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.

Day 12: June 25 (Barcelona)

Las Arenas shopping mall

Miro sculpture

We didn't wake up until after 10:00 am.  We had breakfast at the hotel and then set off for the metro station to head back to Sagrada Familia. Our intent was to pay the entry fee and see the inside.  On the way to the metro, we walked through the Parc de Joan Miro.  It had a very different park design with a monumental Miro sculpture in one corner.  There was a dedicated dog park.  There were various game courts which were in use, including outdoor ping-pong tables with metal "nets". Most of the park was gravel, with palms and other trees.  The sculpture was set on a grassy lot with weird metal things sticking up (vents from underground parking?)  We then went into a giant arena which housed a huge shpping mall.  We stopped into a "Best Buy" sort of store to buy a new memory card for the camera because the one we have is close to full.

at the blue Mediterranean

When we finally arrived at the church, the line to get in was way too long.   We did a quick change of plans, went back down into the metro, and headed for the beach / harbor area.  We walked down the boulevard from the metro stop to the beach and then turned right to the end of the walk path.  At the end, there was a big hotel "W" in the shape of a sail, very shiny and very fancy.  We hadn't seen open water so far on our trip, and it was a pleasure seeing the blue Mediterranean.  It was a hot day, about 88 or so, but there was a breeze that kept things nice. It seemed that there were few people in the water, compared to the number on the beach.  The beaches were pretty packed!  On our walk, we puzzled about the use of the beach and different umbrellaed areas.  There were some private beach clubs with swimming pool facilities on the side of the walk path opposite the sea. Neil was thrilled to see some windsurfers and at least one kiter.  Neil took off his shoes and put his feet in the water, which was warm.

We walked back to town via the Barcelonetta harbor area to the Columbus monument / pillar and the spot where Las Ramblas hits the harbor.  Heading up into town, we toured the cathedral.  We were not that impressed, although it was very crowded.  For the first time on our trip, I noticed someone (three different people) refused entry because of their clothing.  I thought that this was odd especially because what they were wearing wasn't that different than what I was wearing; and I've seem people wearing more revealing chothes in other churches we have been in.  We continued our Barrio Gotic walk trying to find a shop that Frommer's says has "the best in the world" chocolate cake, but couldn't find it.  We did, however, have a nice lunch in another Frommer recommendation, the Bar del Pi in the Placa del Pi.  We sat inside in the bar and ate gazpacho, an empanada, and a Catalon sausage sampler (including blood sausage).  We continued toward Las Ramblas and found La Boqueria market, advertised to be the best market in Europe.  I think it lived up to the hype.  It was huge and crowded, with beautifully displayed foods of all types.  We bought cherries and some chocolates, although we did have some difficulty finding a nice place to sit and eat our chocolates before they melted.  We took the metro back to the hotel.  I was not feeling great, very tired and worn out due to sensory / people overload.  I definitely needed the afternoon rest!

Fun at the Gay Pride Event

Montjuic Fountain of Light show

At dusk, we went to the Placa Espanya to see the fountain light show at Parc Montjuic.  Set up in front of the fountain was a stage and stands for the Barcelona Gay Pride festival.  There was a lot of flamboyant strangeness happening as we walked through.  The fountain show was very impressive and the grounds were spectacular.  There were thousands of people milling around on this beautiful warm night.  We were very impressed by the civic effort involved in providing this kind of entertainment two or three nights a week during the entire summer.

We walked back to the hotel backtracking along our morning path.  There were a fair number of people on the grassy lot in from of the Miro sculpture, which had been deserted in the morning.  No one seemed to be in the park interior.  We arrived at the hotel with the thought of having a drink in the rooftop bar.  We checked it out but it seemed too smoky and very expensive, so we passed.

Day 11: June 24 (Barcelona)

We woke at around 9:15 am.  The fireworks did not last too long into the night and after, there was no noise at all.  It was quite quiet.  We ate the hotel breakfast downstairs.

We took a trip to the monastery at Montserrat.  The train left from a station underground at Placa Espanya.  The station was a little hard to find but, once we found the right level, there was actually an employee to help people with advice and show them how to buy tickets for the Montserrat day trip.  The train actually serviced the suburbs, with several stops ending at Montserrat.  The train was full, mostly tourists.  An Israeli couple traveling with at least two older women sat near us.  We were thrilled to strike up a (mostly Spanish) conversation with the woman sitting next to us.  She was originally from Jaen, an area around Cordoba, one of twelve children.  She was very blond with blue eyes, 53 years old with two children.  She spoke very slowly to us, with some English mixed in.  She was so sweet.  When she got off the train at her stop, she gave us a package she was carrying as a gift.  We opened the bag to find some delicious pastry.  The pastry was wonderful for our hike around Montserrat.  To this woman on the train: (We never did ask your name) If you should ever read this, Neil and I want you to know that we treasure your conversation and kindness as one of the truly high points of our whole trip.

