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Showing posts from 2014

Morocco-Gilbraltar-Spain overland, part 2

This is part 2 of our epic trip from Morocco to Barcelona via Gibraltar and Andalusia. After 3 busy days, trekking through Morocco and Gibraltar our next destination was Granada, which did not disappoint. We were so happy to enjoy the wonderful Spanish tapas and the ice cream shops. We let the kids enjoy several ice creams on that day for all the great traveling and walking they had done (although they had all napped in the car on the way to Granada; we found during the trip that car rides were nice breaks for them). We spent the first evening just enjoying walking around the city. The next morning, we had tickets to go visit the Alhambra (book tickets in advance!). It was busy but the ticket scheduled helped a lot. We enjoyed the tour and the kids had fun observing all the decorations. By the afternoon, we were ready to move to our next destination, Cordoba. When we arrived in Cordoba, we all felt exhausted (parents didn't get to nap in the car!) and it was really hot, so we deci

Morocco-Gilbraltar-Spain overland, part 1

July 10, 2014 was our 10th wedding anniversary, and we were eager to celebrate this big milestone with our family. As we had wonderful memories of the city we met at (Barcelona) and our families would have to travel from parts of France and Germany for the gathering anyways, we decided to celebrate the big day in Barcelona. Once this was settled, the next question was: how do we get from California to Barcelona and what else could we visit in the area, to make it worth the trip? We had talked about visiting Andalusia for a while, and this seemed close enough to our final destination. So we quickly decided to add Andalusia to the trip. However, we found out soon that the journey to get from SFO to Sevilla was not that simple. It required at least 2 layovers, and significant time on the road. By the time we would reach our final destination we would have spent 2 days in transit! That's when we looked at the map once more and realized that we could fly into Casablanca (much more time

The Yucatan Peninsula- Exploring Mayan ruins and cenotes

We spent a week of our Christmas holidays (and a few days due to unexpected flight cancellations!) in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. We had a great time, although we encountered some lousy weather toward the end of our trip. It was one of these trips where we had to improvise! As typical for us, we moved around a few times during the week and got to enjoy different sights of the Yucatan Peninsula. We started in Cancun, where we arrived on a late afternoon. We spent the night at a standard beach hotel called Hotel Calypso which was OK for one night. It had the benefit of being easy access to a local Mexican restaurant, nice for late dinner. In the next morning, after waking up early because of jetlag, we were able to enjoy a quick walk to the beach and a swim in the hotel pool. Kids were happy to test their new snorkel gear in preparation for the cenotes. By mid-day, we made our way to Tulum. We had booked late in the season, so we couldn't find good accommodation in the beach ho