Oh, Sunny Spain! White Washed Villages of Andalusia

On our trip to Spain we tried to combine lots of sightseeing with relaxation and spending time with friends. If we could, we would have spent way more time just hanging out with the Rhineharts (until they were tired of us or until Alex ate their one-year food supply). Although it was hard to peel away our kids from the fun friends, we knew we wanted to see as much of Southern Spain as we could. Our friends were kind enough to even let us borrow their car to make things easier. So on our first morning in Spain, we left on our adventure in the mountains of Andalusia. We didn't have to go far to find beautiful hilly views and serpentine roads. 

Our first stop was a tiny village of Grazalema, situated inside the Sierra de Grazalema National Park. 

Lots of white washed streets to explore. 

Rather quiet but still popular with tourists. 

We didn't spend much time here--just walked around here for maybe half an hour. 

The village is tiny but it has its own bull in the central square.

After Grazalema we drove further into the mountainous national park enjoying unforgettable sunny views. 

On our approach to Zahara village we stopped by this man-made lake (reservoir). Its color was just unbelievable, especially in the sun! The crazy thing was that you could still see many trees sticking out all over the reservoir that survived the flooding of the area. Kids thought that there is a buried ancient village underneath the water. 

In Grazalema, Mark got a sling shot as his Spanish souvenir (we are not sure why sling shots were sold in abundance here as a souvenir to represent this area). He thought it would be a perfect chance to try his skills in shooting pebbles (and rocks) into the water using his awesome eagle-shaped  sling shot. 

Oh, it was so much fun to watch him! And he was so good at it too! 

While Alex was hanging out on his own throwing pebbles and watching them hit sunken trees, Katya was observing Mark and then asked if she could have a go at this whole sling shot thing too. Mark agreed and Katya picked a pebble, shot out of the sling shot and....broke it in half. 

For a minute or so, Mark didn't notice and Katya guiltily showed me the broken eagle. I didn't know whether to cry or laugh:)) She looked so shocked herself as Mark was using it for at least fifty pebbles already and was fine, and here was Katya, breaking it on the first try. Needless to say, Mark was NOT happy. Katya promised him she'd buy him a sling shot in the next town we find any souvenir shops and that helped the situation a bit. I just laughed inside.

Here is the first view of Zahara village on a hill. It's not so small after all. About 1500 people live here but it attracts many visitors each year, especially now that they have the reservoir nearby to enjoy water sports in the summertime.  

We had a fantastic cozy lunch in Zahara. Our friends recommended the place and we were not disappointed.

Mark always orders squid if he can. This one was superb! The best we've ever tasted--melted in your mouth, not chewy at all.

After we filled up on yummy food, we drove up to the center of the village, parked and walked up to the highest point where the Zahara castle is standing (okay, more like ruins of the castle).

Just look at that water!

Can you feel the love? And the sun?

It was very quiet in this area. And the weather was just perfect.

Maybe we were starting to get hazy and thirsty though as somehow all of us agreed that this definitely looks like a baby elephant.

One of the beautiful views from the top of the castle. 

The boys and their hats and their shades. Alex is really into these quirky little hats lately-haha. Unfortunately, this summer one got a bit bent in our suitcase, but he still loves it.

Now we know why they call them "white washed".

Good bye, Zahara, a truly quaint place in the Andalusian mountains.

Our exploration day was not over just yet...

Lyana.

Malta: Last Rays Of Sunshine, Carnaval And Colorful Feast At Marsaxlokk.

We had one last day left in Malta and we were going to use it to the fullest. Originally, we were going to go straight to Valetta in the morning, but as we woke up and saw sunny skies, we rearranged our plan and ran to the bus to go to the beach again. As we were walking to the bus, the skies suddenly got gloomy, the wind started blowing and it started to sprinkle. During our 25 minute bus ride, the rain stopped and we saw sunny skies with a few big clouds. We held our fingers crossed and were lucky enough for the sun to come back when we arrived to the beach. 

Katya was determined to throw Mark in the water. But he squealed enough for her to change her mind. 

We only spent an hour at the beach, got back to the bus, rode it to the apartment, got changed ate a bit of an early lunch of leftovers and caught a bus to Valetta. As we got to the city, we knew everything was different this time! It was Carnival time! Fancy dressed up people walking around, big floats getting ready for the parade, music, treats and a lot of children all around. 

