Spain: Part 3 of 3

The long-awaited, final installment. Scroll down if you haven't read Part 1 and Part 2 before reading this.

Wednesday evening we departed Alicante and took the train to Madrid. The countryside was much greener and had more farmland than I expected, and of course there are never ending olive trees (Spain grows more olive trees than any other country and is the world's leading olive and olive oil producer and exporter).

We arrived late Wednesday night in Madrid. The main reason we went to Spain at this time was because it was the 10-year reunion of when Austin lived in and around Madrid from 1998-2000 when he served a mission for our church. In Madrid, we stayed at a hotel near the north east corner of Parque del Buen Retiro (Retiro Park) with many of the people who also were on missions during the same time period and their spouses. It was nice for Austin to see many old friends and for me to meet people I’ve heard some pretty funny stories about.

Day 8: Thursday, 5/14
Spain is very much a stay up late, wake up late kind of place, so if you can get to things when they open in the morning you are the only one there. In fact, when we arrived at the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) at 9:10 a.m. they still had the "closed" sign up. After staring at it for a few minutes and trying to figure out which national holiday we missed (there are a lot) a guard came out and flipped the sign over and let us in, about 15 minutes after they should have opened. Needless to say, we were the first ones there (unlike when we left and the line was a few hours long). We couldn't take pictures of anything inside. There was a very cool armoury, a museum, and of course lots of fancy rooms. Oh, and there were peacocks roaming around the grounds (which reminded me of Skansen in Stockholm).

This is the church that is facing the palace, Nuestra Señora de la Almudena. Later in the week, I finally figured out how to take a decent picture at night.

After the Palace, we went on a bus trip with the reunion group to Toledo and Consuegra.

View of Toledo, looking across the river:

Cathedral of Toledo:

Although it was very pretty to look at from the outside, Toledo was quite hard to navigate from the inside. The narrow streets prevent you from having any visual landmarks by which to navigate, the streets are largely unmarked, and our map wasn't that helpful.

One random trivia factoid is that the phrase "holy Toledo" refers to here in Toldeo, Spain. Toledo was considered a holy city based on its literal proximity to heaven as it is situated up on a hill. Additionally, El Greco painted a scene where the people of Toledo are reaching up to the heavens and the angels are reaching down to Toledo. So that explains the "holy" part, but how it got translated into its current usage was not quite explained.

The closest other source which semi-verified what we heard is the following: "holy Toledo! - This exclamation of surprise refers to Toledo, Spain, which became one of the great centers of Christian culture after its liberation from the Moors in 1085. Its thirteenth-century Gothic cathedral, one of the largest in Europe, is the seat of the Cardinal Archbishop of Spain." "Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins" by William and Mary Morris (HarperCollins, New York, 1977, 1988). Still fuzzy on the link of "holy Toledo" to surprise, I think.

After Toledo we headed to Consuegra. This is pretty much just a photo op kind of destination.

These are the windmills responsible for Don Quixote’s demise. There was a man who now runs an ice cream stand in the bottom of one of the mollinas and he let us climb up to the top.

Day 9: Friday, 5/15

Today was our favorite day of the whole trip. There are several festivals throughout the year in Madrid, with the largest being the week-long San Isidro Festival , who is the patron saint of Madrid. Unbeknownst to us, our time in Madrid coincided with San Isidro. Friday was the national holiday associated with the San Isidro Festival (this is a different link). First we went to a park just south of the Palace on the west side of town. There was a stage set up for performances of traditional regional dancing, music, and costumes. Various neighborhoods within Madrid represented each of the regions of Spain and performed their traditional music and dancing. It was very impressive, and there was such regional differences across the country. Here are a few of the pictures, there was some flamenco, lots of castanets, even bagpipers from Galicia, and all had fabulous costumes.

We met a lady from the U.S.Embassy while we were watching the performances, and she told us about more festivities at the Parque de San Isidro. The picture on the left is a sculpture of San Isidro. The story goes that a baby fell into a well, and Isidro prayed until the water level in the well began to rise, and he continued praying until the water raised the baby all the way out of the well. Our embassy friend wasn't kidding when she said to just follow the crowd. Um, yeah, there were a few people there (top right). And we finally got our paella (bottom right)!

