Sarah & Mum Adventures - Spain and France Part One

The moment that I decided to move to Madrid my mum was immediately looking up flights so that she could come over and visit. I mean what a better excuse than her daughter being there. Mum loves to travel and explore new places just as much as I do, so it also just made sense. Come December of 2014, and I was beginning to plan our trip, consistently sending ideas and thoughts to mum. I love planning, especially trip. Eventually, we came up with a bit of a plan, flights were booked, and I was lying sleeplessly in bed waiting to get on the train to Madrid Barajas International Airport to meet her. 

 But a massive thunderstorm over Dubai meant that is was another sleep before I could meet her. Her flight was delayed. Which I only knew because she messaged me from the airport, the flight tracker I was following didn’t tell me anything. So if she hadn’t managed to get connected to the wifi (which has happened to me in airports more often than not!) I would have arrived at the airport at 10 pm waiting for her, she wouldn’t have turned up, and I would have been panicking wondering what is going on! But I digress, she managed to get to Paris and was then put up in a hotel for the night before getting one of the first flights to Madrid. I raced to the airport the next morning to meet her. 

We began our journey with me showing her around some of my favourite places in Madrid, and meeting up with my new friends. We went exploring the Palacio Real - mum just couldn’t get over the grandness and splendour of it. We walked through the maze of Madrid Central, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, we had rose-shaped Ice Creams at El Corte Ingles’ Gourmet Experience’ while admiring the view of the Gran Via, we wandered under the trees of Parque del Retiro. I took her to the school I had been working at to meet everyone and just showed her where I had been. We spent a day at El Escorial. Where we had tapas for lunch, died in the heat and did a tour of the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo De El Escorial before deciding it was too hot, and wandering back to the train station through the Royal Gardens. 

It was hot… Madrid is hot in July. 

We were then on the train to Valencia. Well after having raced to the train station, through the ticket barrier and me running down the platform yelling “Espere! Espere! Espere, por favour!” Because they were about to close the doors! I will never be late for any form of transport again, and it was entirely my fault that we were late… was it mother dearest?! But we made it. We watched Spain zoom passed us at some insanely fast speed (which I can’t remember, but it’s really really fast.). 

Valencia!

Once we had found our accommodation, we wasted no time in heading out to explore the beautiful city. We had a massive seafood Paella which was delicious!

We then slowly meandered back to our hotel. We ended up walking through, what I believe, is an old river bed, but it’s now a charming series of parks. Mum was amazed how at 10 pm all the sports fields were in use and, at how many people were exercising. The next day we got a couple of tickets on one of the tourist buses and headed to Oceanografic, which is an aquarium. We spent some time wandering around there.

We would’ve liked to have gone to a couple of the other museums too, but just didn’t have the time. From there we jumped back on the bus and went out to the coast and the Mediterranean Sea! I do have to say, the experience of sitting on the beach in Valencia could not be more opposite than it is in New Zealand. In New Zealand, you can somewhat safely leave your bags and towels unguarded while you go and enjoy the water. In the Mediterranean, in general, I don’t recommend this. So mum stayed by our things while I took the chance to have a swim! It was so good. The water was warm… I decided to go out to deeper water to get away from the crowd a little and not be having to watch out for children. Only to get to a bit of way out, look up, and realise there was a couple having sex in the deeper waters right in front of me… I turned around and went back to the shallows. This moment is the first thing that comes to mind any time I think about Valencia, needless to say, it wasn’t what I was expecting to see, but it just makes me laugh every time. 

After Valencia, we jumped on another train, which we weren’t late for I think we were stupidly early, and headed to Barcelona. 

Barcelona.

It was hot. Did I mention that it’s hot in Spain in July? We had decided that we would get the Barcelona Card while we were there. If you don’t know what it is; it’s a tourist card that you can get that offers’ free’ or discounted entry into a lot of attractions a lot of big cities offer them, and are generally an excellent option to look at. It took us FOREVER to find the information place that we had to pick it up from, Mum was getting frustrated, and I was getting confused. Eventually, we found it and headed out exploring. We ended up walking down Las Rambla to the port where we went on a small harbour cruise. From there we found somewhere to have lunch, checked out the Chocolate Factory (obviously). Our hotel had a roof-top pool, we went and enjoyed that in the evening as well.

We also got the gondola up to Castell de Montjuïc where we enjoyed the views while slurping up slushies.

The thing that we both remember about Barcelona, other than the heat, was going into La Sagrada Familia. It is so insanely beautiful inside. Mum and I walked around mouth open gaping at it. It’s like no other cathedral that I have ever been to and is 100% worth going into, I’ve been inside twice now. The ceiling is my favourite part of it. 

And I’m going to pause here. Before we get the car and head to France, otherwise this is going to be a very long post. The next post will be about our time in France and a little bit more of Spain. There is a lot more adventure to come! 

Thanks for reading!