girona S P A I N

First things first. 

Before sharing our adventures in Germany this week, I am going to finish highlighting the best of the Southern France trip we took two months ago. 

I can't believe it's been two months.

The beaches were the best. Next to the beaches, we did see some pretty amazing things.

 

Shortly after moving to Germany, we asked each of the big boys which country they wanted most to visit while living here.

Justin's response was Spain.

Ty chose Switzerland.

With Justin's time cut short, we purposefully chose to include Spain in this trip to at least get his feet in the Spanish-speaking country.

Looking on the map for a city that was close, I first found Barcelona. It was a three-hour drive from our house which would leave no time to see all that was there.

Closer to France is Girona, Spain or otherwise known as little Barcelona.

To my delight, I soon realized it was on Frommer's list of top 10 cities to visit in the world for 2012.

We had to see what it was all about.

The Girona Cathedral is absolutely breathtaking. Massive. Detailed. Astounding.

We've seen a few cathedrals in the last couple of years. I love them. The boys are not quite as impressed.

As long as Caden was able to go around listening to the little blips at each station around the grounds- he was fine.
 From the Cathedral, we walked down the surrounding streets known as The Call.

One of the best-preserved Jewish districts, the streets are narrow. Cobblestone is amazing.

It was a large Jewish settlement that was eventually expelled from Spain.

I couldn't help but wonder how it felt to be back in the times and the persecution they endured.

The boys {big and little} were restless, so we didn't stay long.   

 On our way home from Spain, we had to hit another beach. It helped motivate little people to cooperate through the morning if they knew they were getting to swim in the afternoon. 

Torreilles Plage, also rated excellent was not our favorite but definitely a spot where memories were made.

The water and view were beautiful.

The sand was listed as gritty and it was more natural and wild. With a rocky shore, it dropped off deep within a couple feet. Crazy deep which made me a little more nervous.

There were virtually no waves and the water was super clear.

It was rocky, not sandy- an attribute we would soon come to appreciate.

While swimming and goofing around wrestling with Coleman, Jim's wedding ring flicked off his finger into the water. 

At least five feet in depth, he couldn't immediately find his ring. He swam around looking and had Coleman and Caden on the search for it.

Before long, I got in {not much help} and our friend Ricky grabbed a set of goggles and started the hunt.

About that time, the big guys were back to shore, took the goggles from the little guys and started looking.

It was a full-on search for at least twenty minutes until Ricky came up with the ring.

We still have no idea how he found it. Partially covered with rocks, he only saw a little glimmer of shine and was able to pick it up. 

Had we been on any of other three beaches, there is no way it would have been found- they were far too sandy on the shoreline.

We both took our rings off for the remainder of the week.

I know I'm the mom but aren't they such good looking boys? I love them so much.

back to D E U T S C H L A N D

Not bad for a quick, four-day weekend. We agreed we could have been just fine staying just one more night. Instead, we hopped back on our plane to a frigid Germany and families that we missed.

The view while flying over the snow-capped Alps was breathtaking. My friend Carrie took this picture from her window seat. Amazing.

While I don't enjoy being in the snow and cold, I can appreciate it from the comfort of a warm place. These screens are pretty cool while in flight- they show where you are, speed, temperature and time until landing.

I still can't believe we were that close to Africa.

I also enjoy looking at the monitors in the terminal showing the gates and so many different destinations. We live in a huge, huge world- no doubt.

Goodbye blue skies and warm sun... Ok, I'll {maybe} quit posting my tropical island pictures. It's back to January...

tropical B I R D S and P A L M trees

You know you're in a warm place when you see wild, tropical birds while walking down the sidewalk.

One tourist was even feeding them peanuts out of his hand- obviously something they're used to.

I'm a sucker for palm trees too. And flowers in JANUARY.

I'm definitely a warm-weather gal. Maybe, we'll get assigned to Hawaii or Guam on our way back to Kansas.

A girl can dream, right?

The palm trees-huge here. Absolutely G O R G E O U S.

