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Beautiful Seville by bullet train!

The morning of January 19th, we awoke to chilly, rainy weather in Madrid.  Not wanting to hunt around for food, we decided to have breakfast at Pans & Company, a Spanish fast food chain that emphasizes “healthy” options.  I discovered Pans & Company in 1997, when my travel buddies and I found it in Barcelona.  It’s especially known for its bocadillos, sandwiches that Spaniards like eating as snacks.

I had orange juice, coffee, and a chocolate pastry.  Bill had a more savory option.  While we were in there, a young couple with a cute little daughter came in.  I was heartened to see how her parents cooperated in looking after her.  She was basically well-behaved for her age, but I could also tell she was a bit of a handful.  For fast food, Pans & Company offers an inexpensive yet decent quality breakfast.  It was a lot more economical than the 10 euro per person buffet the hotel was offering.

Eats from Pans & Company…

We checked out of the hotel and took a cab to the train station.  I have to say, the Atocha station in Madrid seemed a lot nicer this time than it was when I was last there in 1997.  We were there a bit early for our train, so we hit a wine bar and enjoyed a nice glass of rioja.

Nice palm garden at the Atocha train station…

The view from our table…

 

Bill enjoys his vino…

After we had our wine, Bill visited the one and only pay toilet we encountered on our trip.  The train station had an automated toilet that cost 60 euro cents, but allowed you to go twice if you needed to.  Of course, once we went through security to get on the train, I noticed there were free toilets.  I guess they do that to keep the bums from abusing the train station’s public bathrooms.  

 

I had taken the AVE train to Seville before and it was in second class.  I remember it being a decent experience.  It was this time, too.  The seats were comfortable and our car wasn’t full of people.  The 300+ mile journey was knocked out in about two hours and twenty minutes and we whizzed through beautiful Spanish countryside.  I listened to music the whole way, enjoying the ride immensely.

 

Bill prepares to take his seat on the train…

We arrived in Seville to sunny skies and relative warmth.  It wasn’t *warm* per se, but it was definitely not as cold and bitter as Madrid was.  A cab took us to our hotel, Hotel Casa 1800, a cute boutique hotel in the Jewish Quarter.  I promised Bill he would love Seville.  It is my favorite Spanish city.

Bill’s first gaze at Seville…

 

After we checked in, we went across the street for a late lunch, where we were immediately confronted by a waiter who had obviously dealt with a lot of Americans.  He was kind of pushy about what he thought we wanted.  We had some cava and he was pushing a fish platter, but I opted for a meat platter instead, which Bill and I shared.  It was actually very good.  There was chicken, skirt steak, and pork, as well as salad.  It really hit the spot.

Mucho meat!

 

We walked around the Santa Cruz area and I showed Bill the very no frills hostel Becky and I stayed in during our last visit.  Then we ran across Aire, a hammam (Turkish bath).  I had read about this spa as I was researching our Space A trip in 2012.  I thought we might end up in Spain then.  But then I forgot about it.  This spa/hammam is located on a very secluded street.  I knew I wanted to try it.  Bill hadn’t brought a bathing suit, but the hammam provides them if you need one.  I booked us an appointment for the next morning.

Camembert and strawberry sauce…

Tapas sized paella…

Potatoes and cheese…

Ham croquettes

Later, we went to another tapas place and ordered way too much food.  We actually went in there because I needed to pee, but stayed because it was kind of an interesting place.  A street musician came in and asked if he could play for money.  He turned out to be kind of a funny guy.  We gave him a couple of euros and watched as people went to mass.  A large chapel was close to the bar and it was easy to see people come and go to church.

As we walked back to the hotel, I gazed around Seville at the bountiful orange trees that hung heavy with fruit.  Some of the oranges had fallen and were smashed by passing cars navigating the winding, tight streets of Seville’s barrio.  We passed Seville’s enormous cathedral and enjoyed the sights and sounds of mostly local people.  January is a great time to visit Seville.


These tiles are all over the place in Seville…

The tower at Seville’s cathedral…

I had to take a picture of this… it’s kind of a Carlin quote.

