Day 22: July 5-6 (Madrid-Toronto-Los Angeles-Home)

We woke up to our last morning in Spain, expecting to be home and sleeping in our own bed by night.  After we checked out of the hotel, we walked to Puerta del Sol to take the Metro to the airport.  Neil had mapped out the route online.  The trip ended up taking about an hour, largely due to some long walks between transfer points.  We were, once again, very happy with our packing strategy of carrying one carry-on, wheeled suitcase apiece.  The train was packed with people but very convenient, putting us right inside the airport terminal.  There was an extra one euro surcharge to enter the airport on top of the regular cost of the Metro ticket.  Cheap. What a deal!

As usual, we were ultra-careful and arrived very early.  Our Air Canada flight to Toronto was, however, delayed over four hours in departing Madrid.  When we finally departed, the ride was largely uneventful.  The flight went fast because of the great little monitors set in the setbacks for entertainment.  There were a huge number of entertainment choices - a lot of movies, old, current, foreign, etc. and HBO tv, etc.  I watched parts one and two of HBO Mildred Pierce and a dumb movie with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston.  We were fed a lot. There was a baby next to us who started screaming horribly for most of the last half of the flight.   We got into Toronto at about 7 pm, which was way too late for our connection to Los Angeles.

Our experience arriving in Toronto was the worst, especially since we had already been "on the road" for over 14 hours.  There was no instruction given by Air Canada regarding what we should do as to customs, hotel, rebooking, etc.  There were no announcements on the plane; there were no representatives outside the plane - nothing.  We followed the flow toward baggage claim and got some wrong information from Air Canada people.  We waited in a long line to talk to an agent who really did not know who we were, but we finally did get hotel vouchers and rebooked us onto a flight for tomorrow.  The agent told us the wrong hotel (with vouchers also printed incorrectly); one that did not exist according to people at the bus stop she directed us to.  A bus from the Radisson was picking up people I recognized from our plane, but our voucher said Renaissance.  Neil thought it was the agent's mistake, but I made him get off the bus to the Radisson.  After several calls from the airport hospitality phone system (we had no cell phones that worked outside of Spain), we decided that the Radisson was where we were supposed to be and got on the bus.  Everything was agonizingly slow, as we were being processed along with all the others from our plane who were being put up for the night.  Our room at the Radisson was super stuffy and the air-conditioner was super loud and everything smelled of cigarettes.  The plug in the bath tub did not work and there was too much light.  After weeks of incredibly nice hotel experiences across Spain, this was a shock!

Killing time in the Airport

We did get to sleep, partly because we were so totally exhausted.  It was 5 am Madrid time.

We slept for several hours and got up to catch the shuttle to the airport at 5:30 am.  There were so many people from our flight in our situation that we wanted to make sure we were on a shuttle that had enough available room.  We wanted to allow plenty of time to clear customs for our early flight.  The airport had a special fast track terminal for passengers to the US and we got through without incident.  We had enough time to have coffee in Starbucks in the Toronto airport - our first Starbucks coffee in many weeks - and recounted to each other the plots of the movies we had watched on the plane from Madrid.  The airport had free wi-fi so Neil did some checking up on his ipod.  Our plane was on schedule and we were on our way home.  On entering the plane, we passed through first class.  I had never seen this type of seating arrangement before, with all the seats on a diagonal for more footspace.  We sat in the emergency door aisle with plenty of leg room, but the entertainment monitor in Neil's seat wasn't working.  Neil did not really care since he saw everything he was interested in yesterday. The flight attendant was super nice, and comped us some food.  Across the plane from us, we noticed a young, Spanish couple ("cool" because the guy had a hat similar to Neil's) who had been with us from Madrid and at the hotel in Toronto.  As difficult as the layover had been for us, we felt bad about people dealing who weren't English speakers.

We were finally back at LAX; almost home.  There was about a two hour layover, so we walked outside almost the whole perimeter of the airport from the Air Canada to the United terminal.  It was warm, but not oppressive.  We tried to get our boarding passes for our United flight to SLO from the electronic kiosk, but it did not work.  We weren't surprised, figuring it was a result of the rebooking in Toronto.  Even a human agent had a little bit of a problem finding it but, eventually, it got done.  I went through a full body search at security, which was very shabby and did not even have a place to sit and put shoes on.  The decor of LAX was painfully run down compared to that of all of the other airports we had been through on our trip.

After we got some sandwiches, we headed down to the boarding area.  We had tickets, but no seat assignments.  At first, our assignments were in different rows.  Shortly before boarding, however, we were called up to the ticket counter and reticketed with seats next to each other.  The ride was short.  The small plane was pretty full.  Grabbed a taxi and found the house as we had left it.

Home. On the Ground.

Today, we took our kayaks to Avila Beach. I saw a pilot whale and I hurt my foot falling off the car while loading the kayak...

Day 21: July 4 (Madrid)

It is the 4th of July! Fireworks back home. The final day of our trip here.  We got up around 10 am and went around the corner to get coffee.  The museum we had planned on visiting today, Thyssen-Bornemisza, is closed on Mondays, so we opted for the Sofia Reina instead.  The Sofia Reina is the Modern Art Museum.  The square it faces was the first place we wandered when we first arrived in Spain three weeks ago!

After reloading on tape for my feet at a Farmacia, we walked along the route we took several days ago to the Prado, down the Paseo del Prado and over to the Reina Sofia.  The Prado was also closed today, so (I think) there were more people at the Reina Sofia than usual.  There was a line of people stretching out the front when we got there.  It took us about ten minutes to get in, one of the longer lines we've been in. The people behind us were having a long conversation, the man never stopped talking and Neil and I felt ever so close to actually being able to understand him.

