Spring has sprung! With a mild climate for most of the year, plants love Sevilla… if they can survive the intense heat of summer. The city is filled with a huge variety of flowering plants & trees, so the winter blues disappear quickly. While this post isn’t a compendium of all we’ve got blooming now, let it inspire you to stroll the city & enjoy one of nature’s great displays.
Read More »sevilla: spring blossoms
My uncle passed away three months prior to this trip, so the first few days consisted of wrapping up family matters in Iowa. But we’d be close to the state border after scattering my uncle’s ashes, so why not dip down & see what Missouri has to offer? As a kid I’d always just driven through, however we discovered a ton to see, do & eat. The state lived up to its motto & showed us how great Missouri is!
Read More »road trip: show me state
The 1929 Iberoamerican Exposition radically transformed the city of Sevilla, with major projects such a large public park (Parque María Luisa) & the creation of cortas (artificial canals) in the Guadalquivir River. Cortas served several important purposes: shortening the river’s course, providing a means for more rapid water flow & thereby reducing sediment deposit, allowing for better flood control, creating new port facilities & opening new land for development. Although plagued with constant delays, this new infrastructure turned Sevilla into a modern city.
Read More »sevilla: heliópolis
When I moved back to Spain in 2016, I resolved to visit all places near home in Sevilla —big or small— that I’d never had time to see during a work trip. Part of this ambitious plan also included re-visiting places I knew well but felt I needed to explore more… and write trip reports for this blog. Well, that was the plan. Life has a way of making plans go astray so… no time like the present to start.
Read More »spain: sevilla day trips
Why would someone from the southern USA who grew up in a non-religious family decide to write a guide about Catholicism in Lisbon? A good question that begs to be answered…
Read More »writing: catholic heritage, lisbon
Here we go again! As always, I write this for personal reasons, but you’re welcome to revisit the past year with me. Ahhhh, looks can be deceiving. From the above graph, you might think I stayed at home more than last year. Well, kinda but not really…
Read More »year in review: 2018
Countless day trips exist from Sevilla, but larger cities like Córdoba, Cádiz & Jerez get all the press. After moving to Spain in 2016, I’ve started to think of Sevilla as a hub… it’s easy to make the grand city your home base, then explore from there. Smaller, equally important destinations like Écija, Itálica & Carmona lie nearby, all less than a couple of hours away by either bus or train. Rafa wanted to show me around Osuna, so off we went…
Read More »spain: osuna
Situated far from the Metro & far from tourist crowds, the Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira has to be one of the best-kept secrets of Lisbon. Heck, it’s taken me 20 years to get around to visit it! Built in the 1670s, this hunting estate survived the 1755 earthquake & then became the main residence of the Mascarenhas family.
Read More »lisboa: palácio fronteira
Many tourists are told an old, tired tale that Spain & Portugal merely tolerate each other… as if turning their backs to one another at the border. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Read More »discovery: 1929 expo tiles
Last time I updated the entire Rick Steves’ Portugal book, I posted daily comments on Facebook —each one beginning with “Wow, do I love Portugal” & describing fun moments + the ups & downs of being a guidebook researcher. Four years on, I no longer have a Facebook account, but I took a few moments before going to bed each night during this trip to jot down some notes about the day. Here we go again!
Read More »portugal: guidebook research 2018