Visiting the church of St. Donat and St. Stošija cathedral

The church of St. Donat is the most well known building in Zadar and was built in the 9th century.  It is made of two concentric cylinders and has great acoustics.  On the ground floor there are six large pilasters and two columns that are connected by arches.  There is a curved stairway that leads to the second floor where you can look down to a circular area and up to the shallow conical ceiling.  The inside is pretty plain and white, especially compared to the cathedrals we visited in Spain.

Next to the St. Donat church is the bell tower of the St. Stošija cathedral.  We paid a small entry fee to climb the tower, giving us a great view of Zadar.

Visiting the Plitviče Lakes National Park

We visited the Plitviče Lakes National Park near the border of Bosnia & Herzegovina, about a two hour bus ride from Zadar.  The park is huge and has a lot of different paths that you can take to view the lakes and waterfalls, some take up to 8 hours to walk, but we chose path "C", which took 4 hours.  About 11,000 people visit the park every day in the high season.  The turquoise lakes are at different elevations, creating all the incredible falls.  We started at the lower lakes and made our way up to the top where you get a nice view of the wooden walkways.  The water is really clear so you can see fish all along the shores of the lakes.  The ticket includes a boat ride across one of the lakes and a shuttle to help you get back to the main entrance.

Zadar, Croatia

We took a long bus ride, roughly 6 hours, from Dubrovnik to Zadar.  It made a quick stop in Split along the way.  Our AirBnB host met us at the bus station to give us a ride.  We are staying in a nice one bedroom apartment within the city walls of the old part of Zadar.  Below you can see one of the entrances to the city.  We walk through this one almost daily on our way to the beach.

Zadar is really hot this time of year and there are definitely more people out in the streets at night.  The stone streets are narrow so there is some shade to walk around during the day.  Cars are not allowed in the old part of the city.  There are lots of shops and Italian restaurants, and, of course, tourists like us.  Zadar is on a small peninsula has a unique stone waterfront that wraps around most of the city.  There are some large stone steps that lead into the water, a sea organ that makes sounds from the crashing waves and a large, circular, solar powered platform that lights up at night.  Zadar also has a large open forum with preserved Roman ruins and the famous cylindrical church of St. Donat.

Walking the city wall around Dubrovnik

One of the touristy things to do in Dubrovnik, besides all of the Game of Thrones tours, is to walk along the top of the walls that enclose the old part of the city.  It was basically a death walk in the hot sun for like 20 euros.  There was even a first aid area up there, not a good sign...  Everyone walking around was dripping with sweat.  It was kind of miserable, but we got some nice photos.

Cable car ride overlooking Dubrovnik

There is a cable car that goes up and down a mountain behind Dubrovnik.  There is a nice lookout platform and cafe at the top.  We went in the late afternoon to catch the sunset.  We decided to walk down the mountain, not only to save money, but to get better views of the islands along the coast.  There is a long, rocky, zigzag path down the steep mountain that took about an hour to climb down, compared to the 40 second ride up in the cable car.  On the way down, we saw some people who were running up the path for exercise.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

We took a direct flight from Amsterdam to Dubrovnik, the southernmost city of Croatia, where we spent three nights.  We stayed in a small apartment on a tiny 'street' made of stairs.  We had a nice view of an island and were right above a small beach.  The old section of Dubrovnik, which is surrounded by a huge stone wall, recently has become a hotspot for tourists because a lot of scenes from the series Game of Thrones were filmed here.

Here are some other views from within the city walls...

Saying good-bye to Amsterdam

We had a really great time in Amsterdam and would definitely revisit one day.  Unfortunately for all of you, we are not going to post pictures of some of the fun things we were doing...  We'll leave that to your imagination.  There are some other interesting things worth pointing out about the city.  When we first arrived we noticed that almost every building has a large hook hanging from the top.  People attach a pulley to the hook to make it easier to lift heavy objects to the upper floors.  