Garden Courtyard of Reina Sofia

Modern Wing of Reina Sofia

We started out in a beautiful inner courtyard park featuring a big Calder, relaxing on a bench and plotting our course. We spent a couple of hours in the exhibit rooms on the second floor,  looking at art from 1900-1945ish.  There were many, many Picassos, including Guernica.  Neil and I both liked several beautiful portraits of women by Dali. We had lunch in the cafeteria.  There was an attached restaurant but it was very tony.  The wing which housed the cafeteria was very modern, with a nice courtyard with a sculpture.  One side of the courtyard was the library.  The cafeteria was very contemporary in design with lots of red / orange furniture and seating.  Neil asked for a "jabon" (soap, instead of "jamon", ham) sandwich by accident, but, luckily, none were available.  We had a wild discussion of the modern art "racket" over lunch before heading back.  We had a lot of fun going through one of the temporary exhibits which was a retrospective of the work of a Japanese woman who worked mostly in the US in the 60s and 70s.  She was in the middle of the New York, Warhol scene.  There were pictures of "happenings" she produced with lots of naked bodies.  There was furniture upholstered with penises.  There were rooms with huge red and white polka-dot spheres.  We especially liked walking through a black light lit living room with multi-colored dots and a room dark except for strands of changing colored lights and mirrors.

Black Light with Dots

Colored Lights and Mirrors

We also saw "dumb stuff".

Crystal Palace

After the museum, we had a pleasant walk back through Retiro Park - another return to our first day in Spain.  We sat and relaxed in the Park near the Crystal Palace, visited the boating pond, and continued through to Plaza Cibeles.  We had only seen Plaza Cibeles through the window of the airporter bus that had brought us into Madrid after arriving in Spain.  The Plaza is lined by huge government buildings with a large fountain on a roundabout in the middle.  We continued down Gran Via and cut through on a road to Puerta del Sol.  This road was a busy pedestrian walkway where we saw very obvious prostitutes right across from the police station.

We got back and rested and showered.  We headed over to Mercado San Miguel a little early, planning on buying stuff and sitting down and ordering drinks.  It was, however, way too crowded for us to carry out that plan so we sat at Cerveceria La Plaza outside.  This is the place we did not eat last night because it was too dark to read the menu.  The food was very good.  I tried the Iberica ham as a tap because I had seen it listed and because it is very expensive.  It turned out to be the same tapa we had been served for free with water in Toledo.  We had a very good Ensalada Nueces which we hope to try to replicate at home.  It was iceberg lettuce, Granny Smith apples, walnuts, hardboiled egg whites, white mushrooms (not many) and a vinaigrette that had mustard and a bit of sugar.  We also had very good revueltas with ham and some chantrelles.  I had two tintos veranos.  We thought about visiting the Mercado for a sweet to top off our meal, but decided against it because we had splurged on a piece of chocolate cake at the museum for lunch.  Neil did get an ice cream on the way back to the hotel, trying rum raisin instead of his usual dulce de leche.

Back to the hotel to pack! Tomorrow is a long trip back home.

Day 20: July 3 (Madrid)

San Miguel Market

Today was a "free" day.  We slept in and got going at about 10:30 am.  We had coffee on the way to the nearby Convent de Las Descalzas Reales.  The next tour was an hour away, so we did not hang around.  We headed over to the Mercado San Miguel, which was not at all a real market like the Boqueria.  It was housed in an old market building but the vendors inside sold mostly prepared food, wine, etc.  We got some skewers - one with ham and a kind of fritter, one with chicken satay and one with veggies - along with some little roasted potatoes with a dipping sauce that turned out to be very spicy, like butter with chiles.  We also had a delicious dessert called zarzuela, a coffee and hazelnut cream.  We ate that and took the rest for later for a picnic.  Neil finally found a hat that fit, looked good and wasn't too expensive.

Temple of Debod

After the market, we headed for a new (to us) part of town and found the "Temple of Debod" which was moved piece by piece from Egypt in 1968 when the Aswan Dam was finished to save it from flooding.  It was very close and extremely hot inside, especially in the upper floor exhibit hall.  Even the people working there had to step outside and cool off fairly often.  Outside was nice, with a pool of water leading to the temple entrance.  The temple was at the edge of the Western Park which bordered Paseo Rosales.  The neighborhood was very upscale and the park was super pleasant with paths, lawns, plantings, etc.  We walked over to the Telferico aerial tram and cabled over to Casa de Campo.  The tram cars were small - we had our own - compared to the large trams we rode in Monserrat and Barcelona.  There was an audio program that played in the tram during the ride.  We tried to tell the attendant who loaded us into the car that we wanted the English version, but we got Spanish.  From above, we could see the large "project" apartment buildings.  Many of them had center courtyards not visible from the outside.  The park area was huge.  We trammed above an expanse of dry woodlands crossed with bike trails and paths.

The tram to Casa de Campo

The tram station had a vending machine restaurant and opened onto a grassy picnic area with a playground.  We settled under a tree in the picnic area to relax and eat the food we had brought from the market.  In the distance, about a mile away, there was a sprawling amusement park.  Neil rested.  I caught up on some of my journal writing. There were very few people around.  Nearby, on the picnic grounds, was an old couple well settled in with folding chairs and a card table, a couple of younger couples, and a young family with twins and another child all dressed in red.  We thought it would be busier, especially on a Sunday.  It was quiet and restful.

