Portugal & Spain

Matt just turned 30, and I'm up next month.  To celebrate this milestone, we decided to treat ourselves to a week in Portugal and Spain.  (Oh who am I kidding.  I just love to travel and decided to use our birthdays as another excuse to go somewhere...)

We leave this afternoon (Friday) for Boston.  With a couple of hours to spare there, we might try and sneak in a quick visit with my Friends Angie and Luke?

From there, it's off to the Azores for the weekend -- an archipelago of 9 volcanic islands in the North Atlantic Ocean between the US and Europe.


They're right in the middle of the map above.

The main island of Ponta Delgada, where we will be staying, is only a 4 hour flight from Boston.  We leave around 10pm and land 4 hours later...except it will be 7am there.  Yikes.  Going to have to go on not much sleep I guess!

It doesn't seem like many people I've talked to know about the Azores.  I saw them in a movie once...or so I thought.  There is a scene in Knight & Day (comedy with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz) where they are supposedly in the Azores.  It looked amazing, so I decided I wanted to go there someday.  Turns out, it was actually filmed in Jamaica.  Ha!  Oh well, I still want to go...

There is plenty to do there...mostly hiking and seeing lakes, waterfalls, etc.  Just hoping for some nice weather to get out and enjoy.  Right now, the forecast is for 60's and cloudy with a slight chance of rain. 

Oh, and we're renting a car there.  Could be interesting if they only have manual cars.  I haven't driven one of those in years.  In fact, the last time I did was when I was living in Tahoe...and I let the car roll backwards in to the car behind me at a stop light on a hill.  Woops.  Let's just say some prayers for some automatic cars on the island.

Anyways, on Monday, we fly to Lisbon, Portugal, for two days.  One of those days will be spent traveling to Sintra and Cabo da Roca.  They both look amazing:



Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point in all of Europe



On Wednesday, it's off to Barcelona, Spain, for two days.  We booked a cheap little hotel right off Las Ramblas.  Not a whole lot planned for there, but there is definitely lots to do and see.  We thought we were going to get to see a FC Barcelona soccer game, but the schedule changed and now we're missing it.

On Friday, we fly to Ibiza.  This might be what I am most excited for out of the whole trip.  I hadn't even heard of Ibiza before Matt, but as soon as he told me about it, I knew I had to go there. 

Ibiza

Ibiza is one of the Balearic island in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain.  It is known for it's crazy awesome dance clubs and electronic music.  Sign.  Me. Up.  And as luck would have it, the weekend we are there just happens to be "opening weekend" for a couple of the clubs.  (They close during the winter months.)  We made dinner reservations months in advance to secure entrance to the club afterwards, and bought tickets for another party the next night.  I don't even really know what to expect, but as long as there is loud music (some of the worlds top DJ's play there) and lots of dancing, I'll be pumped.  And if the clubs somehow suck (yea, right) then there are endless beaches all over the island.  (And we're renting a car again...yikes.)

We fly to Madrid on Sunday morning, where we plan to hit up the Sunday flea market El Rastro (one of  the biggest in Europe).  The super chic hotel we booked for the night just happens to be overlooking the best street in all of Spain for tapas, so our evening/night should be covered there.

Monday morning we fly to Dublin where we have a few hour layover.  Maybe we will get out of the airport for a beer or two?  Then home to KC via Chicago. 

Two nights in Azores, two nights in Lisbon, two nights in Barcelona, two nights in Ibiza, one night in Madrid.  Wish us luck! :)

(All of our hotels are supposed to have wifi, so I'll try and update along the way as often as possible!)