Hello, again, Blogonauts! Madrid gives its visitors a superb first impression. Indeed, the city wears an almost swaggering, matador-level pride on its richly decorated sleeve. Walking through Madrid's center, you are bedazzled with lit towers, neo-Grecian statues, elaborate balconies, ceramic tiles, and other ornamentation galore. The layout of the streets at first can be a bit bewildering, but this seeming tangle results in frequent oddly shaped plazas where c...

Hello, once again, Blogonauts! When we cobbled together our itinerary, our merry band of travelers had left one night of our Iberian escapade unplanned. When that time arrived on Wednesday, we decided to escape city life for one night before we drove to Spain's biggest metropolis, Madrid. So this idea led us to into the mountains that lie south of Granada, in the Alpujarra region. Clustered beneath Mt. Mulhacen (the tallest peak in the Iberian Peninsula) sit s...

Toby likes the backroads. And since he is serving as our driver, we had the opportunity to follow the road less traveled. The four of us departed Cádiz on Monday and pointed the car toward Granada … obliquely. Along the way we took the scenic route through some of the high mountains of Andalusia, where the hairpin turns and switchbacks were so numerous that we practically met ourselves coming the other way. The views, however, were spectacular. Alon...

Hello again, Blogonauts! On Saturday we bid "Adios!" to Seville and began our cross-country sojourn in our rented Citroën Picasso. Along the way we stopped for lunch in Lebrija, a delightful small town rumored to have several "bodegas." This part of Spain produces copious amounts of sherry, and the bodegas are the warehouses that hold heaping barrels full of aging, fortified wine. They also offer samples to customers for tasting and happily sell bottle...

Hello, Blogonauts! Friday we ogled the unique architecture that help define Andalusian life. Particularly in Seville there exists a virtual kaleidoscope of ceramic tiles. Creators of these colorful showpieces improvised on the Islamic decorative themes left by centuries of Moorish rule. They incorporated the geometric patterns that can be found in their carpets, carvings, and tapestries. Other artists combine the ceramic squares to create larger works of represe...