Day 28 - Madrid: Museo del Prado, Jardin Botanico, Rooftop Respite

This day's agenda was to primarily make it to the Museo del Prado, very much touted as THE significant museum here in Spain.

Got myself up, groomed and out of the room, and... I had bfast at the McDonald's next door.  Haha. I've been being good in general with not giving in to American temptations, but... I had to do it once in Madrid, right? I have to say I was quite let down with the coffee -- am I becoming a cafe con leche snob now?

Anyway, finished grubbing down and caught the tourist double-decker bus to head down to the Museo. Got there, paid my admission and got the audioguia to aid me in navigating all things notable.

I was there a long time. Over 3 hours. My contact lenses dried out a few times and I had to re-moisten. And I still didn't listen to all of the audio, nor see all of the exhibits. Lots of good shit though, this heathen acknowledges. A lot of works by Diego Velazquez, Francisco Goya, El Greco... and also a lot of still lifes of fruit and chiascuro portraits that make my eyes glaze over after awhile.

I think the most notable painting was Jardin de las Delicias, or Garden of Earthly Delights, by the Holland painter El Bosco (Hieronymus Bosch). That painting was a trip. The painting was done in the 1500s, but uses the elements of early 20th century surrealism (such as in works by Salvador Dali). 

After getting through most of the museum I hit up the gift shop, then the cafe. It was already past prime time midafternoon Spain eating, so I got some empanada thing that was translated to "Galician Meat Pie" -- it was good.  And they had Cruzcampo beer -- what? Odd to see Andalucian beer in Madrid, for sure...

After food I left the museum and decided that since the botanic garden was next door, I might as well check it out. 3 Euros later (I was able to rid myself of a lot of pocket change, haha), I was in. And... underwhelmed? Hmm. Why did seeing some rosemary make me miss Santa Barbara (rosemary grows everywhere in SB, including my own yard)?

I gave the garden the proper respect of a full stroll, then left to head back to my hotel. Stopped off for some beers at a market -- the plan was to take in the sunset from that sweet hotel terrace.

Ended up getting some chips too -- ham flavored?! Yeah, they weren't that good haha. They tasted just like a ham steak -- in chip form.

The sunset view from the terrace was def nice, though. Very nice. I could get used to this.

Day 27 - Madrid: Hop On/Hop Off Bus Sightseeing, Plaza Mayor, Pastries, More After-Dark Bussing

Woke up early as my hotel here apparently has some construction going on. Not completely pleased with the situation, but trying to see the positive in that it doesn't let me sleep through half the morning.

Got up, got showered, got dressed, and got out to see what the day had to hold. Ended up revisiting a Spain chain fast-food place I hadn't had since Barcelona... Pans & Company. Got their breakfast special that landed me a cafe con leche and a breakfast sandwich "planchado" (meaning "ironed", haha), which gave me this huge panini-type sandwich thing with ham and cheese inside. Breakfast, done.

Found the nearest station that sold the hop-on/hop-off bus tour tickets, and bought my two-day pass (the difference between one day and two days was 4 Euro). Hopped on Ruta 1 and listened to all the narration for the entire route. Ended up realizing that I had already seen most of central Madrid on foot already, haha. Regardless, still good to get some perspective.

I learned that Plaza Mayor was a major spot for Madrid, as well as previously-mentioned Puerta del Sol/Vodaphone Sol/Sol. The audioguia went so far as to say Puerta del Sol is the center of Madrid and to many the center of Spain. Hmm... I hope that's not the case. It kind of wants to be like a Times Square, but it's not even anywhere near on that level. And given what I've seen of Spain, this tourist would argue vehemently with "Vodaphone Sol" being dubbed the center of Spain.

Anyway, if Barcelona felt like NYC a bit, then Madrid feels like DC. Lots of stately buildings, wide avenues, monuments, park space, and professional peoples.