Aerial tram at Montserrat

The train trip took about an hour.  The first third was underground, the rest on the surface.  There were two Montserrat stops; the first servicing the aerial tram (where we got off) and the next servicing the funicular.  Neil and I got right in front in the little orange tram car which held 35 people.  At the top, Montserrat was jammed with people.  You could drive up there on a windy road and there where many tour buses parked.  We missed the daily performance of the famed boy's choir by an hour (bad tour guide info?).  There was a huge line of people extending from the main cathedral into the courtyard waiting to touch the Black Madonna. We left the built up area and went on a hike to the Cross of San Miguel.  The walk paths were lined with statues and shrines.  There were specific prayers displayed to be recited at the various stations.  We saw a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi that bore a resemblance to one of Neil's work colleagues.  Neil especially liked a little hermit's retreat near the lookout.  It was relaxing and peaceful away from the monastery.  There were lots of English speakers at the monastery but none at all on the hiking path. We stopped several times along the way to eat our pastry.  At our destination, the view from the mirador at San Miguel's Cross was spectacular. The view was back to the monastery on the hillside and also out over the countryside.  We could see what looked like the biggest quarry in the world in the direction away from Barcelona.  The river running through the valley below was very muddy.  We walked back to the monastery, checked out the main building where we could watch people touching the Black Madonna, then took the tram back to the train station.  One of our fellow passengers on the tram ride was a women we had seen earlier on our hiking path.  She looked very upset to the point that I joked with Neil that she might try to kill all of us.

Montserrat from San Miguel's Cross

Looking up at Cross

On the train ride back to town, I sat next to a man who was reading a book on Hindu philosophy.  Neil, of course, sat next to the scary, suicidal looking woman.  She got off after a couple of stops.  An older woman and young man got on the train about two thirds of the way back and began a very load, raucous discussion of a personal nature that involved a lot of whooping, teasing, and laughing.  Neil and I only understood parts of the discussion. It had something to do with the young man's new job, to which he was en route, and his girlfriend and his desire to have his girlfriend quit smoking.  The older woman suggested that the girlfriend find something else to suck on; a comment accompanied by wild laughter.  The women sitting across the aisle were scowling in disgust at the whole conversation.  Arriving back at Placa Espanya, we made our way back to the hotel along the median esplanade of the Gran Via.  It was quiet due th the time of day and the holiday.  We sat on a bench and ate the last of our gift pastry.  It was about 5:00 pm when we got back to Villa Emilia.  I napped a short bit and washed a few clothes.

In front of Casa Batilo

We decided to use the rest of the day to do an ipod tour of Gaudi buildings.  The first one we visited was Casa Calvet, built for a textile merchant and considered Gaudi's most conservative.  We next walked to Passeig Gracia where we saw Casa Batilo, a big "skeleton" building with a reptile roof and mosaic tiles, and La Pedrera.  La Pedrera had an inner courtyard which we could see through the windows.  It was being used to host some musical events.  The Passeig was lined with very upscale, Beverly Hills type stores.  The street was filled with very rich looking people and a large number of tour groups.

Sagrada Familia

We then walked over to the Sagrada Familia which was hugely impressive - and closed for tours of the inside for the day.  The area around the church was also swarming with tourists as well as with families and couples and dog walkers using the surrounding parks.  There was a small scale boulevard, Avinguda Gaudi, leading directly away from the church.  It was filled with outdoor restaurants and little stores.  We ate dinner at Tapas Gaudi.  Neil had risotto and I had bacolau that was made differently than the dish I had in Granada.  I washed my meal down with some sangria.

We took a long walk from dinner to the hotel.  My feet are still sore, but not blistering sore, just tired.  I have found the right balance of taping and sandals to make it all workable.

Late dinner

Day 10: June 23 (Granada - Barcelona)

Our plane from Granada to Barcelona

The day started early. We got up and to the airport very smoothly.  The hotel arranged to have breakfast one half hour early to accommodate our departure.  The early morning was refreshingly cool.  The taxi arrived precisely on time at 7:30 am.  There was absolutely no traffic.  I thought that there might be some rush hour traffic but we sailed right through town.  The flight from Granada to Barcelona went smoothly.  The Barcelona airport was very impressive; well laid out and easy to use, lots of upscale stores, and meticulously maintained.  The floors in the main terminal area were so shiny that it was a little disconcerting.

