Trip report
 

I've posted 2 new parts to my trip report on the blog Lee's Random Ramblings:
Barcelona - Part 2a - Introduction to Barcelona
Barcelona - Part 2b - Exploring Barcelona
Barcelona - Part 2c and the rest of my 30 day trip to Spain are to come

Great blogs, elbegewa - very interesting historical detail and great photos.

I've posted excerpts about my last day in Barcelona at https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...019-a-1679831/
Next will be Granada.

I'm finding that I'm spending as much time researching for my blog reporting on the trip as I did for planning the trip. It's amazing how much more one can learn about a place after visiting it .... it adds tremendous amounts of life and understanding and depth to the memories. So instead of getting it done quickly, my trip report is taking much more time than expected, but I hope that will make it more valuable in the end.

I know, right? This explains why it takes me so long to finish a trip report!

More of my trip report
 

I've finished the next 2 sections of my trip report. See it on Fodors Forum at https://www.fodors.com/community/eur.../#post17100773 and on my blog "Lee's Random Ramblings."

I've finished my trip report through Part 3b - Granada - The Alhambra. You can see more about it on Fodor's at Post # 14 https://www.fodors.com/community/eur.../#post17104286

Still to come: Ronda, Cordoba, Seviile, Merida, and Madrid

I've posted a portion of my trip report through Part 4a: Ronda on Fodors at Post # 15 in my trip report: 30 days in Spain

I've finished my next post about our 30 Days in Spain in Sept.-Oct. 2019 on Fodors at https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...019-a-1679831/ - Post # 17: About the White Towns of Anadalucia and biking the Via Verde de le Sierra.

Next up will be Cordoda

I'm really enjoying your TR with all the details and references, it really was a wonderful trip. Hope you'll come back and finish it.

Thanks for the kick to my rear, xyz99, it spurs me to start up again. I'd been meaning to get to the rest of the trip (I'm especially interested in reporting on Mérida which had been one of the unexpected highlights ... I don't know why more isn't written about it).

The next stop that I was working on was Cordoba. I got lost while researching it ... it has such an interesting, complex, and entangled history. Once one of the key cities in Roman Hispanica (and the home of Rome's Seneca), it had a small role to play leading up to Julius Caesar's overthrow of the Roman Republic and his institution of Imperial Rome (worrisome overtones to the whole world today). Later, during the many centuries of its Islamic rule it blossomed into the largest and most advanced city of Europe, with running water, sewer systems, and was one of the (if not the most) most diverse, educated, and thriving cities of the Medieval Ages - centuries before most of Europe progressed to the same level. "The Ornament of the World." And then it came tumbling down ... like most collapses, from within rather than from without.

We spent 2 and a half days exploring Cordoba and still didn't see all that we had wanted to see (it takes a long time to see a city by walking, which we prefer over taxis or buses.) One thing that surprised us was how great a city it is for walking - its been remade into a realm of pedestrians. And we hadn't expected how easy it would have been to bike in, too ... if we had known we would have arranged for some bikes. The place was a delight.

Anyway, thanks for the kick in the seat to stir me to finish the trip report ... wow, its now a year late.

Over the last six months the world has been simmering and roiling (and steaming with wafts of virus floating throughout the kitchen). My attention has been mesmerized by watching the world's kettle bubble ... sort of like reading about the history of Cordoba. It often gets tedious peeling, slicing, and dicing the vegetables before throwing them in the pot. It's always interesting how the ingredients change into something new ... and finding out what it tastes like in the end. I'd better stop watching the kettle roil. It's getting late to set the dinner table.