 
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Tickets to Seville and The Prado… and an amazing taste of real Spain

During my last visit to Madrid, my sister Becky and I visited the Prado museum.  I distinctly remember that we didn’t have time to see much because we needed to catch a train.  Also, Becky was in a foul mood and had pretty much cussed me out in a nearby park.  But Becky’s an artist and has the temperament to match her talent, so there you go.  Anyway, Bill loves to look at art and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more interested in it.  So we decided to go to The Prado and check out the exhibits.

Yummy churros con chocolate…

But first, there was some business we needed to attend to.  I wanted to go to Seville, which is my favorite Spanish city thus far.  So, after a cheap and very satisfying breakfast of churros and chocolate at an Asian owned bar near our hotel, we went by metro to the Atocha train station, one of Madrid’s two big stations.  It was interesting to take the Madrid metro again after so many years.  Bill observed that the machines offered directions in English, but there weren’t any attendants around.  So we had to be a bit more intuitive as we determined where we needed to go.

We got to the train station and made our way to the RENFE office so we could buy our tickets.  I sort of dreaded doing this, since the last time I visited Spain, I encountered some very unpleasant people in the Atocha train station.  I’m happy to report that this time, the woman who helped us was very nice and even admired Bill’s squiggly signature which doesn’t resemble a name.  She pronounced it “clever” and then made fun of all the people who signed so carefully on the credit card machine.  All the machine really cares about is that someone scribbled something in the right place.

We ended up with two tourist level tickets for the 1:00 train.  I would have opted for “club class” had the clerk offered it, but as it turned out, second class was a lot cheaper and plenty comfortable.  More on that in my next post about our bullet train ride to Seville.

Anyway, I remembered that the Prado Museum was very close to the train station.  My memory didn’t fail me.  All we had to do was cross the street and walk a little ways and there it was.

The Prado…

A cathedral near the Prado…

We got to the museum at 11:20 am and got tickets to the special temporary exhibit for 11:45am.  The exhibit was on the Velasquez family of Philip IV and it was surprisingly interesting.  Indeed, I was marveling at how much of art is also a history lesson.  After we looked at the Velasquez exhibit, we looked at some sketch books of Spanish artists who went to Rome to learn technique.  That was an even more interesting exhibit, given all that went into the training and the varying levels of talent among the artists.

The permanent exhibit is absolutely huge and takes hours to get through.  We saw a good portion of the  museum, but I finally wimped out after about three hours.  There was so much to see that I didn’t feel like my brain could process much more.  I’m really glad we took the time to see this museum, though.  It was well worth the price of admission.  One of the favorite parts of my visit was getting to see an amazing copy of the Mona Lisa…  Check out this link from CNN for a glimpse!

The walk back to Puerta del Sol…

We walked back to our hotel from the Prado, then headed for the Puerta del Sol area, which is sort of the heart of Madrid.  I found us a nice family owned restaurant not directly in the line of tourism and we had paella and beer for lunch.  I think it was Bill’s first taste of paella and he really enjoyed it.

Bill had chocolate and I had vanilla for dessert…

Mickey and Minnie Mouse were in Puerta del Sol…  So were Bart and Homer Simpson and Spongebob Squarepants.

We went back to our hotel, where I proceeded to take another long nap.  I guess the Prado affected me more than I realized.  Once I woke up, it was time for dinner and we went walking in search of a place for something to eat.  I didn’t want to go back to the Puerta del Sol area, because it was very crowded and busy and I didn’t feel like fighting crowds.  But I also didn’t want to sit in a crowded place near our hotel.  After walking around a bit, we finally stopped at a deserted looking bar.

The place was not the usual sort of establishment I would choose, but I was tired and just wanted to get something simple to eat.  Little did I know, that sad little bar would turn into an amazing cultural experience.  We walked in, sat down, and ordered two beers.  I ordered chicken wings and Bill ordered Serrano ham, which is just as good as Iberian ham, but less expensive.  The legs of ham were right up there at the bar and we watched the bartender carve some for us.  The bartender also brought us Russian salad and potato cakes.

