I am exhausted from our week of traveling, but I had an amazing time! We had a week off from school and my roommates and I decided to take advantage of this time to see some places we wanted to see. We flew into Madrid, Spain, stayed there for about a day and a half, took a train to Seville, stayed there for about a day and a half, then took an overnight bus to Lisbon, Portugal, and finally stayed there for about a day and a half. Sounds EXHAUSTING right?! I was definitely tired and getting through some of those walking tours was a struggle on no sleep, but it was one of the best trips I’ve ever taken. Luckily, all of the people I traveled with were of the same mindset and we were the “get up and go” types. Each morning we would wake up early and set out for the entire day. We definitely took advantage of our short stays in each city.
We started out in Madrid on Saturday afternoon. We had left Dublin at 6:30 AM, so upon arriving to our hostel we decided to set out in search of some food. We ate a little tapas restaurant and this was the first of many many tapas stops. In Spain many of the restaurants served tapas exclusively. That day we also explored Madrid’s botanical gardens and the Rena Sofia museum. We went on to explore more of the city. There was so much to see and definitely so many places to eat. We made a late afternoon stop at a famous bakery that serves churros con chocolate. These are basically just fried sticks of dough that you can dip into hot cups of melted chocolate and they are delicious. We ended our marathon day of sight seeing by stopping by the palace to take some pictures. The next day we woke up early to go to El Rastro, the market in Madrid. There were vendors there selling everything from clothes, to handmade jewelry, to plants, to art, and many other things. It was really fun to look around and do some shopping, but we had to keep our purses close because people commonly get pick pocketed in these markets.
We began our journey to Seville a little rushed. We had to take the metro from our hostel to the train station. Because the metro took a little bit longer than we expected, we had to sprint through the train station to make our 1 PM train. We narrowly made it with less than 5 minutes to spare. Seville, Spain was completely different from Madrid, but in a good way in my opinion. While Madrid was huge and gave the impression of a somewhat typical city, Seville was old and had tremendous character. The streets were narrow and lined with cobblestones. The buildings in fact were so close together that if you were in one you could reach across and touch the other. We were blessed with beautiful sunshine so we took advantage straight away right when we got there to explore. We got something to eat (tapas of course) and then went to go see the Plaza de Espa�a,. This was such a grand place with beautiful colors and architecture. Th
ere was water in the middle of the plaza where people could take boat rides. Later that night we decided to see a traditional flamenco show. Flamenco is very prominent in Spanish culture and it was great to see it in person. The next day, we saw the Alcazar in Seville and the Cathedral. This cathedral is the largest in the world! We met up with my roommate’s friend who took as around the University in Seville where she is studying for the semester. She took us to a part of the city where we had not explored yet to a restaurant (you guessed it…tapas). This place was great and away from where tourists normally go. The food was absolutely amazing. In the afternoon we took a walking tour of Seville. Walking tours are absolutely great because they are free and the tour guides know so much about the cities. This tour guide’s name was Juan. He had lived in Seville all his life and had so much to tell about the history and life in Seville. After our tour we had just about enough time to grab some dinner and drinks before departing on our midnight bus to Lisbon Portugal!
I’m not exactly confident how we did not just drop when we arrived to our hostel at 6:30 AM after traveling all night, but since we couldn’t check in until noon we decided to go get breakfast and take the 10 AM walking tour of the city. I could tell right away that I was going to love Lisbon. Lisbon is actually the second oldest city in Europe after Athens in Greece. This is evident in its appearance. On our tour we spent a long time in the old neighborhood of Alfastro, and we stopped by a laundry where many people still come to wash their clothes by hand. The city is on the coast and there are beautiful views from several hills in Lisbon. And to make our tour even greater, there was an older couple from the States who had lived in Lisbon years earlier. The most interesting part about them was that they lived there when Lisbon rebelled against their dictatorship and their government changed. They had great stories to share and a really interesting perspective. After our tour we enjoyed a great late lunch (the tour was 4.5 hours!) before going to watch the Sunset. Later that night we went back to the old neighborhood to get dinner at a little restaurant and listen to Fado. Fado traditional singing and playing on a Portuguese guitar. This was a great experience because the people working at the restaurant were the ones putting on the show. One minute our waitress would be singing, the next minutes the host would get up and sing. It was great. The next morning we had time to explore the market and grab some breakfast before getting on our flight back to Dublin. We got back to Dublin at about 5 PM and boy were we tired.
Now my title above was “3 Countries in 1 Week!” But I have only described 2…That’s because after resting for a day we were back out on the road! We were taking a trip to Northern Ireland with our program. Northern Ireland is still considered part of the UK. Ireland only became independent from Britain about 90 years ago and the 6 counties Northern Ireland remained loyal to Britain. The divisions between the north and south are still salient although they are not as violent as they were for much of the 20th century. We traveled first to Belfast and what first hit me was how British it felt. There were British flags hanging from lampposts and British pubs everywhere. After having lunch, we set out for a Black Cabs Tour. Cab drivers took us around Belfast and gave us the history. We went first to a neighborhood where there are several murals depicting sentiments of the troubles and the conflict between north and south. It hit me that a lot of them had pretty violent undertones. The sad thing is that kids have to walk past these to get to school every day. After seeing the murals we went to see the peace wall. The peace wall divides the Catholic and Protestant sides of Belfast and the gates are still closed at night and on the weekends. After our tour of Belfast we set off for a seaside town called Portrush where we would stay for the weekend. We saw lots of sights around Portrush throughout the weekend like Giant’s Causeway. Giants Causeway was beautiful with really cool rock formations and huge cliffs. One of the cliffs has something called “the organ” because when you are far enough away from it it depicts an organ.
All in all it was a great week! I felt accomplished because one of my most important goals for the semester is to travel as much as possible. Seeing 3 countries in 1 week? I think my goal is being reached.
Location: Dublin, Ireland
4: Main square in Prague
7: Main market square in Krakow, Poland