Picnic Scene with Amusement Park

After strolling the grounds, we took the tram back.  Neil, once again, tried to explain that we wanted English for our audio program.  We thought all was understood but, when we started our tram ride, our journey was described in French!!  Clouds had come in during the day, keeping the temperatures down a little (high 80's to low 90's).  We walked through a rose garden which was huge but seemed nowhere near as well kept up as other areas in the park.  As we walked through the park, we saw several groups of picnickers, including several girls playing badminton.  We stopped to relax at a cafe right on the edge of the park on Paseo Rosales.  It was a late afternoon and the service crew was relaxing.  There was only one other customer.  The setting was very nice, across from a pretty fountain and away from the crush of crowds.  We had drinks, cafe con leech, coca cola, and water and we had to pay for it.  This cafe was expensive.  Our small drinks cost us over 10 Euros.

Lunch spot

We headed back to the hotel along the Gran Via, a new route for us. While on the part of Gran Via called Princessa, we saw a traffic accident.  Actually, we heard it as it happened right behind us and we turned to look.  A woman rear-ended a Mercedes which then hit the car in front of it.  Apparently, the women was driving and did not react to the cars stopped at a red light at the intersection. The Mercedes had some damage to the rear but the car that caused the damage was pretty banged up.  All drivers got out and hugged and everyone was okay, although quite a bit of gas was spilling out the front of the damaged car.  Remarkably, three or four police on motorcycles and an ambulance arrived at the scene within about ninety seconds. Wow!  We continued our walk and peeked through the gate of the Palacio de Liria.  When we got back and checked the internet, we found that this palace was privately owned by the Duke of Alba.  It had been rebuilt after having been destroyed in the Spanish Civil War.

Neil has a good map sense of the city by now.  He turned off Gran Via at just the right place to get us back to the hotel.  We read and rested.  After all our travels, I consulted the internet on "how-to" and experimented with the bidet in the bathroom.

Once again, we followed our routine and set out to find dinner at about 10 pm.  Once outside, I went back for my sweater, although it was probably about 75 degrees farenheit! We headed to the Mercado San Miguel where we had started our day.  We sat down at a place right outside the Market, but there was not enough light and we had too much difficulty trying to read the menu.  We left and wandered some more and sat down at a table with a white tablecloth at a place outside the walls of the Plaza Major.  We were very happy with this choice - Cafe de Asquininas.  The placement was such that you could see people strolling, but it was not a beehive of activity.  Our waiter did not have as many tables (compared to other places we have eaten) and he was relaxed, friendly and attentive.  Neil had an egg / green bean / garlic / shrimp dish and I had some fried cod and tuna salad.  Everything was delicious. Toward the end of the meal, we were puzzled as to why all the waiters were all staring raptly down the street.  I asked and found they were looking for a customer who had left something at his table.  Some thereafter, the customer returned to retrieve his guidebook.

Our trip back to the hotel again took us through the Puerto del Sol.  Although there were still crowds of people about, it was much less congested and mellower than last night.  Additionally, there was a lot less garbage.

Day 19: July 2 (Madrid)

We got up around 10 am and went for breakfast at the Chocolateria San Gines. It was yummy the second time too.  Neil, however, said "No more!"  Too filling and too sweet.  There was an older white woman there with a black child.  They were not getting served and I thought it was a race thing but there was a mixed race couple right next to them who had no trouble at all.

The Police Band

We left breakfast and walked to the Royal Palace. The palace was fronted by a huge garden surrounded by very nice buildings.  There were many tour groups evident, including a group on Segways. We heard some music and followed the sound over to a street concert performance of the Madrid Municipal Police Band.  The day was pretty and we enjoyed standing around in the shade and listening for a while.  A woman spoke to Neil in Spanish.  We walked down the street to the tour entrance of the palace.  There was quite a long line to get in, but nothing like the line for the Sagrada Familia.  The tour was expensive, 16 euros, but it included entry to a temporary exhibit of Polish art.

The inner courtyard of the palace

The palace was enormous.  We started in the Royal Armory, a huge collection of various kings' ceremonial suits of armor.  The exhibit included a display of armor for horses.  There was even armor for a dog!  We found the armory more interesting than the actual palace.  We went through the palace along with a tour so we heard some of the information about the room contents and historical context.  It was a lot to absorb.  There were ceremonial rooms, dining rooms, family rooms, etc, and probably only about 10% of the palace was accessible to the public. I felt somewhat claustrophobic in some of the smaller rooms.  We had a good lunch in the Palace cafeteria to build up some energy.  The next stop was the Royal Pharmacy, consisting of rooms lined with shelves on which sat lots and lots of labeled jars.  There was also a room with processing equipment including a still.  Finally, we went through the Polish exhibit.  The exhibit was not too big, well presented and very interesting.  The exhibit ended with paintings by Da Vinci and Rembrandt.  The Da Vinci, "The Girl with the Ermine", was the reason I wanted to see the exhibit.  It is normally in Krakow, so that it was unexpected to encounter it in our travels.  The Rembrandt, "The Girl in the Frame", isn't well known and has not often been exhibited to the public.  We had difficulty trying to find more information on the internet about this painting, partly because we couldn't find a good translation for the Spanish word "marca".

Stained Glass in Catedral Almuden

After leaving the palace, we wandered across a large courtyard which was under renovation until we reached the Catedral Almudena.  This cathedral was completed in 1993, after 200 years of construction.  It was Neil's favorite cathedral, very light inside with beautiful, brightly colored ceilings and very modern stained glass.  There were a lot of priests up on the pulpit energetically discussing something.  We left and walked around the corner where there was an archeological excavation.  Across the street from the dig, a big well-to-do wedding party was spilling out the doors, cheering the bride and groom.

