Life, Travel, GRACE

While I was in Barcelona few years ago (it was 2013), the cheap and easier way to explore the city was to join the walking tour. I signed up for a free walking tour in my hostel. The tour was guided by a local architecture student. It was a very informative tour. He explained the history, background and some local political issues throughout the journey. We walked passed Gaudi's masterpiece along the way - Casa Mila La Pedrera and Casa Batllo. Then we walked through the La Ramba street, Jewish quarter and finally the city hall. Of course, the participants enjoyed the tour very much. A small tips were given to the student for his pocket money. The entrance of Casa Mila La Pedrera One of Gaudi's architecture design - Casa Mila, which has been converted into hotel now. Another masterpiece of Gaudi - Casa Batllo. Notice the roof that resembles the body of a dragon. Most of his designs have curvy element. A fountain at the main city area. T...

Have not been sharing my trip in Spain since my last entry. Alhambra is great. Well preserved. Advisable to purchase your entrance ticket online. There will be a lot of people queuing up at the ticket counters. Here are some photos. Hope my sharing it's not too late.

Basically the city was very easy to navigate. I strolled around the city on the following day. Firstly, I had my breakfast in a nearby café at around 7.30 am. I was still with the Malaysian’s breakfast time while the locals were no where to be seen, except some early risers. The city has three main attractions: the Chapel and Cathedral, Albayzin area and Alhambra. The Cathedral is situated right in the middle of the town. Chapel is next to it. So getting there was easy. Nothing spectacular to be seen here though. The main façade was nice, but not too impressive. Around the town, in some hiddened corner, graffiti was aplenty. I think this is universal in every corner of the city around the world.

Firstly, I am very grateful that I was allowed to board the flight to Granada from Barcelona even though  the gate was closed when I reached the boarding gate. I was praying though. Prayer answered. As the planed flew above the southern part of Spain, the view was amazing with stunning hills, olive orchards, wind turbines and solar power plant. I must say that Spain has one of the better implementation of renewable energy technologies. In one area, it has wind turbines at the hill and the solar power plant on the other side. Can't find such view in South East Asia. Reached Granada airport passed 6pm and the sky was still bright. The airport was small. I guess it only cater for domestic flights. Perhaps it had the same size with my hometown's airport. Getting to the town was easy. With every flight arrival, there's a bus waiting outside the airport. Just pay 3 euros and you can get to the town. The journey from the airport was about 30 minutes. I got off near Plaza del T...

At first, I did not plan of going to Spain even though my supervisor recommended a conference event in early January 2014. However, as time flew, I realized that I could actually attend the said conference. After much consideration and budgeting, the trip could be done within RM7000. That's including the conference fees, lodging during conference days and air flight fares. That's when I started to seriously planned for the trip in April/May. Application and approval from the university were pretty smooth. But the most headache thing was purchasing the flight tickets as I needed to make sure the total cost would not exceed the budget allocated. So, what I need was a flight flying out from KL to Spain, ideally. But at the time, there was no airline serving such route. I need to make a transit either in London, Paris, Amsterdam or any of the Middle East countries. To make life easier, I chose KL-Paris (CDG)-KL route served by MAS. Paris is the nearest to Spain, compared to Amste...

Haven't been travelling oversea lately since last year short trip to Sri Lanka. Well, I'm preparing my next trip to Spain this coming June with a stopover in Paris. Will be in Granada to attend a scholarly conference and then proceed to Barcelona. I've chosen Barcelona as my main itinerary simply because of Antoni Gaudi and Sagrada Familia (see the attached photo from the internet). Hopefully will have a smooth and safe trip. Shall write more after back from the trip.