That evening there was a reunion dinner that many more of Austin’s old friends attended. It was in a chapel that was right next to the Madrid Temple.

Day 10: Saturday, 5/16

We started off walking around today. We started looking at the Goya Frescos in Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida. No pictures allowed, so please click the links.

After that we went to Plaza de Espana, where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are immortalized.

Just for the record, the plaza's in Madrid were nicer than in Barcelona. Barcelona's had no greenery at all, whereas Madrid's usually had some vegetation.

After this we had some churros y chocolate.

Churros, which are very different from those you might find in the states, are sort of like fried doughnut sticks without any topping. They are to be dipped into a cup of very thick hot chocolate, almost like chocolate syrup, and are delicious! These are a popular before or after dinner treat or a late-night snack after partying all night. Maybe if I get brave I'll try making some with this recipe. We might have to try it for Austin's birthday or something.

Then went back to the park where the dancing performances were the day before. There were two men (who were both blind) playing these "organillos," which the musician said was about 200 years old. It's essentially a player piano, he turns the crank handle which turns a large drum with all of these little pegs and they cause the hammer to hit a string. The same drum is used to play countless songs, which are determined by the angle at which the drum is set.

(I'll come back to the picture at the bottom right later).

After this we walked through more of the city, spending some time in and around Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol (we didn't get any pictures so click these links to see some).

Eventually we made it over to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which was our kind of art gallery because it has a nice collection but relatively few examples of each style or time period, so the variation keeps it interesting. Lots of big names in here, Monet, Rodin, Rubens, Rembrandt, Renior, Degas, etc.

We were planning on going back out that evening, but we logged quite a few miles and when we finally sat down to eat we realized we were done for the day.

Day 11: Sunday, 5/17

After going to church in the morning, we went to the Prado. Given that there are about 1500 works in the collection on display at any one time (which is only a fraction of the total collection) and that we really didn't know the story behind any of the paintings, we reached saturation pretty quickly relative to the number of things to see. We were there about 3 hours and at that point called it quits. If you aren't going to make it to the Prado, or even if you have, you really should check this out: Google Earth photographed several of the main works and you can look at them extremely zoomed in. Click here for more info; the little youtube clip at right is worth watching as an intro.

After the Prado we went to Retiro Park with our friends Alan and Lindsay, who also live in Durham and were just getting to town for the reunion (actually, Alan and Austin are second cousins or something--their grandparents are siblings). Retiro is on the east side of the city, right behind the Prado, and offers 350 acres of green space right in the middle of the city (again, unlike Barcelona). A few pictures of some of the grounds, fountains, and a large artificial pond. The picture top left is from Sol, which is the symbol of Madrid: "El Oso y El Madroño" (which is sometimes translated to "the bear and the strawberry tree." For a brief explanation, click here).

After the park there was a nice Fireside back at the chapel next to the temple about the temple construction and the church in Madrid. There was also a very, um, memorable musical number.

Speaking of memorable musical numbers, after the fireside we went down to Plaza Mayor which hosted operettas as part of San Isidro on previous nights, but there wasn't anything going on. So we made our way back to the park, where were were serenaded by “Carmen y su Madrid.” This was the picture on the bottom right from 2 collages ago. So Carmen is a chain smoking 50 year old who thinks she is still in her prime. She would belt out a song, and by the end she was completely out of breath. Then in between songs her little helpers would come over and straighten the fringe on her shawl, bring her some water, and bring her a cigarette. It was entertaining for all the wrong reasons, but definitely memorable!

Day 12: Monday, 5/18

Today we went on another road trip with the reunion group. First stop was Segovia. There are

ancient Roman aqueducts which were built at the end of 1st to early 2nd century AD, and they

are in remarkable shape. There are 166 arches and 120 pillars in two levels, made of 20,400 large, rough-hewn granite blocks. Its maximum height is 100 ft. They are built with no mortar, so there are sections where you can see right through the wall.

We also went to the Alcazar (the castle-palace). It originated as an Arab fort. This is the castle that Walt Disney based the Disney World castle off of. Some views of the outside. Some views of the views. Looking back at the cathedral, and look, there's snow up on those mountains!

