Christine has taken part in several language immersion trips in Spain organised by The Pack Language Experience. In this post, she tells us about her experience on the Andalusia Trail.

My experience on the Andalusia Trail

I recently took part, for the fifth time, in one of the language immersion trips organised by Adrián, director and travel coordinator at The Pack. In my opinion, these trips just keep getting better. The Andalusia Trail was perfectly organised and offered an impressive variety of activities.

Although there was a direct flight to Seville from my city, together with a few friends I decided to travel to Madrid the weekend before for a short city break in Spain’s capital, and then head to Seville on Sunday by AVE — what an amazing train!

Trip objectives

Our Andalusia Trail had three main objectives:

-To explore two of the eight provinces that make up Andalusia: Seville and Cádiz.

-To discover the historical and cultural richness of the region and gain some insight into the influence of the many civilisations that have left their mark there.

-To be in constant contact with Spanish throughout the entire trip.

To achieve these goals, our teachers, Adrián and Carmen (a Cádiz native), prepared classes and a whole range of very engaging activities. During the trip, we stayed in three different places: three nights in Seville, one night in the white village of Vejer, and another three nights in Jerez de la Frontera.

My highlights

It’s impossible to mention everything we saw during the trip, but here are some of the highlights:

After our first Spanish class, in which we talked about specific aspects of Andalusia such as its history, accent and pronunciation, we went for a walking tour of Seville with an excellent guide. We visited the exterior of the cathedral, the Royal Alcázar, the Archive of the Indies and, finally, María Luisa Park with its magnificent Plaza de España, both built for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929.

Cooking workshops are a real classic on these trips, so on the second day we went to the wonderful Triana market, where we bought the ingredients we later used to prepare a meal of traditional Andalusian dishes: gazpacho, spinach with chickpeas, cod fritters and beef sirloin in whisky sauce — all accompanied by authentic sangria.

When we arrived in Vejer, one of the most beautiful white villages in Spain, we couldn’t help noticing the influence of Muslim culture, which can still be seen in many corners of the town.

One of my favourite activities was visiting the archaeological site of Baelo Claudia. This Roman settlement, located on one of Spain’s most famous and beautiful beaches, Bolonia, wasn’t excavated until the 20th century. It was founded in the 2nd century BC due to its strategic location (just 14 kilometres from Africa), and its inhabitants made a living from fishing and the preservation method known as salting. It became a very important Roman city, with a forum, temples, baths and even a theatre. However, after an earthquake and a tsunami, it began to lose importance and was eventually abandoned in the 8th century AD.

We also learned about the role of the Phoenicians, who founded the city of Cádiz under the name Gadir, and explored the importance of salt flats in this region.

Once in Jerez, we visited one of its many wineries and learned a great deal about the different wines produced in the area, from the driest, Manzanilla, to the sweetest, Pedro Ximénez. And of course — there was a wine tasting!

And, naturally, there was also time during the trip to enjoy flamenco, along with several surprises I can’t reveal. In short, it was an incredible journey from start to finish. I hope I can take part in many more language immersion weeks in the future.

Christine Dignan

For more information about the Andalusia Trail, click here.