Dave & Dana in Australia

I left Dave in London and headed for the hills - literally.  While Dave was attending his 4 day conference, I was hiking in the Sierra Nevadas.  I stayed in the most beautiful mountain village called Capileira, a white-washed jewel nestled in the beautiful Poqueira Valley.  I spent a few hours each day walking in the area and the rest relaxing with a glass of wine and my book in the main square, taking siestas, and eating THE BEST cured ham ever (if you’ve ever tried Trevelez Ham - that’s from one town over from where I was staying - you’ll know what I mean)

After 4 days in the rural countryside, I picked Dave up from the airport and we spent the next two days in Granada.  Granada is a fabulous city full of wonderful spanish and moorish architecture, great restaurants and tea houses, and a lively student population.  We visited the massive Cathedral, the colourful Monasterio de San Jeronimo, the Banos Arabes El Banuelo (an 11th century islamic bathouse), and wandered around the Albayzin, the islamic quarter, a maze of steep winding streets on one of the hills in Granada with fabulous views of the most impressive sight in Granada - the Alhambra.  The Alhambra is a massive complex, part fortress and part castle perched on a steep hill that has been added to over the generations by various Emirs and Catholic Monarchs.  Inside you’ll find the Generalife (gardens), the Nasrid Palace, the Alcazaba (citadel), and the Palacio de Carlos V.  It’s impossible to describe the impressively decorated Nasrid Palace - the intricately-sculpted stucco walls, the tilework, the use of flowing water and fountains - you really have to see it to believe it.  As impressive is the Generalife - a massive, meticulously planned garden using pathways, patios, pools, fountains, trimmed hedges and heaps of colourful flowers.  It was amazing.

We then made our way to Cordoba, stopping for an excellent lunch at Priego de Cordoba, a small country town perched on a mountainside as well as Zuheros, an even smaller town perched on an even steeper mountainside.

We stayed in the Juderia (the Jewish quarter), a maze of narrow streets and small squares, white-washed buildings with flowers in window boxes and plant-filled patios.  It was a fantastic area for strolling with no particular destination in mind - eventually you would end up in a plaza for a copa de Rioja (glass of wine from the Rioja region) or a cerveza and some tapas. 

Cordoba was once the royal court of Al-Andalus (Muslim territories in Iberia) and one of the most impressive buildings in Andalucia is the Mezquita (Mosque) in Cordoba.  In the 16th century the Catholics built a cathedral right in the middle (yes, inside!) the Mosque. 

Next stop was Seville, the capital of Andalucia.  A much larger, more cosmopolitan city than either Granada or Cordoba but we still managed to find a fabulously small and windy maze in the Barrio de Santa Cruz where our apartment was located.

Two of Seville’s most impressive sights are the Alcazar and the Cathedral.  The Alcazar is Seville’s Alhambra, although on a smaller scale.  Seville’s Cathedral is an immense cavern of a church, and one of the biggest cathedrals in the world.  While we were there they had a third of the cathedral closed for renovations but we hardly noticed. 

A highlight of our trip was a flamenco show we attended while in Seville.  Flamenco includes singing, dancing and guitar, and the show was incredible.  The intensity of the performers was mind blowing.

We left Seville for the “Villas Blancos” - the white-washed rural villages of the mountainous interior straddling Cadiz and Malaga Provinces.  We stayed in the hilltop town of Ronda, dramatically located at the edge of El Tajo gorge and one of Spain’s oldest towns.  It is also the home of bullfighting, and attracted many of the Romantics of the 19th century as well as an array of 20th century artists and writers like Andexandre Dumas, Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles.  We also visited Zahara and Grazalema, two other mountain villages in the area.

We had an absolutely fabulous time exploring this incredible part of the country - it is so full of history, beautiful architecture, amazing scenery, fantastic food, and passionate people.  We wish we could have stayed longer as we really only scratched the surface. Reluctantly we said goodbye to the Andalucian lifestyle we had adopted and tried to muster the resolve we were going to need for the 35 hour flight home.  

