Barcelona

Time for another bloggity-blog.

Our last day in cold Madrid was  a bit of a recovery day.  We walked to a park and sat on the grass in the sun, checked out a little photo exposition at a museum, and watched Wolf of Wall Street at the theatre.  It is clear to us that even three full days in one place is a bit too much.  We do two days of marching around sightseeing and then we're ready to move on to the next place.  I read about that in one of our guide books and thought the guy was crazy, but it turns out he was right.

Yesterday we boarded the two and a half-hour train to Barcelona.  The countryside that flew by at 250 km/hr just outside the window was amazing!  It changed from low lying hills covered in scrub and a few trees to foothills with miniature forests covering their tops like patchwork.  At one point, we cruised through fields and deep river valleys covered with a dusting of snow.  That was a surprise!  Then we crossed over orchard country, followed by tall, rocky outcrops and small, jagged mountain ranges.  At times the ocean made an appearance to the east.  Not bad for an afternoon drive in the country!

Some of the scenery on the way to Barcelona

We arrived in Barcelona in the early afternoon and rushed along with the crowds from the train station to the metro and out onto the bustling tourist district.  It took twenty-five minutes to reach our apartment, located right in the heart of the Gothic District - the oldest part of town.  As I sit in front of our street-facing window I can hear the old church bells ring out through the narrow streets and century-old architecture.  I have to give it these places - they have their charm!

Last night we wondered the streets in search of a place to eat and window shop.  We came across a group of colourful acrobats dancing in the streets as part of the Carnaval celebration - set to take place next Tuesday.  People were dancing in the streets as the acrobats flipped and twirled and cheered. Colourful balloons escaped from the grasp of small children and floated upwards against the stone walls of the church.  It was pretty spectacular.

Window shopping: This Iberian ham is world famous.  The more chestnuts the pig is fed, the happier it is considered to be so it costs more.  These are very common snacks in every town or city we visited.

We found a great place to eat and noticed the menus here (and train announcements) are all in two languages: spanish and catalan, a language only spoken here in Catalonia.  Kind of interesting really.

Today we are going to spend the day on foot, looking at some of Gaudi's famous architecture and perhaps visit the Picasso Museum.

Old Friends

What a day!  I am always pleased to come home and put my feet up after walking about the city streets for nearly 18 km on a cold and windy day.

On a little coffee table in our apartment there sits a guest book.  Here, previous renters talk about the things they did while in Madrid.  A few of the entries made mention of a free walking tour of old town Madrid that enlightened tour-goers on the history and current culture of the city.  So today we decided to attend the tour and take in some of the local sites.

Wow!  What a great way to learn about a city's deep dark secrets and splendid treasures.  We heard about the statue in Plaza Mayor and how for years a foul smell seemed to ooze from the horse's mouth.  This lead people to believe it was cursed.  During an uprising in the plaza hundreds of years after the statue was erected, the horse and rider (King Philip the 3rd) were knocked to the ground, exposing what lie inside the beast's belly: thousands of rotten bird carcasses.  Apparently, for a few hundred years, birds had been entering into the statue through the horse's open mouth and were trapped inside!  Awesome.

We passed the Convent of the cloistered nuns who bake biscuits and sell them to the public and we stood outside the world's oldest restaurant (for real), founded in 1725.  We walked past the Royal palace and the Cathedral that was commissioned in 1879 but not completed until 1993.  We saw the Star of David, aligned with the Moorish city walls, aligned with the Catholic Cathedral as a representation of the religious tolerance of the Andalucian region of Spain.  Overall, we learned a ton of interesting and entertaining facts.  It was well worth the $15 tip we left for our guide at the end of the tour.

The day continued with a reunion of sorts.  Our friend Aldo moved to Spain just over a year ago and we were thrilled to be able to meet with him for a late lunch and a second walking tour.  He and his lovely lady-friend Laura led us through a maze of streets pointing out the Prado museum (we'll see this tomorrow), the best jazz clubs in town and of course where to find the best deals on food and drinks. They also toured us through the beautiful and incredibly grandiose Parque del Retiro.  People rowed boats around the large pond, paddling along side the ducks and geese (a lot of Mallards here!) while dried leaves slowly danced across the sun-kissed, tree-lined pathways. 

