Summer in Spain

It’s only a few hours into fall, but I’m still wearing flip flops (albeit in the rain…) and though I’m as excited as the next girl for pumpkin spice lattes, I’m not totally ready to give up on the fact that summer is, in fact, over. So, to keep that feeling going, I thought I’d (finally) share a few pics from our July honeymoon in Spain.

I’m in the midst of creating a photo book on Shutterfly—thank you, Groupon—and have been picking out some of my faves. Here are a few:

After a bumpy ride to Malaga, in southern Spain, we picked up our lovely blue rental car, and drove to Marbella to start our 13-day trip.

We had a gift certificate to the spa and a bottle of Cava waiting for us (thanks Carmine, Chris and Karen!). And with a view of the ocean, it gave those first four days a decidedly “honeymoon-ish” feel.

After lots of beaching and pooling and mid-day napping, we made the two-hour drive to Sevilla—my favorite of all the cities, actually. (This photo was actually from the Granada leg of the trip, but we made a similar stop at some randomly packed roadside restaurant on the Sevilla side.)

Road trip food!

I don’t know if it was because it felt like a small town in Italy (although that could have just been the ridiculous amount of tourists) or that the little streets lend themselves perfectly to fun walks, but from our hotel, which used to be a palace, (picture below on the left) to the gardens of the Reales Alcazar to the awesome restaurants we found courtesy of an English language Lonely Planet we picked up, it was seriously amazing.

From Sevilla, we made our way to Granada, where this photo below was the view from the hotel café. We got up early to wait in line for Alhambra tickets, wanted to try all the tea in town and put our blue car to good use driving up the mountains of the Sierra Nevada until we found no guardrails and lots of mountain goats.

After dropping our rental car off with the gas station attendant next to the airport, (who kindly left his post and drove us to our gate.), we boarded our flight to Barcelona. We spent three days walking for hours, dodging people and street performers on Las Ramblas, shopping—oh, how I love you red-ish pants from Zara—stuffing our faces with (even more) tapas and loving all things Gaudi.

Overall, it was amazing, honestly. And I know you’re supposed to say that about your honeymoon and all, but it really was. There were times when we wondered whether we should have gone on a more beachy or exotic trip, but I think this suited us much better—the wine was cheap, the roads were perfect for getting lost and the company couldn’t have been better.

P.S. If you'd like to see some photos from the wedding, click here.