My Sisters and Portugal

Segovia

My sisters were here last week for a visit and to celebrate Columbus day we took them to  Portugal.  We went to the coast in Aveiro, Portugal with a stop in Segovia since it wasn't too far out of the way but a must see when coming to Spain.

After no sleep on the plane, we picked my sisters up from the airport, picked up the kids a little early from school and took off for Portugal, needless to say they had a difficult time staying awake in the car on our 5- 6 hour drive.



Still in Segovia, can you spot all 4 kids or at least their heads?

In case you didn't get enough of  Morgan in the last photo, here is a little more of him.

 

Aveiro, Portugal

Aveiro is a very colorful coastal town.  The striped houses were the theme of many of their souvenirs.



Aveiro has a canal going through the center of town out to the sea. We saw many boat souvenirs.  My sister found a nativity set on a boat. (it was really cute).

I guess it was easier for the bird to drink from the source than from the pool of water or maybe he simply knew it was cleaner.

Castelo de Santa Maria da Feira

The sky looks completely clear in this picture, but when we woke up on this morning we had to change our plans of going straight to the beach since it was foggy and chilly.  We decided to go to this castle before the beach with hopes that it would warm up later. 

Ready for a tour? This castle was amazing inside and out; I had a hard time choosing which pictures to post.

The Castle Santa Maria da Feira was built in the 11th Century and was named after the Santa Maria Fair, one of the oldest and most important fairs in all of Portugal. There are records of the Fair or “Feira” in Portuguese dating to the year 1177.

The Castle was built over a roman fortress, and was expanded over time.

Tradition claims that the Castle rises on the place where a native temple dedicated to the god Bandeveluco-Toiraeco was located.

 

We loved that we could self explore all through and around the castle.  There were stairs going everywhere.  These stairs led under the castle to the bottom courtyards in the above picture and in the picture below.

Morgan refused to go down the easy way!  We found it interesting that there were no railings anywhere and very few employees.

 

And more stairs!  These led up to one of the towers with amazing views that show in the following two pictures. 

Lovely, right?



The kids with their Aunt Alayna!

Corey was ready to catch us if needed.

To exit the castle you must go through this tunnel; however, I am sure Morgan could have found another way out.

 

The Beach

We eventually made it to the beach but according to Kamree's jacket it was still a little chilly.

 

Morgan wasted no time getting himself soaked in the huuuge waves!

Besides huge water waves there were huge sand waves.

 FYI-Mermaids really do exist!

The next day, after a little morning shopping, we headed home with just a few stops along the way, all of which we had already been to so we didn't take a lot of photos to post. 

We stopped first in Guarda, Portugal for lunch, sightseeing, shopping and park playing, and then we stopped at the city walls of Ciudad Rodrigo just for my sisters to get a picture.  The next stop was Salamanca and the last stop, just for a picture, the city walls of Avila.

Salamanca-since Columbus had ties to Salamanca we thought it fitting to stop here.

We wanted to take my sisters into this amazing Cathedral but it was closed due to whatever is going on in this picture.  It was a procession that trapped us for several minutes as we had to wait for it to pass.



We tried to slide through along the side but once we got around the corner we were trapped again until this part passed us. 



Notice the statue of Maria is being carried by dozens of white feet.   Here they are in the process of turning the corner, moving very little at a time.  Although slow, it was quite entertaining.  The incense that was being carried past our range of smell wasn't too entertaining, but anything is better than the cigarette smell that we usually are trying to avoid.

 

 

We did not plan to be here this long but yes this is still Salamanca and it was dark by the time we left.  This is the Plaza Mayor where bullfights took place into the 1800's and it was packed.

We've been wanting to see the walls of Avila at nighttime since the first time we came and now finally we have!

Two days later I took my sisters to Toledo.

Yes we have already been here too and I posted about it so I will just add a few pictures of buildings that I didn't get last time.  This is the Targs River with the medieval city on the right and the castle in the following picture on the left. 

 Castillo de San Servando

The Castle of San Servando  is a medieval castle next the Tagus River . It was begun as a monastery in 1088, three years after the city was conquered by the Christian army of Alfonso VI of Castile. Later it was converted into a fortress to protect the puente de Alcántara against a possible Muslim attack

Cathedral de Santa Maria

The Cathedral of Santa Maria of Toledo is one of the three 13th-century High Gothic cathedrals in Spain.  Construction began in 1226 under the rule of Ferdinand III and the last Gothic contributions were made in the end of 15th century.



 Toledo City Walls

The walls!

The next day was Manzanares El Real

The day before they left we made a last minute decision to run up to the town of Manzanares el Real with only 2 hours until I needed to pick up the kids from school we knew it was feasible since it is just half an hour away.

 

The Mendoza Castle.  You can check out my previous post from this castle of  Manzanares el Real if you want more information.

Here are my sisters, inside the walls of this beautiful castle.

The End!

Madrid Rio and Buitrago

These last two Saturdays have been very fun for us. The first Saturday we were introduced to a new American family from our old ward and we also met up with our friends the Hintze's and uncle Pablo in Madrid at the Parque Madrid Rio.

Thanks to the rain we had the park mostly to ourselves.  This picture is with the new family at the end of the rainy day while enjoying a picnic lunch under (a holey bridge) the best shelter we could find.  Morgan is standing next to his new friend Isaac, and yes Morgan was completely filthy from head to toe after going down the muddy slides.

There is the bridge we used for shelter and here are the muddy slides from the rain.  Uncle Pablo came here with his family last Spring and told us about these really long slides which is what brought us here, unfortunately we didn't get any other pictures of them.  Mason is standing at the top of the tallest one.

 

This is the swing section, mostly under a bridge.  We had many close calls as the kids ran from swing to swing across the bike path.



Morgan, Kamree, and Hailee



Kamree is at the far end.



Kaiya and Mason

The Monkey Swings

 



If you know Kamree you know she loves flowers.  I caught her teaching Hailee to fill up her pockets with flower petals.

This park follows the Madrid river so there are several bridges.  We had to cross this bridge to get to the wooden obstacle course in the following picture.

Everyone eventually made it to the other end including the competitive dads!

 

Buitrago del Lozoya the next Saturday

This is an ancient walled city just 1/2 hour north of us.  We invited Uncle Pablo to join us since he is better than a nanny.

This small town is surrounded by 11th century Moorish walls that were restored in the 15th century.



The city lies on a peninsula  surrounded by the very slow moving Lozoya river.

Here is one of the many entrances to this old city.

I found the staircase in the top left corner interesting since it did not lead anywhere.

 

Can you spot the 4 kids?





What's wrong with this picture?

A couple of the kids were quite anxious about being up on this wall.

Behind Morgan stands the Buitrago del Lozoya Castle, a Gothic-Mudéjar structure from the 15th century. 

The town hall hosts a small Pablo Picasso museum with the collection of Eugenio Arias, a friend of the artist.
 Not sure what is on Mason's mind and Morgan is making his paracord survival bracelet for about the 50th time.

 

Morgan, the soccer player, with amazing foot work could not get the yellow brick road walk.