Christmas Vacation

What a wonderful holiday planned completely by my wonderful sister! She planned a lovely holiday and I enjoyed every place!

First stop was Madrid.. we spent four nights here, including Christmas eve!  Madrid was very busy and we had a hostal right in the middle of all the action- it was perfect! We explored the palace, drank lots of Sangria, went on a Christmas light tour of Madrid, went ice skating and ate churros! It was a great start to the trip!! Christmas didn't feel like Christmas at all but it was neat to explore a new city, one that is so famous!

YUM

On top of the Church

SO HAPPY

On Christmas morning, we took a 2.5 hour train to Seville, also in Spain. Seville was still extremely busy but had a nicer feel to it! Seville was my favourite place in Spain. We spent two nights here, ate lots of cheese, drank lots of Sangria, shopped, went skating again, went to see a traditional Flamenco show and wandered around through the big square. I loved Seville. 

The best Christmas lunch ever.

Skating with palm trees

So pretty

At the flamenco show.

After Seville, we took a 4 hour bus ride to Albufeira, my favourite place of the whole trip! We spent two nights here. It is in Portugal and right on the beach and I was very happy. It is more of a resort town but since it was off season it was fairly quiet around town. We stayed in a lovely hotel, not a traditional European hotel. I felt very comfortable and was so happy to spend one full day relaxing by the ocean. We drank pina coladas, walked along the beach, explored town, read our books and wrote postcards on rocks looking over the ocean. It was so nice to have a bit of down time as the rest of the trip had been more sightseeing.

So peaceful.

Our last stop on our trip was Lisbon, where we spent three nights! It was about a three hour train ride to get there and is the capital of Portugal. We spent one day exploring the sights of London, one night celebrating my sisters birthday and one day in the town of Sintra which was my second favourite day of the whole trip- we hiked for a LONG way completely uphill but the views were worth it. We celebrated New years in the biggest square in Europe which Portuguese singers and fireworks! Our plane back home left at 8 am the next morning so we didn't really sleep at all. We left the hotel around 4 to try and catch a cab... next to impossible... We waited in a line about 50 people long that wasn't moving, all people trying to get home from the big party. We started to panic a bit and decided to start walking in the direction of the airport anyways even though it was a 6 km + walk and we had no idea really where it was. AND our bags were very heavy. We managed to only walk about 10 minutes and saw a free cab coming back into the city and we caught that to the airport. It was a stressful situation to deal with on no sleep but we made it! 

Lisbon

Sintra, we climbed to the top of the castle.

See that castle in the far far far distance... we hiked that. 

new years wouldn't be complete without ears and a wand.

Happy New Year from Portugal. 

This completes our trip- it was so much fun to see new places and spend time with my sister! I was happy to be back in Camberley and anxious to get ready for the start of term and see my friends here but I really enjoyed the break from teaching life.