After learning the significance of Plaza Mayor, I decided I'd late-afternoon dine it up there in one of the patio seating restaurants there. Picked a place that had a nice view but probably the worst tapa I've ever had. I thought I couldn't go too wrong with something with patatas -- turns out I could and did. The "fried pork" that was in this was like lechon (Filipino food item), but like 3x deep fried and then left under a heating lamp. Seriously, I was pulling bits of that pork out of my mouth like they were bones and putting them back on the plate, that meat was so overcooked. This is what I get for being super-touristy, I suppose. I know better.

I ended up wrapping up pretty quickly as soon as a bunch of futbol fanatics got seated one table away -- there were 12 I believe, all speaking in German and very animated about their love for whatever team they were rooting for. Haha. With all the cops I had seen aggregating around the plaza I figured this might be the scene of a crime -- I had seen a full-on bottle-breaking fight in Porto, Portugal down on the riverfront because of a futbol game. Since I don't care about futbol (soccer) at all and didn't want to be any part of the "festivities", I was quick to make an exit before things got stupid.

Headed back to the room for some respite, then went back out with intention of hitting the hop-on/hop-off bus after dusk to catch some of Madrid after dark. Hit up a pastry shop right in Puerta del Sol for a few items to take with me on the bus to munch on. Turned out I hit up a majorly historic pastry shop there -- La Mallorquina. I got a palmera and a napolitana something. They were delicious. I felt like the proverbial fat kid that loves cake as I munched away while on that tourist bus, haha. Took in some good sights, too.

Day 26 - Madrid: Train Ride from Sevilla, Hotel Check-In, Afternoon Wandering & Shopping

Woke up and got myself packed and ready to check out of my hotel, and head on up to the train station for the final train ride of the entire trip. Ended up running a little late, and by the time I got out of the hotel, up to the train station, through the initial check-in -- I was boarding the train within minutes of its departure. Haha, it all worked out.

Was initially bummed to find myself directly across from a tercera edad guy holding a maybe-two-year-old girl at the face-to-face table seating, but it ended up being fine. Actually, I ended up feeling bad for the guy -- the little girl was fussy for a good part of the 3+ hour train ride, so he would disappear with her for 20+ minutes at a time to indulge in her desire to be up and walk around. Realized he was by himself with the little girl and helped him with his stroller when we deboarded at Madrid.

Got off the train finally with my heavy luggage (although I left behind three dingy & baggy button-down shirts, along with a pair of jeans at the Sevilla hotel room), and got over to the metro station. I knew that my destination station was Puerta del Sol (translates to Door of the Sun, easy enough) -- but I could not find that as a destination when I was looking at the map. Ended up asking one of the two attendants if the station labeled "Vodaphone Sol" was the same as "Puerta del Sol", and she confirmed it was. Ok, that made sense, since it was in the center of the city, where I was staying.

So I go to buy my ticket, and there is no "Vodaphone Sol" station. Nor a "Puerta del Sol". After paging through all the stations I ended up concluding that the station "Sol" might very well be yet another name for my destination. A follow-on question to the attended confirms this. Puerta del Sol, Vodaphone Sol, Sol -- all the same station. Fair enough. I go to buy the ticket and -- my card gets stuck in the machine. Ay de mi. Get that worked out and finally purchase my 1,20 Euro ticket.

Metro ride was easy breezy, as was the trek from the station to the hotel (albeit uphill -- I have come to expect this. Anytime I need to trek somewhere with luggage, it will be uphill. Work them hamstrings and glutes... positive thinking. The power(s) that be want me to have strong legs. Fine.).

Checked into the hotel and got to my room. After getting settled in decided to check out the 9th floor terrace I was told was available for guests' use.  Very cool.

Got out to see some of Madrid for myself. Used the hotel map to basically aid in getting myself all turned around and lost. Haha. Madrid feels international and (even moreso) English-language-friendly than Barcelona. Geez, Barcelona feels like so long ago at this point.

Stopped into a cerveceria nearby that didn't look to touristy for lunch -- and indeed it wasn't. I was the only person the bartender/waitress converted to English (sometimes) for (I have this thing where when I speak in Spanish to start out conversations the other party then assumes I am all fluent and replies/talks rapid-fire... and I end up asking (albeit in Spanish) questions to verify what I heard. Then they will go to English lol). I had to navigate her narration of what specials of the day were still left for the day in Spanish though (I was late in getting food), and I ended up hearing correctly for my first choice of the pasta with chorizo, then the chicken and potatoes for the second course. Got my cafe con leche to wrap it up. There were also two beers consumed -- now back to Estrella Damm, since that's what was on tap given I'm no longer in Andalucia.

