La Rioja

Ysios

Posted January 22, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  1 Comment

For my 30th birthday, we planned to rent a car and explore the La Rioja wine region of Spain.  On our way there, we made a stop at a restaurant that I had been at the top of my “someday-if-I’m-lucky” list for years.  Asador Etxebarri, a small country house that is in the middle of …

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Basque Country

Aixerrota Windmill

Posted January 21, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  0 Comments

While we were planning our trip, we both agreed that we wanted to spend part of the trip actually living somewhere instead of hopping to a new city every few days.  We wanted to meet locals, practice a language, make friends, and really get a good feel for a culture.  For the previous six months …

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Sevilla

Sevilla Alcazar

Posted January 8, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  0 Comments

I had visited Sevilla in 2007 when my good friend Connor was living there.  We had such a good time watching Flamenco, exploring the winding streets and doing la marchas (literally “marches”.  Basically a pub crawl from tapas place to tapas place, where you try the speciality at each place) that Sevilla quickly became my …

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Toledo

Closeup of Statues at Toledo Cathedral

Posted January 7, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  0 Comments

The city of Toledo is located about an hour from Madrid by train.  It was once the capital of the Spanish Empire and it had a reputation for having the best sword makers in the world.  The city has a history going back at least to the Roman times.  I had been to the old …

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Madrid

Plaza Mayor, Madrid

Posted January 4, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  0 Comments

Madrid is a fine city and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay there, but like many capitals, I think it does everything pretty well without really doing anything exceptionally.  For example, you can get food from all over Spain there, but none of it will be as good as it would be in the region where …

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Barcelona

Sagrada Familia

Posted January 3, 2013  /   By Adam and Amanda  /  0 Comments

Ah Spain!  The top-notch food, the affordable, delicious wine, the passionate music, the dancing, the hospitality and the general way of life that I experienced during my last two visits here had made it one of my absolute favorite countries.  Amanda and I had been talking about visiting together for several years and we were …

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