Bill eats ham and bread…

Those chicken wings were delicious.

 It was pretty slow at the beginning of the night…

We drank beer and wine…

As the night wore on, we seemed to endear ourselves to the bartender, who brought us olives.  More people came in, including a guy who looked like he was into sports.  A little while later, his girlfriend came in.  She was tall, a bit overweight, and wore an extremely low cut blouse that showed off her boobs.  My face must have registered shock because next thing I know, she was whispering to her man.  He gave me a dirty look.  Then I saw her turn around and she had zipped up her jacket to cover her breasts.

I felt a little badly at first.  I didn’t mean to embarrass her.  But I honestly was surprised to see her boobs.  They left and Bill and I kept drinking.  The owner of the bar brought out more tapas we didn’t order.  It was clear that if you were drinking, they were feeding you.

I got up to go to the bathroom.  There was no toilet paper in the toilet, which was not very clean.  Fortunately, I had tissues that I had gotten on our Scottish cruise on Hebridean Princess in 2012.  They really came in handy.  I left a few for the next gal to come along.

The owner brought of empanadas and potatoes and bacon… I finally had to look up at him with a look that said I was about to explode…  though it was a lot of fun watching the crowd.  Football was on the TV and we got to see some Spanish ads, which are a hell of a lot more entertaining than American ads are.  One that we saw several times involved a naked man running through the streets.  His private parts were blurred out; but still, you’d never see that in America.

When we were in Scotland, a kind-hearted cabbie gave me a “wee Scottish tartan umbrella” to help fend off the frigid, damp weather.  Bill brought it with us on our trip and had taken it along on that night at the crazy Spanish bar in Madrid.  He was a bit buzzed and forgot to take it with him when we left.  I was a little sad, since that umbrella had sentimental value.  But then I realized we had traded one cultural experience for another.  And honestly, that bar was obviously run by guys who weren’t into neatness.  I bet the umbrella is still sitting where we sat and will be there awhile.  We noticed that there was a lot of trash on the floor and no one seemed too worried about picking it up.  On the other hand, we had a wonderful time.  When I protested all the food, the guy who was bringing it out gave me a “never mind” look and rubbed his stomach as he licked his lips.  Too funny!

The front of the infamous Spanish bar…

 We passed a gay bar on the way back to our hotel and I couldn’t resist snapping these photos.

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Air Europa and Madrid…

The last time I was in Madrid, it was September 1997.  I was 25 years old and broke, on my way home from my Peace Corps assignment in Armenia and traveling with friends.  We arrived by train from Barcelona and stayed in a cheap hotel in the Puerta del Sol area.  I remember hearing U2 play in my room, as they were promoting their album, Pop, at a concert that was playing in town.  My sister joined me in Madrid and I parted ways with my friends.

My sister and I were not particularly compatible travel companions and I don’t think I got as much out of Spain as I should have during that trip.  I was also preoccupied by worry and the prospect of finding a job and going home, where I would end up living with my parents for two arduous years.

Since Bill had never been to Madrid or any other city in Spain aside from Barcelona, I determined that we needed to go there.  The train seemed like it would take too long, so I searched for plane tickets.  As it turned out, Air Europa, a somewhat new airline based in Spain, offered cheap tickets from Lisbon to Madrid.  The catch was that the flight would leave early in the morning.  However, these tickets were over $100 less per person than the others I found for sale.  For about $200, Bill and I could fly from Lisbon to Madrid much faster and probably more cheaply than we could go by train.  Since there was a time change in Spain, we’d arrive at about 10:00am, giving us plenty of time to see the city.

I booked the tickets.  In retrospect, it was a good thing that I didn’t read the reviews written about Air Europa before I booked, or I might have been scared off.  Our experience was actually pretty decent.  We checked our bags and headed to the gate.  It turned out the plane was pretty small, with two by one seating.  Everyone with a bag of any size had to check it, so I was relieved of my carry on before I got on the aircraft.

