Lori's Travels

Today we spent several hours enjoying the Monterey Bay Aquarium. After breakfast at the hotel, we drove to a downtown Monterey parking garage and got on the free electric trolley that does a circuit around to various tourist destinations. It dropped us off at the waterfront aquarium around 10:30 am. We enjoyed seeing this world class aquarium, including the awesomely large open sea exhibit, where it was feeding time for the dorado (mahi mahi), rays, Pacific sunfish (mola mola), hammerhead sharks, yellowfin tuna, and sardines. All of the exhibits are very well done. We saw various jellies, octopus, cuttlefish, huge tanks of living kelp with associated fish, and cute sea otters. On the deck overlooking Monterey Bay, we also saw a wild sea otter eating a crab, a couple of sunning harbor seals, and a few different birds.

After seeing all the exhibits, we went into the auditorium to watch two short video talks on great white sharks and sea otters, both very interesting.

We emerged into the sunshine about 2:30 and walked along Cannery Row a short ways before seeing a lunch spot. We had a pleasant lunch of burgers, salads, and ice tea. Back out into the sunshine to admire the view and wait for the trolley back to the car. I didn’t take any photos inside the aquarium, but here are some from Cannery Row.

 After returning to the hotel, I went for a walk around a small lake adjacent to the hotel. There were some fancy cars at the hotel because of a car exposition starting later in the week. 

 

 

The fog burned off early this morning in Monterey. By the time we ate the Embassy Suites’ free breakfast, it was sunny. Unfortunately, Caroline wasn’t feeling well due to a cold and decided to stay at the hotel for the day. The rest of us left before 10:00, picked up some picnic food at a nearby Safeway, and then drove south along the coast via Hwy 1. We made several stops at viewpoints along the way. It was a gorgeous drive.

 We were lucky to have such great weather. We also were fortunate to get a parking spot inside popular Point Lobos Park on the way back to Monterey in the afternoon. We hiked around the cypress grove loop trail, seeing rocks offshore with sea lions and pelicans. We even saw two otters floating on their backs in a quiet cove in a patch of kelp. We returned to the hotel about 4:30 in the afternoon.

 

 

 

I joined Gary, Emma, Matt, and Caroline in Monterey today, flying down to San Francisco in the morning and driving a rented car from there to Monterey. After eating lunch in a small cafe in Pacific Grove, we drove along the famous 17 Mile Drive in the sunshine. We ended up in Carmel, where we stopped for coffee.

 

 

 

 

It’s Wednesday, my last day in Spain, and it’s raining. The first day of bad weather I’ve had the whole trip. 

I checked out of my Seville room this morning and ate the hotel breakfast while I waited for my taxi to the train station. The El Rey Moro hotel has been excellent: it’s in a convenient (if you don’t have a car) and amazing old town location, provided a great breakfast, and the staff have been very helpful and speak excellent English. I highly recommend it to others visiting Seville.

My taxi driver came to the lobby after parking on the nearest drivable street, which is a two-minute walk from the hotel. We walked back to the cab in the rain. The drive to the station took about 10 minutes. The station isn’t too big, so it was easy to check the reader board and find the right platform. I joined the others walking toward our high-speed train destined for Madrid. We put our baggage through an x-ray machine on the platform, had our tickets checked, then walked on board.

My train car wasn’t full, and my seat was by itself on the right side of the train. There were also a pair of seats on the other side of the aisle. After the train got started at 9:45, we were served breakfast. My second breakfast. An omelet in tomato sauce, a croissant, a yogurt drink, and choice of other beverages. Notice all the silverware I was provided – 6 pieces!

I didn’t take any pictures through the train windows because they were rain splattered and it’s really hard to get the scene you want when the train moves so fast. But we traveled through orange and olive groves, as well as fields of green “grass” that might have been wheat. We made short stops in Cordoba and a couple of smaller cities before arriving in Madrid at 12:20. It was a speedy, smooth and enjoyable trip.

Before I left the Madrid Atocha train station, I wanted to find the garden that was planted in the older part of the station. There weren’t any signs I could find, so I had to ask directions from one of the station security guards. I finally found it.

In the train station, there was a Metro subway station too, so I pulled out my Madrid subway card and navigated via three different subway lines to reach my hotel near the airport. It’s the same hotel I stayed in before the birding trip began, so I knew how to get there. But I have a different and slightly bigger room this time. It wasn’t raining when I walked from the subway station to the hotel, but I was lucky because it started raining and thundering just a few minutes after I reached the room. 

Tomorrow morning, I’ll take a taxi to the airport for my flight to Atlanta and then on to Seattle. It’s been a wonderful vacation and I really hope to be able to visit Spain again. But I’m very glad to be heading home now.

 

Today was my day to tour the Alcazar, Seville’s palace with a history of more than a thousand years. The day dawned cloudy with a morning temperature in the 50s. After breakfast in the hotel, I went to the meeting point at 9:15 a.m. for the tour I had reserved yesterday. Surprisingly, I was the only person signed up for that time with this particular tour company, so I had the guide to myself. Maria spoke excellent English, learned in Bristol, England and from cousins who live in California. With her as a guide, we skipped the long line of tourists waiting to buy tickets and went in shortly after the Alcazar opened at 9:30.

The history of the place is amazing and much too long and complex to talk about in my blog. But it involved the Romans, Vizgoths, Vikings, Moors, Jews, and then the Christian kings of Castile. It was the place where Christopher Columbus received the Spanish king and queen’s permission to explore. And it received much of the riches found in the Americas. Today it remains a second residence for the current Spanish royal family. The tour took 1.5 hours, with Maria expaining lots of history as we walked through the enormous labyrinth of a palace. There is a very large garden attached too, complete with peacocks. At the end of the tour, Maria left me there, after explaining how to find my way out when I was done exploring.

After nearly 3 hours at the Alcazar, I found my way out of the labyrinth of rooms and gardens and walked back to the hotel for a short break and a little souvenir shopping nearby. Then I walked to the river in a light shower – the first rain I’ve experienced in Spain. At the river, I paid for a short cruise and immediately got on the boat. It was still raining lightly, so it was nice to be inside the boat. It cruised up and down the Guadalquivir, which is more of a canal, for an hour with short automated narration in several different languages. The cruise and scenery weren’t that great, but it was a nice break in a dry spot.

After the cruise, I picked up a savory pastry in a small “take away” shop near my hotel and had that for lunch. It was pizza flavored, so was a little like a calzone.

Tonight after dinner, I’ll pack my bags once again, getting ready to leave Seville in the morning.