The first week of April we ventured to Spain & Portugal and hit the three largest cities - Madrid, Barcelona, & Lisbon. Our first stop was Madrid, so here's the first of three posts.
We made the decision after looking at flight prices vs train prices that we were going to fly from Switzerland as well as between each of the three cities as EasyJet, which is a European discount airline, was considerably less expensive. We knew it wasn't going to be five star service, and our experiences weren't as bad as they could have been, but let's just say I'll probably carefully think about my decision to fly EasyJet next time. On every one of our flights we ended up standing and waiting in line at the gate for a good 30 minutes before we boarded as seats are unassigned and are pretty much just a mad dash to see who can get on first (unfortunately it was not until our last flight that we found out if you are pregnant that you can get priority boarding!). When we arrived in Madrid we waited 40 minutes for our luggage. But the kicker was our flight to Lisbon that got delayed for 3.5 hours which unfortunately meant we didn't arrive until 2 am. However, I was told that was legitimately not EasyJet's fault and was due to a strike - either way when all the restaurants and shops closed in the airport by about 9 pm it made for a very long unhappy wait for a pregnant lady... oh well we made it eventually!
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| Plaza de Toros (bullfighting stadium) |
Anyways, enough about our transportation experiences and more about Madrid. As the title refers to in our 2.5 days in the city we packed in a lot, but it was higlighted by futbol (soccer that is), flamenco dancing, and bullfighting.
On our first day after taking in some of the city's sights with a walking tour, visiting the Prado Museum which is home to many pieces of famous artwork, and having our first taste of tapas (however the really good tapas are in Barcelona) we took in a flamenco dancing performance. It was reported to be one of the best little authentic "theaters" around, just a small stage in the back of a restaurant, with seating for maybe 70 or 80 people. We were lucky to get in without reservations and when we saw their performance we knew why - they were incredible! And to my surprise not what I envisioned for flamenco dancers, especially the female dancer who was easily in her 60's and had more energy than most 20 year olds than I know. One of the most memorable parts of the performance for everyone there was certainly when the inseam of the male dancer's pants started to come undone. However, he just kept going as it was during his 10 minute highlighted solo dance and he did an amazing job - by the end of his solo almost his entire pant leg had come undone - but he kept dancing to the audience's standing ovation until the very end!
On our second day we ventured to a huge local market that filled many city blocks. It had everything ranging from typical souvenirs, to handmade arts and crafts, to several stands filled with more personal items of clothing.... Steve took a few minutes to check one of them out!
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| Really? Underwear shopping at the market?! |
Next up on our list was a visit to Real Madrid's stadium. Unfortunately somehow we had managed to plan a trip to three cities famous for their love of soccer only to have their teams playing out of town during each of our visits. As a result we made sure to stop at the most decorated team's stadium instead for a tour. Although the facility itself was nothing extraordinary (other than being quite large - seating around 80,000), it had a more than impressive trophy collection that seemed to be neverending. We also got to visit the players' bench and tour the locker room, which I did not expect to get access to during a normal public tour. However, I quickly realized we were going into the visitors locker room and our tour guide said the visitor and home team locker room were the same. But when I asked her about it she said no. Of course, I wouldn't expect that the world's best soccer players get anything short of royal treatment when they are playing at home.
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| Sitting on the players bench! |
Our second day ended with probably the highlight of our time in Madrid - an authentic bullfight! I'm not quite sure what I was thinking or envisioning when I bought the tickets, other than it seemed like the thing to do when in Spain. I'm happy to say it was not as gory as it could have been, likely and thankfully due in part to only buying mid-tier tickets. Steve on the other hand got a closer up look at it all as I realized later when I looked at our photos and realized he used the extra zoom lense almost the entire time - I will share some of what I consider the "best" photos with you and spare you the rest! Regardless it was a fun and authentic experience to share and amazing to see just how large the bulls were, the last was one was 630 kg (well over 1300 lbs)!
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| Steve practicing as a palace guard |
On our last day in Madrid we took some time to visit yet another beautiful European palace (we need to start keeping track of the number of palaces and castles we visit) and made our rounds just walking and seeing the rest of main parts of the city. One of our favorite areas was the bustling Plaza Mayor, which had numerous outdoor cafes and in general was just a hub of action and entertainment as many street performers made this their home base. My favorite performer was the man dressed up as Spiderman. He was a riot and although we didn't capture any photos of him, just envision a man dressed up in a spandex bodysuit (who has drank perhaps a few too many beers in his lifetime and the suit is slightly less than flattering on) who is not afraid to try all the classic spiderman moves and poses to attract attention - at least he seemed to be enjoying himself!
Finally no blog post about our travels is complete without sharing our eating adventures as well. In Madrid we had just a sampling of tapas as the really authentic stuff was in Barcelona. I ate more than my fair share of squid as I found out to my surprise Madrid has very good squid (even though it is in the center of the country). And while I ate more than my fair share of that Steve drank more than his fair share of sangria (as one of my favorite alcoholic drinks during warm weather I told him he had to make up for me). And we also found out the importance of knowing what color asparagus we order. We are both big fans of green asparagus, but in Europe white asparagus is quite popular as well but they like to serve it cold and slightly soggy - which is not to either of our liking!
