Travel to spain

[Dizzy]

Hey guys,

I'd appreciate some advice from you all on travelling!

First, since I'm new here, some background information: I'm a 21 year old student, born and raised in northern Germany, since one year and a half I'm living in Erlangen next to Nürnberg, where I attend my university. One year ago, being desperately in love and having a friend who was involved in the pick up community, I started my journey of self improvement, but never really committed to it, until I read Models two month ago.
Now, I'm very fascinated by travelling, seeing other places, getting to know people from all over the world and experiencing adventures. Unfortunately, until now, I only heard about it from other people, and dreamed about it, because I used to be very passive and never went for things I wanted to do.

My idea is to go to Spain for 2 or three weeks, either in august or in oktober. I plan to stay at a hostel and explore the city and get to know locals by the day.

So my question is:

Can some of you recommend me some nice places in Spain?
Maybe somewhere where the people will speak spanish happily with me, I'm not sure, if this is the case in Basque country or Catalonia.
Any recommendations on hostels and other places in town worth to visit are welcome to.

[Chaos]

Believe me, everyone will speak with you happily in Spanish... You'll find very little people that speak English and less so that speak German.

It all depens on what you want to do but I'll recommend Madrid. First of all Madrid is awesome, tons of things to see plus a great night life. If you finally come I'll post where exactly you can go and what you should be sure to visit.

In addition from Madrid you can also visit some other cities which are worth seeing, specially Salamanca, Segovia and Toledo are relatively close (less than 250 km Salamanca and Toledo is less than 100). While Barcelona is also great if think Madrid it's a better fit. Don't think about anything apart from Madrid and Barcelona. From a foreign touristic point of view those are the cities that concentrate the most interesting things. Sure, Galicia or Asturias are really beautiful, but it's like comparing NY with Boston... Boston is sweet but it really doesn't have that much to see. Specially if you want to make the most of your time.

[Thor]

An ex-colleague of mine was contemplating spending £1500 UK pounds on a workshop. To help him develop his social skills and meet women.

I told him fuck that. Go and backpack around europe, live in youth hostels meet guys and girls there, explore the cities. Its the best thing anyone can ever do. I told him he would learn more from doing that then going on some bootcamp.

Its great that your going to go and explore Spain. Barcelona is a very enchanting city with a thriving night life. You will meet people from every part of the world there. I stayed at a youth hostel just of Las Ramblas. The cool thing about youth hostels is you share a room with other people so you get to meet them. Then theres the bar downstairs where you can go and chat and have a drink with fellow backpackers.

In the big cities like Barcelona and Madrid everyone speaks english so you wont have a language problem.

Enjoy Spain !

[Dizzy]

Thanks for your responses guys! Now that I know the exam dates from university I decided to go to Madrid at the first two weeks of september.

(05-17-2012 11:36 PM)Chaos Wrote:  It all depens on what you want to do but I'll recommend Madrid. First of all Madrid is awesome, tons of things to see plus a great night life. If you finally come I'll post where exactly you can go and what you should be sure to visit.

Thanks man, I really appreciate that! Especially a nice youth hostel would be good to know, cause I wanna book the trip soon.

(05-18-2012 09:08 PM)Thor Wrote:  In the big cities like Barcelona and Madrid everyone speaks english so you wont have a language problem.

Enjoy Spain !

I want to go to Spain to improve my Spanish I was just wondering, because in many regions the people have their own language and are proud of it, at least from what I heard.

When you say you go backpacking, do you really travel with just a backpack and a small amount of clothes? I'm fascinated by that minimalistic and frugal approach, however, as I'm just staying for 2 weeks, I thought about bringing a whole suitcase, so I don't have to worry about washing my clohtes.

[Mark]

(05-18-2012 09:08 PM)Thor Wrote:  An ex-colleague of mine was contemplating spending £1500 UK pounds on a workshop. To help him develop his social skills and meet women.

I told him fuck that. Go and backpack around europe, live in youth hostels meet guys and girls there, explore the cities. Its the best thing anyone can ever do. I told him he would learn more from doing that then going on some bootcamp.

I actually told someone the same thing recently. A guy emailed me and said he had saved up $3000 and was either going to do a week of coaching (implication was that he'd do it with me) or he'd go travel in Europe for a month.

I told him to go travel for a month.

Anyway, the answer the question, the others are right, Barcelona and Madrid are the logical choices. If you go later this summer, you may time it to catch Tomatina or the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but that'd require some planning ahead of time. Both take place in smaller towns and from what I understand are logistical nightmares.

I actually preferred Madrid although Barcelona has some amazing tourist destinations. I just found the people in Madrid to be friendlier and more easy-going. There were also less tourists running around. Las Ramblas in Barcelona is overrun with obnoxious tourists and people trying to rip you off.

Either way, both cities are great and worth the trip. I hear Sevilla and Valencia in the south are beautiful as well and a bit more peaceful, but unfortunately I have not been.

[Jean DeCuir]

I went to Madrid 5 years ago. With my friends and my teachers at the time. Teachers were cool enough to let us hang arround the city in groups by ourselfs. IT WAS AWESOME! I nearly died... twice! LOL

Prado Museum is a must. It has some painting you might recognize from your history books. And cool art in general. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the royal palace too. It's decent. Valle dos caidos is near. It's a huge chapel carved in the rocks in the top of a mountain. Nice place to visit too. It has this silence and mystical aura arround it.

As i was saying on another post about Spain: Try Salamanca. It's an academic city. The city itself is great culturally and it's ideal if you want to hook up. I also think Pampelona and Bilbao are worth it.

[flake]

What do you think about car rental? LOL!
Well its awesome creativity and I really love this. I get a good idea and the inspired information which I have to need for.

[Dizzy]

I finally booked my trip, I will go for 10 days to Madrid in the first half of september.

I would be happy to read recommendations from you (especially Chaos), besides from museo del prado, which seems to be really interesting.

[belly32]

Spain is a dream place for tourist. I suggest that you heading for Andalusia, the southern part of Spain. Friendly people and the best climate in Europe. Much to see: Cordoba, Seville, Granada and Malaga just to name a few beautiful Cities.