We walked down to the Sabatini Gardens on the other side of the Royal Palace.  Taking a stairway down from the street, we strolled through the gardens and past a stage set up for a presentation of Swan Lake on Ice later that evening as part of the citywide Verrano en Madrid program of events.  Finally, we headed back to the hotel for our early evening rest.  The crowds through the Puerta del Sol and Plaza Callao were already large and growing on this Saturday night.  Once in our room, I did my usual laundry chore.  I called about doing a Segway tour, but all tours were booked through the next week. I read for a while, then napped.

Teatro Espanol at night from Plaza Santa Ana

We went out in search of dinner at about 9:30 pm.  We turned the other direction away from Plaza Major and went to Plaza Santa Ana, which fronts a very colorfully lit Teatro Espanol.  This is a square known for its outdoor dining and it was crowded.  We grabbed a table at the Cervecia Alemana.  The table area was being serviced by one waiter, and he was busy!!  We had a huge salad, tortilla espana and albondigas.  I tried some "apple beer" from Asturias and liked it.  This beer is traditionally served by pouring it into a glass from a bottle held overhead, but I did not get this treatment. Crowds were enormous.  It was 11:30 pm and the playground in the plaza was filled with kids.  There was a schizophrenic guy quasi-living in the plaza "acting out" while we ate.

We were literally stepping over people sitting everywhere on the street on our way back to the hotel.  The public trash cans were full and overflowing into the streets with refuse from fast food places.  I think that it is kind of a Spanish thing to throw trash on the ground.  It appears that a good part of the local government budget must go into paying the many municipal trash workers we have seen working at all hours.  The trash is quickly collected and, generally, streets in Spain are very clean.  Heading back, the Gay Pride event was going strong with loud techno music entertaining the crowds.

Day 18: July 1 (Madrid - Toledo - Madrid)

We got up and took the metro to the Atocha train station for an early departure to Toledo.  We were back at the train station we had left at the beginning of our trip.  Full circle - a reminder that we'd been traveling for a while and our trip was nearing its end.  Even though we had been there before, we were turned around and had to ask directions to the AVE train platform.  We were early enough to grab a coffee at the train station before departure.

Toledo rail station

We arrived in the train station in Toledo and grabbed a bus up the hill to the center of the historic section.  Even though it was still early, it was already stiflingly hot.  We were somewhat confused about where we were when the bus dropped us off but we stumbled around and found the central information center and got a map. We headed off to the cathedral first.  The cathedral museum had an impressive collection of art -  El Grecos, Titians, Van Dykes, Goyas and more.  Neil liked the perspective of the ceiling art in the museum. It looked look you were really looking at the ceiling scene from below.  There was also an interesting alabaster and marble sculpture called "El Transparente" which was showcased by natural light from a hole cut into the ceiling for this purpose.  The hole was decorated to look like the entrance to heaven.  The side chapels were very large.

After the cathedral, we stopped at a bar with some tables set outside for some cool drinks and early lunch.  The waiter looked dismayed that we were there, which turned out to be because they weren't really ready to be serving lunch.  We ordered some bottled water, which the waiter brought along with some delicious Serrano ham tapas appetizers.

Tower of San Tome

We visited San Tome nearby which housed "The Burial of Count Orgaz", by El Greco.  This was my mother's favorite painting.  She had the poster on the wall of her bedroom.  I was interested in seeing it in person.  Here (and everywhere) Toledo was swarming with huge tour groups of all kinds.  I was a little overwhelmed by the crowds at every stop of interest.  Now that it is July, schools are out everywhere and summer vacation is in full swing.  We are caught in the tourist crush and have to live with it.    One thing I do not understand is the point of having so many churches so close to a giant cathedral.

Next on our wanderings was a temple, converted to a monastery, finally to a church. It is now restored to serve as the Sephardic Museum, telling the story of Jews in Spain.  I found it depressing.  It did not address what happened to the Jews on Spain.  It was more an examination as if the Jews were some kind of exotic zoo animal.  Very odd!

Once back out on the streets we were really hot and hungry.  We searched for a restaurant and ended up at a nice (air conditioned) sit down place called Adolpho's.  It was a gourmet type menu where, once again, we were unsure of what we were ordering.  Unfortunately, there were no English speakers among the staff.  We ended up ordering carpaccio, something we thought was thinly sliced meat.  We were partly right.  It was thinly sliced raw venison.  The other thing we ordered was torta de cabra y oveja, which turned out to be a big ball of melted cheese.  The venison wasn't bad.  The cheese was quite heavy.

Festive street

After lunch, we walked around in the heat.  Our energy was gone and our heart wasn't in it.  We waked back across the city to the main gate and found a place to sit at the Cafe and Te in Zodocover square at about 3 pm.  We nursed a smoothie and ice cream.  The weather was rapidly changing.  It clouded up, but it was still oppressively hot.  I was somewhat revived.  Sitting at our table, I reflected that, throughout the day, i had noticed  many people in religious attire out and about.  I saw many nuns as well as a priest smoking outside a church talking on his cel phone.  I had also noticed many buildings and balconies strung with garlands of flowers.  The streets were covered with shade tarps, as I had noticed in other cities.  I struck up a conversation with an English speaker, an air traffic controller, who told me that a some of my observations were explained by the fact that a religious festival had just ended in Toledo.

