to Spain to party overnight and head back home?

In any event we greatly enjoyed our time in Morocco. In particular this gentlemen's food was fantastic - best baklava I've ever had and I don't know what the stuff in the lower right is but it tops my list of 'best random food a local insists I try' (Photography note: Many people in Morocco have strong feelings about getting their picture taken. All people with close in shots gave their ok to have their picture taken)

On another slightly sad note we had switched lenses for this part of our trip and this is when we discovered the focus on this particular lens wasn't working well anymore. So here are some of the less blurry pictures we got

 

[Exterous]

Is the Seville Cathedral as brutally oppressive as it looks from the pics? I was reading up on it a couple months back (Wiki rabbit trail) and back in the 1890s, it was estimated that with all the perpetual endowments and side altars, that five hundred masses were being said every day in the cathedral.

Oppressive? From an architectural perspective, while a number of the components like the columns and altars were quite large the height of the ceiling and span between supports was sufficient to create a sense of openness and space. So design wise I didn't feel that. Although I suspect that, back in ye olden days, this was designed to convey a sense of insignificance of the individual in the face of god.

 

[KMFJD]

Gorgeous pictures as always, thanks for sharing!

 

[brianmanahan]

Is the Seville Cathedral as brutally oppressive as it looks from the pics? I was reading up on it a couple months back (Wiki rabbit trail) and back in the 1890s, it was estimated that with all the perpetual endowments and side altars, that five hundred masses were being said every day in the cathedral.

brutal and oppressive is my jam

i love a good brutalist architecture building

 

[BoomerD]

brutal and oppressive is my jam

i love a good brutalist architecture building

Your stay in Olds's basement is still weighing heavily on your mind I see...

 

[brianmanahan]

Your stay in Olds's basement is still weighing heavily on your mind I see...

and now it's even more convenient because he's local!

 

[BoomerD]

and now it's even more convenient because he's local!

If you can't go to the basement, the basement comes to you.

 

[K1052]

Nice pics. I'm plotting Madrid-Barcelona for spring and its about time to start looking for air.

 

[Exterous]

After returning to Spain we headed to Gibraltar. My wife was worried about taking the car over so we parked at the border and walked. For anyone wondering, taking the car over would have been NBD. Fortunately there are many helpful signs like these for pedestrians so we could find our way back to Spain - from the peninsula we were on where there is only a single road that leads back to Spain...

There's a cable car that takes you to the top however a number of the Gibralter sites are nestled all the way up. So I had to walk down about halfway to get to a few of the sites and then take an excessive number of stairs back up

This is only part of the staircase back up

You also have to watch out for the monkeys that might try to take your phone or hop on your shoulder as you walk by

The tunnel system there is massive. And, as an added bonus, provides no relief from climbing as a large number of the tunnels are also angled up or down

The tunnels are large enough they build structures with roofs on them inside (to keep the water from dripping on you)

The pink and blue on these maps show the extent of the tunnels

Cave light and sound show

 

[Captante]

Thanks! New wallpapers incoming!

 

[Exterous]

Gorgeous pictures as always, thanks for sharing!

Thanks and glad you like them!

Nice pics. I'm plotting Madrid-Barcelona for spring and its about time to start looking for air.

Thanks! Unsolicited opinions: Iberia is my least favorite airline to use to get to Europe and MAD is up there for least favorite airports so if you can easily skip MAD and go in and out of BCN for roughly the same cost that might be worthwhile (or in to BCN and out of MAD). MAD just usually has long immigration lines (worse than FRA IMO), terminal 4S where most (all?) OneWorld international flights land is crazy removed from the rest of the airport, signage and passenger routing is non-intuitive.

 

[Exterous]

Nice pics. I'm plotting Madrid-Barcelona for spring and its about time to start looking for air.

Oh! And if you drive at all you really need to watch your speed. They issued me a ticket from a camera for 4kmh over the speed limit. And, if you get this ticket while back in the US like I did, paying it is next to impossible. You can't pay by credit card or bank transfer online as they direct you to pay via their app. But their app is geolocked to Spain for both Android and Apple. Their phone system is garbage as even my wife who is fluent in Spanish could barely understand the payment instructions when talking with someone. I had to freaking wire transfer the money over. And then they claimed they never got it so I had to mail proof of payment to Spain. Maybe I could have done something with my phones location to trick it to thinking it was in Spain to get access to the app but the whole process was stupid

 

[KMFJD]

Oh! And if you drive at all you really need to watch your speed. They issued me a ticket from a camera for 4kmh over the speed limit. And, if you get this ticket while back in the US like I did, paying it is next to impossible. You can't pay by credit card or bank transfer online as they direct you to pay via their app. But their app is geolocked to Spain for both Android and Apple. Their phone system is garbage as even my wife who is fluent in Spanish could barely understand the payment instructions when talking with someone. I had to freaking wire transfer the money over. And then they claimed they never got it so I had to mail proof of payment to Spain. Maybe I could have done something with my phones location to trick it to thinking it was in Spain to get access to the app but the whole process was stupid

