Seville Day 2

 Monday morning, we woke up and had to walk 5 min out of the neighborhood where there was a road wide enough for a bus to pick us up. Our neighborhood makes parts of Boston seem spacious (Charlestown, South End…) We were picked up for a Seville highlights tour. We stopped at a few other hotels before getting started so it felt like camp. First we visited the Plaza De España, which was this giant plaza built for the 1929 Iberio-American exhibition. It was used for filming part of Lawrence of Arabia as well as Star Wars Episode II (part of Naboo).

After the Plaza, we picked up a few more people and headed to Casa de Pilatos for a quick tour. The cathedral was closed yesterday for San Fernando Day, so I’m glad we went on Sunday. San Fernando was a king of Spain and was responsible for banishing the Moors. At the Casa de Pilatos, we picked up a giant group of Argentinians and the tour got more chaotic from there. 

We walked through the Jewish quarter in Seville and through the Jardines de Murillo to the Royal Alcazar of Seville. The gardens were very pretty. Lots of flowering trees called jacarandas. 

The Royal Alcazar is sometimes still used as a royal residence but they keep all the furniture and stuff you’d need to live on the second floor. For Game of Thrones, they used the Alcazar to film the scenes in the castle in Dorne. I haven’t seen the show in a few years but it was very familiar. I took a lot of pictures and posted on Instagram. 

After the tour wrapped up we had to get a quick lunch so we got NY Style Pizza which was actually really good. (Believe it or not, Dad) After a quick lunch, we walked closer to the river for a roof top sangria tasting. It was really fun to socialize with other travelers and we learned more about sangria. Most people don’t realize that Spaniards don’t drink sangria out at restaurants and bars (only tourists do), but that’s because sangria is a make at home drink. They do drink something called “Tinto de Verano” which is red wine with lemon soda. It’s really good but all the lemon soda seems to have Splenda in it so I can’t drink it again until I get home in order to avoid a migraine. We learned that you add something carbonated to your sangria before you let it sit because the carbonation reacts with the alcohol and tones it down. Our host told us “you don’t want to have too much fun too fast” and pacing yourself is how Spaniards are able to drink for long periods of time. 

After sangria, we went to a Flamenco dinner show. Flamenco is super impressive to watch. I posted a brief video to Instagram also. 

Early to bed, early morning on Tuesday! 

Seville Day 1

 We slept in slightly and packed up to leave Madrid. We had a car take us to the train station. I don’t know what I expected from the train station but this was not it. There were all kinds of trees in the main rotunda. Navigating was easy enough and we got on the train without major drama.

When we arrived in Seville, a driver took us to our hotel. The neighborhood where we are staying has very narrow roads. Most of the time we have to walk single file on the sidewalk. 

We ventured out to explore and had tickets to go to the cathedral even though we are going back with our Seville highlights tour. We climbed the Giralda tower which was 34 flights but all ramp. We took several pictures from the bell tower up top but there wasn’t really a lot of space to sit and hang out so we went back down after we were done taking pictures. 

We explored the cathedral a bit and had audio guides to help us. This is the largest gothic cathedral in Europe so it’s huge. Again very opulent and so many chapels dedicated to different prominent people. There were chambers off the main chapel as well that we wandered in to. 

After the cathedral, we met our food tour guide. It was hard to get a larger tour for a Sunday so we had to book a private one, which I think was actually better. Our tour guide Mila is from the area and took us to all her favorite places where real Sevillians go. We had spinach with chick peas, sandwiches and orange wine (wine made with raisins and orange peel, then marinated fried fish and a cold soup made with tomato and bread. Everything was really good, I did not like the wine though it was super sweet….like liquid raisins. Mila said she loves getting lost in the Jewish quarter so took us around a bit in between restaurants. She let us know that the Christopher Columbus tomb in the Cathedral is slightly contested because a few other countries (Mexico, Dominican Republic and maybe Argentina?) think they have his remains. Allegedly they performed DNA analysis to confirm but we were joking about how the science seemed sketchy. 

Our hotel here is really nice. 

Last Day in Madrid

 On our last day, after breakfast we met our tour guide in the hotel lobby where a private car took us to Toledo for a tour. 

Toledo was beautiful and because of some

natural barriers set apart from most of the surrounding area. We took a tour of the Jewish neighborhood first. You know you’re in the Jewish neighborhood because periodically along the sidewalk there is a blue & white tile that has the Chai symbol, a menorah or the Hebrew word Safard. Because of the history of Spain, the synagogues had been converted to churches at some point but two have been converted back. The first one was very mosque like because the original architect was Muslim. It was open space, not rows or pews like we are used to. The second synagogue was turned into a museum and had some judaica and artifacts from Jewish history in Toledo. 

After leaving the Jewish quarter, we visited the Cathedral. It was huge. We were talking on the ride back about how we don’t think there is a large cathedral in the US that compares in size. There are still services at the church but not in the main area. Most chapels were dedicate to various cardinals and high ranking church members and contained their tombs. One person was buried as recently as 2014. 