Headed out to explore some more. Admittedly feeling more than a bit road-weary, I wasn't all that impressed with what I was seeing. Maybe I have become a jaded traveler. However, I will acknowledge that Madrid is probably the most Westerner-friendly walking city I've walked through yet on the Iberian Peninsula.

I decided a hop-on/hop-off bus was in order -- the significance of the memorials, the plazas I was walking through were not evident. Decided to call it a day and hopefully wake up with renewed energy for city 7 of 7...

Some Day 1 of Madrid pics:

Stumbling upon the Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz statue was a trip -- I remember reading/studying her back in college.

Day 25 - Sevilla: Easter Sunday Desayuno, (End of) Mass at the Cathedral, River Walk, Macarena, Alcazar... and Easter Pizza?

So, Sunday was Easter Sunday, and the final wrap-up of my week of Semana Santa in Andalucia. Decided I would go somewhere and have a full breakfast with patio seating, and I did just that. What I didn't realize is that I think I ended up picking a place that catered to British tourists. There weren't that many breakfast options.

Needless to say those beans that tasted like they were swimming in Spaghetti-O juice stayed right on that place. Haha. Happy Easter to me.

After breakfast I headed into the centro to see about seeing the Cathedral again. As it turns out, they were holding Mass when I showed up and they were letting tourists in the side viewing area to the right of the altar. I entered right as they were about to give Communion.

I stayed through the end of the Mass. I know that it wasn't too many years ago that all of Mass was said in Latin, but it still surprised me that some of the song was in fact in Latin at this Mass.  That was all though, the rest was in Spanish. It surprised me that what little of the Mass I caught (the tail end) still resonated so much. Thousands of miles away, it was like being at a Mass in Cali -- the same basic messages being conveyed. I particularly liked the way the priest began his final remarks -- he started by explaining the origin of word "Pascua" (Easter Sunday in Spanish is Domingo de Pascua) -- translating back to the word originally for "paso." He tied it into his general parting remarks -- I won't get it across well here in English, but needless to say I am glad I attended what I did.

After the Mass, I headed out to the riverfront and decided to go for a walk along the river.

One of the many bridges that crosses the Guadalquivir River.

I knew I had to be at the Alcazar at 3pm for my appointed visit time. As it turned out, I ended up walking basically the entire length of the river through town without realizing it. When I pulled out my map to figure out where I was, I realized I was very near the Basilica de La Macarena. I didn't think I was going to make it over to that church since it was completely on the other side of town, but there I was.

It was funny, the weather was fine for the entire duration of my walk along the river, but not but within a minute of coming in and crossing the main boulevard that runs along the riverfront, it started raining.

 

The two pasos on display that must have been used during the week's processions.

After leaving the Basilica I decided to head across and through the entire maze of central Sevilla to get back to the Alcazar, which was basically on the entire other side. Ended up stopping and buying another 3 Euro umbrella as I didn't have one with me and I was getting soaked, tall buildings and narrow one-lane streets notwithstanding.

Made it to the Alcazar with maybe 15 minutes to spare before my 3pm entry time. Wandered through a few souvenir shops and made the 3pm entry time, on time.

I spent maybe 2 hours in the Alcazar? A little more?  Some of it was quite impressive, but after seeing the Alhambra in Granada it was hard to be that mesmerized by the Moorish architecture and tilework in the Alcazar. Although, the interior of the palaces in the Alcazar were much more recent and well preserved, which should be given proper credit. The extensive gardens were nice, and if anything a nice respite from the otherwise busy and constrained feel to the centro in Sevilla.

Also, it was still raining for a good fair amount of my time at the Alcazar.

