Seville

Before heading home, we took a day trip to Seville with the hope of picking up some ceramics for souvenirs. Since we were hoofing it around the city, we decided to do our sight seeing before we weighed ourselves down.  

Seville Cathedral

Alcazar

We finished touring the Alcazar around noon and figured it would be a good time to grab lunch and start our shopping. However, our lunch went longer than expected, as all of our meals did while we were in Spain, and when we started our shopping we were disappointed to find that all of the artisanal ceramic shops closed for the day after lunch on Saturdays. So, we continued with our sight seeing.

Plaza de Toros de la Maestranza

Plaza de Espana

By the end of the day, the heat got the best of us and we were completely exhausted. We picked up a few knickknacks for souvenirs and then stopped at a pub to enjoy one last glass of sparking wine before catching our train back to Madrid. 

Barcelona

Over the weekend we visited Barcelona. After hearing all of our friend's rave reviews about the city, I couldn't wait to check it out for myself. Here are a few of my favorite photos.

La Sagrada Familia

Park Guell

Casa Batllo

Casa Mila

The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria

El Bulli Exhibit @ the Palau Robert Museum

Barceloneta Beach

Palau de la Musica Catalana Stained Glass Ceiling

The architecture in this city is truly one of a kind and the weekend was a blur of fantastic sights. I would gladly go back for a longer visit since I feel like we barely scratched the surface of Barcelona's fantastic sights. 

Toledo

Toledo is a 30 minute train ride from Madrid. Unfortunately, the train that we wanted was full and it was going to be two hours before we could catch the next one, so we decided to rent a car and drive there ourselves. Luckily traffic wasn't too bad and we made it there in a little over a hour.

The city was full of narrow alleys, beautiful buildings, and ancient history. However, we were forced to admire everything from the outside since we arrived after 7 PM and it was all was closed for the day. After a couple of hours of aimless wandering we decided we had our fill and left to grab dinner before we headed back to Madrid.

As we left the city, we snapped this photo of the landscape. This was my favorite photo of the day's adventure.

Madrid

My colleague and I had the pleasure of calling Madrid "home" for two weeks and we both had a blast. I'm not sure if I could ever adjust to eating such heavy lunches and late dinners on a regular basis, but they say "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" so we adjusted our schedules to fit the local norm.

The local markets are a quite the treat. The fruit, vegetable, fish, and meat displays are beautiful and offer a wide variety items. I took the pleasure of indulging in jamon iberico sandwiches every opportunity that I had and boy o boy were the delicious.

Jamon Iberico @ 

Every day after work, we would try to explore some where new. The Metro was very easy to use and there was a stop conveniently located next to our hotel. For 1.50 Euro a trip, you could essentially get to every place worth going to in Madrid via public transportation.

Palace Real

Plaza Mayor

Palacio de Cristal @ Parque Del Buen Retiro

Caixa Forum

There were a surprising number of dachshunds in Madrid and we would see a different one (short hair, long hair, and wire hair) going on a walk on our way to and from the office. While strolling through the Parque Del Buen Retiro I followed a familiar bark and found my way to this little guy! 

Wirehair Dachshund Swimming @ Parque Del Buen Retiro Pond

He was barking at the ducks in the pond and when they didn't come to him, he decided to jump in the pond to get them. His short little legs couldn't get him to the ducks fast enough and when they would swim away he would return to the pond edge to spring at them again. It was too cute to watch.

Penguins Mate For Life

The gentleman that married MH and me got married himself and we had the honor of attending the wedding. It was a beautiful event at the Rosewood San Hill in Menlo Park with an outside ceremony in the garden and one couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. 

Throughout the ceremony we learned more and more about the bride and groom and early in their relationship they learned that penguins mate for life. Inspired by this fact they had the cutest cake topper. Congrats Mr. & Mrs. K!

Wishlist

I recently found The Long and Short of it All: A Dachshund Dog News Magazine  and it brought my attention to this beauty:

I'll definitely be adding this Ted Baker London 'Sassey - Dog Bobble Matinee' wallet to my wishlist!