Next stop, London.  We had the weekend to ourselves before Dave needed to be at the conference and I moved on to Spain.  We’d done most of the tourist stuff previously, so decided to take a boat down the Thames to Greenwich.  It was a beautiful sunny day (blue skies!) and a fantastic way to get an overview of the major sights along the Thames.

Greenwich is very pretty, now part of London’s urban sprawl but at one point was a seperate town down the river and today maintains a village-like feel.  Of course one of the main attractions here is the Royal Greenwich Observatory where the Prime Meridian passes through.  There’s also an excellent market on weekends, a maritime museum and (currently a bit burned and under restoration) the Cutty Sark.

The other attraction we didn’t do last time (lines were too long) was the London Eye.  We arrived early enough the following morning to get straight on.  The views from this wheel - the highest ferris wheel in the world - are amazing.

We also took in the Dali and Picasso exhibit at the County Hall Gallery, strolled around Covent Garden & Soho and ate some pretty decent Indian food.  We also went to a Premier League football match, watching Fulham draw 3-3 with Manchester City at Craven Cottage.  David even caught a ball that was kicked into touch and threw it back to the awaiting player.  All in all a good two day excursion.

It’s 5am and I’m still jetlagged from our most recent trip so I thought I’d use these early hours to update the blog.  Dave is still asleep having experienced no after-effects of the 40 hours it took to fly home.  I could say something here but I’m not going to…

This unexpected trip came about as a result of a conference Dave attended in London.  For a flight that long Mercer employees travel business class, however, you are able to turn your business class ticket into 2 economy tickets and bring the spouse if you choose.  So we decided to tack on an extra week of vacation days and make a real trip out of it.  The trip was extended even further when Dave was asked to attend some meetings in Hong Kong prior to the London conference, so all up we were away for about 3 weeks.

I’d previously been to Hong Kong, but this was David’s first visit.  I’d tried to describe the pollution you encounter when in Asia, but words are meaningless if you’ve never encountered pollution on any sort of major scale before.  Needless to say he was dumbstruck.  Our hotel was on Hong Kong island side right next to the waterfront, but Kowloon across the harbour was nowhere to be found.  Our cablecar trip up to the Peak for a “bird’s eye view” of Hong Kong also yielded little.  It was like soup. 

Even so, Hong Kong was a lot of fun for the both of us.  David met with some pretty interesting folks during the two days of meetings, and was able to spend time with some Aussies he used to work with in Sydney who are now in Hong Kong.  While he was doing work stuff, I was left on my own to explore.  The first time I was in Hong Kong I didn’t get to the Bird Market, so that was on my agenda for this trip.  It was amazing how many birds were for sale, and the market itself was very serene, bounded by gardens and courtyards.  The other item on the agenda was to ride the Travelator from bottom to top.  The Travelator is an outdoor escalator (one way - Up!) that climbs halfway up the mountain so people who live in the “Mid-Levels” can get back to their apartments in the evening.  It took a good 40 minutes to get to the end, and then I had to walk back down again! 

The following day I took a ferry to Lantau Island, one of the many islands in the area although this one has a particularly large Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery.  The Buddha was impressive and the monastery very pretty.  Lantau Island is very lush and green and would have been beautiful had the skies been clear.  I also visited Tai O, one of the last places in Hong Kong that still has the traditional stilt housing of southern Chinese fishing villages.  There were signs pointing to a Shaolin Kung Fu temple so I decided to follow them - about 15 minutes later I was fairly far away from the main drag, no one around, and unfortunately for me when I arrived at the entrance to the temple I was met by 4 very large, very unfriendly dogs who did not want me to come in.  I turned around in one fluid movement and started walking away, only to meet two more rather unfriendly dogs coming at me from the other direction.  I escaped unharmed, but rather shaken.