London, for the summer

We spent the first two months of our summer in London while Mark worked with a bank. What is there to say about London? It is wet (VERY WET) and cold. Therefore, they have some of the most beautiful parks in the world. Out of any large city that I have been to, and this would include New York, Londons parks are the best. Huge and many. I wish I had taken photos of Hampstead Heath, which is my favorite, but you can't really capture it. It is so big and great for running, walking, picnic-ing and it has several playgrounds and pools for kids. If it didn't rain so much I would say London would be a great place to live.


This is Mark at Picadilly Circus.


Eve at St. James Park signing the word bird, there are just a few birds in St. James Park;)


Mark and Eve in front of the gardens beside Buckingham Palace. That place was always packed, and when we first got there it wasn't even opened to the public yet.


Eve strolling down by St.James


Regent's Park. The most beautiful of all the parks, and all the following pictures will show you why.



The Queen Mary's Garden. If we had been there 2 weeks before we would have probably seen it when all of the roses were in bloom.





THese next few are of Eve smelling the flowers at Queen Mary's garden. She would put her face up to them and then say "mmmmm" we didn't realize at first why...





... Then we realized she was pretending to eat them... at least we hope she was just pretending.



These are just random photos that we liked and are of us in London. They are pretty self-explanatory.

San Sebastian, Biriatou, Pamploma, and Zaragoza

We started our road trip with a stop in Zaragoza, were we walked around the main plaza for a bit and then headed on towards Pamploma. Both are nice cities, we like Pamploma better and would suggest to anyone who wants to visit it to visit during the 'Running of the Bulls'; it would definitely add the excitement of the small city.


On each end of the square in Zaragoza, they had two identical fountains. THis meant that Eve had to spend twice as much time checking out fountains. Thankgoodness it was a warm dry day.


Because of the World Expo in Zaragoza, they had built a few new fountains, this was one that looked nice, but was a magnet for little kids and wasn't set up for their safety.


THe Basilica in Zaragoza; you can't tell in this photo but the roof is multi colored. Very cool


At least Tricia was excited to be in Pamploma, even if Eve couldn't care less.


THe streets of Pamploma


THis is the back of our hotel in Biriatou, a small town just on the french side of the Spain/France border. It was perfect. Quite, cheap, clean, nice, with great views.


San Sebastian. We liked how green San Sebastian is. We both agreed that it was the prettiest city in SPain, and the most unique. Different from the dry lands of Barcelona and Madrid.




Eve and Mark shouting hooray that they found another fountain, Eve loves fountains. She would have loved this one more if she could have put her hands in it.

Olive groves

One of the most spectacular terrains in the world is in the Sierra-Nevada area of Spain. Spain is the largest producer of olive oil in the word and the hundreds of miles of olive groves prove it. They are spectacular. the precision that they were built with, the perfect rows upon rows of olive tress is unbelievable at first.

You can drive for hours and only see the fields of olive trees. This was by far our favorite part of Spain. THere is nothing like it anywhere else.



THe town just into the area of Castilla and La Mancha. There was no one on the streets, not one store was open. It was siesta and they must take theirs very seriously.




I also added the Castilla- La Mancha area, Mark is a huge fan of Don Quijote and this is the area that it took place in.
There were a few of the old type of windmills left, but most have been taken down to make way for the new modern windmills.



This would be an M&M we gave Eve. Did they change the whole "melt in your mouth and not in your hand" idea? She was so proud of what she had done.

The Alhambra part I "the views and buildings"

THe Alhambra, a moorish fortress built in the 14th century, is built high on the side of a mountain. When the Moors were defeated by the Christians and forced out it was looted for metal and then left to decay, even as late as the 19th century Napoleon's army tried to blow it up, with little success. It is still one of the best preserved moorish palaces in the world.
These are different shots of the beautiful gardens they have recreated, the buildings they are preserving, and then the fabulous views from either the Alhambra or the Generallife (the royal palace built a small way off for privacy).






This photo is not in the Alhambra, it was taken in the City of Granada. The Alhambra is just outside of the city and we stayed in Granada. Their main street was almost deserted on a Sunday afternoon and we got some great shots of Eve.

This is the entrance to the Alhambra it was lined with Cypress trees and we were lucky to get this shot of Eve walking up the road with out any other tourists, it was busy that day.

The Alhambra part II "the detail"

This place is gorgeous. The detail on the walls is phenomenal; all carved, not painted. and it isn't simply carved as you will be able to tell in some of the photos.


One of the last atriums we went into. The sun was setting and they were rushing us out, but there was so much to take pictures of it was difficult to rush.





Eve and Mark in one of the doorways to one of the many atriums.