Alcantara Bridge

We left the city by the main gate and walked down the hill, crossing the river on the Alcantara Bridge, and arrived at the rail station.  The rail station is, itself, a very distinctive mudejar structure.  The train we caught was one of the last going back to Madrid.  It had about ten cars, as opposed to the three or four cars of the train we had arrived on this morning.  There were many people waiting.  We waited about an hour, sitting on a bench outside along the track where the train was waiting for boarding.  When we finally boarded, we were thrilled by the wonderful air-conditioning. The train left right on schedule.  In fact, every bus train and airplane during our entire trip has been right on time.  The longest wait we have had for the Metro in the cities has been four minutes, with waiting time of two minutes the norm.

The hotel was bliss after the train / Metro back.  I immediately took a bath while Neil checked online with his ipod.  We went out and ate at a different place in the Plaza Major at around 10 pm.  We decided that, based on our limited experience, the places in the Plaza were too tourist oriented to serve really quality food.  We still really do not understand some of the cultural ethic here, like why do waiters bother at all if they are not getting tips?  The Plaza and surrounds were more crowded tonight than last night, probably because it is Friday.  It even sprinkled a little tonight, but not enough to notice.

Day 17: June 30 (Madrid)

Dipping Churros in Chocolate

We awoke to our first day in Madrid - our last stop before the end of our trip.  We slept well due to good soundproofing and air conditioning.  Neil had a breakfast plan he found on TripAdvisor; a visit to Chocolateria San Gines,  known for the local breakfast delicacy of churros and chocolate.  Although it wasn't far from the hotel, we stumbled onto it by accident.  Once inside, we were instantly confused by the wording of the sign in English and Spanish that described the procedure for ordering.  You tell the cashier at the door what you want and you pay for it and the cashier gives you a receipt.  You sit down at a table, show the receipt to a waiter, and the waiter brings your order.  The workers all had white uniforms, and I could not imagine how they kept them that way with all of the chocolate being moved around.  The furniture was very substantial.  The walls were covered with pictures of celebrities who had eaten there.  It all reminded me in a way of Felipe's in Los Angeles.  We ordered and ate inside.  Everything was delicious.  The chocolate is melted and comes in a coffee cup.  The churros, which are not sweet like Mexican churros, are dipped in the melted chocolate.  The coffee I ordered was great.  Everything was yummy; a high point of our trip.

Our next stop was El Corte Ingles near the hotel.  We went to look for sunscreen and some laundry detergent. The store was huge!  We found some high priced sunscreen in the cosmetics section,  but found more reasonably priced sunscreen in the supermarket section.  The supermarket had an entire aisle for just olive oils!  The laundry detergent took a while to find.  It was in an area outside the food market. We went upstairs by escalator.  Neil tried to convince me that El Corte Ingles was like Walmart, but the store had high end clothes, custom makeup lines, furniture, and housewares.  We bought an oil cloth tablecloth for home that I had been looking for.  I tried on a dress I never would have considered at Neil's suggestion and bought that too!

Prado Entrance

We went back to the hotel with our purchases.  I did some laundry before we set out for the Prado.  We walked, along with throngs of people on the streets.  The walk was about 20 minutes and took us by some government buildings where some television reporters were set up and filming their stories.  The Prado was truly amazing!  We saw lots of beautiful things.  Many paintings stirred my memories of art history class long ago.  I found that I really liked the Fortunys, some of which we also saw in Barcelona.  I loved the El Grecos and was very impressed with Las Meninas.  We were getting tired, so we stopped in at the Prado cafe for a good lunch.  Neil decided the way to do museums was to live in the city, get a membership, visit for an hour or two and look carefully at a few things, go home and read about them, then come back a week later and repeat.  After lunch, we found ourselves in a bit of a mystery.  Someone "official" was touring the museum.  There were eight or so security / secret service types in suits with the earplugs.  They were strategically placed through the galleries around a couple of people.  We weren't exactly sure who was being protected, and we certainly did not recognize any famous people.  We almost left without checking out the Breugels and Bosches but I saw them on a postcard in the museum store so we doubled back to find them and check them out.  It was about 7:45pm when we left and walked back to the hotel.

At about 9:30pm, we set out for the Plaza Major in search of dinner.  The Plaza was much like those in Bilbao and San Sebastian, but maybe twice the size.  (I thought the Bilbao and San Sebastian Plaza Majors looked alike and found that they were designed by the same person.)  We ate at the Magent in the Plaza.  The meal was okay, and pricey.  I had a salad with tomato, tuna, nuts, raisins, onions and apples.  We had tasty tapas - one with salmon and one with ham.  Many people were in the Plaza Major, but there were many more on the streets and in the Puerto del Sol.  As be walked back through Plaza Callao to the hotel, a big stage was being set up for a Gay Pride Madrid venue.  Loud techno music filled the Plaza.  I did notice a significantly higher number of gay couples out and about today.

Tomorrow, Toledo!!

Day 16: June 29 (Bilbao- Madrid)

We got up and went across the street to a very new, elaborate shopping center named Zubiarte fronting the river across from the hotel.  It was 10:00 am and the stores were just opening. Much of the shopping center interior was still being finished.  We were looking for an umbrella of our very own and some breakfast.  Many of the stores in the center were in the same chains as we saw last night walking downtown along Gran Via - Zara, Zara Home, RomaMode and others.  We were successful at finding a small umbrella that we could pack in our luggage.  We then went over to an open bar / cafe for some coffee and toast.  Most of the other customers were construction workers having their morning beer.

