First Full Day in Barcelona

 After really good sleep last night we took it easy this morning until  after 9 AM at which time we went to a nearby coffee shop for a delicious breakfast sandwich which we split between us.

We walked down to the sea (a couple of kilometres) via La Rambla street (which is a thing “to do”). Unfortunately the street was being ripped apart all the way along so not that great a walk. One stop we did make on this walk was the Mercat de la Boqueria, a fresh food market which was interesting to say the least.

Check out the dragon sticking out of the corner of the building

By the time we got down to the Med sea we had decided to buy tickets on the hop on hop off bus service.The first stop for us on the HOHO was Park Guell This is one of the numerous UNESCO sites in the area. The claim to fame is that the designer off the Sagrada Família church (Antoni Gaudi ) is super famous here in this city and much of his designed houses etc are “must see’s”. This park was designed by him.

 It was frustrating at first to get in because the park (which gets LOADS of visitors ) does not have a ticket office. You have to buy the tickets “on line” and afterwards present the QR code you received upon successful payment, to the staff at the gate for entry. You accomplish getting your code while standing outside the gate working your phone along with everyone else, also going through the same procedure.

After entering all the info into their ticket form my EQ card wanted verification so sent a code to my phone $#@T^%T! NO good when you don't have a phone number that works overseas. This has happened a couple of times on this trip and I thought I had set everything up with the card to send validation codes to my gmail.

With that not working we tried my ATB card. Went through all the BS again on their ticket form and the same #^#^$ thing happened again. So in desperation I tried my PC Mastercard (which I have not used at all on this trip) and it worked! It didn’t need a validation code. 

In the park we got looking at some of the weird buildings and structures Gaudi designed. I think the writers of the Flintstones TV show saw some of this guys designs and incorporated them into their animation!

We sort of looked at each other after walking around and said “Really?, this is a UNESCO World Heritage site?

We hopped on the HOHO bus again and finished the first of the two loops.

We then got on another HOHO bus at 3 PM for the second loop and spent the next 2 hours and 15 minutes driving around this huge city. We saw some pretty cool stuff up in the high areas of the south part of the city and it was pretty cool to drive right beside FC Barcelona stadium (Messi played there). We got off at Sagrada Família church and walked back to our hotel area 10 minutes away. We found a good seafood restaurant nearby and had different tapas, which were excellent. 

By 6 PM we were back at our room and Caro had a bath while I wrote this blogpost up.

Barcelona

This morning we basically just chilled as we didn’t need to leave the hotel until about 10 AM. We went to a bakery nearby and purchased our breakfast and lunch ( for the train ride). 

I always prefer to get going with plenty of time to spare and as the metro was running smoothly we were at the train station at 10:15. 

Our train left the platform a couple minutes late at 1125 AM, 

We went about 100 metres and stopped. HMMM.  Something wrong?

Nope,ten minutes later we were on our way. 

We paid extra for the “quiet coach” and interestingly some people were chatting rather loudly and then the train attendant came through and told everybody to be quiet ( and it was!)

The countryside between the two cities was quite varied. At times it was rolling hills that somewhat reminded me of the Drumheller area. Some areas were mountainous and populated with small villages and old castle tower ruins looking down in the village. Some areas were flat but no matter what the landscape there was fields or trees ( orchards) all along the route. 

About 40 minutes before Barcelona we went through a small mountain range, through fog banks , going 295 km/hr before emerging into what appeared to be a high plateau with lots of towns. 

Got to Barcelona at 3 PM.  Thanks to YouTube videos we were able to get tickets and ride the metro to our hotel right away. 

This hotel is really awesome compared to the Madrid hotel. The first shock though is the tourist tax we had to pay for three days. $C74 Yikes!!

We walked a few blocks to the huge church Sagrada Família and then over to Barcelona’s version of the Arc de Triumph. 

We celebrated Caro’s birthday at an outdoor restaurant somewhere between the Arc and the hotel

A photo on the train

Last day in Madrid

We headed out this morning straight to the Royal Palace to get in line at 9:30 AM for the 10:00 AM opening.