After the Alcazar I made my way back to the room, as my shoes and pants were soaked through wet from the rain (thankfully I was wearing khakis instead of jeans, so they weren't all heavy and cold). Once back to the room, ultimately decided the plan was to go to an ATM and get cash (I had less than 15 Euros on me), then see about getting some beers and some tapas nearby for my final night in Sevilla.

I leave the hotel and it is pouring, torrential rain. So bad that people with umbrellas are ducking into doorways. My clean, dry shoes (my *expensive* running shoes, no less) get completely soaking wet, along with my dark heavy jeans within the two short blocks that I walk to the ATM (I could see it from the front steps of the hotel). THEN the ATM rejects my card. So, I am soaking wet from the knees down even with the umbrella, still low on cash -- and it is still pouring rain. I recalled seeing I could order pizza delivery from the room, and scratched the prospect of ordering drinks and tapas while in squishy shoes and cold, wet pants.

It took over an hour for that Easter pizza and combo appetizer to arrive. I was starving. However, apparently in Sevilla the Telepizza places don't cut the pizzas??

My guess is they probably just forgot to cut mine. Oh well. I didn't have any type of cutting utensil so I went Neanderthal mode and ripped it in half, then chomped away. Funny, my Ethpanol appetite just isn't the same as it was in the US. Couldn't even finish half of the thing.

(Note: I don't ever post pics of half-eaten food -- to me it's one step away from posting pictures of garbage (I blame this on my days spent working as a dishwasher in a cafeteria), however... this one makes me laugh.)

Feliz Domingo de Pascua a mi!  Looking forward to Madrid for the last leg of this Iberian Peninsula journey!

Day 24 - Sevilla: Final Travel Plans & Deliberations, An Almost-Trip to Cadiz, Torre de Oro

So yesterday was kind of a down day (not being much of a tourist per se) -- I had to figure out how I was getting to Madrid and what my Madrid hotel would be. I ended up heading the couple blocks up to the train station to buy my train ticket up to Madrid on Monday -- only to find that they were apparently completely sold out on Monday.  Uh oh. This was at the automated machines, though. I figured I should at least fully verify it with an actual ticket agent, so I go inside to see. It's a take-a-number situation, and they were like 25 numbers behind me. Waited 5 minutes and they moved up like 2 numbers.

Said screw that and went and had a late breakfast at the Roldan cafe place there at the station (it's a chain here in Spain I think; I've seen it elsewhere). I love that you get cafe AND zumo de naranja almost everywhere here when you eat breakfast (note: this is specific to being here in the Iberian Penisula) -- have I mentioned how damn good the OJ is here?! So, so good. And most places have juicers right behind the counter that they throw the oranges into so that the OJ is fresh-squeezed on the spot (this was the case in Portugal too). Anyway, this ham and cheese sandwich thing was a construct-yourself situation -- I had my little cup of sliced up ham, a little cup of pureed tomato, and two little pre-packaged things of... olive oil. Never seen that before. Regardless, it was actually pretty good when I put it all on my bread and proceeded to send on down the hatch.

Anyway, I was also trying to figure out what I was going to do if I wasn't going to be able to get out of Sevilla on Monday. Stay another night here? Nah. I tried the Alsa bus website, but ended up finding that they were also sold out too. Looked up flights from Sevilla to Madrid, and cheapest that came up was like $350, with some lame stopover somewhere farther away than either my origin or destination.

What to do?  How about I go somewhere ELSE then?  Pulled up Spain's map, and ended up deciding on Cadiz. Got all the way planning through the Monday train to Cadiz, the one night there (which was really cheap at most places right on the beach too (its a beach city)) and the train ride from Cadiz up to Madrid on Tuesday (thus giving me 3 nights in Madrid instead of 4). I even went so far as to cancel the reservation at the Madrid hotel I had made just that morning before heading to the train station to buy my ticket.

Went up to the automated machines again to buy my ticket to Cadiz on Monday -- and my credit card wouldn't work. So, I headed inside to try again with the ticket agent... by now the backlog of people had subsided and I was talking to a guy within a few minutes. Decided to just confirm 100% that all seats were sold out on Monday... and it turns out they weren't. Apparently the face-to-face seats with the table in the middle... the ones I was complaining about for the ride from Granada to Sevilla? Apparently they don't sell those as single tickets at the automated machines... you have to secure one of those from an actual agent. So, I scrapped Cadiz and bought the AM ticket to Madrid on Monday.

