After arriving in Granada we had dinner and then went to another cave house on the Sacred Mountain t

Now that it has been some months best travel deals since our last adventure we are ready to hit the trail again. Our next big trip has been organised and we leave in early June for Spain and France. Looking best travel deals forward to Spain as I love the music and food and my favourite opera is Carmen. I always love to see the traditional dance shows in each country we visit, for a non dancer like Michael best travel deals it can become a bit tedious. So I promised not to drag him to as many flamenco shows as the number of Hawaiin best travel deals hula performances we saw on our many trips to Hawaii. Can't help myself when I hear music it is my natural urge to want to get up and dance or at least tap my feet under the table. Paris we visited best travel deals in 2005, we were on the Eurostar when the bombs went off in London and almost didn't make it to Paris. Hopefully this trip will be a little less traumatic. I have already made up my list of sites to visit, best travel deals some of the things we missed out on our last visit like, Versailles, Tomb of the Sun King, Musee D'orsay best travel deals and more time at the Louvre. We might even try and fit in dinner on the Eiffel Tower this time, last visit we went to the Moulin Rouge which was a fantastic night. We have five full days in Paris so with the help of the Paris pass and my time management skills we will pack in a lot. Out the way home we have three days in Dubai - love Dubai, best travel deals some sightseeing, shopping, sightseeing, shopping. best travel deals I have allocated myself one whole day this trip in the mall. Also trying to get tickets for the tallest building Burj Khalifa for someone like me that doesn't like heights this is a huge concession on my part, I'll just keep looking into the distance and not look down. No boat trips this time, after the last trip I am sticking to planes, trains and automobiles. Hope all my previous readers are on board again and maybe some new ones, I'll try to make it enjoyable reading.
Today we are travelling down the coast to Granada, the weather is getting warmer every day, I'm loving the heat can't say the same Michael. This part of the coast is full of tourist resorts frequented by people from the UK and the rest of Europe. This is the first time we have seen real high rise hotels and apartments, a bit like the Sunshine Coast in QLD. Benidorm has been one the most successful tourist destinations in Spain. South of Benidorm there are numerous hotels and villas.The highest hotel in Europe is situated here and another The Bally hotel is being built, it is all gold and has a fascinating hole in the middle. The landscape around here is a lot like travelling up and down the NSW coast, and there are now more free standing houses and villas. We are travelling over 500kms today to Granada the home of the Gypsies. To get us in the mood we are are watching a DVD on the Gypsy Kings entertainment best travel deals group.
We are now in Andalusia where the main group of gypsies live. Visited the Troglodytes (no not a rock band) but a group of people that live in caves. There are some 50K caves in Andalusia and about 4K around Granada. They are really best travel deals interesting, some are quite elaborate and have villa type facades, others just a door in the cliff face. We went into one home and met the family, the husband explained how the caves are constructed and how they protect the inhabitants from the elements. The cave we visited was four stories high, the family live on the first two and the others are a museum. Inside was very cool, we went up to the roof top and had fantastic views over the mountains. Family living room, the walls are white-washed clay not paint. The main bedroom, no interior doors so the rooms stay at an even temp all year.
After arriving in Granada we had dinner and then went to another cave house on the Sacred Mountain to see a Flamenco show. To me this is what Spain is all about, I love flamenco, the drama and energy of the dance and listening to the Spanish guitar. The Sacred Mountain section of Granada is where a lot of the gypsies live, the roads are mainly only one car wide. It is a restricted area and you have to have a permit to enter, there are automatic bollards on some streets and the registration of the car or taxi has to be recognised by a camera to gain access.
Granada is a wealthy best travel deals city mainly because of the university, there a lots of young people walking around the town. There streets and streets of high end stores, I have yet to see any evidence of the 'financial crisis', that has been in the media.
Unfortunately Michael and I have got upset stomachs today not sure if is a 24 hour bug or just the change in lifestyle. The food is fine but a little oily and salty for us at times. Also having a hot lunch everyday and then not eating until around 8.30pm finishing around 10.30 and only having about an hour to digest it before going to bed I think has had an effect. We have decided to skip the three course lunches from now on, it's just too much. We will go back to having our usual light lunch and then have a mid afternoon snack to carry us over to dinner time. We originally thought we would need the big lunch to keep us going to 8.30, we will bounce back I won't let this hiccup effect our fun.
I am a retired 60's something who loves to travel. My husband and I have been to many places over the years both in Australia and overseas. We have really loved all our travels, discovering this wonderful world, seeing new places and meeting new people and experiencing other cultures. One of our favourite places is Hawaii, we have visited four times and loved our trip down the Rhine and Germany. We are trying to do as much international travel best travel deals as we can before 'old age' sets in and restricts our ability to deal with long haul flights. We will then concentrate on revisiting places we enjoyed in Australia and discovering best travel deals some new spots. This blog was mainly created to share all our traveling moments with family and friends especially those that are adverse to social media.