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The first day we arrived, we went to the Palacio Real in Madrid. (Royal Palace) |
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When we were in Madrid, we went on several self-guided walking tours from the guide book. On one of them we found this garden and mom decided to pose. |
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This was a cool painted building we found. Look carefully and you will see that there aren't as many buildings in the picture as you think there are. |
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After a few days in Madrid, we took a day trip to Toledo. This building was both a mosque and a church. The moors, christians and jews all lived in this town peacefully for quite some time. |
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A synagogue in Toledo |
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A cathedral in Toledo |
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Our next day trip (on my birthday!) was to Segovia. |
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A fortress in Segovia. We climbed to the top of one of the towers. |
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By far the coolest thing about Segovia was the ancient aqueduct. It's even bigger than it looks here. |
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This was a view from the top of Segovia down to the countrysize. Many of the ancient towns in Spain, including Toledo and the others we visited, were built on hills for protection reasons. Thus, they all had breathtaking views like this one. |
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In Madrid there is an enormous public park. This is the lake in the park. |
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For the second half of our trip, we went to the coast and stayed in a town called Nerja. This was the view from our hotel room of the beach and the mountains in the background. |
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This is another picture with essentially the same view. |
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The coolest part of the trip was the visit to the Alhambra in Grenada. This is a picture of mom there. |
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This is a picture inside the palace. Every wall was carved with patterns, and used to be painted in a complicated fashion. The only colors that survived 1000+ years of weathering were the ceramic tiles. |
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This is an arch. Many arches like this one have the complicated carvings for reflecting/catching light. |
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For our final day in Spain, we looked at some ruins in Malaga and then we took a short trip to Rhonda. This is a picture of mom in Malaga at the ruins. |
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Me at the ruins. |
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Ronda was quite possibly the most beautiful place we visited! |
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Mom and I walked down 365 stairs (and then back up them!) to see where people used to get their water from. I took a picture because she wanted proof that she made it. |
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Could you imagine owning this property? |
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And having this garden? |
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(Another view of it, with me) |
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This was a view from the second floor of the house we visted in Ronda. (The same one with the garden/view in the above pictures. |