Many of the older buildings in Amsterdam appear to be tipping toward the canals.  Some do this because of crummy foundations, but others were built intentionally this way so goods hang away from the buildings when being lifted up with the pulley.

All of the canals are lined with boats and houseboats.  These are some of the most modern...

In our neighborhood and in other areas around Amsterdam we noticed these strange signs that said "DNA Spray".  Finally, towards the end of our visit, I asked a store owner what those signs were all about.  She told me that most stores/bars can press a panic button if there is a robbery or a brawl, which then sprays a chemical over everyone on the sidewalk.  The police can detect the spray in your body even a week later to help prove you were involved if video surveillance isn't enough. 

There are definitely more bikes than cars riding around Amsterdam.  Nobody seems to wear a helmet, not even children.  There are designated bike paths everywhere so maybe this helps reduce the risk of accidents.  In the mornings and afternoons we would see parents carting their kids around to school in bikes like this...

Amsterdam and Granada both have public trash and recycling receptacles every couple of blocks that go deep underground.  Instead of trash trucks stopping at each house, people bring their trash and recycling there so the trucks make fewer stops and don't hold up traffic.  

On our flight to Amsterdam from Málaga there were a group of guys dressed in matching t-shirts for a bachelor party, with the bachelor dressed as a female flight attendant.  When we were checking out the Red Light District we saw lots of these groups of guys as well as families with small children gawking at prostitutes behind glass doors in little booths lit up in red.  We saw some guys huddled together, staring nervously at this sex worker and she opened the door to call them a bunch of pussies. Amazing!

Visiting the Rijks Museum

There are so many museums in Amsterdam to visit, but, unlike in Portugal, they are not free so we had to decide what was worth checking out.  Even though the Torture and Sex Museums seemed enticing, we opted to go to the Rijks Museum because it the most famous and has a huge range of work.  The museum is organized by time periods in chronological order, with contemporary work on the upper levels.  There is an incredible collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age, the most well known being Rembrandt's "The Night Watch". (below) 

In the slideshow below you can get an idea of what the Rijks Museum has to offer.  We also went to the Van Gogh Museum on a Friday night when they have music and drinks, but they do not allow you to take any photos.

Amsterdam

We flew from Málaga to Amsterdam and took a train from the airport to the downtown area. Navigating the streets to find the bus to our neighborhood (Indische Buurt) was tricky as bikes dominate, but they make sure to warn you with their bells as they fly through busy intersections throughout the city.  Our friends Lucia and Pat, who live in London, met us for our first weekend in town.

Walking around Amsterdam is so lovely because with so many canals, there are always nice streets to walk down with views of the water.  Our first week was very hot and sunny, but now the real weather is back - grey and misty.  Since we are trying to save money, we usually walk into town, which takes about 40 minutes from where we are staying, but it saves us 12 euros so it is worth it.  Pretty much everyone in Amsterdam seems to speak English perfectly, making our lives that much easier when it comes to getting around and buying things.  There is a nice open air market down the street from us where we like to get the occasional cheap lunch or dutch treats like poffertjes (mini pancakes) or stroopwafels (some incredible waffle cookie filled with caramel syrup).

Mike eating poffertjes

Sacromonte

We took another free bus ride to a neighborhood in the hillside of Granada called Sacromonte.  There are homes, businesses and restaurants built into the natural caves in this area.  Lots of people come here to see flamenco shows, but we just walked around the winding streets.

We arrived as the sun was setting, so most of my photos are a little dark.

There was a nice view of El Alhambra as we walked down the hill to where we were staying.  All of the buildings are painted white and as you walk along the steep narrow streets, you are on the roofs of other caves.

In Sacromonte and on Elvira Street there are Moroccan tea houses, some offering hookas, or "cachimbas".

