Well it is true what they say…the south of Spain is hot! On most days it was above 40 degrees Celsius. The whole afternoon siesta thing makes sense, because it's way too hot to do anything. I really enjoyed my tour of the south - Cadiz, Jerez, Sevilla, Granada and Valencia. It was really easy to get around and each city had very unique things to do. In Cadiz it was all about the beach. Apparently it’s the best urban beach in the world. It wasn't bad, but the one in Cap Spartal in Morocco was still better . The actual city of Cadiz doesn't have that much to see, so you can visit it in a day.
After that I headed to Jerez, basically just an overnight stop to see the sherry bodegas. Then I went to Sevilla which was a nice town. The Cathedral there and the Giralda (mosque converted to bell tower by Christians) is definitely worth seeing. I went to a Flamenco museum and the museum at the Bullring. All the stereotypical things you hear about Spain are definitely exaggerated more in the southern province of Andalusia.
In Granada the main attraction is the Alhambra. People buy tickets months in advance to get in. If you want to buy tickets on the day you visit, you have to line up early in the morning (5AM) to ensure you can get in even though the ticket office doesn't open till 8:30. Crazy! Granada is like a ‘tourist Morocco’, because of its huge Arab influences from the 13th century. I had to laugh when I saw the 'markets' they looked similar in design to the Moroccan ones but it was all wrong...things had prices on them, the street didn't smell, there were no donkeys trying to run you over and no cows heads being chopped off.
The grand finale of my summer trip was going to La Tomatina in Bunol. It’s the biggest food fight in the world where you get to throw tomatoes at other people (about 20 000 of them) for one hour. This was intense...an all-out contact sport (I even wore swimming goggles) While it was very theraputic to be smashing fruit, tomatoes in large quantities SMELL REALLY BAD! Needless to say I won't want to eat a tomato for a long while!
Anyways this is my last entry as I am now safely back in Canada. Thanks for reading...that's all folks!
