Wow, time seems to fly by faster and faster as the trip goes on. I cannot believe we have been here for four weeks already. On the bright side, we have done so much in the past four weeks it feels like we have been here for four months. Luckily, we have one more week to explore the city and take in as much as possible.
As for this past week, we were in Madrid for a few days before returning to Barcelona for the rest of the week. Madrid was spectacular. I do not know if I would say it is better than Barcelona, but it is definitely competitive. The city feels a lot bigger because of the limited number of trees and shrubbery on the streets and the tall white buildings. It feels like 90% of the buildings in Madrid were refurbished buildings painted white and despite that, it was absolutely stunning. We visited the Almudena Cathedral, Royal Palace of Madrid, Prado Museum, Parque del Retiro, and Cristal Palace. The Royal Palace of Madrid and Parque del Retiro were my favorites. The Royal Palace had so much history and incredible detail. Parque del Retiro was extremely manicured for its enormous size. I wish we could have stayed in Madrid for a few more days, but we had a class trip to Girona and Tossa del Mar, so we had to come back.
The trip to Girona and Tossa del Mar required an early wake up call, but that did not stop everyone from having a great time in those two amazing towns. Girona is a quaint little city with a river running right through the middle of it. It was actually the site of scenes from the Game of Thrones, which was fascinating to see. Furthermore, it was really interesting to walk through their fortress from a long time ago and see how they tried to defend themselves from attacks. I would have loved to spend another few hours listening to stories from way back when, but after visiting the fortress and eating lunch it was time to visit Tossa del Mar. Tossa del Mar was a little beach town that was rather difficult to reach. We had to drive through the winding mountains on a huge bus to get down to the city. We walked throughout the city and also got to see how they tried to gain vantage points to protect themselves back in the day. I love seeing how each different city developed different strategies to protect themselves from invasion. The beach in Tossa del Mar was also a sight to see. White sand beaches and clear blue water made for a beautiful beach.
After our Madrid trip and the class trip, we needed a little break from traveling. The rest of the week was filled with laying on the beach and walking throughout different parts of Barcelona we had not visited yet. We also had a cooking class set up by the program, which was a ton of fun. The chef was a first-class chef and instructor. It was a very relaxing week and allowed us to get some rest before our last week in Spain.