Travelog for: Graham

Hi mommies,
Don't think that I forgot, my hosts just haven't been able to help me write this travelog until today, but I remembered very well:
Happy Mothers' day! Here in Spain it is celebrated a week earlier, but I remembered you very much while we visited:
Seville!


I got distracted in this picture, but here I am with the Giralda, which is right now the Cathedral's bell tower but was built as the minaret for the mosque in the XII century:


This is the side of the Cathedral:

It is huge!, in fact it is the third biggest church in the World.

I really liked this view, the cubic tree, the large pedestrian street with trolley car tracks and the weird building on the right:


Right beside this is the City Hall:





There are many churches all throughout the city:


And look at this weird structure!

It is called Metropol Parasol and is a wooden structure made to look like giant mushrooms, which some say that is the largest wooden structure of the World!
The view from above is beautiful!



And finally, right beside the river Guadalquivir I saw the Torre del Oro:


It was a very sunny and hot day, but I was very happy to get to know Seville!

Cheers,
Graham

Hi mommies!
This week is Granada's Fair week! So we went to the city's fairgrounds.
There were many people in very beautiful horse carriages and typical dresses.

There are many places to eat, dance flamenco, listen to live music:

And there are also many mechanical attractions


It was rather fun and festive!

Cheers,
Graham

Hi mommies,
Today was the Tarasca's parade here in Granada. This is a very important part of the Corpus Christi celebrations.

The Tarasca is a symbol of beauty winning against the ugliness. To symbolize this, a mannequin is dressed by a designer with a dress that is supposed to set the fashion trend for the next season. A professional also  puts on her make up every year.
So here she is on top of the dragon that symbolizes the ugliness:


The whole parade is very festive, several bands play music and people dressed up with big heads (or "cabezones") go around bumping the little kids of the public in the head with an air balloon.


Since we were in the city center we went to see another famous Granada Corpus Christi tradition, the Carocas, these are drawings accompanied by a funny verse that is related to some news of the year.
This one is of a paraglider that got stuck in some power lines:


Afterwards we went to the Casa de los tiros, which used to be part of a defensive wall protecting the city. It's called that way due to the rifles that still stick out the upper floor windows.



Look, inside was an old version of the Tarasca's dragon from the early 1900s.:


And to end it all, here's a very pretty view of the Alhambra:


Love,
Graham

Hello mommies,
Today we went back to the Alhambra!
As you can see it has many beautiful ponds and gardens:


This part is the Patio de la Acequía in the Generalife, which was the summer house of the sultans and kings:



And legend says that in this patio, in the XV century, a member of the Abencerrages family was seen having an affair with a member of the Royal Family, with that tree in the background being the only witness to the true identity of the lover.

Since only the family was identified all of the main members of the clan were killed in the Sala de Abencerrajes.
Here's the same patio as seen from above with me and my Toy Voyager friends:


The hand rails of these stairs have water running through them, they're very relaxing.


And this is a view of the Patio de la Acequía from above:


This is a doorway inside the seven floors tower, which is normally closed to public access but it was open this month.


Inside we saw some old dungeons:


So many beautiful gardens all around!


The place is filled with beautiful Arab architecture:


Besides the many pretty palaces and gardens, the Alhambra was a very well built military stronghold:


Here you can see the interior of the military section of the Alhambra, known as the Alcazaba:


Here I am with my friends enjoying a little rest in the sunlight with a view of the Albaycín


The view of the city center from there is beautiful:


And of course of the Albaycín:


We climbed to the highest building in the Alhambra and Granada, the Torre de la Vela:

In case you're wondering those are: the EU, Andalucía, Spain and Granada flags from left to right.

This is the Alcazaba from above:


The Justice door is a very big and heavily fortified entry into the Alhambra:


And finally the Pillar of Carlos V, this is a fountain built in the XVI century and that is somewhat hidden.


The Alhambra is amazing!
Love,
Graham

Hi mommies,
Guess what?
I'm on the road:

Or should I say on the air?
Here I am in the Málaga airport:

Any ideas were I'm headed off to?
Love,
Graham

Hi mommies,
If you guessed that I was going to an archipielago in the coast of Africa, you were right!
Here I am leaving the Tenerife Norte airport:

And here I am with my friends getting ready to get into a salt-water pool:

The views in the island are amazing!
And the sea is cristal clear.