Awesome toreador costume. 

Costumes very different from the Venetian Carnival, maybe because it's warmer here.

With Queen Victoria looking over the festivities.

I was looking for the special place for cannoli that our friends recommended, but it turned out to be closed, unfortunately. Instead we found the same pastry stand as from a couple of days before. This time I was much more careful about watching the scale as they weighed the sweets. And only because I noticed how much the scale showed, I called them out when they told me the price that was 4 euros higher than it was supposed to be. At first the guys said, "Oh, let me reweigh it", and then lowered the price. Anyway, not fair, but that's how they get you there on a very touristy street. 

We walked over the to one of the streets and heard loud booming music--that's where the parade was. But my mom started feeling really sick and horrible in her head, so we had to quickly leave that area for a much quieter street. 

Walking here was much more pleasant. 

After not finding yummy cannoli, and not finding the carnival all that exciting, just a crowded and loud place, we made a decision to take the bus to a small fishing village of Marsaxlokk. It was about a 40 min ride from Valetta, but oh so worth it! 

Just imagine a painting of colorful boats with a beautiful sky as a background. This is real Marsaxlokk. 

It was around three in the afternoon when we got there so their Sunday market was closing down and so were some of the places to eat. You could tell that it was a busy place during the day here, especially in good weather. I had read about this tiny place right next to the fishing market called "The Rising Sun". It had a very family-owned sort of atmosphere with specialty in local fish. We sat outside as the weather was lovely and calm.

And this is how Mark felt waiting for food. 

Mark ordered octopus pasta, but I don't think he realized it was going to have so much octopus in it. He ate quite a bit of it though. 

Robert and my mom both had some sort of local fish. It was yummy, healthy but still had bones in it.  

I had octopus that was delicious, nothing like fried calamari (I do like those as well though).

After dinner, we still had time to take a beautiful walk along in the harbor. The sun setting, the clouds, the sea, the boats--everything looked magical and almost surreal. 

The only wish I had was that Malta were warmer... But that's what you get for coming here in the dead of winter.

A couple more pictures of this beautiful village.

Oh, what a day! What a trip!! Hours and hours spent on the bus, touring this island from North to South and crossing it from West to East. The kids were such troopers and enjoyed our little adventures with patience. 

It was great for everyone to see my mom too. 

Now we just need to make time to plan more holidays...the next one coming up is a big one, biggest one of the year and maybe the biggest one of our whole assignment in England (maybe only second to our trip to India). So stay tuned for more stories after Easter. 

Cheers, 

Lyana.

Chasing Downton Abbey-Basildon Park and Bampton

Ever since we moved to England in 2012, we have become big fans of Downton Abbey. We had to catch up on the first two seasons of DA by checking them out from our library, but then we got into the middle of all the intrigue at the end of September of 2012 as it aired on British television (a few months before our American friends could watch it on PBS). Three seasons later and it’s still interesting to watch BUT not as exciting as it was when Matthew was in it (if you have ever watched Downton Abbey, you know what I am talking about).

We figured while we are in this country, we should probably go visit a few sites where this TV show is filmed The most famous one, of course, is the Downton Abbey house, which is actually Highclere Castle, a beautiful home west of London. It is extremely difficult to get tickets for it as they are only sold for certain periods of time and never for Saturdays. They are not cheap either. So we haven’t yet figured out a way to see the inside of the house, but I’ll get to that later.

This particular Saturday, we decided to forget about the frigid windy weather and venture out two hours south of our home to visit Basildon Park. We left by 8:30 am and were at the property right on time for the 11 am house tour.

Wow, what an interesting story this house has. It was built in 1776-1783 by Sir Francis Sykes but not really completed. It went through several owners until the beginning of the 20th century when it served as an army hospital. Sold again, and again. There was even an attempt to dismantle it, ship it to the US and rebuild it, but that didn’t work. During WWII, Basildon Park was used as barracks, prisoners of war camp and even training ground for tanks. After the war, it stood pretty destroyed and abandoned. Only in the 1950s, Lord and Lady Lliffe decided to buy the house and make it a beautiful home.

Lady Lliffe was a frugal and creative lady. She was what we call now a professional upcycler—she collected bits and pieces from different places, second-hand shops and such and used them to decorate Basildon home. The house is not extravagant, but very elegant. Carpets, curtains, pictures—all suit its humble nature perfectly. It’s truly a very simple but beautiful house.

