Gaudi's Güell Park in Barcelona, Spain

 WOW, even on a cloudy morning, what a view.  We're high up on the hill at Güell Park in Barcelona, Spain.  You can see how densely populated the city is.  Güell Park named for Euseb Güell, a friend a benefactor of Antoni Gaudi'.  In early 1900 there were a half million people in Barcelona and growing.  The world's fair was held there in 1888 which showed the world what a metropolis it was.  Antoni Gaudi' a visionary who believed art should model nature, and in nature there are no straight lines.......nature flows.  The two men were friends and people who wanted to solve a problem.

 The problem, a fast growing Barcelona with noise, pollution and sanitation problems that caused heath problems.  Barcelona was a city of art, of modern new ideas.  They decided to build a housing development.  Well, perhaps the term housing development isn't quite right.  They wanted to build a planned community with 60 triangle shape plots, space for community to gather.  A space that couldn't be more then 1/6th development for the wealthy folks in Barcelona.  Gaudi' the talent and Güell the money behind it all.

 So up on a hill away from the hustle and bustle that was Barcelona the development started.  Lots of tile work, walking paths, gardens, trees, planned viaducts, water collections systems...truly a marvel for it's time.  However,

 Only 1 lot sold and in 1914 Güell discontinued work on the project.  After his death, his family offered the vast lands to the city.

 In 1922 the city acquired the beautiful space and 4 years later opened it as a public park.  Even on an overcast day you can see how brilliant the colors are, how interesting the art work, how unique the buildings are.

 Why didn't it sell?  Transportation.  Even the wealthy had no decent transportation to get from the city to the planned development and then to climb the hill.

 Our fabulous tour guide, Patrick Ducher, whom I've mentioned before, but am again living the link to the wonderful reviews......HERE, knew all the best spots to place Hubby and I for photo's that he took for us.  Thank you Patrick.  Patrick and his group have a superb rating with travel advisor, check it out HERE

 All the pictures you see taken from the top are up these steps, where a large open space exited for parades, festivals and community to gather.  Further up the hillsides was the area were the houses were to be located.

 Mosaics with every possible color of the rainbow.

 One such house, were Gaudi' lived until his death.

 Purposeful art, incorporated into a bench.

Do put this on your list of must things to see when you visit Barcelona, and be sure and arrange a private tour, you'll learn so much more then trying to do this on your own...ask for Patrick, he's awesome!

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain.

Fuengirola, Spain

This photo is from Wiki, though we passed this several times on the free way going to and from Malaga from Marbella, Spain; we never managed to have time to stop and tour.  It was on our list of places to see........and is still for the next time we get there.

Info is also from Wiki, though I hope to learn more fist hand when we do get to visit.

This is located in Fuengirola...today is F in our a-z travels.  However the name of the castle is Sohail Castle.  This area is very old with a huge long history.

• Originally a Phoenician Settlement
• Later occupied by The Romans and was known as Suel in the first century
  AD
• The castle was built by Abd-ar-Rahman, III in the mid 10th century.  
• The community of Suel was not mentioned at the beginning of middle ages.
• Centuries later it was known as Suhayl, during the Morrish era.  Al-Suhayli lived there 1114-1185(meaning man of Suhayl), he was one of the 7 saints of Marrakesh.
• Later a fire destroyed the village and people fled to nearby Mijas...another city we passed by often on the freeway.  This was the early middle ages and was then known as Font-Jirola by the Romans.
• By 1485 only the fortress remained and the area like others fell to The Christian Monarchs during the final phase of Reconquista (reconquest).
• An attempt to re-populate the area with 30 people failed and by 1511 it was listed as un-inhabited except for the fortress and the watch tower.
• In the 18th century after the danger of Turkish and Moorish Pirates past an Inn was opened for travelers.