Just a bank in the background, but a damn cool one.

Parque del Retiro

Aldo and Laura then walked us home through the bustling streets, pointing out the wall of plants and other interesting sites.  I don't think we could have asked for a better way to end our day.

The wall of plants

Aldo!!!!

Madrid

We made it to Madrid!  Our last night in Cordoba was spent checking out a little jazz bar on "the strip".  Jim was pleased.

This morning's train pulled in to the Atocha station at 12:30 and we were to show up at our little apartment at 1:00.  So we looked at the google map I had taken a photo of and tried to make our way there.  It didn't work.  After only 5 minutes we knew we were lost and didn't have time to waste wandering around.  So I decided to splurge and hire a taxi.  

The cab pulled up to the little doorway 5 minutes later.  I rummaged through all my notes to find the buzzer number.  Without that little number we'd have no way to contact Mario and get into the apartment. It's so hard to navigate without a phone or internet - I don't know how we ever did it in the past!

Fortunately, it revealed itself there on the eighth page of my little notebook (thanks Daniella!): Buzzer # 3-D.  The door opened and we climbed the three flights of narrow stairs eventually reaching our Airbnb apartment.  Jim was sweet enough to carry both of our bags all the way up the stairs...and it was only at the top that I remembered why we bought luggage that converted into backpacks. Oops.  

A tall young man stood at the door and welcomed us to Madrid. Mario is incredibly kind and extremely adorable - he had just bought a new apartment and was about to spend his first night there.  He was very nervous and excited.  He gave us the tour, which took a whole three minutes and left us to our devices.

Our cozy apartment.

It's convenient that our place is right in Madrid's centre, allowing us to walk to almost any place worth seeing.  And, in need of a good walk today, we asked Mario for some recommended areas to visit. He suggested we head to the Plaza Mayor, or downtown area, and the Mercado del San Miguel - a great place to sample tapas and wines.  

The streets here are narrow, as they are everywhere else but there is a good deal more shops - and dog crap.  And instead of the usual high-end clothing and shoes our neighborhood offers cheap Thai-style pants and hippy-esque clothing and jewelry, potato chips and candy...not to mention some of the nicest handmade leather bags and purses.  I am reminded more of South America here than I am of the Andalusian cities we've recently visited.

Plaza Mayor

Just a few chips in a shop.  No big deal.

The market itself was beautiful.  People milled about the large indoor space walking from booth to booth, stopping here and there to try baby eels in tortillas, Iberian ham, olive and anchovy kebabs, sweet cakes and macarons, and of course, wine! It was essentially a high-end farmer's market where people gathered to tickle their taste buds and enjoy good company!  Jim and I enjoyed some sangria and vermouth (a specialty here) and a small plate of paella (though we avoided the squid ink one). 

Here are a few of the tapas available at the market:

Little sausages of Iberian ham, we presume...

...more little sausages.

Squid ink paella.

Now this is an olive bar!

Jim sipping on some lovely vermouth.

Baby eels all wrapped up in a tortilla blanket. Awe.

We then walked back to the apartment, stopping only for some groceries along the way...and to take a picture of the best Spider-man impersonator we've ever seen.

"Spider-man...HELP!  We're being attacked!  Save us."

It has become apparent that kitchenettes are very important if we are to return home from this trip with any money left in our pockets. There is no way we could afford to eat out for every meal.  So we make our own tapas at home, cook lovely pastas and rice dishes and indulge in a bottle of wine or beer at our leisure.  It seems to work for us.

Tomorrow we'll be exploring the city by foot and meeting up with a friend who moved to Madrid last year.

Pushy People and Old Things

The blog starts here!

Welcome to the first installment of OUR blog. Ali decided it was time for me to step and write about some of our activities. I can distill it down to a few sentences

1. we are seeing stuff in foreign countries
2. we are walking a lot
3. we are not getting used to eating dinner at 10:30 at night

I know that's pretty simple, but it really is what is going on. 