Guggenheim Museum

We stored our luggage at the hotel and set out for the Guggenheim.  We walked down the side of the river opposite the museum to get a good wide view, crossed a bridge and then swung back and walked around before entering.  As we passed the museum, mist was being injected over the pool as part of the "fog sculpture" exhibit.  We saw the giant spider "Maman" and, around the corner the giant "Puppy" of flowers by Jeff Koons.  The building itself was very different, all curves with shiny metal "scales".  The price of admission included a detailed audio / video guide to lead us around.  This was the first time we had run into a guide handset which included a video screen.  I gave up on mine, finding it very interfering.  There were times, however, when it was very necessary because the art was pretty much incomprehensible.  We walked around in the big, disorienting Serra installation with strange ellipses. I liked the installation with a room full of chairs placed in front of televisions playing different video interviews of people from a Turkish slum.  We had a sandwich at the museum bar / restaurant and did a little more art exploration before heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and catch a taxi to the bus station.  Neil made his first ever spanish phone call to tell the hotel in Madrid we would be late and to ask the name of the nearest metro station.

Spider and Fog

Puppy

Spider

The cab driver was very surly.  As usual, we muddled around trying to find the departure gate for the Madrid bus.  I waited in a long line to ask at the ticket counter but, before I reached the front, Neil pulled me out of line because the bus showed up on the departure board in the station. We boarded with little problem.  This was a special deluxe service bus and it came with a stewardess who checked the baggage in the storage compartment below.  The seat arrangement was luxurious, with each row having one seat one one side of the aisle and two seats on the other.  Neil picked a seat that had been totally trashed.  Everything was broken: the headrest, the recliner, the footrest, the food tray, and more!  It was like sumo wrestlers had been fighting there!  This seemed a unique problem seat; and Neil picked it.  Neil is good at this.  We switched to another row with perfectly functioning seats.  During the ride, they showed two movies and served a meal consisting of a sandwich, drinks, and a peanut snack.  The trip lasted about five hours and passed pleasantly.  The landscape was green with rocky hills.  We saw a lot of windmills and I saw a flock of sheep being driven by a man and two dogs.  I only noticed one town of any size, Burgos, on the route between Bilbao and Madrid.  As we drove, the air temperature increased about 30 degrees Farenheit.  By the time we got to Madrid, we had returned to the heat.

We arrived at the bus station in Madrid and walked quite a ways and descended quite a few levels to reach the Metro train platform.  Once again, we were happy to be carrying only one carry-on sized bag each.  The Metro worked the same way as the one in Barcelona, so we bought our tickets and checked out the map.  We had to make one transfer to reach Callao.  Coming up out of the station at 10 pm at night we were immediately engulfed in noise and people.  I asked for directions and we found out hotel (Hotel Preciados) easily.  The hotel was very nice and service oriented.  The bellman insisted on taking our bags up the elevator for us.  The minibar, pretty well stocked, is free!  The hotel room faced a side street and everything looked very soundproofed.  We wanted to stretch a little so we went out at about 11:30 pm.  We grabbed an ice cream from a chain store restaurant place and walked down to Puerto del Sol.  The Puerto del Sol appeared to be the center of all activity in Madrid.  It looked like there were thousands of American college girls there.  Political protesters had staged a tent city in the middle of the plaza - right across from the main police station.  I was not exactly sure specifically what they were protesting.  After a short time we wandered back to the hotel.  We found that we had been lucky in getting to our hotel so easily because the street the hotel is on, Calle Preciados, does a hairpin turn at Callao and we could have gone down the wrong side of the hairpin as the correct side.

Day 15: June 28 (San Sebastian - Bilbao)

Along the River Urumea

It was raining when we woke up.  I talked to Carol on the phone and arranged to meet with her for lunch at 2:00 pm.  The hotel kept our luggage in storage until our bus departure to Bilbao later in the day.  They had lent out all of their umbrellas already but the rain had stopped under very dark, threatening skies.  We started out walking back toward the water via the paseo along the river.  The paseo was a beautiful parklike boulevard lined with very expensive looking apartments.  We saw kids rowing crew on the river.  We turned away from the river into the old town and found a rare coffee-to-go place, full of women. They even had mochas for Neil.  We drank our coffee in the parklike central area of Plaza de Gipuzkoa, watching a lot of little children feeding ducks and pigeons.

The beach from Mt Urgull

We continued meandering on our sightseeing walk and started climbing up Mt. Urgull.  The path was very green and presented gorgeous views of the beach and bay.  There was a very nicely designed historical museum in the castle at the top of the mountain.  It was sprinkling by the time we reached the top and we were getting quite damp.  We headed back down and got to our restaurant meeting for lunch.  The restaurant, however, was full so Carol took us down the street to a bar.  Carol told us that it was unusual to order more than one tapas dish.  The custom was to order one with a small beer (like the size of two shotglasses) and then either move on to another bar and do the same or sit down for the main lunch meal.  Since foreigners, including Americans, frequent the area, the natives are used to people getting more than one tapas dish and loading it all onto a plate.  We ate crammed into a counter at the front window.  The outside tables were not being used because of the rain, making it crowded inside.

As lunch ended, we said goodbye to Carol and remembered to give her back her bus pass.  Our overall impression of San Sebastian was one of elegance and planning - at a cost.  It seemed to be a playground for the rich.  We saw advertisements for small apartments for sale with no view for $500,000.  Carol had told us of the complex system of public housing subsidies that allowed most people to live in the area.  I did not see living in San Sebastian in our future.

Carol told us that we had to buy our bus tickets at the ticket office before getting on the bus, unlike our experience getting here yesterday with paying the driver.  We walked back through significant rain to the hotel and bus station, found the ticket office with some difficulty, bought the tickets, got our luggage and, after a little confusion about the gate the bus was leaving from, were on our way to downtown Bilbao for the bargain price of 10 Euros apiece.  The bus retraced the route of yesterday's bus, except that it ended up in the downtown bus station rather than at the airport.