Our flight was no frills.  The lone flight attendant didn’t pass out any snacks or beverages and there was no entertainment.  But honestly, I didn’t miss the lack of amenities.  We had a smooth, safe flight and all our luggage got to the destination.  We did have to pick up my carry on after we got off the plane, but the other two bags were at baggage claim, safe and sound.

The views on the way into Madrid…

We walked out of Madrid’s Barajas Airport and got a cab.  Refreshingly enough, our cab driver was female and very friendly.  It was 30 euros to get to our hotel, Hotel Atlantico, which was located on the Gran Via.  I didn’t know it when I booked, but this hotel used to be a Best Western.  But it was actually a pretty nice place to stay.  We booked a cheap room with a view into a shaft.  Since the weather was rainy and cold, that wasn’t a huge deal.  The room was ready on our arrival, so we dropped our bags and then went exploring.

I had forgotten how grand and ornate Madrid is.

I think this was a stage production of Dinner With Schmucks…

I had to take a photo of a restaurant called Nebraska.  It just struck me as weird.

Someone with a Jim Morrison fetish made this… “This Is The End”

We found a great restaurant here called Roll.  I think it might have been owned by Spanish-Americans, since it boasted a Spanish-American menu.  Plus, I heard a guy come in who obviously was important there and he had a distinctly American accent.

We got to Roll before 1:00pm, which is when the kitchen opened.  It was cold outside, so we decided to drink some rioja while we waited.

Bill and I enjoy munchies while we wait.  Unlike Portugal, it seems that in Spain, the pre-meal munchies are free…

First courses.  That tomato soup was absolutely delicious and perfect for a cold afternoon.

 
 

I originally ordered the chicken in front of Bill, but it was loaded with mushrooms, which I can’t eat. We switched plates and I got the fish and chips, which were surprisingly good.

We were too full for dessert, but we did enjoy coffee and another glass of wine.  The waitress had some leftover from a recent wine tasting.  All in all, it was a very nice meal and I’m delighted we stumbled across this place.  Here’s a write up by someone else who liked Roll, too.

The following photos were shots I took on the way back to the hotel.  We decided to go back and take a quick nap.

Ham is BIG in Spain… and it’s uniformly delicious.

Love the blurry photo of the Spanish dancer mannequin…

Fans!

At one point, we looked inside a cathedral and I took a couple of photos.

Right after I took a picture of the above cathedral, I took a picture of this door.  Suddenly, an older woman in a thick white coat started yelling at me.  I don’t know what she said because I wasn’t listening until I heard her say “camera”.   She seemed a bit strange, so Bill and I ignored her and left the area.  She must have lived in the area because we saw her several times over the course of our two days in Madrid.

Plaza Mayor

I was eager to show Bill this Spanish landmark.  The weather was chilly and rainy and the plaza was overrun with a lot of homeless folks.  However, there was yet another great street musician playing guitar there and the plaza is still pretty impressive despite the smell of stale urine and sight of the downtrodden seeking shelter there. The last time I was in Madrid, I stayed in a hotel very near this landmark.  I was surprised I still remembered so well how to get around.

Just beyond the Plaza Mayor, there was a great food market that had all sorts of tempting food and drink.  Bill and I went in there to warm up with some hot beverages.

My hot chocolate…

After we left the food market, we walked back to the area around our hotel and looked for dinner.

The storefront of El Corte Ingles.  This is a pretty cool Spanish department store chain that seems a lot like Harrod’s.  I remember stopping there when I was traveling with my friends in 1997.

We had dinner at a small bar called Desengano 13.  Bill ordered Iberian ham, which is made from pigs who have eaten acorns.  It’s quite delicious.

We also had fried cheese tapas dressed with balsamic vinegar…  I drank fizzy water and a little wine…  

All in all, it was a successful day in Madrid.  Stay tuned for my post about the Prado museum.