We took an aerobus from the airport to within three or four blocks of our hotel - Villa Emilia - which is very modern in design.  It was a little early and our room was not ready.  We left our bags and went to get some food and do some orienting to our new locale.  We walked up to Placa Espanya (using the Catalan name).  The Placa was very large scale and the entrance to Parc de Montjuic.  On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at a pharmacy to renew our supply of adhesive tape for my foot. We walked back on the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, a beautiful boulevard with a parklike median including benches and a tree lined bike / walk path.

Our room at the hotel was ready when we returned.  Like the lobby area, the room was also ultra-modern.  The bathroom was too modern!  The sink was so shallow that you can barely wash your hands; laundry was hard.  The shower was unusable without making a huge mess. A style over substance / function problem.

At the Picasso Museum

We looked at maps and then headed over to the areas on the other side of Las Ramblas to do one of the ipod tours that Neil had downloaded.  It was beautiful, and there were tons of people.  We saw the new market now being rebuilt and went to the Picasso museum.  I think Neil's favorite thing in the museum was the display of Las Meninas variations.  We tried to figure out from the descriptions how lithographs were made.  We got completely perplexed when it came to adding more than one color.  We had the remains of some food at the museum restaurant (it was very near closing) from a surly clerk.  The neighborhood around the museum had very nice stores.  Our ipod tour took us to the Church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Born district.  This was a beautiful Catalan Gothic church.  When we got there, an organist and 4-5 singers were rehearsing.  The sound through the church was amazing. Outside, we stopped and got some ice cream and sat on a bench in a little square.  A boy was trying to wash off his dog with water from a drinking fountain.  The dog was not happy.  I saw many nice dogs on our walk.  The Daschunds here are real size, not minis.

Santa Maria del Mar

We lost our tour path for awhile but stumbled upon the next stop (the Merkat de Born) and then went on to the Parc de Ciutadella, which was also on our ipod tour though we did not realize it at the time.  The Parc had a strange fountain with a gilded top with elaborate stairways leading up to a waterfall over some way over the top statues of horses.  It turns out that this was designed by Gaudi, the modernist architect whose famous works are all over Barcelona.  The Parc had a nice center promenade ending at the Zoo and some government / parliament buildings on one end and an Arc de Triumph on the other.  There were many people using the Park, including some people doing Brazilian caloric (I think).  I do not think that this park was as lovely as the other parks we have seen.  The Barri Gotic and other older sections are very beautiful, as are the big boulevards. They feel very urban, "normal" European, and have a very different "vibe" compared to Andalucia.

Gaudi fountain in Parc de Ciutadella

Coming out of the Parc, we went into the Estacio de Franca train station to use the bathroom.  (Bring your own toilet paper!)  We walked back to the Born neighborhood where we ate dinner at El Rosal de la Taverna.  We had salads, a shrimp (gambas) tapa and a montadito de solomillo with brie (steak on toast with brie) tapa.  The shrimps came whole, including their little heads with eyes.  I did not like to look at them and it was hard to get to the meat. While we were eating, two little girls at a table of about ten people next to us walked over to another table and asked a man for his autograph.  I assumed he was an athlete of some sort.  He was with two other men and a woman. The men were the only people in the restaurant not drinking alcohol.  They were all drinking cokes while the woman had a beer.  The man signing his autograph was very gracious and asked the girls some questions.  They started the conversation in English, then switched to Spanish (not Catalan).  After our meal, we continued to the Placa Reial.  The Placa was huge, and lined entirely with restaurants and bars.  I saw a group of acrobats in the Placa doing gymnastic runs and pyramids.  This reminded me that I read that there is a local custom of doing large human pyramids with little children on top.

We made our way to Las Ramblas which reminded me of the Strip in Las Vegas.  There seemed to be a lot of drunk teens from everywhere - Europe, USA, etc. Yech to that part.  We came out the top of Las Ramblas into the Placa de Catalunya.  I guess we were getting tired (my feet were hurting) and were so disoriented that we couldn't figure out how to get to the road to walk back to the hotel.  Neil convinced me to get on the Metro.  That worked perfectly and we were back in no time.

Today was the beginning St John's festival, which is the midsummer night celebration. The hotel clerk told us that tomorrow is a city holiday.  Several times on our walk today, we saw (and heard) kids lighting firecrackers.  When we got to our room, it was just boom! boom! boom! At first we were worried that the noise was coming from cans being moved in the alley below our window and would be an ongoing problem, but were relieved when we realized it was just fireworks.