We just got back from Sevilla and it was very nice.  We spent time today (7 hours) wandering around the old city and particularly the Alcazar - a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is apparently the most visited complexes in the world.  Like the Cordoba mosque, this too has influences from the Arabic period, late middle ages and right through to the Renaissance, Baroque and XIX century.  There, we saw the tomb of Christopher Columbus and climbed the bell tower for a view of the city. 

The Alcazar of Sevilla 

We also checked out the country's Archives of the Indies which had an exhibit on the discovery of the New World. Here we saw the original maps of the newly discovered South and Central America, journal entries and letters of authority - Ali was thrilled to see Bartolome de las Casas' General History of the Indies from the 16th Century. 

A short walk took us to the Plaza de Espana and Louisa Maria Park where the 1929 World Fair was held.  But more importantly, it was used in the Star Wars films in exterior shots of the city of Theed on the planet Naboo.  Awesome.We eventually had a nice lunch and some gelatto (at half the price we paid in Marbella) followed by a lot more walking.

Louisa Maria Park

Plaza de Espana

The main form of tourist transportation in Old Town

Perhaps my favorite part of the day was seeing the 7 moods of Ali all within one hour.  That was incredible!

Mood #7. Pissed off.

I think we are finally starting to accept - or at least recognize - some of the cultural differences. One that took me by surprise is how pushy people are in lines, and as we discovered today some seem to think they aren't going to stand in one - no matter what. During our wait to get into the Cathedral an older man (70+) was frantically pushing people and desperate to get his ticket...of course once he was in there was no rush. Sigh...I guess in Canada we are conditioned to stay in line, say please and thank you, and smile at people when talking to them.

We also finally figured out the train system here, which is a big relief, especially because we have some longer trips coming up.

Ok. That's it from me.  We're settling in for our first movie night.  Note - last night we walked 3 km to the other side of town where no tourist ever walks to go to the only cinema.  Unfortunately, there were no movies playing in English.  So, home movie on the mini laptop it is.

Next week we will travel to Madrid! woot.

Cathedral of Cordoba

* I accidentally erased the previous post about the train to Cordoba...but I don't feel like re-writing it. Sorry.

Cordoba is wonderful.  It's small, but large enough to feel like its streets are buzzing with life come the evening.  There are lovely plazas filled with cobblestone pathways lined with orange trees and every street is heavily decorated with cafes and pubs offering cafe and tostadas (toast that is typically drenched with aromatic olive oil and freshly crushed tomatoes) in the morning and cervezas and tapas in the afternoon.  It is the kind of place we had hoped Marbella would more closely resemble.

Today we walked to Cordoba's best known tourist attraction, the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba.  The mosque is a medieval Islamic mosque that was converted into a Catholic cathedral and is regarded as the one of the most accomplished monuments of Moorish architecture.  It is also said to be the second largest mosque in the world.  And I have to say...it was impressive.

There were a good number of tour groups inside the building but the line up to buy entrance tickets was a mere five people - I can just imagine how long that line must be in mid-July!!  We strolled around the grounds, ooh-ing and awe-ing at the grandness of it all.  We then walked across a beautiful pedestrian bridge that crosses the Guadalquivir River to a small castle.

Our next venture was to see the botanical gardens.  Unfortunately, they were closed.  Naturally, at this time of year there are barely any flowers in bloom...what were we thinking?!  Fortunately, across the road was the zoo - and that was open.  So in we went.  There was nothing new but we were the only people there for some time and we did get a video of their Iberian wolf pack howling and singing together!

That's it for today.  Enjoy the pictures!

Jim sad to see the botanical gardens closed

A buzzard at the zoo

A pigeon that cross bred with a - parrot???

One of the many doorways into the cathedral

Inside the grand mosque

CLOSED

Monday and Tuesday = things are closed.  November to April = things are really closed.  Two days in a row we've arranged our schedule around getting to the cinema to see Wolf on Wallstreet in its original English version.  Two days in a row, it's been closed.  We have been warned to always check hours of operation, so I guess we have only ourselves to blame.  Perhaps, we thought, we just need to get out of this sleepy little coastal town.

