Last of the Bobadillas

This is the last installment of the Barcelo la Bobadilla nature walk/hotel pictures. I took pictures of EVERYthing this trip! I'm so proud!

There were gorgeous roses all over the place. Their fragrance was utterly fantastic!


If you click on this picture to enlarge it? You'll notice a sizeable windfarm there on the hilltop in the distance. I love all the olive groves that are just everywhere in Andalusia.


More oleander:



And another pretty vista:


Then I saw these. On two different arborvitae-type plants, these odd little pods? I don't know what they are!

Is this where the aliens lay their eggs?!!!


Here was our room from the outside:Looks like it belongs in Bavaria or something!

And last, this was a nice little sitting room. I love that there are water features everywhere in Spain - indoors and out. Notice the pot there on the far left?
This was a theme-logo for the hotel. Kinda cute!

And the view out of the window in this sitting room:So pretty even on a dreary day...

Next, our trip to Granada and the Alhambra! I'm certain you are very excited! : )

Happy weekend!

La Bobadilla Nature Walk

I have no time to spend on this here bloggy today. I have two maintenance jobs to do on two big gardens today and then have to go play on boaty with the hubby! I will take pictures of boaty later, but suffice it to say, she is a beautiful, classic trawler and we love her dearly!

Today we will be exploring the wild, natural beauty that surrounded the awesome hotel we stayed in, the Hotel Barcelo la Bobadilla in Loja, Spain. The second day we were there, it was sort of chilly and misty; perfect for a walk through the lovely grounds...There were all manner of tree, flowering bushes, wild flowers and beautiful vistas:


I love all of the muted tones of yellow and green and then suddenly, there would be a splash of wild color!





This is oleander. Spain is ROTTEN with oleander! It grew everywhere in colors ranging from pink to white to magenta.Gorgeous!

This is a little turtle pond I discovered! It was tucked away in a weird little spot! No one else in our group saw it except me!


Wild poppies. My husband picked some for me, I have them pressed in a book.

Cute little yellow guys. I'm sure this is a weed, but so cute!


Tomorrow we will conclude our Bobadilla nature walk and then off to the Alhambra in Granada!

Adios, muchachos!

Hotel Barcelo la Bobadilla

Just saying the word Bobadilla is fun. Try it! Remember en Espagnol, the two "Ls" together makes a "y" sound; bo-ba-DEE-ya.

I bet we said that word 8 million times on the way there! "Be-ba-bo-be-bo-ba-DEE-ya!" Oh, we just had fun anticipating the whole 5-star hotel experience!

We left on Tuesday last week and drove from Seville to this hotel, using the "smaller roads" as my husband put it. We drove through the countryside as Seville faded away behind us, and saw gorgeous olive groves and sheep and cows and goats and the mountains ahead. It's really pretty countryside, but I don't have any photos of it here because our camera was not fast enough to capture the sites as we were moving along at a pretty good clip.

We make a couple stops, our first one in a small town called Moron de la Frontera. That's the link to a map of Andalusia...It was a very cute little city that sort of just pops up out of the middle of nowhere! We stopped for a cup of cafe con leche at a hopping bar/restaurant and then continued on to Ronda.

Oh, and in those "mountains ahead" on the way to Ronda? Those "smaller roads" my husband was talking about? Those = treacherous, windy, TINY, roads that weave through the mountains! We were all sweating bullets as we climbed up, up, up and then twisty, turny, down, down, down the mountains. Oy vay. I thought we were all going to yack from the scarediness of those roads! Thankfully, it only lasted about 1/2 an hour and the roads FINALLY evened out as we got closer to Ronda!

Ronda is a very neato town with zillions of restaurants and shops. Ronda is unique in that there is a HUGE gorge that runs right along the center of the city:
There are houses and restaurants just teetering on the edge of this ridiculous hole in the Earth, built by these crazy people who think nothing of dangling themselves over this precipice! I was woozy then entire time we were near the gorge. MAN!

Anyway, we had a lovely lunch in Ronda and then continued on our way to the amazing Hotel Barcelo la Bobadilla. Situated on 1000 acres (not a typo!), this former palace has three restaurants, a pool, a spa and the most marvelous landscaping and lobby.

