Italica-Day Trip Seville to Roman Ruins

Italica is just 9 kilometers out of Seville, it's easily accessible by the public bus and if you like Roman Ruins, you'll enjoy Italica. Italica used to be a great city, it is after all the birthplace of Roman Emperor Trajan and probably Hadrian as well. While its pretty much in ruins today, there is still an amphitheatre you could look at, and some beautiful tiled floors and some pillars.

Seville

Flamenco, amazing architecture, Star Wars movie scene, and Roman ruins. Seville was amazing.In this post I share with you all the Seville must sees, and some other spots off the beaten path (Roman ruins!)

Cordoba: Pillars and Arches and Allies of Flowers

Cordoba, with its mosque cathedral with a thousand pillars and arches, greeted me with orange trees. Making my first visit to the South of Spain, the bright, round fruit lined the streets and rolled off pave ways. Along with the famous mosque-cathedral, I also visited the Alcazar, and saw the flower patios famous to the area.

Day Trip Madrid--Segovia: Awesome Aqueduct, and Disney Castle

There are two towns near Madrid that are popular day trip destinations for Madrid: Toledo and Segovia. Of the two, Toledo, the town described to be trapped in time, seems to be the more popular one. But when I saw the majestic Roman aqueducts in Segovia, I immediately decided to go there. Some say you just need half a day to see everything, and that might be true, but I spent a whole day there wandering through the streets and just enjoying the wide, dry, hilly Mediterranean landscape and had a wonderful time.

Recreating Flavors of Spain: Arroz a Banda (is not Paella)

On my last night in Spain, I wanted to take some food goods back with me to the U.S. Specifically, I wanted some easy prep type paella mix. Searching in the aisles of Corte de Ingles fancy department store style supermarket, one of the very few supermarkets that are open on Sunday, I found some paella goods. However, they were juices. Yes, big cartons of liquids, seafood and spice infused stocks in large juice like cartons. Many choices and brands were offered, all kinds of paella from the golden color kind to the black ones infused with squid ink. Carrying that much liquid would add too much weight to my luggage, but I could not find the powder kind I had wished for. Then I saw this: Arroz A Banda, it looks like paella, and it comes in a convenient pouch of powder! That was the only kind I could find in the super market, so I took two to take back with me to the U.S.

Museums in Madrid (are sometimes FREE)

One week in March, I made a visit to Spain for eight days. With Madrid as my starting point, I went to Segovia for a day trip (Roman Aqueducts, pretty castle that is said to be one of the castles that inspired the Disney castle), and a three day trip to Cordoba (with the amazing mosque turned cathedral) and Seville (the largest Gothic cathedral, and 30 minutes away by bus the Roman Ruins of Italica, birthplace of emperor Trajan). The rest of the days I stayed in Madrid.

I did not have the most generous budget for the trip, but with careful planning my trip turned out very well and I have nothing to complain. In this post I would like to focus on Madrid and its museums. I took advantage of the many free museum hours, and being a student often means half price tickets. The super big and famous museums like Prado are lovely, but I'd like to talk about some other smaller museums that are just as charming and worth a visit. Please note I did not have a chance to visit all the museums in Madrid, so don't forget to explore other museums that I didn't get to visit, and tell me what you think about them so maybe I'll check them out next time.