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A month on a train in Europe… The public meltdown and on to France…

Train travel in Spain is kind of exasperating.  Most trains go to Madrid.  It’s hard to get from a major Spanish city without going through Madrid first.  Or at least that’s how it was in 1997.  Anyway, Becky and I had a long journey ahead of us.  She wanted to go to the Loire Valley, which was quite a ways north from Cadiz.  And we didn’t have access to a bullet train from Cadiz, so we ended up taking a slow train that left early in the morning.  We were both pretty tired, not having gotten a very good night’s sleep during our night in Cadiz.  The sun was not yet up when we boarded the train, so we tried to relax a bit as our long day commenced.

We got to Madrid, which required a short stop in order to catch the next train to Hendaye, which is a Spanish city on the French border.  There, we would change trains again.  I remember it was a Sunday and a lot of businesses were closed.  Becky and I went to a park to kill time before we caught our train to the border.  I wanted to pick up a newspaper, so I left her in the park with my bag while I searched for one.  It took about twenty minutes.  When I got back, Becky was absolutely beside herself with rage.

“Where have you been?” she yelled.  “I have to go to the bathroom!”

I was completely non-plussed by her outburst.  We were in a beautiful park and it was a Sunday and Becky was very angry.  She went on about not knowing Spanish.  I reminded her that many people speak English in Spain.  Then I told her how to ask for a bathroom in Spanish.

Becky continued yelling at me, at one point calling me a motherfucker… which I thought was amusing, since I was a virgin at the time and had no physical ability or desire to fuck a woman.  Then she berated me for “bragging” about knowing Spanish, which I actually don’t speak that well.  I just studied it for many years in school.  Besides, when I tried to speak Spanish on my trip, it invariably came out Armenian.

After I’d had enough verbal abuse, I looked at Becky and said, “You know, I don’t have to put up with this.  I’ve been on vacation for three weeks now.  I’d be just fine with going home.”

That comment made Becky go even more ballistic.  She started screaming about how much money she had spent to come to Europe and how I couldn’t just leave her there.  I told her that the money she spent to come to Europe was immaterial to me.  She had chosen to come there and travel with me and she was a grown woman who could take care of herself.  I wasn’t going to put up with her rages.  Actually, given the depressed and anxious mental state I was in at the time, I’m surprised I found the strength to say these things.  Becky is tiny, but she can be really scary when she’s raging.

So she finally calmed down, but still tried to control things.  I was worn down by the drama, so I just gave in.  The trip was becoming less and less fun.  We got on a slow train that I think must have been overnight, because I remember getting off in Hendaye in the early morning.  I also remember getting on the train from Madrid in the late afternoon, after Becky’s meltdown.

We eventually ended up in Bayonne, France, where we switched trains and went to Toulouse.  It was at that point that we realized we were going off course.  But we ate lunch in Toulouse and I went to a travel agency and purchased a one way ticket back to the United States.  I remember the travel agent warning me that the flights were more expensive when they were one way.  I didn’t care.  I needed to know I’d have a ticket home.

We took another train to Bordeaux, but we didn’t get out and see the famed wine city.  Instead, we changed trains again and got on one to Tours.  I remember it being a nice train and we talked to a beautiful blonde French woman who gave us travel tips.

Actually, I was pretty glad to leave Spain.  As much as I heard people talk about French people being rude, Spanish people seemed far ruder.  Since that trip in 1997, I have since found that’s not necessarily the truth, but it happened to be my experience in Spain at that time.  Maybe that’s because we spent so much time in train stations and cheap hotels.

Next installment: Tours, Amboise, and Paris

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A month on a train in Europe… Spain

Dawn, Chris, and I marveled as we watched the insanely beautiful Spanish countryside fly by.  We had stopped briefly in Port Bou, France, because the train tracks in Spain are different than they are in France and we had to change trains.  A gaggle of American sorority girls were on our train, making me feel both old and slightly irritated.

I remember sitting in my second class seat and looking at the stunning landscape.  A Spanish native said “Welcome to Espana” with a proud smile on his face.