Some pictures from the inside. The stairway in the tower, throne room, and ceiling (the ceilings were quite a different style than anything else we had seen throughout the trip).

Tracy climbing the tower, Tracy & Lindsay, Austin with his new friend:

Some pictures around Segovia. The two on the right are the cathedral. The one on the bottom was the plaza where we had lunch. Thanks to some very slow Spanish service (the waiters don't get tips, so there's not much incentive to hurry), we actually left the restaurant where we were trying to be served. Good thing, because we found a bakery and a great fruit stand and had the best peaches sitting on a bench in the plaza.

After we left Segovia we drove down to a grassy area where you can look back up at the castle and get a much better view of it. Now it's easy to see Disney World's resemblence. Again, a little pretty:

After Segovia we went to La Granja, which was the King's summer palace. The palace and grounds are modeled after Versailles. The gardens (a scant 1,500 acres) have an elaborate fountain system (26 of those), whose water is supplied by a reservoir which we hiked up to (top right). The water system works entirely off of gravity, so they have to turn the fountains on in a certain order for them to work. They only do this 2 times a year; apparently it's mobbed on those days but I'm sure it would be quite a sight. If you go bring an umbrella, because the fountains are a bit unpredictable and many overshoot the fountain area and soak unaware on-lookers.

Next we drove on to Ávila, one of the great walled cities. We had a fabulous dinner here which included bean soup with chorizo, which is one of two local dishes (the other being suckling pig--they bring you a whole pig on a platter). Can't speak to that but the bean soup is delicious.

Day 13: Tuesday, 5/19

The reunion group went to El Escorial on the way back to Madrid (which is based on descriptions of Solomon's Temple, the burial place for Spanish Kings, and looks absolutely jaw-dropping). We were originally supposed to go the day before, so we thought we were going to be able to see it, but with the change in schedule we could no longer go because we had to wake up very early and take the first train out of Avila back to Madrid, then catch the metro to the airport, and then get onto our flight to NY. So next time we're in Spain it looks like we need to do the sports museum in Barcelona and El Escorial (not to mention Granada and the surrounding region).

We try to always do a list of superlatives after a long trip like this that we put at the back of our photo album. Here you go:

Modes of travel: Plane, train, metro, coach bus, feet
Miles traveled--Total: 10,012
Miles traveled--Within Spain: 1,855
Miles walked: a lot
Towns visited: 7
Best day trip: Segovia
Hardest town to navigate: Toledo

Most scaffolding: Barcelona

Favorite Outing: San Isidro traditional dancing and music performances
Best Food: bean soup or churros y chocolate
Best View: Hotel room window in Alicante
Best Cathedrals: Sagrada Familia and Santa María del Mar, Barcelona

Favorite Patron Saint: Isidro
Best green space: Retiro Park (Madrid)
Best market: Alicante (yes, even better than Mercado Bouquerilla in Barcelona, because it is divided by type of food, not all hodge-podge like Bouquerilla)
Best Plaza: Plaza Espana (I'm still not sure on this one, too many to pick from)
Best Grocery store: Al Campo
Biggest surprise: How late the sun stays up
Cheapest Dinner: Travel Bar, Barcelona (1 Euro)
Best test of Spanish fluency: Arguing with the lady behind the metro counter about getting shorted 2 rides (Austin passed with flying colors. By the way, Spainards really don't speak much English, and even if they do, you just aren't going to get anywhere if you try to do things in English).

Best weather: hard to pick, since it was 65-72 and sunny every day

Most smokers per capita: Barcelona (Madrid was probably just as bad, we were probably just used to it by then. They are one or two generations behind on smoking--don't inhale as you exit a building).

Funniest memory: Trying to return the underwear at Al Campo in Alicante

Biggest relief: getting our suitcase back

Hardest thing to plan around: Medio Dia (will it be open? will it be closed?)
Worst Brochure: Olympic Sports Museum

Best t-shirt to wear while traveling: Penn State (we met Penn Staters in Barcelona, Madrid, and even little Alicante)
Best souvenirs: dress from Toledo, shawl from San Isidro festival (both for Ainsleigh)

¡Viva España!