So last night, after searching through complicated train and bus schedules, we decided to rise at 6:30 am today and take two buses and the train to Sevilla.  But when the alarm went off early this morning, we looked at each other, groaned, turned it off, and went back to sleep. 

It has taken us a full week to adjust to Spain time.  We are more relaxed and slower to do, well, everything.  As pathetic as it sounds, we haven't actually gotten out of bed before 10 am yet!  So a 6:30 am alarm just didn't seem plausible.  Instead, we walked down to the beach in the early afternoon sun and picked shells, read books and sunbathed.  It was lovely.  

After walking to the theatre and finding it closed, we settled on going to the little pub down the street for some serious internet time.  When it isn't conveniently accessible in your private room, it's hard to justify sitting in a pub or restaurant for any more than half an hour, nursing a small beer, and pretending to be there for the ambiance. Typically, we head to the McDonald's to use their internet service because it's free and you don't really have to buy anything...although we do, because we're gluttonous pigs.  I spent the well-deserved hour today booking a hotel in Cordoba for the next few days and...wait for it...filing and paying my taxes (I finished them before leaving home).  I also may have looked for a job.

We are off now to a chinese buffet as per Jim's request (I know, we're so white).  Here's hoping it's surprisingly delicious.  

Zee Germans and Gibraltar

The only coverage of the Olympics we receive on our television is in German.  The tourists on the bus are German.  The people walking their dog on the boardwalk in front of us yell "come" in German.  Perhaps this explains why I woke Jim from his sleep last night by speaking in very loud and seemingly fluent German.

We've learned to take every second or third day to relax.  Mostly though, it's to rest our weary feet and shins.  We have been walking about 16km every day - something that we don't typically achieve back at home in the snow and cold.  We're just not used to it yet.  So rest is necessary.

But not today!  Today, we boarded a bus, or two, and made our way to the famous rock of Gibraltar.  That's right, the highly fought over piece of real estate that has passed hands between the Moors, the Spanish, the French, and finally the British (not necessarily in that order).  When we researched it there didn't seem to be a ton of luring reviews.  One guy said it was just a bunch of monkeys and a big rock.  So when we bought our bus tickets we assumed two hours of exploration would be plenty.

The bus trip was only an hour and half and by 2:30 in the afternoon we had arrived.  Following a small group of (German) tourists we crossed the Gibraltar airstrip and made our way through the Old Town. Fish and chips were on all the menus and pubs lined the narrow streets.  The Brits were everywhere and for a moment we forgot that Spain was a mere couple hundred meters behind us!

We strolled through a few of the alleys and climbed flight after flight of stone stairs in the hopes of getting up onto the rock.  We eventually found our way to the Moorish castle that sat about half way up.  For 50 pence we could walk around and look at the sights and for 10 pounds each we could walk inside of the sights for a closer look.  50 pence it was.

While everyone else seemed to be walking down the mountain of white rock we, for some reason, chose to walk up it.  I was sweltering in the heat and struggling to catch my breath.  Jim charged on like a champ.  We broke the rules and walked through a series of tunnels that took us inside the rock.  Created by thirteen British soldiers over the course of six weeks, these tunnels were used to attack oncoming troops with cannons that peeked out through small openings in the side of the cliffs.  It was cool.

Eventually making our way back down to the town and over to the Spanish side of things, we got a brief behind the  scenes look at a zircus (circus) complete with elephants and seals!!  We had missed the 4:30 bus and wound up taking the 7:00 one, allowing us a little extra time to stroll along the boardwalk as the sun set behind the monolithic Gibraltar.  

Gibraltar!

View from half way up the rock

One of the cannons inside the tunnels.

The Zircus comes to Gibraltar

Ronda and the Moors

Well, well.  Today was loverly.  Jim and I finally left the neighborhood and ventured to nearby Ronda.