The Fireplace.  The being the key word.  There is only this one fireplace in all of La Alhambra. La Alhambra is in Granada Spain. This was built/added by Fernando of Aragon (King of Sicily) when he brought his bride, Isabel heirness to the Crown of Castile to Alhambra on their honeymoon.  Though I found very little about this fireplace during my research, the auto guide we had told this story.  Isabel was born 1451 and died in 1504.  Fernando was born 1452 and died 1516.  He became King of Sicily in 1468 and married Isabel in 1469.  Isabel became Queen of Castile and Aragon in 1474 with Fernando co-ruler.  We toured Al Alhambra on a very cool spring day (late March 2014).  We were cold, and wondered how anyone kept warm there those many many years ago.  In my research I learned that Isabel and Fernando lived in The Alhambra after the conquest of the city.   They did some re-decorating, but left The Palace un-altererd.

Columbus discovered America remember in 1492...as a point of reference.  There will be far more to blog about with regards to Al Alhambra; but...thought I'd put the little tidbit about the fireplace in today.

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain.

El Tunel Del Port, Olympic Port, Barcelona

 El Tunel Del Port in Barcelona.  That's hubby looking European with his black.  When we toured we did not dress like Americans with sloppy t-shirts, tennis shoes etc.  We dressed nicely and conservatively.  Those were the guidelines we read about before we embarked on our 12 day tour of Spain.  It's a way to show respect I believe for where you are, and to represent our country in a nicer manner.  There were several times it seemed like we got better service then folks dressed like Americans who'd been working in the gardens...maybe my imagination, maybe not.

Our private tour guide in Barcelona, Patrick Ducher (look how well he and his group are rated HERE), walked us here...right to our table after speaking with the host/manager of El Tunel Del Port.  How's that for service?  We had toured half the day with Patrick and he asked if we'd like him to find us a spot for a late lunch.  The restaurant is right on the beach as you can see.  It has several rooms up and down, and an outside patio area.  Lunch was fantastic, but apparently I was too busy eating to remember to take pictures of the food.

You can see by the menu it's Port, theme and of course the olives which are served before every meal in Spain along with bread.

I did remember to take a photo when we were taking our coffee and desert.  We shared the desert because we were so pleasantly stuffed.

El Tunel Del Port (link is at the beginning of the post), was founded back in 1923 on Ample Street, but moved to Olympic port in 1992 after the close of The Barcelona Olympics.  This location is perfect with something for everyone.  You can stroll the beach, the shops before or after you eat and enjoy the sites of the Olympic Port.

Moll de Gregal, 12
Port Olympic
08005 Barcelona

I highly recommend this restaurant and hope to go back next trip to Barcelona.

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain.

A-Z Reflections

We blogged throughout the month of April for this a-z challenge. THANK YOU all who organized this challenge again this year.   And if we finished we got this

And today we post this, sweet............ we made it!!

We were suppose to visit at least 5 blogs daily and leave comments, turn off captcha's, link directly to blog posts and not use google+ pages, meet new people, keep posts fairly short, add pictures to peak interest, follow our hosts; and have fun.

This is my 2nd year doing the challenge.  I was pretty disappointed last year with the amount of work I put in vs what I felt I got in return for it.  I'm one that doesn't have much tolerance for people who don't follow the rules.  Though I enjoyed the challenge more this year, I was still surprised and disappointed by the number of people who still didn't follow the rules.

Through out the challenge there were blog posts indicating how to improve your visits with reminders about not using the captcha, not using the google+ page etc, but it seems much of that went un-noticed.

I think I had more visits and comments this year then last, and a few new followers; but I didn't painstakingly count things this year.  I also only entered 1 blog this time round vs 3 or 4 like I did last year.

My method for executing the challenge:

• Write posts ahead and schedule them to post
• Visited and commented on a hosts blog daily leaving the link to my blog post
• Visited and commented on at least 5 blogs daily, working my way down the list from where I appeared on the linky.
• Visited and commented on at least 1 blog marked as TR (Travel), plus some who hadn't marked themselves as such, but the title of blog suggested they were
• Visited everyone today who left comments yesterday on my blog.
• Whenever possible used the name and url option, and when that wasn't an option used the hyperlink with a link to the actual blog post, not just the blog, and certainly NOT my profile page.

What were the positives parts of the challenge?

