Spain By Train | #IndieRail | Indie Travel Podcast

We travel to Jerez de la Frontera, Spain by way of Barcelona, Zaragoza, Córdoba, and Granada in the last leg of IndieRail.

To listen, hit play below or find episode 260 in iTunes or Soundcloud:

Barcelona

Although Barcelona is a beautiful, interesting city, it’s never really captured our hearts — it’s a bit of a Paris-syndrome place for us. Of course, you have to go there at least once in your life, to visit Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell, as well as eat delicious food and visit La Rambla.

We didn’t do too much while we were there this time; we mostly hung out with our host Ruben. We did wander down to the marina though, and while we were there a photographer took photos of us kissing for his blog.

There's something about sailing.... — There’s something about sailing….

Zaragoza

Zaragoza is a wonderful city for architecture: the two most well-known attractions are the Pilar church (or the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, if you prefer) and the Aljafería fortress. We only had a couple of days there as we had to head to London for a conference, but we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Zaragoza. Next time, apparently, we need to have tapas at the bars beside the river.

Córdoba

If you look at a map of Spain, Zaragoza and Córdoba aren’t anywhere near each other — but catch one of Spain’s fast trains and that distance is barely noticeable. We got up to 300km at times!

There’s plenty to do in Córdoba, much of it centred around architecture. You shouldn’t miss the mesquita, the oldest mosque in Spain, though the Alcázar is also worth a visit for its views and cheesy night-time light show. We also visited the Calahorra tower and the fine arts museum — both worthwhile attractions.

For us, the best thing about Córdoba was the food. In many bars, you’ll be given a free tapa with your drink — plus, you won’t be overcharged for the drink, and the tapas are delicious.

Granada

Sadly, the same thing can’t be said for Granadan tapas. They are free with a drink, sure, but the drinks are noticeably more expensive and the tapas are mostly sandwiches made with too much dry bread and not enough filling. Very disappointing.

The city itself, however, is stunning. The main draw is the Alhambra palace complex, which you can read more about in How to visit the Alhambra. We also wandered around the Albaycin and Sacremonte areas of town with a couch surfer as a guide — it was great to see another side of the city. Here’s the street art of Granada that Craig promised in the podcast.

Jerez

Our journey from Granada to Jerez via Dos Hermanas was the last train trip of IndieRail. It was sad to finish our ten-week adventure, but we were excited about settling in for three months and getting to know the city of Sherry and horses. However, soon after we arrived Indie Travel Podcast was attacked and we had to put everything on pause while Craig got it up and running again. Now, we’re slowly starting to discover more about this awesome city — which we’ll tell you all about in a future episode.