Visiting Valladolid with children

Nice to arrive to a hotel with breakfast included! Everyone in the family gets what they want, and we don’t need to clean up the mess the children create! (but leave a huge tip instead!) We stayed at Hotel Maria de la Luz, which was low to medium standard but perfectly situated just by the main square. We wanted to stay at El Meson del Marques, but it was fully booked due to a wedding. We did go there for lunch though and it had an incredibly nice athomosphere with tables around a courtyard (Edward thought Zorro lived in the building!) and they flambéd the most delicious chicken and tequila dish by the table. So yummy!

We went to Valladolid in the first place to have some citypulse and to see a real mexican city as opposed to only touristy areas by the coast. It is a mid sized colonial town with typical architecture, with low buildings each in different colours and decorated doorways.

It was fun to walk up and down the streets and watch Mexicans living their daily life. It was such a fun mixture of shops, the first shop selling only ribbons, jesus statues and half eaten giant plastic apples (something religious), the next a wedding shop, the next a shop that sells everything from hair accessories to plastic toys and pinatas. You will even find a sombreria –  where you can have your sombrero custom-made! Every shop front and restaurant blasts their own music out into the street, so loud that you cannot speak to each other during the meal.

Vacation is also to not have to take the fight with Elisa to brush her hair and to outsource this to a professional. After not having brushed her hair for 2 weeks (and swimming nearly everyday), her hair looking like rat-infested dread locks, she agreed to go to the hairdresser. Even though Andrea doesn’t speak a word of spanish and the hairdresser only spanish, Elisa walked out with a perfect new haircut.

Did you know that chocolate comes from the mayans? They are very proud of this and you find lots of choclate boutiqes. We visited the museum artisanal de cacao where they give you a short presentation about cacaobeans and how they mayansinvented chocolate and after this there is a trial of 15 different flavoured chocolates, traditional and new recipies.

One thing that striked us in how incredibly small the mayans are. We bought a hammock from a lady in the street. She was just a tiny bit taller than Elisa our 6 year old!!