• A few new followers (though I know I clicked follow far more then was returned, yes I'm one who believes visits, comments, and followers should be reciprocal).
• Added several folks to my blog log (generally after people had visited multiple times, and will be adding more as I review all the comments to see who I missed).
• Learned new things, not just about travel
• Made new friends!

Things I think need to be done to improve the experience:

• One click rule.  While it's suggested you not leave your google+ page, I think it should be mandatory that the link on the linky not go to the google+ page, not go the blogger dashboard page.  With all the helpers, it seems like as people sign up, clicking through to those that have signed up should be done, and if they have not properly added the link to their blog, they should be deleted.  Even though the google+ page is the worst, it's also frustrating to go to someone's dashboard and see a list of 2-3-4-5-6- or more blogs and wonder which one is signed up for the challenge.  Naturally most of the time it's the last one, so you've click the link on the linky, go to the profile page, click no, click nope, click again and again..  I even had situations where I clicked on the linky, got a profile page, clicked on a blog/webpage that was listed by the person's name, got to that page to find a disclaimer that they weren't blogging there anymore; but could follow this link to their blog!  Seriously what a huge time waster.  One click, I believe would eliminate a-lot of frustration, save people time which would increase the number of blogs they could visit.  This would be a HUGE improvement.
• Eliminate ALL blogs/links on the linky who have comments closed and or who's settings are such that you must join something in order to leave a comment.  Like those with disgus, or google+ where you can ONLY leave a comment if you join.  It seems clear to me that if someone has their comments closed, or next to closed....they have no intention of visiting other's blogs.  They are only wanting blog traffic through joining the linky.  
• I enjoy visiting all types of blogs, not just though similar to mine; but do wonder if visiting would be easier for folks to have separate linky's for the categories?

Already thinking about next year.  Missed the first several days this year, as I was in Spain and had to play catch up, likewise at the end of the month was out of town visiting my daughter.  Since the posts were scheduled I didn't have to play catch up with writing; but did with visits.  Looks like next years vacation will fall again in April but a larger part of it, not sure how that will work out.  But, I will have internet time even when away, which this year I really didn't.

Now since those I've visited thus far today have posted stats, I went back and counted the names I posted on 2 Sunday's thanking people for their visits, added those who've visited since the last list and come up 83 comments from different people.  Many visited more then once, THANK YOU.  I made 200 visits not counting all the visits I returned...not a great result.  I got less then 10 new followers from what I remember my number being when the challenge started.

*Jury's out about whether to try it yet again

Alex Cavanaugh
Anabel March
Angie @ Newtons Travels
Ann
Arleen Bird
ATarkabarka Holgy
betty
Bob Sanchez
Calli D
Comley Charlotte
Carolyn Branch
Cascadian Nomands Bethany
Cedar Ridge
Chris Boothman
Christine Rains
Clee McKenzie
Corinne Vail
cranthie
Crystal
Daidri Smythe
Drusilla
Fili
grammy
GSMarlene
Heather Gardner
Heather Musk
il;akshee
Jaime
Jaimie Ramsey
jenna,Mark Draddy
jennyfreedman
josephAlsarraf
Kat Writer
Kate @Another Clean Slate
Kimberly
Kirsten
Kirsten
Leslie
Leslie Melby
Lila Asnani
Linda
lindalh
Liz A
loadsofsomething
looking for a view
Mary Rack
Meandering Mind
Meghan aka Fierbonnet
Melanie
melaniegobledvm
Michelle Stanley
Millie Burns
Nancy LaRonda Jackson
Natalie Bowers
Nicky
Nilanjana Bose
ovengoodies
Paige Rion
Paula
Perry
perspective of a writer
Preethi Venugopal
Rhonda Albom
Rikaine Hernadez
rscottamsbaugh.com
sean@His And Her Hobbies
Spacer Guy
Stephanie K
Sue Kuentz
Sue McPeak
Susan leighnoble
Susan Scott
Suzanne Sapsed
Teri
thelmaz
thewayofwytch
Tina
Troy Miles
vanilla ban
Veronica Sicoe
Welcome to my World of Verse
Wendy
Zoe Byrd

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain. (15)