Bilbao was described in our tour book as depressed, decayed and run down, with about one million people in the area.  It seemed otherwise to us.  We taxied from the bus to our hotel, Melia.  The hotel was large, kind of a business hotel, and very nicely designed.  Our room had a beautiful view of the river and a bridge.  The window curtain, including a separate blackout, worked electrically from a switch by the bed. We borrowed an umbrella from the front desk (Neil's spanish was, once again, gently corrected by the very nice check-in receptionist.  It turns out that an umbrella is a paragua, not a sombrilla which is like a sunshade.) and set out toward the old town to explore our new city.

After walking through a beautiful park, Parque de Dona Casilda Iturrizar, behind the hotel, we came out onto the Gran Via.  As per usual for us, we turned the wrong direction and walked down to a big plaza with a huge monument.  We had thought this to be the Plaza Major, but it was something else (Plaza Sagrado Corazon). We turned around and headed back up the Gran Via.  The Gran Via was a mostly commercial area, lined with very nice stores.  Although it was a wet weekday, people were everywhere.  As far as we could tell, everybody was a local.  At the Plaza Major, we hit some kind of large group gathering for a parade / protest.  We assumed this to be related to gay pride because of a lot of rainbow colored items on display.  We never really found out for sure, though.

Fountains in Iturrizar Park

We got to the old part of town by continuing on Gran Via and crossing a bridge over the Bilbao river.  The Plaza was similar to that in San Sebastian in size and design; lots of shops, lots of people.  There were older ladies out in groups.  There were children playing.  I noticed a definite girl-hipster look characterized by very short bangs.  As the evening wore on, the bars came to noisy life, overflowing with the young adult crowd.  The general level of commotion was augmented by the arrival of the parade we had seen forming earlier in our walk.  Neil and I were getting very hungry, but I could not bring myself to navigate into the noise and smoke of the bars.

We left the old section back the way we came looking for a quieter, more relaxed place to eat.  We stopped at several bars and cafes, but they were full.  we noted that, unlike everywhere else we had visited,  the primary "dinner tapa" was ice cream!  We stopped at several restaurants with exorbitant prices (Apparently there are lots of rich people in "run-down" Bilbao.) Many places were closed or closing; another surprise based on our travels.  We finally found the Spanish equivalent of a Fresh Choice.  I was happy with the food and the relaxed atmosphere.

The riverfront at night

It was the end of a long day.  We crossed back through the park and returned to our hotel. I relaxed in the tub before bed.

Day 14: June 27 (Barcelona - Bilbao - San Sebastian)

shiny

We woke today to a morning of travel.  Our plan was to fly to Bilbao, then take a bus to San Sebastian.  We had the hotel breakfast, packed, and took the bus to the airport.  The bus stop was not where we had gotten out several days ago due to traffic flow, but Neil had figured out exactly where it was.  Everything went smoothly.  We returned to the blindingly shiny Barcelona airport and checked in to get our boarding passes, as we could not print them out at the hotel.  We window-shopped some glitzy stores and moved quickly through security.  The plane was full.  I could see Montjuic out the window as we ascended from the airport.  The flight itself was not very long - about 45 minutes including 15 minutes of taxiing before take off.

The temperature was a sultry 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Bilbao but we didn't really have to worry about it.  The bus stop was at the end of the arrival area right outside the baggage claim.  We waited about one half hour before hopping on the air conditioned bus.  We were a little confused about how to buy tickets since we could not find a ticket office for the bus company.  It turned out that all was handled "out of pocket" by the bus driver.  There was an older German woman on the bus.  She asked me a few questions in English.  She had to be at least 75 years old, but looked very fit.  She was on a hiking trip, traveling with a backpack and walking poles.  We talked about the high price of the bus ride to San Sebastian, about 15 euros.  I was surprised especially because our research online listed the price at about half of what we paid.

The bus ride took about an hour and dropped us at the bus station, about two blocks from our hotel. We set off from the station and walked right past the hotel, eventually being turned back around by asking directions from the locals.  The hotel was called the Astoria 7 which sounds like the name of a cinema multiplex.  This is because the hotel was converted from a cinema, and is reflected in the hotel's movie design theme. By the time we got to the hotel, my friend Carol was coming out of the lobby looking for us.  It was a muggy 100 degrees Fahrenheit in San Sebastian also, unusual for the coast.  Heat has followed us everywhere!

at the beach

Carol gave us a tour of the town.  We walked past a street vending machine for fresh milk.  It was very clean, large, and new.  Carol said that these machines had been around for about a year.  People said that the milk was very fresh and good.  The only drawback was that there was only whole milk, no low fat or skim. We headed down the street to the waterfront / "Concha" beach area.   It was late in the afternoon but the beaches were still pretty crowded (more crowded later in the summer, Carol informed us.).  We turned away form the water back to the older area of town.  We had drinks in the Plaza Mayor, which was bounded by several stories of apartments with big address numbers displayed on their balconies.  Carol explained that the balconies used to be rented out for viewing bullfights, and the numbers identified seat location to the renters.  As we sat, the weather was changing noticeably.  The temperature was dropping and winds were coming up.  Big umbrellas were starting to fly around the plaza.

We strolled through some lovely town areas with shops and displays of food.  Everything was very attractive and resort-y.  I did a lot of talking - catching up - with Carol.  Neil asked a lot of questions that had been accumulating during our travels about language issues, local mores, etc.  Our travels returned us to the hotel where we made plans with Carol to meet for dinner.  Plans involved us trying to navigate the bus system to a place on the map provided to us by the hotel clerk.  Carol gave us her prepaid electronic bus pass to save some money.

