The Andalucian Countryside in Spain

For October break (the kids had a week off from school for "half term"), we went to southern Spain.  We flew into Malaga, in Andalucia, and stayed in the countryside in Almogia.  This was my first time in Spain, and I was excited to visit since I had learned Spanish in school (although now that I have been focusing on German for the last year, it was a challenge to get used to the Spanish again!).  Dave speaks good Spanish from his mission, so he was able to adjust pretty quickly.  We learned some new words, however, in Castellano!

We visited the beautiful town of Antequera - a small city with a beautiful Moorish fortress on the hill called the Alcazabar, and of course a bullring downtown.  We ate lunch in the restaurant of the bullring, then had our picture taken in the ring!

We went to Granada to see the famous Alhambra castle.  It was first a Moorish, then a Christian palace, and you can see the amazing architecture of both.

Granada has an interesting history, as it was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to the Catholic kings. Moors from North Africa invaded and inhabited Granada from AD 711. Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, Christian armies worked their way through southern Spain, driving out the Moors.

Granada managed to resist until 1479, when the dynastic marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille proved just too powerful for the Moorish rulers. Ferdinand and Isabella marched on the ckty in 1491 and with the help o an enormout army, held it under siege for seven months. In 1492, the same year that Columbus sailed for the Americas, Boabdil, the last Moorish king, handed over the keys to his beloved city.

After seeing the Alhambra, we drove into the city of Granada - literally right through the city in our minivan! We didn't intend to drive right through the center, but without a GPS (there were none available from the rental car company) we had a bit of an adventure! I must say that the cars are quite a bit more "dinged up" in Spain than they are in Switzerland (but Dave made it through Granada without any new scratches on ours). We saw the gypsy caves in the Sacromonte district of Granada, which was really interesting.

We went to the beach in Torremolinos, near Malaga, and had a great time. We ate paella and other traditional Spanish food for lunch, then spent the afternoon in the water.

We stopped at a Lobo (wolf) Park and had a guided tour.  We even got to hear the wolf packs howl before we left!

It was fun to see the countryside of Andalucia, and the "white towns" were really striking and beautiful. But, my favorite part of the trip was our next stop - Sevilla.

Elise's Soccer Team

Before the weather got too cold, Elise's soccer team had a chance to play a match in early October against the other big international school in Zurich. Elise's team won, 3-2!

Lauterbrunnen & Schilthorn

After going up Mount Pilatus, we stayed in a beautiful little town called Lauterbrunnen, just up the mountain from Interlaken.  It is a magical town, with a big waterfall, Stabbauch Falls, which we could see from the window and balcony of our hotel rooms at Hotel Staubbach!  We had a nice time at this little hotel.  We took the cable car and then a train up to Mürren, a car-free town that was really special.  There's something very unique (and peaceful) about a place with no  cars!  And it's much easier to travel with little kids in a place where you don't have to worry about them stepping into the street.

Since it was another beautiful day and we were so close, we decided to take the gondola up to the Schilthorn.  I must say this was, hands down, the scariest experience of my life!  As we started up, we could see the grassy hillside below us, and everything was fine.  But, as we came to the crest of the hill, we kept going up and below us was a huge gorge.  We were so high!  I found out once we were at the top that this is the longest aerial cableway in the world!  We stopped at a huge cliff jutting out, just long enough to get off and change to the next cablecar.  This one was just as bad.  I cannot believe they could even build the cablecar stops into this huge rock!  Once I saw how high we were, I really couldn't look at the window anymore.  And, it didn't help that the boys felt free to lean against the windows!

Once we were at the top, it was really spectacular.  The view was incredible, and we ate in a revolving restaurant at the top.  It was a pretty unique experience.  Aside from its majestic views, this peak is popular because scenes from the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service were shot here.  There's a little museum at the top that shows some of the clips from that movie.

I must say that the way down was not nearly as scary (or maybe I'd just gotten a little braver).  If you want to visit the Schilthorn when you come see us, I'll give you directions, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it again!

Mount Pilatus

The first weekend in October, we took a trip to central Switzerland.  We wanted to go up some peaks before winter comes - and we had absolutely perfect weather that weekend!  Just south of Lucerne, we stopped at Alpnachstadt to take the cog railway train up to Mount Pilatus.  It runs at a 48% grade, the steepest cog railway in the world!

Mount Pilatus gets its name from an old legend in medieval times, saying that the city fathers of Lucerne banned travel up the mountain because they thought that its slopes were haunted by the ghost of Pontius Pilate.  They thought Pilate would be angered by intrusive visitors and cause violent storms.  For many years after the ban was lifted, only a few people were brave enough to climb the mountain.  Queen Victoria made the trip in 1868.  Today it is one of the most popular excursions in Switzerland.

   

 

You can go down the other side of the mountain on a cable car.  Much too steep for me (little did I know what was coming the next day!).

We had some amazing views, lunch, nice family photo ops, Nathan got to feed and chase some birds, and we even got to meet an Alphorn musician.  He was a really friendly man (letting the kids get a very close-up look).