For our holiday trip of 2005-06 we decided to meet Alex's parents for a two week trip to Andalucia, Spain. 
Our trip began with a flight from Riyadh at 3am, on Turkish Air, to Madrid via Istanbul.
The first big surprise was the Istanbul airport. We had a four hour layover and were a little worried, mostly based on what friends had said about the airport. Well, it turns out they had not been to the new airport. It was fantastic! Clean, modern, really nice.
As an added bonus to the trip, Alex was able to observe a lot of different knockers. Not since Mexico have I seen this many, and this great a variety of knockers, door knockers that is!
Well, enough about that. Our trip began in Seville, where we stayed in an apartment that was managed, it turns out, by a lady who lived three blocks away from us when we were in Mexico City. Small world. Our travels in Seville included a lot of walking up and down the very quaint 
and pretty winding streets of the old town. The major sights were the Cathedral and the Alcazar. But, by far, the highlight of the trip was when we ran into a friend, James Boyd, from the Peace Corps. James currently lives in San Francisco and unbeknown to either of us we were traveling in the same place at the same time. Really small world!
From there we went to a small town named Antequera. This small town, about 20,000 people was a really nice place to stop and enjoy life at a slower pace. Its highlights were a set of Roman ruins, some even older pre-Roman burial mounds and small-town atmosphere. 
From there we went on to Granada and the world-famous Alhambra. It is an amazing place to be, even when you are there at eight in the morning and the temperature is at the freezing mark. We had a great time in Granada, though we (especially Alex) found it to be disappointingly dirty and a bit too "Boulder" in its population. Those of you familiar with the un-washed, wannabe hippies of that Colorado town will get the point.
Our last stop was in Cordoba. Most of us felt that this was the nicest of the four towns, in general. There were clean, pedestrian friendly streets, the Mezquita was fantastic and the people there were very friendly. It helps that our hotel was great. We would highly recommend the Hotel Los Patios any time. We had great food most places in Spain, but the tapas Char and I had here was great, nice people, good wine ...a fine place.
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