I believe this is the fix for that - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389

You probably also need to be connected to a Spanish IP with a vpn, i've had similar issues trying to get Claro and other Dominican apps to work on my iphone, it's a pita

 

[Exterous]

After Gibraltar it was time to head to towards Alhambra. We spent the night in Malaga at the Gran Miramar which is a fantastic property. One thing I've noted to people is how inexpensive southern Spain is even during a one of their relatively high seasons. We paid $250 for our night in Gran Miramar which included breakfast, a large room, and two 50min massages, and a small bottle of champagne and fruit. Even better there is no tipping culture in Spain so valet parking, luggage assistance and the champagne delivery had no awkward tipping dance. And the service was fantastic. I know people who paid more for Holiday Inns for their week vacation in Florida that we paid for our 2 week trip. And that's including our very nice AirBnB in the Canaries

Elsewhere we paid ~$55/night for AC Marriotts and similar hotels

Anyway - can't go to Spain and not have tapas. Or a giant baked potato apparently

Alhambra

 

[Exterous]

I believe this is the fix for that - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389

You probably also need to be connected to a Spanish IP with a vpn, i've had similar issues trying to get Claro and other Dominican apps to work on my iphone, it's a pita

Thanks I'll keep that in mind in the unfortunate event something like this happens again

 

[BoomerD]

Nice batch of pix of places I'll never visit...I can live vicariously through the ATOT travelers.

 

[KMFJD]

Those pics of the Alhambra are amazing, thank you for sharing, i had never seen that ceiling before, it's on my top 10 places to visit bucket list.

 

[quikah]

I believe this is the fix for that - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201389

You probably also need to be connected to a Spanish IP with a vpn, i've had similar issues trying to get Claro and other Dominican apps to work on my iphone, it's a pita

I had a similar issue trying to download a parking app in Spain. On the android side Google blocks it behind behind a Spanish payment system. I was able to create a spanish google account, but was stuck when they required payment with a Spanish address.

We were supposed to go to Seville last month, but chickened out when the temps were WELL into the tripple digits. (Think it was something like 110 or so) We stayed around Madrid (went to Segovia which was a nice plus), which was still in the high 90s.

 

[Exterous]

After Alhambra it was off to the Mosque of Cordoba. We got there first thing in the morning and shared the place with only a few other early risers which led to some great pictures that would normally be crowded with a number of other tourists

And then off to Madrid for our flight to the Canary Islands. The islands had basically any landscape you could want: pine forests, deserts, rain forests, rocky beaches, sandy beaches, craggy mountains, flat plains etc. Tons of environments condensed down into a small geographic region. First up was the desolate moonscapes south & east of Pico del Teide

 

[Exterous]

Nice batch of pix of places I'll never visit...I can live vicariously through the ATOT travelers.

Thanks!

Those pics of the Alhambra are amazing, thank you for sharing, i had never seen that ceiling before, it's on my top 10 places to visit bucket list.

You're welcome - It is quite the complex. You can see on a map or guide how large it is but we didn't really get a true sense of that until we got there

 

[Exterous]

As I mentioned earlier the lodging costs were cheap. We chose to go a little bit fancier but we easily could have found a nice place for $80/nt with nice views. We 'splurged' for an end unit, 3 story condo with mountain and ocean views along with a private heated pool for all of $150/nt during busy season

Views from the condo

The food was just incredible there. A ton of Venezuelan and Argentinian food as apparently its a bit of an informal refuge for people from those countries. There was also a fantastic Indian food restaurant near our AirBnB and we have pretty strong opinions about Indian food given the large concentration of ex-pats in our area (and some of the home cooking we've had with some friends).

 

[Exterous]

Last stretch of photos from Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The ferry was easy and painless to use between the islands

They had some very nice beaches on Gran Canaria although all were top-optional so getting some pictures without looking like a creep was a bit challenging

Some of the hiking was a bit interesting. This trail didn't lead anywhere it just slowly petered out before ending randomly in the forest about 2 miles later
Start

Getting narrower

Trail end apparently

United business class back home. A solid product and we had good service but Air France certainly has the edge

Overall it was a great trip and I would highly recommend the Canary Islands to people. Tons of different islands and environments to experience, the food was great everywhere and reasonably prices especially for an island, and plenty of nice lodging options at attractive prices. I've priced it out a couple of times from midwest and east coast airports and the total cost of airfare + lodging is frequently quite a bit less than a trip to Caribbean would be. The biggest downside is the added travel time needing to connect through Europe but if you have the time I'd pick this over any of the ~12 or so Caribbean Islands we've been to

 

[IronWing]

Did you see any dragon trees in the Canaries?