Spain Private Tour ... Itinerary 9
Madrid-Seville-Santa
Barbara-Huelva-Carmona-Cordoba-Jaén-Granada-Nerja-Mijas-Malaga.
On Sunday May 9th Rosemary Herring and her family arrived at Madrid's
Barajas airport from Florida and transferred to the Mayorazgo hotel in the city
centre. They spent the Monday and Tuesday on
excursions to El Escorial and Toledo as well as seeing Madrid'd main tourist
attractions. On the Wednesday I (Gerry) met the party at
their hotel at 9am and we headed out of the city. Our first stop was at
Consuegra to take a look at where eleven windmills lie on top of a hill in this
land of Don Quijote in Castilla La Mancha. We continued into Andalucia and
stopped for lunch at Santa Elena in the mountains of Despeñaperros. From here we
continued into Seville staying at the Catalonia Giralda. On
Thursday morning we met our private guide at 10am who took us on a
fascinating walking tour of old Seville followed a visit to the Cathedral. The
party enjoyed a flamenco performance at Los Gallos in the evening after dinner.
We made and early departure on Friday for a drive through the Sierra de
Aracena to visit a tiny village called Santa Barbara. Ricardo's grandparents had
emigrated from this village to El Salvador at the turn of the century. Ricardo
had been born in El Salvador and was determined to visit the village. It turns
out that there is still a Hernandez family in Santa Barbara and Ricardo managed
to find them. Eighty year old Señor Hernandez was apparently the spitting image
of Ricardo's father.
After lunch at Mazagón on the Gulf of Cadiz we headed inland via
the pilgrim town of El Rocio to the Parador of Carmona, a former palace of Pedro
the Cruel, located between Seville and Cordoba. On Saturday
morning we left the delightful parador and drove to Cordoba to see La Mezquita -
the Great Mosque, the Alcazar and the Jewish quarter. After an excellent lunch
in Caballo Rojo we continued cross country via the millions of olive trees in
Jaén province to Granada staying at the Tryp Albayzin. On
Sunday the group did a private tour of the Alhambra Palace with our state
licenced guide then spent the rest of the day sightseeing and enjoying the tapas
bars of Granada. On Monday morning we headed down to the
Granada coast and went west to the Nerja caves which are one of Spain's most
visited tourist attractions. From here we drove beyond Malaga to the scenic
village of Mijas for a lunch break.
Finally we drove into Malaga city centre and our service ended.
The family stayed at the
Tryp Alameda in Malaga and flew up to Madrid the following day for a connecting
flight to the USA. Hello Gerry!
First, a belated thank you for all your efforts in making our trip so memorable. We made sure our travel agent knew how pleased we were with your services and hope that we will see you again soon. Ricardo is already talking about returning for some golf. I hope you will also pass on our thanks to our guides, Concepcion and Juan. They were both informative, entertaining and just really nice people.
I'm also writing to let you know I'll be sending you a link to the website where our photos will be available. It's called Snapfish and you can set up an account with them for free. If you have any trouble accessing them or if you would like me to email any of them directly to you, let me know.
Again, it was a pleasure dealing with you and look forward to using your services in the future.
Best regards,
Cindy Heinz Hernandez
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