2025 Lunenburg Spain Cultural Journey

Day 3

Audrey – Trip summary

First of all, Spain is beautiful. The landscape is just stunning. Some things I’ve noticed in all of these cities is that there is a lot of smoking and never really any huge stores. They are all tiny markets with different items. Ale-Hop seems to be Spain’s Target as it is everywhere. Also, anywhere a car can fit, a car will probably drive through it. The cars will fit through narrow and crowded streets and are not afraid to hit someone. The food everywhere is just delicious. There was only a few that I refused to eat and it was usually the seafood items, but I’ve never been a fan of seafood anyways.

In Barcelona, there is a lot of artistic pieces. We first visited Parque Guëll which was a beautiful park full of ceramic tiles and a group of houses. Created by Antoni Gaudí, the house on the hill, is privately owned. They wouldn’t give it up even for the government, so it continues to be their summer home. We then stopped at La Sagrada Familia, another building designed by Gaudí. The front is covered in details describing Jesus’ life. The back details describing Jesus’ death. The inside is gorgeous with the stained glass windows and tiny details. The Dalí Museum was about Salvador Dalí, an artist with crazy ideas and paintings. He painted surrealism paintings and made plenty of sculptures. My favorite was the representation of the melting clocks as it’s a classic.

We got to visit Valencia and see Valencia’s beach. It was extremely pretty and the sand was cool to the touch making it a delight to walk around in, unless you got a bunch in your shoe. Which I did. There was some kind of party near the beach which was practically going all night. Along the way, I got a waffle with chocolate and strawberries on it. It was very delightful and made my day. We got some paella, originally made in Valencia, and it was pretty good. After checking out of the hotel, we went to the science museum. My mom and I spent most of our time watching leaf cutter ants and looking through the da Vinci area that we had to quickly walk through the rest of it.

Granada is reminiscent of stereotypical Spain. The buildings looked old but modernized and had a lot of historical background. We visited the Alhambras which means “Red Castle”. It was a palace built by the Muslims when they were in the area and ruled that part of Spain. The gardens were phenomenal and full of life. There were tiny details that had plenty of meaning like Allah being written on the walls and little mistakes because only Allah can make things perfect. Then we took a bus to the caves which we would watch flamenco dancing. The bus ride there was intense and unexpected but we made it. The food in the restaurant was okay. We had the food in previous days and it was better in those restaurants. The flamenco show, however, was spectacular. I do dance myself so this show meant a lot to me and I was floored with how much passion and emotion is put into this dancing style.

Before arriving to Sevilla, we stopped by an olive oil farm and had a tour given by the owner. This had to be my favorite tour as it gave a lot of useful information. We also got ice cream at the end with oil on it and were very tasty. When we finally arrived in Sevilla, we got to go on a tour to the Sevilla cathedral which is the biggest gothic cathedral in the world. The view from the bell tower was phenomenal but it was a trip to get up there. The tomb of Christoper Columbus and his son was there. There was a big alter in the middle where only Spanish royalty and other nobles could get married in. The next day, we got to take a cooking class on how to make Gazpacho and Paella. The Gazpacho here was the best I had. It was creamy and yummy. The paella was also very good and seems easy to make until you do it yourself. Which we did. We then got to go on a cruise across the Guadalquivir river. The water was gorgeous and the view was spectacular.

This Spain trip was extremely fun and I truly learned a lot about Spain and its people. Pictures and words don’t do the place justice and it’s something people should have the chance to see in person. Our guide, Sara, was amazing with the group and truly made the trip the best. I would highly recommend people to take the time and visit Spain.