We had lunch at a restaurant with our guide. We had empanadillas filled with tuna & tomato (which was actually really good), croquettes and fried sardines. 

We continued around Toledo and saw a famous Goya painting in another church and did a little shopping. 

After returning to the hotel and resting a while, we ventured out to do a little shopping and find food. We went back to the first restaurant we stopped at on our food tour. The man greeting people told us to wait outside but then we realized he thought we were with Pedro’s food tour when we bumped into him. He realized what was going on and then helped us get a table. We had Tinto de Verano (sangria is for tourists apparently) which is red wine and lemonade. We had fried cod again, tuna, gazpacho and a veal sandwich. We learned during lunch that you don’t eat a lot of tapas with forks and in this restaurant they don’t automatically bring them to you. 

Madrid was very crazy yesterday evening. Real Madrid played Liverpool in the Premier League championship. We’re essentially staying in the theater district and it was packed last night. The game was supposed to start at 9, and when we left the restaurant at 840ish the city was so much quieter. Before midnight, I heard fireworks and confirmed that Madrid won the game. I’m sure it will be crazy here this afternoon when the players return home. The police had to fence off a fountain that got damaged during a past football celebration so only the team captain is allowed in now. 

Second Day in Madrid

 We woke up early on our second morning to take a highlights of Madrid tour. The walking tour of the neighborhood was great and then they took us around by bus to see more of Madrid, it was hard to see as well. 

The bus dropped us off near the Prado museum and we took a tour later that afternoon. The museum was very crowded. What really struck me was that so many of the paintings were huge. It kind of diluted the grandeur a bit because at museums at home, you only get so many that would need a whole wall to themselves, but in the Prado so many were life sized. One painting of one of the former kings looked very dark and looked like it needed restoration but our guide explained to us that it was in the palace when it caught fire and the staff through it out the window to save it. 

After the Prado, we met a guide at the Reina Sofia museum. This museum was significantly less crowded and more modern art. It was great to have a guide bring us through cubism and surrealism because for someone who didn’t have a lot of art education, it’s hard to fully figure out what each painting is about. Our guide was amazing and she seemed very happy to have female guests. She took us through a few pieces by a prominent 20th century female artist Ángeles Santos Torroella and how her pieces were commentary on gender social issues of her time. 

After the museum, we took the metro back to our neighborhood and found dinner in a very random restaurant. It was in the basement of a shop that sold purses and other things, the decoration was like a sun room from Palm Beach. I couldn’t tell you what kind of food it was but we really liked what we ordered. 

Early bed time for us to try to catch up on sleep. 

First Day in Madrid

 We arrived at the Madrid airport around 630am local time and after navigating the airport, customs, COVID verification and getting our bags it was around 8am when we got to our driver.

Fortunately our hotel room was available for us to check in immediately to nap. I couldn’t sleep on the plane at all despite my best efforts so I was very grateful. Unfortunately, they were renovating the room next door. We were able to switch rooms though which was a bit of a challenge on an hour of sleep. 

In the afternoon, we took a guided tour of the Royal Palace. Walking into the large courtyard was breath taking. The palace was just room after room of opulence. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in most of the rooms, but the banquet hall was probably the most memorable. The table was set for 140 and to say that everything was aligned perfectly would down play the amount of effort that clearly goes into setting that table. Mr Carson would have been in heaven. They use a string to make sure everything is in a straight line all the way down. Our tour guide say they wear special socks and gloves to move the centerpieces and they’re so heavy it takes two people. 

After a much needed water stop, we visited the Cathedral of Santa Maria. It was very ornate and they let you take pictures in most of the places which was a stark contrast to the Palace across the plaza. 

We wandered the neighborhood for a while and got gelato before meeting up with our food tour. We had such a great time on the food tour and ate and drank so much. In our group there were 4 other Americans (mother & son duos) and 1 woman from Scotland. Our tour guide Pedro was born and raised in Madrid and explained things about the neighborhood and why he picked the restaurants and dishes at each of our four stops. The tour ended up going for over 4 hours. We first had battered cod, which was actually salted cod they had rehydrated and a cod croquette. Mom tasted the dry sherry wine and I had a beer. 

The next stop we had what Pedro called a mini stew. It ended up being kind of deconstructed stew with the ingredients on a plate with a cup of broth and a hunk of bread. (Bread is Spain is crusty like in Italy which we are very excited about). The stew is typically more of a winter dish but it’s so prominent in Madrid food culture (it’s typically made at home) it was included as a stop on the tour. 

We then got a full education in jamón. So many varieties and a lot of things depend on the variety of pig. I don’t typically like chorizo but did really like the one we had on the tour. We also skeptically tried black sausage (blood sausage) and it was really good. 

After jamón and cava, we ended the night with churros and chocolate. The chocolate was very rich but not too sweet. 

It was a great start to the trip! 

Counting down to Spain

 Getting ready to head out to Spain in less than 2 weeks after making our plans in 2019.

I will be blogging here again for everyone to keep track of our adventures. 

Stay tuned!