We rose early (8:30 is pretty early these days) and set off to catch a bus to the Marbella regional bus station.  We had no real clue as to which bus to get on as the schedule was ripped off the bus stop glass.  Fortunately, I used Google translate the night before to learn how to ask "are you going to the bus terminal" the night before...yet still I managed to screw it up.  The driver seemed to understand and nodded yes, gesturing for me to produce more money.  Off we went to the estacion de autobuses.

We arrived in good time and rather than linger in the station with the many seniors that were also headed to our chosen destination for the day,  we decided to kill an hour by walking to a small cafe in a nearby residential area.  Once again I tried my hand at Spanish and asked for a bottle of water and a latte. I guess they only serve lattes in the English cafe down our street.  "Latte?" asked the bewildered man behind the counter, "Cafe con leche?" he smiled.  "Uh, si. Gracias - I mean grathias."

I'm really struggling with the Spanish here.  They speak so incredibly fast and not only do they pronounce their 'c' as 'th' but they drop the 's' at the end of the words.  I'll get used to it eventually.  Jim, on the other hand, has learned to say bano (bathroom), hola, and a few others along the way. Turns out he's a quick study!

So anyway, yes, we set off to Ronda today.  It's a small-ish town built up in the mountains that boasts a strong Moorish history.  After the Romans reigned, the Moors rebuilt the area and the town was one of the last remaining Muslim centres in Spain. We took an hour and a half bus ride into the limestone hills and desert-like shrubbery.  Ronda is parted by a deep and most awe-inspiring  river gorge.  Any architecture that survived from the 12th century is stunning.  Enormous archways of stone stand throughout the old town and the extremely well-preserved Arabic baths are an incredible work of engineering.

Four hours of sight-seeing, picture-taking, tapas-eating, and cerveza-drinking later we pushed our way through the crowds of seniors and Japanese and boarded our bus back home. This was the first time we saw other tourists - none of which seemed to be Canadian or even American.  The sun was out in full force and the day was completely perfect.  We can only hope the rest of our outings go just as smoothly!

As you can see we're the only ones under 65 on the bus ride to Ronda.

The stunning view of the gorge.

The Arabic baths.

The most prominent of the archways.

The landscape that surrounds Ronda.

Walking to Old Town

Yesterday proved to be a fairly uneventful day.  Once we had bought some groceries (in awe of some of the things they were selling, such as packages of baby eels) we spent the rest of the afternoon walking.  We walked to the beach, to the giant 7-floor department store that was like a superstore combined with the Bay, to McDonald's to use the internet, and to Puertos Banus where money and rich folk reign; smoking outside the high-end clothing stores discussing their massive boats and Mercedes.  And then we walked back.  Jim's Fit  Bit (activity tracking bracelet) told us we walked a total of 23,000 steps, or sixteen kilometers!  Not bad for a first day.

Today hasn't been much different.  We slept a solid 12 hours (we'll call it jetlag) and after lunch we headed out in search of Old Town.  We had no real concept of where it was so we just walked along the coastal foot path for, oh, I don't know, two hours or so until we drew closer to the tall buildings of downtown Marbella.

Along our journey, not a single person smiled or said hello back to us.  It is possible they thought we were street people, considering we're only wearing fleeces and comfortable pants rather than the official outfit of Spaniards - skinny jeans, scarves and dress shoes.

We ended up walking around downtown Marbella for an hour or so, having no idea where to find this Old Town.  I finally mustered the courage to ask a girl at Burger King in my broken Spanish only to be told that it was back the way we came about ten minutes.  Feet sore, legs throbbing, and painfully dehydrated we marched back towards the town centre and found it.

Beautiful narrow streets and white-washed buildings surrounded a small park with a fountain. Shops and markets sold souvenirs, espresso and olive oil.  It was all very quaint.  We then found our way to a bus stop and guessed at which bus to jump on.  We were taken back to Puerto Banus and walked the kilometer or so back to our condo.

As physically broken as we are, we're now at the sports bar using the internet.  We buy a beer or two to use the Wifi, costing us a total of $2.50.  It's a tough compromise, but I think we'll manage!

Baby eels anyone?

Puerto Banos

The beach

Is this a bidet?  We can't figure it out if it is!!