Visiting El Alhambra in Granada, Spain

One of the main attractions in Granada is a visit to El Alhambra, filled with gardens, palaces and a fortress.  The Alhambra was rebuilt and altered throughout history so it has a blend of Moorish and Renaissance architecture.  The structures are on top of a hill next to the city with great views of Granada.  We took a bus to get there, free with our Granada card, and after we walked down to get home.

Below are a few photos from the gardens where you enter and Palacio Del Generalife.

The Nasrid Palaces (Palacios Nazaries) are the main attractions in El Alhambra and are so popular that you have to buy tickets in advance for a specific date and time to visit.  This complex of palaces was the residence of the kings of Granada, dating back to the 13th century.  The courtyards connecting the palaces are designed with Persian and Muslim architectural elements and have beautiful fountains with water flowing throughout the complex.  There are so many people in the palaces, so I tried to take pictures showing the intricate ceilings and ornamental plaster tiles.  

There is also a fortress in El Alhambra, called el Alcazaba, that has great views of Granada.

There are more photos of the Alcazaba in the slideshow below...

Parque de las Ciencias - Science Park in Granada

We bought a 'Granada Card' online and picked it up at El Corte Inglés, a really popular department store in Spain that is usually seven or eight stories with everything you could imagine.  Buying this card was the easiest way to get tickets to visit El Alhambra, but it also included free entry to some museums and cathedrals around Granada, plus 5 bus rides each.  

The Science Park had an exhibit about natural disasters and accidents.  We saw some people volunteer to get into a car, put seat belts on and then the car flipped upside down and around again.  If you're patient enough to watch the whole slideshow, you'll see a big preserved whale's heart, a great view from a lookout tower, some flying animals and maybe even Ryan doing a sonogram?

Granada, Spain

Granada is a beautiful city in the southern province of Spain called Andalucía.  We took a bus from Faro to Sevilla and another bus to get to Granada.  This photo is from a lookout point and you can see an archway on the bottom left side which is the beginning of a narrow street (calle Elvira) with lots of restaurants, Moroccan tea houses, stores full of spices and crazy hippy clothing plus random people offering you hash and other drugs.  We were about a 5 min walk away from the archway, towards the upper right side of the photo.  Our place was on the first floor of a building in a nice neighborhood (calle Real de Cartuja) and it was easy to walk everywhere we needed to go.  

As you click through the photos above, you can see the archway marking the beginning of Elvira Street.  In Spain, most stores and businesses close for "siesta" every afternoon for a few hours, but on this street, there was usually something open for tourists.  People come from all over to see the Alhambra, which is a historical site with incredible gardens, a palace and a fortress.  Granada was very hot when we visited, but it was amazing to see the snowy mountains in the background.  Some streets made shade for pedestrians because the sun is so strong.  All over the city there were fountains with fresh running water, sometimes with dirty hippies basically bathing in them.  Granada, which means pomegranate in Spanish, has decorative posts lining the streets with little pomegranates on top, mostly to protect you from cars zooming by.  The best part about Granada is that most bars and restaurants give you free tapas when you order a drink.  Sometimes you can pick the dish you want from a small menu and sometimes they just surprise you with something.

When you walk around Granada, you suddenly stumble upon massive cathedrals, narrow streets open up into big plazas as you get lost again in the mazes of tiny streets full of modern stores and restaurants that seem to just want to give away food.  Like in Portugal, there was a lot of graffiti and cheap bottles of wine too.

Visiting Faro - Our last few days in Portugal

We said goodbye to Lisbon and took a bus to Faro, a small town on the southern coast of Portugal.  We spent two nights in a cheap hotel there and really only had one full day to explore. So, we tried to make the best of the time we had there.  Right after getting off the bus and finding our hotel, we went to see the Capella dos Ossos (Bone Chapel) in the back of the Carmo Church.  After walking through the church, you go outside to a small courtyard where there is a chapel attached to the back of the church.  It is made of real human femurs with mortar along with some skulls.  The floor was made of tombs so you are surrounded by the dead.  