We made it in OK and after security and ticket purchase we were inside looking at this gorgeous palace by about 10:25. Incidentally many of the official places we go to have 1/2 price seniors discounts

The first photo is the grand staircase

At the top of the staircase looking up is this ceiling

We saw numerous items as we worked our way through beautiful rooms.

A few that caught my eye,

The banquet room

Nice seat/couch

The Royal Chapel;

I believe this is called a fortepiano;

The palace had a number of Stradivarius instruments;

A crown:

Photos of the throne room;

More rooms;

I laughed when I thought of Chelada in armour!

It really was spectacular seeing so much of the personal and animal amour; ( the tapestry in the photo below is from 1730)

Next we proceeded to the Royal Armoury; example photos below (i could have included many more)

The final photos were taken at The Royal Collection Galleries. By now we were tired (four hours of walking and looking at things);

They had a lot of things to look at too;

This gallery had a lot of tapestry’s (actually the palace did too). The last part of this gallery was a selection of the clothing and cloth that was available to the Nobles during their time.

Caro and I headed back to the hotel in mid afternoon, first stopping for a tapa and some refreshments at a bar/cafe on the way back.

A couple of hours later it was time for supper. We thought to try the Spanish version of Five Guys burgers but the cost was terrible. A regular bacon cheese burger was the equivalent of $C20.69 and then you paid $C8 for fries…….Pass…..

We found a place selling Argentinian empanadas which were great ( we have had them here in Spain before). 

It was a beautiful night (23 degrees) and we wandered around the area. The big protests are still occurring and the government just called a snap election yesterday or today. We went past the place where people have set up tents and have taken over the plaza (square). Major police presence except today no helicopters overhead all the time.

This photo is just a tiny portion of the total.

Well,Madrid is done for us. We want to move on.

Avila and Segovia

A quick note about yesterday and the protests being held across Spain. The photo below is a screen shot from yesterday about noonish. We had been by that square about 10:30 and the police presence was strong. While we were enjoying the Prado which is very near this photo location the protest was being held and some of these people were the ones streaming towards the metro station we had planned to use when we left the museum.

 Today was a day trip bus trip with 60 of our newest friends.LOL. The first stop an hour and a bit outside of Madrid was Segovia. A UNESCO world heritage site for the city centre portion, it has three main attractions; The Alcazar (fortress/palace), the Roman aqueduct and the cathedral. 

The Alcazar itself has been faithfully rebuilt as it was mostly destroyed in a fire many years ago. It had been “repopulated” with items of similar ages as the original building and I found it quite interesting.

Next up was the cathedral. This is the third biggest in Spain and it was interesting but honestly we have seen so many beautiful cathedrals this one was merely “nice”.

We walked through town and it was EXTREMELY BUSY this weekend as there was a special festival this weekend celebrating 550 years of Isabel the Catholic. 

We walked around a corner in the streets and saw the best part (for me) of the visit

This is the best preserved Roman aqueduct in Spain. It was stunning! It is two thousand years old and was being used until 1973!!! No Mortar or cement was used, just cut rocks placed correctly so as not to fall

After a longish lunch we were back on the bus, this time heading about an hour southwest to a town called Avila. 

Its claim to fame is the best preserved medieval city walls in Europe and honestly I was extremely pleased to see this place.

Stunning! Most places in Europe looked like this 1000 years ago.

This city had virtually no tourists compared to Segovia (which had too many). It is the home of a famous saint (St. Teresa) and we saw her birthplace and where she played as a little girl.

It is also the place where another saint named Saint Vincent was tortured to death in 306 AD by the Romans because he was a devout Christian and refused to change to the multi-god Roman religion.

Last photo of today is Caro in front of one of the gates to the city.

We arrived back in Madrid about 6 ;15 and after being let off the bus we wandered up to the Plaza Mayor and had supper in a different restaurant than before.