We got there around 5pm, put our bags in our gorgeous room, and then went out to explore the hotel's spa and restaurants! I wasted no time and scheduled a 70-minute pedicure at 5:45! It still looks good! Here are just some of the photos from this ridiculously heavenly place...

Our room:



Not too shabby, right? The bed was to die for. SO comfy.

Here was the view from those windows:

The lobby - in all white marble with a white baby-grand piano over there in the back!

And here are a few pictures of the grounds and pool:



You and 769 of your closest friends can fit into that humungous pool!

Ok...More from la Bobadilla tomorrow...I took myself on a nature walk the second day we were there and I saw many lovely plants and fleurs.

Hasta la vista, baby! : )

Seville part tres

This is the final installment of Seville...I guess I was a bit of a shutterbug when we were there! Oops!

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, we decided to visit the bull ring in Seville, much as I abhor the "sport" of bull-fighting. C'mon people! In the history of bull-fighting in Seville? Only 3 times has the bull "won" and even then? They kill the bull and OFTEN then kill the mother of the bull...

This is NOT a sport. This is playing with your food in a cruel, public way before you eat it. At least they do eat the entire bull after the whole thing is over. Jeez.

In any case, we went to the ring and then to a small museum that was in there. The guide was a very engaging woman who spoke to us in Spanish and then English. Here I a sitting and listening to the guide (the woman in the red skirt and white top on the right):
I was sweat sweat sweating here as it was well into the 90s and there was nary a breeze in the place!



After the bull ring, we walked to a part of town called Triana where my husband lived when he attended college for a semester in Seville. This is the street where he lived:And this was the small restaurant his host family ran when he lived there:

There are a million of these tiny, little restaurant/bars all over Seville. One never goes hungry or thirsty there! This is where we had drinks at night and coffees in the morning; right across from our hotel:

This was the view from the restaurant where we ate lunch in Triana. There is a large river, The Guadalquivir, that runs through Seville, and we ate right next to the river.Isn't it SO pretty? Everything was in bloom and just looked so amazing. And that tall tower on the right? That's the Alcazar where we had been that morning...

Here were a few other pretties I captured while just randomly walking around! A jacaronda tree (these were everywhere in Seville!):

An array of horses and carriage drivers looking for shade!

And just a random, beautiful park, many of these can be found all over Seville:

Next? We move on to the 5-star hotel where we stayed next...Situated on 1000 private acres; this place was like something you might dream about! The marble lobby, the spa, the restaurants, the pool that accommodates 770 people? It was really something else!

Buenas dias, mes amigos! (I have no idea if that's correct!) : )

Seville part dos

We did a LOT in Seville. It's a big city and there's a LOT to see and my husband, as I mentioned, lived there when he was in college. We walked EVERYWHERE...And it was well into the 90s and MAN, were we all exhausted by the end of that first day!

First, we got up and had a lovely breakfast at our hotel, a week ago today. GREAT breakfast with rooms filled with pastries, fruits, yogurts, breads, rolls, eggs, tortillas (spanish omelettes), bacon, juices and fresh water. A feast!

My husband and I also decided to go across the street and get a good cafe con leche here:This is what a typical bar/restaurant looks like in Spain. They are fond of their hanging meats. Mostly it's ham. They specialize in this stuff, they call it jamon. Ham, and of course, olives (or as they call them acetunas). They are not the same kind of olives we have here with the pimento and the saltiness. The olives over there are TO. DIE. FOR. Beyond delicious. Plump and big and green and full of flavor like no olives you've ever had unless you've been to Andalusia. I ordered some yesterday to surprise my husband! Hope they are good!

Anyway, after a giant dose of caffiene, we set off for the Alcazar...A huge-mongous cathedral in the center of Seville. Here are some of the pictures from the outside before we went in:


We ended up going up up up to the top of that tower! It was a hike!

Here are a few photos from the interior...I took a bunch, but they just didn't turn out; it was too dark inside.I included this first one to give an idea of scale. The interior of this place was SO enormous. Almost on the scale of the Vatican if you've been there!




These were some of the views from atop the bell tower:If you click on this first one and zoom in, you'll see the bull ring in there.




More from Seville tomorrow. We visited the bull ring (And, no...There is NO way I would EVER watch a bull fight. They are cruel and horrible. We just went in and learned about the history and why it's such a part of the culture in Spain) and then walked to Triana, the section of Seville where my husband lived.

Hasta manana!