Few of Europe’s medieval neighborhoods can have as varied a history as Granada’s hill-climbing Albaicin. Many others share the narrow streets, twisting lanes, hidden courtyards and sudden vistas, but this one is unique, and a UNESCO World…
Air China is launching a new long-distance route from Barcelona to Beijing, with one stop in Vienna, hoping to catch the two big waves of Chinese tourists heading for Europe and Europeans visiting China.
Throughout Andalucia, in Southern Spain, every tour and every site tells some part of a story of conquest and reconquest, of Moors driving out Visigoths, and falling in turn over centuries to Christian kingdoms. And yet, when one of those Christian…
Every place wants to be the “most important,” “most popular,” “most famous,” “most beautiful.” It can’t all be true—but there’s no doubt in my mind our visit today to the Great Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, also called the Mezquita, took us to one of the “most unusual.”
We just spent five days in Seville, walking the city, seeing the sights, taking a day trip to Jerez—and eating tapas. If ever there were a city with a tapas bar on every corner, Seville is it. In fact, maybe two on every corner! Five…
Jerez is known to most people for its namesake wine—sherry—or as a center for Flamenco, but it has another less well-known attraction, its alcazar, originally a Moorish fort and military residence, then the seat of Christian mayors,…
A chicken effigy stands guard in the window of an old house, built into the medieval city wall of Girona, Spain. The university town, which dates to ancient times, tore down most of the city walls in the late 19th-century, but a remaining…
A couple of summers ago in Northern Italy, I suddenly realized that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was far from unique—we were seeing them everywhere, but Pisa obviously had the best publicity agent.
http://www.travelgumbo.com/blog/architecture The fantastic skylight of Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) is a highlight of a building full of highlights. Built at the turn of the 20th century by…
Antonio Gaudi is the most famous of the Catalan modernist architects whose work in the late 1800s and early 1900s gave Barcelona a reputation for innovation and a trove of works that, whatever their original use, are significant tourist sites…
Few of Europe’s medieval neighborhoods can have as varied a history as Granada’s hill-climbing Albaicin. Many others share the narrow streets, twisting lanes, hidden courtyards and sudden vistas, but this one is unique, and a UNESCO World…
Air China is launching a new long-distance route from Barcelona to Beijing, with one stop in Vienna, hoping to catch the two big waves of Chinese tourists heading for Europe and Europeans visiting China.
Throughout Andalucia, in Southern Spain, every tour and every site tells some part of a story of conquest and reconquest, of Moors driving out Visigoths, and falling in turn over centuries to Christian kingdoms. And yet, when one of those Christian…
Every place wants to be the “most important,” “most popular,” “most famous,” “most beautiful.” It can’t all be true—but there’s no doubt in my mind our visit today to the Great Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, also called the Mezquita, took us to one of the “most unusual.”
We just spent five days in Seville, walking the city, seeing the sights, taking a day trip to Jerez—and eating tapas. If ever there were a city with a tapas bar on every corner, Seville is it. In fact, maybe two on every corner! Five…
Jerez is known to most people for its namesake wine—sherry—or as a center for Flamenco, but it has another less well-known attraction, its alcazar, originally a Moorish fort and military residence, then the seat of Christian mayors,…
A chicken effigy stands guard in the window of an old house, built into the medieval city wall of Girona, Spain. The university town, which dates to ancient times, tore down most of the city walls in the late 19th-century, but a remaining…
A couple of summers ago in Northern Italy, I suddenly realized that the Leaning Tower of Pisa was far from unique—we were seeing them everywhere, but Pisa obviously had the best publicity agent.
http://www.travelgumbo.com/blog/architecture The fantastic skylight of Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music) is a highlight of a building full of highlights. Built at the turn of the 20th century by…
Antonio Gaudi is the most famous of the Catalan modernist architects whose work in the late 1800s and early 1900s gave Barcelona a reputation for innovation and a trove of works that, whatever their original use, are significant tourist sites…