The bones here are the remains of over 1200 monks.  There are other bone chapels in Portugal and apparently it was common to move bones from cemeteries to ossuaries throughout Catholic Europe.  

On the other side of these doors (below) there was a schoolyard so the whole time we could hear children laughing, crying and screaming.  Creepy enough for you?

Check out the Images page to see more photos...

On Saturday, we took a 40 min ferry ride to Deserta Island, which has about 11km of beaches.  There are a few tiny fisherman shacks and one big seafood restaurant close to where you get off the ferry.  There were wooden walkways and trails that meander across the dry flat terrain.  The beaches we saw were small and covered with shells.  There is so much space to spread out on the island so you feel like you're the only ones there, unless you go to that one restaurant...

We lucked out because it was overcast and there was no shade on the island.

Click on the photos to scroll through them if you haven't figured that out yet from other posts...

Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum and City Museum Gardens

We had waited all week to visit the Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Museum for free on Sunday because we had read there was a garden filled with realistic ceramic animals.  

Rafael was known for his ceramic sculptures (many of food) and as one of the first designers of Portuguese comics.  We saw some menus he had designed from 1898.  After some miscommunication with a creepy security guard who desperately wanted us to watch a short film about the artist, we found out the animal sculptures we had read about were in a completely different museum across the street.  Unfortunately the sculpture garden was closed because it was "under renovation", but we got a glimpse through a gate and instead found another garden full of peacocks.   

Free Party at the Lisbon Village Underground

We saw a flyer for this party to celebrate the second anniversary of this unique co-op workspace made of old shipping containers and busses stacked on top of each other.  It is set up almost directly under the April 25th Bridge and we made the long walk there and back.  We went there thinking we would get dinner but there was only beer, wine and waffles so we left early.

When we arrived we saw this sign, above, that was right by an entrance that was blocked off so we had to walk another mile or so to enter, following the red line on the map...

You can see these are double decker busses, the first floor was converted into seating areas with tables and the second level was normal bus seating.

A bunch of bands were going to play until 4am, but we left early to find dinner.  Below you can see some funny graffiti on the wall surrounding the workspace, which was right next to the highway...

Climbing up to the Mirodouro da Senhora do Monte - Look out point

Lisbon has quite a few look out points around the city.  This one has the best view.

Alfama is old section of Lisbon, covered in graffiti...  It was a long walk up, but worth it.

Ryan in front of the Castle of São Jorge

Here you can see the Tejo River, the April 25th bridge and the big Jesus statue...

Climbing back down through Alfama, we stumbled upon this park, Jardim da Cerca da Graça.

Thieves Market in Alfama

On Tuesdays and Saturdays behind the National Pantheon, above, there is an outdoor market from dawn to dusk.  There are lots of vendors set up under tents lining both sides of a hilly street. It was a mix of random vintage crap, antiques, piles of nasty clothes, jewelry, crafts and art.

This is at the top of the hill where the market seemed to start.

We just walked through the market and weren't compelled to buy anything.  I bet it is called the Thieves Market because it is so crowded you feel someone is going to rob you the whole time.

Yeah, this photo speaks for itself...

Visiting the Natural History Museum

We went to the Natural History Museum when it was free on Sunday.  We'll check out anything that is free...  The museum had a lot of 'hands on' things to do, which was fun, but overall it was kind of disappointing.  I'm glad we went when it was free.  Above you can see Ryan checking out a display on dinosaur fossils.

The museum had long tiled hallways that had doorways to different rooms.  Some rooms had your typical stuff like crystals, the formation of the Earth or dead animals, stuffed and jarred...  But, other rooms had creepy displays of disfigured humans and weird surgical tools.

Eeeeew!

I can't even imagine what was going on in this room... Why so many sinks?

This whale was pretty much the only creature on display that wasn't jarred or stuffed.  It reminded me of Kim Kardashian: big, fake, plastic and probably hollow inside.