August: translates to "vacation" in Spanish

In August, everyone from Valencia is away on vacation and everyone in Valencia is here on vacation.

Almost every place of business is closed and has a sign on the door, "Closed until September." Our butcher, our bakery, our candlestick maker, our fruit store ... closed. My favorite sign is at a hair salon, "We are closed some afternoons during the summer."

We joined the crowd and went on vacation. We went on a whirlwind vacation - the type that requires a vacation when we return. There are so many places to go and so many things to do. Instead of deciding, we're trying to do them all or at least most of them. Whew!

We also figured we would combine our vacation with a mini-geography lesson for the kids. We had them track the cities and regions where we were traveling. (At first, they were keeping track of the provinces too but that got too complicated too quickly.)

Spain is divided into 17 autonomous communities or regions (plus 2 autonomous cities). Autonomous communities are similar to states of the United States.

Autonomous communities are divided into provinces. Provinces are similar to counties (e.g., Chicago is in Cook county) though provinces are bigger and one autonomous community typically only has a few provinces. Historically, provinces and autonomous communities corresponded to kingdoms. Cool.

So, this is the geography of our whirlwind trip:
(City/Village ... Province ... Autonomous Community)

1. Zaragoza ... Zaragoza province ... Aragon
2. San Sebastian ... Guipúzkoa province ... Basque Country
3. Bilbao ... Vizkaya (Biscay) province ... Basque Country
4. Santander ... Cantabria province ... Cantabria
5. Boadilla del Camino ... Palencia province ... Castile and León
6. Madrid ... Like Washington D.C., the city of Madrid is the capital of Spain. It is its own autonomous community and is not divided into provinces.
7. Corral de Almaguer ... Toledo province ... Castile-La Mancha
8. Toledo ... Toledo province ... Castile-La Mancha

Below is a map of our vacation. You can double-click the map to enlarge it. (Below that is a link to all our vacation photos.)

Here are all our vacation photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/collections/72157606958741068/