More photos of Spain

More Spain, tall buildings

One thing that Bluet discovered in Spain was a love of tall buildings. First, she went up all the towers on the Alhambra, pictured on the hill here:

Then the next day she wanted to go up this church tower, and see the view (including the towers she'd climbed the day before

When she couldn't walk up high, she was happy to take the glass lift upwatds

More Spain - Granada

So after Nerja, we returned to Granada for a couple of days. It is very interesting as it used to be Moorish, so is more like being in Morocco than in Europe.

For adults, the highlight was the Alhambra, whilst for the kids it was the swimming pool at the hotel - although the water was too cold for swimming, they both were happy spending an hour or two every afternoon running around and not falling in.

The Alhambra:

The hotel swimming pool:

At the airport, climbing on the table

Spain Part 1 - Madrid/Nerja

So at the beginning of April, over the Easter weekend we headed to Spain to meet up with Nana and Wayne and go eat Spanish food and see Spanish things. We flew into Madrid, with enough time to eat dinner before bed, and Bluet and Wayne also got to do some running races

The next day we took the train to Granada, so that we could go to the beach. We arrived at the station, then eventually found some Taxis to take us to Nerja, on the coast, where we would stay for the next two days. Needless to say, Bluet was very excited to be going to the beach.

In Nerja, we discovered two important things - one, Spanish people do not start activity early in the morning even in hotels - although we were woken around 6 each morning, there was no way to get coffee before 9AM in Nerja. This was tough. This is probably because they like to be active late at night. Every night in Nerja there was some kind of crazy Easter celebration emerging from the church right next to our hotel, starting around 9PM and continuing until 2 or 3 in the morning. We were so tired we slept mostly, but here are some photos because it really was extraordinary.

Yes, this is a Spanish easter parade

Also, if anyone ever is in Nerja we found a really nice ramshackle restaurant (Oasis, I think) that served delicious sea food a short, mile and a half walk from our hotel, just past the shanty town on the beach. The seafood soup was particuarly delicious.

Happy Birthday Time!

I can't believe it has been 4 years already, etc and so on. Anyway, today, as you may remember, is Bluet's birthday. She has been excitedly telling us what she will be getting for her birthday for months. Last week she even went as far as to write a birthday card to herself all by herself (it says 'Happy Birthday to Bluet').

Not only did she have to make her own card, she also had to bake and decorate her own cake. Here she is adding sprinkles yesterday morning.

And of course she was up at 6AM, ready to open presents this morning (actually, she didn't immediately demand birthday fun at that time, which was nice). So we let her open a couple, the rest of the presents are ready for after her special dinner of spaghetti and birthday cake tonight.

Still weeks behind....

But fortunately we didn't do much this weekend other than throw paper aeroplanes around in the garden. So more from when our visitors from York were here. First, we tried to get all the cousins to pose together - with moderate success.

Next, a BBQ in the garden, complete with marshmallows for the kids (Bluet tells us she doesn't like them once they gooey). Note the coats as perhaps it wasn't quite warm enough for a BBQ. Except we are British.

 
The next day we clearly went somewhere on a bus, because I have a photo of Ilona on a bus

And then on a tram - I hope one of these photos will remind me where we went. Ah yes, it was the picnic playground, where I showed Angela and Simon the closest thing Switzerland has to a car boot sale (so it was Saturday). And then we drank some coffee while the kids played.

Then back home again. And now, I think, to Sunday morning when we went for a walk up the hill behind our house. Despite the blue sky it was very very windy

So there you have it, we had a lovely visit from Angela and Simon and the cousins. As you may know Gus developed chicken pox while they were here so could not fly back on time, so the visit was extended, which was very nice for us, to have family around for longer. But on the Wednesday morning we had to fly to Spain, leaving the other Collins' to enjoy more Switzerland (see here here and here). Our trip to Spain is coming next. Here is Ilona on the plane there.