Spanish Escape

Vacances Scolaries - Toussaint

I had my first two weeks of vacation just three weeks after arriving in France and decided to go visit my now boyfriend in Seville, Spain. For those who don't know, his name is Thomas, he is French and we met back in 2016 when I studied abroad in France. Now, he is working as a tour guide for an art museum in Spain after living for fivemonths in Cuba and becoming fluent in Spanish. I surprised him by arriving five hours ahead of time and signing up for one of his tours for the museum. Thankfully everything worked out perfectly because I was too stressed about plan A to make a plan B.

We spent the first weekend visiting a nearby city called Cadiz. Cadiz is a beautiful small city on the southwest coast of Spain. A tiny peninsula of a city. We stayed there only one night and went hiking in some nearby mountains instead of just staying in the city. Before we returned to Seville for the week, we went to Tarifa hoping to see the African continent. Tarifa is the closest point of Europe to Africa and the southernmost point of Europe. There is only 14.3 km or 8.9 miles between the two continents. Unfortunately for us there was a lot of haze covering Africa that day so we could only make out the outlines of the city and mountains. At night we were able to see city lights though which was also pretty cool.

Unfortunately Thomas had to work during the week in Seville but we explored the city when he wasn't working. We found an American style pizza place that sold pizza by the slice but mostly ate at tapas restaurants. The most amazing thing that we did in Seville was go to the Alcazar! It was very beautiful and the gardens were absolutely stunning. I wouldn't mind having gardens that large at my own house some day.

During my second weekend in Spain before heading back to France, we went to Cordoba which is just East of Seville. The city was mainly focused around its flowered walkways and we lucked out by being there at the same time as a Flower Festival. On the edge of the city near the river we found the local cat hang out with many cute kittens. We also found the best tapas restaurant either of us had ever been to. We learned from that experience that it is definitely worth researching a bit to find the good local spots to eat rather than just walking around a city at dinner time hoping to spot something good.

Although the week in Spain passed by too quickly, I'm extremely thankful and happy that I was able to be reunited with Thomas here in Europe and am excited to see where the future takes us.

P.S. I tried to order the photos by first starting in Seville, then to Cadiz (and the hike we did before going to the city), Tarifa and ending in Cordoba (with the cute stray town cats).