After a rest and some laundry, we set out to find Carol at the restaurant "El Lagar".  The temperature had dropped significantly and, for the first time in Spain, we were almost cold!  The bus went along the river over to the waterfront fronting a "third" beach which we hadn't seen in the afternoon.  This beach was more exposed to the ocean and popular with surfers.  We found the restaurant and had a "blow out" basque style meal with blood sausage, mussels, a salad with shrimp, a bacalou prepared differently from the ones we had earlier in our trip, a pork dish, and a poached egg dish.  Everything was delicious and topped off with a local white wine.  It was a good time for all with good conversation.  While we ate, rain fell, accompanied by some thunder and lightning.  After, we walked briskly back to the hotel.  The waterfront was chill and windy.

Day 13: June 26 (Barcelona)

Museum of Catalan Art

City View from Museum

We got up after 10:00 am, had breakfast at the hotel, and set out for a day at Parc Montjuic.  Once again, we followed an ipod tour. At the entrance beyond the Placa d' Espanya, we saw some buildings from the exposition of 1929/30, including a Van der Rohe building, the German Pavilion, considered one of the most beautiful in the world.  We did not pay to go in, partly because we could not figure out where the entrance was after walking completely around it. This turned out to be because the "Entrada" sign was on the reverse side of the "Salida" sign which was facing toward us.  We retraced our path of last night to the National Museum of Catalonian Art.  This museum is best known for its Romanesque collection which was (of course) closed to the public for remodeling.  It did not actually matter to us because we enjoyed the parts of the museum we did see.  We checked out the temporary exhibits and then finished in the modern section.  The temporary exhibit was "Realismo" featuring the work of Courbet.  My favorite in the modern section was a Catalan artist named Casa.  Neil liked the modern area very much, especially many of the cityscapes.  One of the paintings was of La Boqueria we visited yesterday.  We could have spent more time but the museum closed at 2:30 pm on Sunday.

Continuing on our ipod tour, we climbed the hill to the Olympic Stadium.  It was built in 1928-29 also, and refurbished for the 1992 Olympics.  The stadium was one of the few things open on Sunday afternoon.  You could go in the front door and look at the field and stands.  We had a sandwich and bought some water for our walk to Castell Montjuic at the top of the Park. The views of the city off the road on the way up were outstanding.  On the way, we passed an aerial tram station which we thought was the opposite end of the one we saw yesterday from the World Trade Center at the beach.  It was not, however.  This tram started down from the bottom of the park. There were surprisingly few people.  At the Castle itself, there were more - but not crowds.  It was possible to drive to the Castle.  There were also trams and there were tour buses.  The Castle and grounds were huge, and there were 360 degree views of the city and of the harbor.

View of Harbor from Montjuic

Rambla del Mar from aerial tram

We walked down from the Castle with the plan of finding the aerial tram to the beach and taking it.  We passed through beautiful gardens walking down the ocean side of Montjuic.  We found the tram station, which adjoined a big hotel and nice gardens.  The ride was expensive but fun / scary.  We exited the tram on the top of a very tall tower and had a fun ride down in a transparent elevator.

We walked back into the Barri Gotic from the beach, toward the Cathedral area.  We hoped to see people dance the Sardana (a Catalan folk dance) which is performed impromptu by groups, usually on Sundays, in the plaza outside of city hall.  (I did take a picture of a statue of Sardana dancers coming down from Montjuic.)  On the way, by pure chance, we stumbled upon Bubo, the shop we were looking for the other day with the best chocolate cake in the world (according to Frommer).  We stopped in and had coffee and shared a hazelnut treat recommended by the waiter.  We realized that our problem in finding the shop was that we confused two churches / plazas. Anyway, we enjoyed the surprise break from our walk.

Human pyramid

We did not see dancers when we got to the city hall, but it did look like something was about to happen.  The doors to the city hall were open, people were milling around, and there were two big procession figures on either side of the doorway.  No dancers appeared but a group of youngsters in white martial arts looking outfits accompanied by musicians came out the doors and performed a series of acrobatic human pyramids with a small child at the top.  I had read that these "Castellers" traditionally did these routines at festivals. After the acrobatics, the musicians started up and the two procession figures by the door did a kind of formal dance.  This started a whole procession of several sets of musicians and figurines marching out the doors of the city hall and into the plaza. One group of marchers has water guns and shot streams of water into the crowd.  The "Castellers" brought up the end of the procession, making some moving pyramid formations as they marched.  We had no idea of what the festival was or where the procession went, but we were thrilled to be in the right place at the right time.

Trying to get back to the hotel, we got totally turned around in the Barri Gotic.  We ended up emerging from the old quarter into the harbor / beach area, just about totally opposite of what we were trying for.  We were, however, on familiar ground once we saw where we were.  We walked back over to the Columbus monument and got on the Metro at the foot of Las Ramblas.  Exiting the Metro at our home stop, Rocafort, we stopped for another ice cream treat and then headed down to the hotel for our afternoon siesta.  Neil worked on our travel plans for tomorrow while I did quite a bit of laundry.  I called my friend, Carol, who is going to meet us tomorrow in San Sebastian.

We dined close to home, at a small bar called Diamante across the street.  It was another beautiful, warm night to cap off another busy day.  The waiter was very nice, although (once again) there was some confusion stemming from our bad Spanish. There is a Tango Club around the corner from the bar.  We have not gone in but it looks pretty garish with lots of bright neon street lighting.  It seems like a hangout for a clique of mostly older men and women.  A big group of the Tango Club patrons walked by the bar while we were eating.  They exchanged warm greetings with our waiter as they passed through.