Love,
Graham

Hello mommies!
Check out how cute I look with my good friends:

We went out on a night to the city center, here we are at 100 montaditos pub:

It's a very nice franchise here in Spain were you can eat a large variety of small sandwiches for very little money.

And here's a pretty colonial style church:


We walked by the port:


I'm a bit scared of Charly though, sometimes he smells me and says "mmm, chicken":


But I'm ok, here I'm going to take the tram:


We got to seat behind all the controls:


It was a fun night out,
Love,
Graham.

Hello mommies,
Today we went to a very nice salt water pool called Parque Maritimo, it was very relaxing:

The park is very large and beautiful and was designed by an architect  called Cesar Manrique.
A lot of people were having fun and enjoying the water and Sun.

And from the park you could see a beautiful theater designed by famous Spanish architect Calatrava. Also a small black castle and the beautiful crystal clear waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

We had a very fun day at the pool.
Love,
Graham

Hello mommies!
Here I am back in the Tenerife North airport... and about to get into this airplane you see behind me:

It's one of the airplanes of the local airline called Binter, and it took us to La Palma!

We wanted to go very early in the morning to see the sunrise from the highest peak in the Island which is called Roque de los Muchachos:


Like all the peaks in the Canary Islands, they're dormant volcanoes, here you can see the crater during sunrise:


This mountain is home to many of the best telescopes in the World!, look how beautiful they look above the clouds during the sunrise:


And the air was so clear that you could see the shadow of the mountain on the clouds!

It was amazing how perfectly triangular the shape was.

After the sunrise we went to see some of the telescopes close up.
Here on the far right is the biggest optical telescope in the World!, the GTC:


And these big mirrors out in the open are called the MAGIC telescopes, they look for very high energy astronomical events:


Being above the clouds was very nice, and everything was very quiet. Simply amazing.


On the way down we stopped several times to see the island, it was very beautiful.


Here's a view of the main city, the port and on the background the airport.


What an amazing day this was!
Love,
Graham.

Hello mommies,
Today we went to another pool park, this one called Lago Martianez.
It is also a very large salt water pool designed by Cesar Manrique that uses volcanic rocks.

It's very nice to relax here in Tenerife with so many pools and beaches.

The park had many sculptures including these dried up tree trunks.

Love,
Graham

Today we went to the Nature and Man museum in Santa Cruz where they had a beach themed cafeteria indoors:


There was a room with drawers for many insects and specially butterflies from around the world, look at the beautiful wings they have:


When we left we took a picture in front of the Concepcion Parish:


Love,
Graham

Today we went to the Teresitas beach:

It's a beautiful beach with white soft sand brought from the Sahara desert:

The water was crystal clear and very refreshing. And the scenery of the mountains and small boats was beautiful.
Love,
Graham

Today we went around the whole island!
To start we went to the Roque de Garachico:

It is a small island that is a bird sanctuary were several protected species live and some migratory birds also stop by.


Then we went to the Punta Teno lighthouse, which is the westernmost point in the island.
To the left you can faintly see the Gomera island.


The water sea here in Tenerife is beautiful:

Afterwards we drove through the mountains and arrived to a small town called Santiago del Teide:

Apparently they had their local festivities during these days which are related to the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage.


Then we went to the Costa Adeje where there are many large beaches and resorts:

It was very touristy.

Finally we stopped by the Cathedral of La Candelaria:


Where there are very large statues of the 9 Menceyes (or kings) that ruled the islands by the time the Spaniards invaded them.


We had a very fun day today and saw many places around the island.

Love,
Graham

Today we made way to the highest mountain in Spain: The Teide volcano!.
Here we are with the Teide on the background as well as the La Palma island:



After going through a dense pine forest we came into a desert that looked very much like the surface of Mars!

In fact they use this area to test robots that NASA and ESA will send to the Red Planet!.

We stopped for a drink, it is very important to drink a lot of fluids here in the desert, and the view was like that of an American cowboys movie.


Look at the weird structures the rocks make here:

Love,
Graham

Hello mommies,
Today we got to ride in a submarine, and it was a yellow submarine!:

It was amazing and we got a big window all to ourselves. Here we are just below the sea level waiting to go down


Here I am at 30 meters below sea level:


We saw many fishes of many different types, even several stingrays.
They also explained to us that the red light from sunlight does not reach so far down, so that's why everything looked so blue and both my skin and eyes look green while my beak looks a lot darker than normal.

It was absolutely amazing!
Love,
Graham