But wait…why did we even start this post with Downton Abbey speech if we went to Basildon Park?

Well, Basildon Park is actually where DA’s Christmas season finale 2013 was filmed. This is where Lady Rose meets the Prince and stuff like that. This dining room is where most of the action was happening:

And here is a DA shot.

We have our own ball going over here.

If you are ever at Basildon, do take the house tour as it bring the house alive. The kids all enjoyed the story and did such a great job listening to the narration. They had to count how many hidden snowmen they found around the house as they went from room to room-brilliant idea to keep them occupied!

In one of the hallways, we found a grand piano, as in many other estate houses. The sign said, “You are welcome to play anything except “Chopstix””.  So of course, Katya and Alex had to try.

Yes, it was that cold—Alex is wearing his warm hat inside.

After a pleasant tour, we did something we rarely do in these estate homes—we treated our kids to cake and hot chocolate at the tea room! They were in heaven! Of course, we had to all share two big pieces of cake since each one costs as much as a sandwich in the states, but everyone was happy.

Although we didn’t have tickets to Highclere Castle, our plan was to drive by it to see how much we can see from the road without going inside. I know that there are public footpaths all around the castle so technically we could just stroll around it and at least see the castle grounds.

It was only a 20-30 min drive from Basildon and we found Highclere just fine BUT at the gate of the castle we were turned around by the guard who explained that today the grounds were closed as the family was entertaining. Normally, indeed, you can park and walk around the castle on public footpaths, but not today.

Sad.

We quickly rearranged our plan and not wanting to drive to Oxford on this cold day, we headed for a small village of Bampton in Oxfordshire. Why Bampton? Since we are on this whole Downton Abbey filming location daytrip, that’s where we had to go to see where some outside shots were filmed in DA, namely scenes by the church and just random village streets scenes.

We arrived to the village, parked in a random place hoping that it would be obvious where the filming took place. It’s a good thing we kind of know how British villages are set up—High Street, Church Street, church, School Street (or End), school, Pub, a few shops—they are all very similar. So we just looked out for the church spear and figured we were in the right spot.

It was COLD!

But it was beautiful. Everything that you ever imagine English villages to be!

This the famous Bampton church which we see in Downton Abbey when someone gets married (Edith) or someone dies.

Look at these tombstones centuries old…

Right next to the church, you can find the Crawley house. It’s a private home, so we didn’t want to intrude by taking pictures.

We walked to the village library instead—it is right next door to the church as well. At first we thought it was closed so we passed it by on the way to church. But then we saw a couple of people go inside, so we decided to pay it a visit as well.

It’s a tiny place and it was crowded with a few more people who were actually….filming! But not filming Downton Abbey, just filming an interview with a couple of people who were cast as extras in Downton Abbey episodes. We listened to them for a bit (giggling inside as their experiences sounded a bit too familiar, but we didn’t mention anything about Katya being in a movie).  We talked with them afterwards about the village and what it’s like to have filming crews there spend so many days. They said that pretty much all people in the village at some point have played a part in one of the episodes. How fun!

This building serves as the entrance to the hospital in Downton Abbey.

Bampton IS a pretty special village-typical Cotswolds village with houses built of stones, beautiful roofs and narrow streets. We walked around a bit (before our faces froze completely) and found a couple of curious spots like this shop…well, sorry, forgot to take a picture of the shop itself, but we did get a picture of the sign that is left on its door.

This is one of the “advertisements” left in front of the entrance. So traditional. So old.

And just for you to prove that places like this exist and they are a complete normal thing here—a picture of a pub/hotel. With a real ghost inside too! I just love English streets! So pretty.

It was getting late in the afternoon when we left Bampton and headed towards RAF Croughton, specifically to Deddington. We were not ready to leave this area without going out for dinner to our favorite PIE PLACE in the UK. It was a bit out of the way and added half an hour to our journey, but it’s so worth it! The Crown and Tuns is the place. Try it!

We actually met up with one of the other dentists from RAF Croughton and his family and had dinner together.  It’s only an hour and 26 min from our house and I am telling you, we are going back this year for sure-haha.

And that is how a Downtown Abbey day ended. All were happy, fed and warm although it was still brutally cold outside.

Take care, Lyana.