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| Beautiful church |
And for those of you that are curious out there as I know you are here are the links to a few videos from the bullfighting... just a warning, if you are squeamish I wouldn't recommend watching!
We were hoping to get a solid half day of sightseeing in as we arrived early afternoon from Lisbon, but that idea quickly got wiped out. After what seemed like forever to get out of the airport and to the train that would take us to the city center, we safely secured two seats on a very crowded train. Perhaps that was our first mistake. Upon arriving at what we thought was our stop and trying to push our way through the crowded train I was able to get off the train, but Steve was not. A few people tried to help keep the door open so Steve could get out but were unsuccessful and there I was left standing on the platform as Steve and the train kept going to the next stop! To my surprise I was incredibly calm about the entire situation and lucky for us both of us had working cell phones (although mine charges ridiculous roaming fees outside of Switzlerand). After a few texts and calls we managed to meet up at the next station after we realized the one I had gotten off at was actually not the one we wanted. We were happy to be together again but that was not our only mishap on the day as we entered the subway and somehow managed to get on the wrong line. I really believe that to date on our adventures we have done a great job navigating public transportation across many different cities and kind of pride ourselves on what a good job we do. As a result I like to blame our troubles of that first day in Barcelona on their train & subway system. It is definitely one of the larger, more elaborate systems we have been in, but it was also one of the more poorly marked systems with many short disjointed lines. And everytime we had to change lines it seemed that we walked just as far as we actually rode on the subway. Oh well, we survived and still managed to go everywhere we wanted to, but needless to say when we had to go back to the airport the day we left we opted to take the slow bus that went direct from our hotel to the airport!
After all of our troubles we decided to call it an early night and get a fresh start early the following day. Our first stop was one of almost every other Barcelona tourist as well, the Sagrada Familia. Although we got there well before the doors opened we were still met by a long line, but one that was well worth the wait. This enormous Catholic church is still not complete, although construction was started in 1882 it is projected to not be finished until 2025. It was primarily designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi who worked on it for 35 years until he died. Although I did not know much about Gaudi prior to traveling to Barcelona I now have a profound appreciation for the amazing work he did. Aside from visiting the Sagrada Familia we also visited Casa Battlo and walked by several other buildings that Gaudi designed, each one extremely fascinating. But without a doubt the Sagrada Familia topped our visit and is worth a visit for anyone in the near area. It is difficult to capture the beauty and enormity of this church in photos so here is also a link to a video we took in addition to photos: http://youtu.be/CLzyj9z9uWs
We were hoping to get a solid half day of sightseeing in as we arrived early afternoon from Lisbon, but that idea quickly got wiped out. After what seemed like forever to get out of the airport and to the train that would take us to the city center, we safely secured two seats on a very crowded train. Perhaps that was our first mistake. Upon arriving at what we thought was our stop and trying to push our way through the crowded train I was able to get off the train, but Steve was not. A few people tried to help keep the door open so Steve could get out but were unsuccessful and there I was left standing on the platform as Steve and the train kept going to the next stop! To my surprise I was incredibly calm about the entire situation and lucky for us both of us had working cell phones (although mine charges ridiculous roaming fees outside of Switzlerand). After a few texts and calls we managed to meet up at the next station after we realized the one I had gotten off at was actually not the one we wanted. We were happy to be together again but that was not our only mishap on the day as we entered the subway and somehow managed to get on the wrong line. I really believe that to date on our adventures we have done a great job navigating public transportation across many different cities and kind of pride ourselves on what a good job we do. As a result I like to blame our troubles of that first day in Barcelona on their train & subway system. It is definitely one of the larger, more elaborate systems we have been in, but it was also one of the more poorly marked systems with many short disjointed lines. And everytime we had to change lines it seemed that we walked just as far as we actually rode on the subway. Oh well, we survived and still managed to go everywhere we wanted to, but needless to say when we had to go back to the airport the day we left we opted to take the slow bus that went direct from our hotel to the airport!
After all of our troubles we decided to call it an early night and get a fresh start early the following day. Our first stop was one of almost every other Barcelona tourist as well, the Sagrada Familia. Although we got there well before the doors opened we were still met by a long line, but one that was well worth the wait. This enormous Catholic church is still not complete, although construction was started in 1882 it is projected to not be finished until 2025. It was primarily designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudi who worked on it for 35 years until he died. Although I did not know much about Gaudi prior to traveling to Barcelona I now have a profound appreciation for the amazing work he did. Aside from visiting the Sagrada Familia we also visited Casa Battlo and walked by several other buildings that Gaudi designed, each one extremely fascinating. But without a doubt the Sagrada Familia topped our visit and is worth a visit for anyone in the near area. It is difficult to capture the beauty and enormity of this church in photos so here is also a link to a video we took in addition to photos: http://youtu.be/CLzyj9z9uWs
