Parque de la Florida

As you all wait for something substantial from me, I will give you some pictures instead!  One day a week or so ago (when it wasn't raining) I walked from the University into the Centro to check it out.  I decided to take a look at the Parque de la Florida as it's the main park of the center of Vitoria.  It was a lot more intriguing than I thought it would be!

Here we go

This is the bandstand in the park and the center as well.  It was built around 1820 and Mikel told me the elderly gather here on the weekends to dance!  

This is just a view down one side of a road that runs through the park.

After walking past the bandstand I came across this pathway.  It was almost completely hidden by the evergreens around it and I thought at first that maybe it was closed since no one went near it.

However, it lead me into something quite beautiful!  This is the closest to the secret garden I've ever been.

Walking up the pathway I then came up the steps and walked into an elevated sitting area decked out with mosaic benches.

This awesome door was under the sitting area after I walked back down the pathway.  Not sure where it lead to as it was locked but it looked cool.  Again, manual focus is a pain on this camera.

The park is right next to the Catedral de Santa Maria Inmaculada.

I can't wait to see what these twisted trunks will turn into once spring hits.

 This tunnel was further into the park and lead to another path/elevated area above the park, minus the seating but plus a little pond.

The rails going up the pathway were covered in moss and added a beautiful touch to the area.

This guy is José Ignacio de Aldecoa.  He was a novelist born in Vitoria.  The park has one other statue and it is of Wynton Marsalis!  He composed and performed a jazz suite called Vitoria Suite around 2009 in tribute to Vitoria.  In return, he has been forever memorialized in the park.  There's also a jazz festival in Vitoria (directly after I leave unfortunately) but it brings in some of the greats.  In the past few years they've had Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding, Jamie Cullum, and Buddy Guy.

That's the end of the Parque de la Florida tour!  Yay for sounding like Samantha Brown and Rick Steve's love child!  The next post I do will probably not have many pictures, if any as we have had terrible weather over the past few weeks so you'll just have to believe me when I give my updates!

Autumn