Day 9: June 22 (Granada)

We had no itinerary to speak of today.  Our goals were to mail my postcards, visit the Cathedral, and figure out tomorrow's travel plans to Barcelona because the airport is not easy to get to.  We had a good breakfast at the hotel and said goodbye to the Australians who were headed to Ronda by train.

Parade characters

We set off down the hill to town and found, when we got to the main drag (Gran Via de Colon), that something was going on.  The street was blocked off to traffic. There was a crowd of people, many of them sitting on chairs on the sidewalk.  Giant balloons were being sold by vendors walking the street. (Who knew Spongebob Squarepants was a popular Granadan balloon figure?)  We stopped into the tobacconist to buy stamps for the postcards and Neil asked what was happening.  We were told that it was the week of the Granada city festival of Corpus Christi and that a procession / parade was about to start.  We got onto the shady side of the street and waited, along with the ever growing throngs.  The police who were patrolling the street had beautiful horses.  When the parade came, it was surprisingly short, which was good!  Big figures of Isabella and Ferdinand led the parade with a couple of Moors.  There were six or seven local bands.  There were a large group of costumed figures who hit members of the viewing audience over the head with sort of balloons that looked like they were supposed to represent something old fashioned.  All of the figures had two fingers in the side of their mouth.  Who knows why?  The whole procession took 10-15 minutes.  It was fun, curious, and very pleasant.

We then went to the Royal Chapel off of the Cathedral.  The highlights of the Chapel were some very nice Dutch / Low Country 15th century paintings.  The Chapel also housed the crypt of Isabella and Ferdinand along with Phillip the Handsome and Juana the Mad and their son.  The coffins were under the memorial statuary.  You walked down a flight of stairs under the statuary and four very simple and tiny coffins were displayed in an otherwise empty room. Very strange in comparison with everything else in the Chapel.

political cartoon at Plaza fair

We left the Chapel and walked along the shops of the downtown area over to Plaza Bib Rambla.  Many of the shops were only open in the morning (closed in the evening) during the festival week.  There were many little girls (and some grown up ones) in full Flamenco regalia.  The main streets were strung with elaborate overhead lights.  We did not know if the lights were permanent or set up for the festival,  but we decided to come back after dark and check them out. It was very hot. Very high up, about 30-40 feet, many streets were strung with canvas sheets which provided shade below. We had also seen these awnings strung over some of the streets in Seville.  There was a fair set up in the Plaza Bib Rambla.  The edge of the Plaza was dotted with placards displaying many political cartoons in some sort of competition.  We could only partially figure out the puns and satirical entendres of the captions. We had lunch with cool drinks.  The Cathedral was shut for the afternoon so we did some wandering around past the law school connected with the University before taking the bus back up the hill to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, I did a little laundry and took a nap.  Neil had a little nap and then went down to talk to reception about getting checked out and arranging a taxi to the airport.  Our plane for Barcelona is in the morning and we have to leave here early tomorrow.

Puppet Show

We returned to town at about 6:30 pm.  We toured the Cathedral and then walked back to Plaza Bib Rambla, where we had some ice cream and, along with an audience of young parents and their preschoolers (maybe a couple of hundred people), watched a puppet show.  The puppet characters included a cat, a mouse, an octopus, rabbits, caterpillars, a chicken, a crocodile, a mean snake, and a mean wolf. (I think.) The action was very slapstick and the language aimed at the very young, very simple and very repetitive (and still, pretty much, beyond us!).  There were nursery rhyme-type songs that all the children knew and sang along with gusto.  All in all, a lot of fun.

The Lights at Night

While we were waiting for it to get dark in order to see the lights, we walked up to Carrera del Darro and had a so-so dinner (foodwise) at one of the outdoor cafes in the Plaza de Los Tristes.  We could look directly at the Alhambra from below from our dinner table tonight, instead of looking across at it from our previous dining spots.  As with all of our late night dinners, we enjoyed it.

Dancers in Plaza Bib Rambla

We walked back toward town through the Plaza Nueva.  There were thousands of people out in the square! There were people celebrating everywhere - tourists and locals.  We took in the lighted streets and found ourselves back at the lit Plaza Bib Rambla.  The puppet show stage was now transformed into a stage for a troupe doing local dances.  We watched a bit and headed up the hill to the hotel on foot.


My feet are not better, but I have a workable system to keep me going.  Neil is using some Spanish and learning from his mistakes.