J A N D I A beaches

After all the craziness of our fun Irish night out, we decided to check out the south side of the island. We rented a car and hit the road. We were told it was a good 5 degrees {C} warmer and only an hour's drive.

We were all about venturing to a new area. It was pretty barren, but boy did we find the treasure at the end.

The area which covers the whole of the southwestern part of Fuerteventura is called Jandia. The excursion sales gal told us the beach down there was on the list of top 20 beaches in the world.

The world. And, we believed her- no questions asked! She didn't have to tell us twice!

According to allbestbeaches.com, the shoreline of Fuerteventura is 340 km. About 100 km of which are occupied by the beaches with light fine sand, the best on the Canary islands.

The sand was the cleanest, softest sand I've probably ever seen.

Not a rock, not a shell- pure, light sand with only an occasional jelly fish washed up on the shoreline.

The weather wasn't the warmest, but the scenery was phenomenal.

I had a book to read, but couldn't focus for more than a minute- I kept finding myself drawn to watch the people and the waves. It was so relaxing.

Of course, there were plenty of nudists as well. Again, this is Europe- gotta love it.

One family we passed as we were walking on the beach included a husband, wife and little guy maybe a year or two old.

The little guy was walking around, dad {or man} was walking around following him. The woman was lying in the sand.

Of course, this is all my guess. They looked like a family to me- they were together.

Now- check this out:

The wife had her top off, bikini bottom on. The man was completely naked- not even a flip flop on. Yep, he was flip-flopping around too.

The little guy: fully clothed. How funny is that? I think it should have maybe been the other way around. Little naked bootys are sometimes much cuter than big naked bootys.  

This wasn't the man, but closely resembled him.... You don't have to be a super model to be in your birthday suit around here.

 Whatever- they don't care. Nothing like total confidence in your body in this part of the world.

Turquoise water, waves crashing and a day to relax with only an occasional interruption from the oriental massage people who came around saying, "Hellomassage... "

All one word as they held up a laminated card with a diagram of a body. Guess you're supposed to point to the area you want massaged. We passed as did everyone else in our close vicinity.

 

We had a fabulous little lunch sitting outside in the sun to celebrate the birthday girl in our group.

So yummy!

Goats are a huge thing on this island and the goat cheese was fabulous!! This was fried goat cheese with honey- delicious!

Check out that presentation- just lovely.

Another perfect day without a hitch. It was back to the hotel and more food!

We couldn't stop talking about how much fun our husbands and boys {all four of us have only boys} would have here and how a return trip is definitely in order.

There really is a lot to see {and eat} over here.

dune B U G G I E S

Since the planning of our Canary Island trip consisted of mentioning it, emailing the travel agent and booking it- not a lot of time or thought went into it. Enough to know we wanted to go.

Proof that you don't have to overplan and overthink a trip to have it turn out fabulous.

My friend {the one who suggested the trip} did say something to the effect of, "I don't wanna see a ruin, I don't wanna do tours... I just want to put my toes in the sand."

This became our on-going joke. We did put our toes in the sand, but managed to do a whole lot more as well.

Upon landing on the island and getting settled into our rooms- we decided to check things out in the area.

We found an excursion company offering tours all over the place. Camels, see the dolphins, four-wheelers, jeeps and many, many others.

We quickly decided to try reserving a spot on the dune-buggy excurision. She had 10:00am open the next morning- DONE.

WHAT A BLAST!

With Paulo, our non-English-speaking Italian as our guide, we were on our way. Two hours of laughing, driving along the coast, and checking out more of Fuerteventura.

The black beaches and coastline were stunning. The sound of the waves crashing was calming to the point of being therapeutic. The blue of the ocean- amazing.

With two of us to a buggy, we all had a turn driving.

Paulo stopped more along the way back showing us coves and rocks while letting us look for beach glass and shells.

Seeing the rocks and small structures makes me want to research this little place and see what really went on there years and years ago.

It was gorgeous.

It was fun.

We were filthy dirty when we got back! So worth it.