Landmark church - Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi

One of the hidden gems in Europe that I’m really glad I visited was Lisbon, Portugal.  Situated on the western part of Portugal and Europe, it is a beautiful city with lots of history and cheap prices.  Coming from Italy, it was a nice break from the crowds to go along with very mild temperatures.

After spending a few days in Lisbon, I took a 9 hour bus ride over to Madrid, Spain.  It was a good rest/travel day to catch my breath for the last week and country in Europe.  I stayed at a highly rated hostel that provided free nightly dinners (starting at 9 p.m.), yup I said free.  Coming from my hostel in Lisbon that also had a dinner option (not free) it was a great way to get to know fellow travelers. After speaking to a handful of people, I quickly learned that a lot were headed to the tomato festival (La Tomatina) later that week.  It’s funny how you’ll see some familiar faces along your journey – ran into a guy in Brussels that stayed at the same hostel in Amsterdam that happened to be doing the same free walking tour in both cities.

Since I only had a 2 full days in Madrid before heading east to Valencia, I decided to stay in the city and take it slow.  Day 1 was the usual free walking tour followed by a tapas lunch with a few other solo travelers.  Unfortunately, it rained off and on both days so that prevented me from seeing everything I wanted to.  I took it pretty easy as I was really starting to feel drained by the constant packing, unpacking and general go-go-go feeling I had trying to see as much as I could.  I wanted to be as fully energized and recovered for the main event, La Tomatina.

I was excited to finally stay at a hotel albeit sharing a room with one other person after arriving in Valencia.  My roommate was from the States (Atlanta) and was finishing up 7 weeks backpacking throughout Spain.  The festival was the culmination of our long adventures.  Since we had to be up early the next morning, we decided to swing by the pre-party for a bit and then call it a night.  The next morning, we boarded our bus at 7 am to head to the town of Bunol (about 40 minutes by bus) where the event was being held.  The festival didn’t start till 11 am so we had a good 3 hours to kill before the tomatoes started flying.  You’ll see in the video but to sum it up in a few words, it was complete madness and one of the most memorable experiences I can remember.  It’s one of those once in a lifetime memories.  After the festival, we headed back to our hotel to wash up and get ready for the ‘official’ afterparty.

The calm before the storm.  One of the dozen or so trucks filled with tomatoes.

I’ll spare you the details of the afterparty but let’s just say I was hurting the next morning before heading to my final city in Europe, Barcelona.  I stayed at the same hostel company as the one in Madrid since I had such a good experience earlier in the week. The thing that surprised me the most about Barcelona was how condensed it was.  The picture below doesn’t show the entire city which would probably take another full photo.  Since we were so close to the water, the weather was mild and thankfully the rain didn’t follow me from Madrid.  It was a great way to finish out my final few days in Europe.

Barcelona from one of the hilltops just before sunset

One of the main things I noticed from visiting Portugal and Spain was how everything starts so much later in the day.  Some restaurants will even close between lunch and dinner but instead of re-opening at 5 or 6 pm, they will re-open at 8 pm.  It took some getting used to since I’m usually going to bed in the States by the time they are done with dinner.  The nights out also start closer to midnight as they like to party till sunrise.

Reflecting on my 7 weeks in Europe and all the places I visited, people I met, I came to realize that laughing and smiling is a universal thing that everyone can relate to.   We may speak different languages, have different customs and values but I think we all strive to laugh and smile as much as we can.  It’s a sign of good laughs, good times and good people.

As you’ll see, more than half of the video is from La Tomatina.  I was honestly going to skip a Spain video because of the work it takes to get enough (good) content in addition to not finding my Spain ‘squad’ like I had in Italy.  I definitely had to stretch a lot of the material (and even had to use 2 clips from Portugal) but in the end, I wanted to make something that I could look back on and smile.  So here it is…

QOTP:  “Fill your life with experiences, not things.  Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.” -unknown