Went back to the hotel to rebook my Madrid hotel. Got up to my room and it was being cleaned. Sigh. Lady was nice, though... grabbed my laptop and dropped some other stuff. Went down to the lobby, sat down and got to work... and a deskop computer with a printer next to it caught my eye. Finished up the room booking, but thought about the fact that for a lot of the major sites you can pre-pay for your ticket at an appointed time -- if you're able to print your ticket. Checked with reception and verified the computer and printer were free for my leisurely use -- sweet. Bought my ticket to the Alcazar for 3pm on Easter Sunday.  I looked up the cathedral, but decided I didn't trust the website because it was saying ticket purchases were available all day, and I knew with it being Easter Sunday that couldn't be the case.

Anyway, enough of this blah, blah, blah. Traveling is FUN. So, to go make something of the day. Decided I was going to try for the Cathedral again. And again, nope. I did catch a procession nearby though.

Headed out to the riverfront and decided to tour the Torre de Oro. Got some great vantage points for seeing all of Sevilla in a 360 degree view.

Day 23 - Sevilla: Plaza de Espana, More Walking Around, More Semana Santa

Yikes, I'm getting behind on this blogging. Okay, what happened yesterday? Lots of walking around, I ate, hmm.. let me revisit my pics.

So yes, I walked around the city a lot. Sevilla is very walkable -- also very easy to get lost in the city center. It's all flat and most all is built up maybe 4-5 stories high, so with the narrow not-perpendicular streets and paseos in the city center, VERY easy to get turned around. Even with a map. As the street labelings aren't the greatest.

Knowing that the main sites I need to visit are the Alcazar and the cathedral, I headed into the city center to see about visiting. Turns out that on Good Friday the Alcazar was closed, and the Cathedral has a crazy, crazy long line. Next. Ended up walking across one of the bridges over the Guadalquivir river (same river that runs through Cordoba), and (this was pretty laughable, actually)... I thought I saw what appeared to be this great archway that looked to be some type of blend of Moorish and Spanish architecture. So, despite my map from the hotel indicating that nothing on the other side of the river would be worth my attention, I was determined to see this archway up close.

It had to have been 3/4ths of a mile... anyway, not what I was expecting.

Apparently the entrance to some not-open theme park? Fairgrounds? HA HA. I was that guy, looking crazy laughing to himself as I came upon this. Rick Steves would be shaking his head back and forth at me, ha ha.

I did stumble upon a plaza with a poem engraving that I particularly dug.

Anyway, I was able to make a big loop and come back across the river on another bridge further up, and I checked out the Parque de Maria Luisa and, specifically, the Plaza de Espana.

That parque was great. So much vegetation... you could smell the excess oxygen. And that Plaza de Espana -- that was pretty grand.

Apparently it was built around 1928. I loved that around the entire semi-circle of the plaza they had tilework for each of the 50 different provinces in Spain. They were in alphabetical order, and each had not only tilework attributable to the province specifically, but also showed geographically where the province was located.

Exhibit A, Granada (for the record, my favorite city visited to-date):

Walked around some more -- the parque had an epic rose garden, too. Different sections had different colored flowers.

Anyway, ended up heading back for the room -- was hella tired. As I stopped in at an Alimentacion shop (the convenience stores here are all called that) for some H20, I couldn't resist the purchase of a 4-0. I mean, who doesn't drink a 40 while in traveling in Spain?

EVERYONE drinks Cruzcampo beer everywhere here in Andalucia -- including some tercera edad viejitas I've seen hanging out at the cerverceria right by my hotel, so why not me? 40 ounces of it. No paper bag though. But done.  Had a nice lil nap afterwards, too :)

Headed back out to catch some more Semana Santa processions. As it turns out, it's actually pretty difficult to stumble upon some good viewing in Sevilla. Lots of the larger streets and walkways are built up with premium seating.

Upon further searching and walking, I found a good vantage point for a paso.