Category: Tourism

Central Spain / Strolling / Tourism

Hanging Houses of Cuenca

We’ve been fans of Spain’s high-speed rail network, the AVE, since the first time we traveled on one of the trains last fall. After deciding to spend New Year’s Eve with my mom and Jim in Madrid, it made sense to first spend a couple of days in Cuenca, which is an easy stop between Valencia and the capital. Cuenca is most famous for its Casas Colgadas (Hanging Houses), which date back to at least the 15th Century. Unlike uncle Rhino and aunt Saint, these houses were built this way and are in no danger of collapse! Once there were many such houses, but

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Barcelona / Holidays / Tourism

Barcelona: The Return

We heard there was a Christmas market in Barcelona famous for its pooping figurines. Conveniently, we also had a free weekend in December. Other unaccomplished things from our last Barcelona trip could also be done. Therefore, we had to go. The Fira de Santa Llucia is one of Barcelona’s oldest Christmas markets. Catalunya – the Northeast area of Spain anchored by Barcelona – also happens to be home to some fun Christmas traditions centered around poop. And you know we can’t turn down such humor. First, there is Caga Tió (literally, shitting log). The following comic explains it better than we ever could.   Now, we

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Favorites / Other Countries / Tourism

Krampus, foto bitte?

Early last month, Doer and I crossed a big item off our bucket list when we visited Austria in hopes of experiencing a Krampuslauf, or Krampus Run. I don’t know how exactly our weird obsession began, but it has only grown throughout our years together. We both enjoyed watching Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained) explain the concept to Jimmy Fallon recently. Instead of Christmas cards, Doer and I tend to give one another Krampuskarten like the one up above – check out Pinterest for more examples (some are NSFW). Thus, we were thrilled to experience two Krampus events –

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Other Countries / Tourism

Wieners Out

There was a very specific thing that drew us to Austria at Christmastime, which we will get to in the next post, but it is also wonderful to have friends all over the world and Vienna is no exception. Thus, this trip took on a dual purpose. My friend Phil – who I had met up with only one other time in Chicago when we were both in our teens – was a great host, showing us all Vienna had to offer. He certainly gave me the grand culinary tour. As we have found, it is great to know locals

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Tourism / Valencia

Bioparc Valencia

We spent a weekend in Valencia with our rental car, taking in things we couldn’t get to by train, without having to worry about when the last train was. Besides the requisite tiki bar, we decided on our last day there to explore what you Yanks might call an open-air zoo. The Bioparc lives up to the promise: none of the animals are behind bars at all, and the environments seem pretty natural. Me? I enjoyed brushing up on my Spanish vocabulary, learning names of animals I probably would not know otherwise. I mean, doesn’t suricata just sound like it belongs in the middle of

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Strolling / Tourism / Valencia

Weekend in Valencia

Rental car in hand, a few weeks ago we decided to finally bite the bullet and spend a weekend in Valencia without worrying about train schedules and such. The big city is so close, yet so far away when dealing with public transit (just 1 hour from us). This time, we got a hotel for a couple of nights so we could really explore. One of the sights we’d been trying to see for a while now was La Lonja de la Seda (Silk Exchange), a mercantile exchange built between 1482 and 1548. The Gothic architecture is pretty stunning. According to Wikipedia (we

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