It was bright and sunny as we passed Girona and its cathedral on our way south.  We finally landed in Barcelona in the early evening.  We had been traveling all day and we were tired… and somehow, we ended up at a dirt cheap hostel a few blocks from Barcelona’s train station.  The room was dark, small, and had a window that literally opened into the elevator shaft.  But for three poverty stricken travelers, it would work.

Dawn, Chris and I walked around downtown Barcelona, strolling on Las Ramblas and meeting up with Chris’s friend, Javier, who lived in Barcelona.  I remember getting into his tiny compact car and going on a tour of the city, which highlighted the Olympic stadium.  I also remember eating paella for the first time and discovering bocadillos at Pan and Company, a Barcelona area healthy fast food chain.  We visited the cathedral and stood outside La Sagrada Familia, because we were too poor to pay the admission to go inside.

In 2009, my husband and I went back to Barcelona and stayed in a very nice hotel in Montjuic, which is an area on hill that overlooks the city.  Our 2009 trip was sort of a dream come true, since I had shown my husband my picture of La Sagrada Familia several years prior and he didn’t know what it was.  When I told him about it, he wanted to go there… and we managed to do that, courtesy of a “blind booking” on Germanwings, a discount airline in Germany that lets people book mystery flights (lots of fun– we’ve done it three times so far).

Taken in April 2009.  My husband cried when we went inside because he was overwhelmed by how cool it is…

 

After a couple of days in Barcelona, Dawn, Chris, and I went to Madrid, where I would be meeting my older sister.  We booked a stay in a comfortable hotel suggested by Rick Steves.  I got a single room and Dawn and Chris stayed in a double.  I remember going to the airport to pick up my sister, Becky, and then after lunch, Dawn, Chris, and I parted ways.  They were headed to see another one of Chris’s friends up north and then take Dawn to Salamanca.  My sister and I, on the other hand, planned to head south to Seville.

But first we spent a few nights in Madrid…  I remember on the first night, U2 was playing and I could hear their concert in my hotel room.  It was right around the time they had released Pop, an album I don’t own but should probably buy because I heard their concert in my Madrid hotel room.

La Plaza Mayor in Madrid

Courtesy of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plaza_Mayor_de_Madrid_06.jpg)

In retrospect, it probably wasn’t that smart to travel with Becky.  She’s a high maintenance person and immediately objected to the cheap places I had gotten used to staying at.  But we got along okay at first… I was excited about going to Seville, which I had heard was amazing.  We went to the Prado, which Becky insisted on because she’s an artist.  I don’t think we got to see much of it, though, because we had a train to catch.  We had book a bullet train to Seville, cutting down the travel time to something manageable.

When we got to Seville, we managed to find a small bed and breakfast in the maze-like old town, Santa Cruz (Jewish Quarter).  We saw a flamenco show, saw Seville’s massive cathedral, and took a carriage ride around the Plaza de Espana… and I remember it was about this time that Becky and I started to bicker.  She objected to the frantic pace I had been keeping and my cheapness.  And she also didn’t seem to like Spain that much, because people eat later at night.  My sister was an ugly American to the extreme and said Spain was like a third world country.  Having just come from Armenia, where 24 hour power still wasn’t guaranteed, I thought that was a pretty foolish remark.

Plaza de Espana

Courtesy of Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plaza_de_España_-_Sevilla.jpeg)

Anyway, between stories about her love life and complaints about how dirty Spain was, I was quickly realizing I was better off traveling alone.

Becky and I went to Cadiz, Spain next.  Cadiz is in the extreme southern part of Spain, on the Mediterranean coast.  It was in Cadiz that we stayed in very poor accommodations.  I remember it being a simple room with crucifixes on the walls.  After a day strolling around the very hot city and taking a swim at the beach, we went to an Irish pub, where I proceeded to drink five Irish coffees.  I was up all night because there was a loud party going on in the building next to ours.

Cadiz Cathedral

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Though it was very cool to be so close to Morocco, we got up early the next day for a train heading to France…  Becky’s patience with Spain was wearing dangerously thin…  and my patience with Becky was also becoming pretty short.

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