When we first thought about visiting China last summer we started gathering information about what to see and do in the two weeks of holidays that we had. We first focused on the Beijing area and found out that in the south, in the way to Xi’an, we could visit one of the most impressive medieval towns in China.
View of Pingyao from the wall that surrounds the ancient city
Pingyao is located in the Shanxi region and is a very popular destination among tourists. It is easy to reach Pingyao by train either from Beijing or from Datong. During our trip we met other travellers that were following the same itinerary than us: taking a train from Beijing to Datong and then another one from Datong to Pingyao. We have already written about the amazing experience that we had in Datong where we visited its hanging temple and the Yungang Grottoes. Continue reading Inside the walls of Pingyao→
These days we are bit busy because we are moving to a new flat but one week ago we had some free days and we decided to make a quick visit to the Catalan province of Lleida. We really needed some relax! 🙂
Lleida (whose capital has the same name) is the fourth and less populated province of Catalonia, after Barcelona, Tarragona and Girona. But the city of Lleida has a medieval complex (La Seu Vella) which has been the scenario of some historical highlights of Catalonia while the entire province is known for its natural and agricultural importance.
Picture taken in the cloister of La Seu Vella, with Lleida at our feet
Just 30 minutes driving from Barcelona, the Bages is an inland region full of history, landmarks like Montserrat and an old tradition of excellent food and wine. We decided to discover a small piece of this land visiting Artium cellar and Món Sant Benet monastery. It was a gastronomic, cultural and historical journey to the heart of Catalonia. In this post we explain all what we learnt, what we ate and what we drank in this one day trip from the well known capital of Catalonia. As always, we try to recommend unknown but valuable sites and experiences out of Barcelona. Hope this post is useful for your next trip to this mediterranean country.
Peníscola is a medieval town built on a rock hill between two beaches in the north of Castelló province in Spain. Birthplace of a pope and shooting location for Game of Thrones, Peníscola mixes a medieval castle with white painted houses and the Mediterranean sea as background landscape.
The lighthouse and a sailboat seen from the castle
If you love old towns and historical sites as much as we do, you will be happy to know that there is a hidden region in Spain where you can find, among others, a city built from the old Roman town of Emerita Augusta (now named Mérida), a monastery with a wonderful Mudejar cloister devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe (in the village with the same name) and the two medieval gems appearing in this post. That region, Extremadura, was the land of famous Spaniard conquerors of the New World. But today Extremadura still remains unconquerable to the great number of tourists that visit Spain year after year.
Typical landscape of Extremadura seen from the Trujillo castle
Our journey to Portugal led us to cross the entire Iberian Peninsula by car and to enter the Portuguese region of Alentejo from Extremadura. On that trip I realised that amazing places can be found quite close and Cáceres and Trujillo are two living examples of that which have even served as the location of Game of Thrones due to their amazing architecture.
