Tag: spain
Ideal Accommodations in Porto
Our fall trip to Spain and Portugal allowed us to sample a range of accommodations throughout our nearly three-week exploration. We sampled everything from 3-star Madrid airport-area chain brands (Hotel Nuevo Boston and NH Barajas Airport) to boutique hotels (Hotel Vía Gótica in Burgos, Spain, and Hostal Airas Nunes in Santiago de Compostela, Spain) and fully furnished city apartments (in Porto, Lisbon and Madrid). We paid as little as $52 a night for a very nice, modern business hotel (with a pleasant restaurant on site and meeting facilities as well) on the outskirts of a provincial capital and as much as $115 per night at one of those airport-area hotels, so prices were extremely reasonable.
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Santiago Shopping and Picnicking
One of the features I loved most about every city and town we visited during our trip to Spain and Portugal was the mercados. A few, like Madrid's Mercado de San Miguel, were modernized and updated and drew throngs of tourists more than the everyday citizen shopper. What I most enjoyed, though, were the large neighborhood markets, often housed in cavernous old buildings with nary a decorative element in sight. Their appeal lay in the enormous variety of foodstuffs and beverages on display, with occasional stalls offering household goods or perhaps some artisan's work.
Burgos, Spain
The first day of our road trip through Spain and Portugal ended in Burgos, Spain. Our travel companions, Julie and Paul, had undertaken the Camino de Santiago almost exactly two years prior to our joint trip, and they were eager to share this beautiful city and its UNESCO Heritage-status cathedral they had first visited on their trek through this northern Spanish city.
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L’Ermitage Beverly Hills: A Discreet Hideaway Awaits
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On the Road to Segovia
On the first day of our road trip through Spain and Portugal, we set off from Madrid, seeking to take some of the more lightly traveled roads rather than the major highways on our way to Segovia and then on to Burgos. At first our route took us through a very dry landscape, followed by rural areas featuring some pastureland and acres of sunflower fields, with dry, blackened stalks. Gradually we drew close to mountains, and our road began a steady climb in elevation as pine trees became the predominant vegetation. As we neared the summit of the Guadarrama Mountains, we passed through a ski resort town boasting homes and lodges with a distinctly alpine look and a looming ski slope with idle lifts. Quite a change of scenery in only about an hour's time!