Spain. España. Eat. Comer. Wine. Vino.
Love.
Our honeymoon in Spain was perfect, to put it simply. I was not prepared in the least for what I saw. I'm not sure if my taste of Ireland was spent in a haze or if I just wasn't prepared to experience what Spain had to offer but when we emerged from the underground Metro onto the flourishing Gran Via in downtown Madrid I was in awe.
Buildings with untold history and architecture existing before the the birth of America rising all around us, Neon signs, Schweppes, small fast cars, people coming, going, talking, whole building wraps, soft glowing street lamps, and McDonalds, welcomed us at the top of those stairs. The 'wow' I breathed out fit snugly with the rest of our honeymoon, perfect, and constantly amazing.
When Planning our trip I had in mind an ideal wind-down adventure throughout Spain. We began as tourists and ended as honeymooners relaxed, tanned and completely full of anything the Sea, Pigs, and Spanish grapevines could offer us. In the end, that is exactly how it played out. We began in Madrid, 1 full day; then Barcelona, 4 full days; Seville (seh - vee - ya), 1 full day, Tarifa, 3 full days.
First there was Madrid:
After finding our hotel Laura and I both were completely overwhelmed, after a long uncomfortable flight from Copenhagen, a less than courteous front desk, and a complete realization that we did not study enough Spanish, we needed some dinner. If it wasn't for that walk along all of the narrow roads and through the Plaza Del Sol to find our hidden restaurant on a terrace below the street I might have lost it. Our first dinner as Honeymooners consisted of some of the most delightful olives I have ever eaten, acorn fed pork chorizo, Baby lamb leg for two, and a whiskey ice cake. A bottle of Spanish wine (only 14 euros!?!) completed our wonderful calming introduction to the city and country.
I'll try to go easy on the details but some stories aren't worth leaving out. Hopefully the pictures will be enough.
Madrid is fantastic, I love the narrow roads, all of the places to eat, the high buildings that constantly surround you and the energy of a city that is always moving. Boy do they move, I'm convinced you have to have almost no fear of death to drive in the city, the scooters, and cars completely disregarded the lines on the road, when there were any, and they had to be traveling twice the posted limit.
I started the day off with a bang and broke the LCD on my camera right away in the morning. It was replaced later that day, nearly drove me nuts/to tears. Thankfully I know a thing or two about cameras, because the clerk helping me didn't know any English so I was still able to replace it with something comparable.
The Prado was amazing and I wish we spent more time there, but at the same time, I would have needed a whole day to see all (or most) of the amazing artworks, really I only wanted to see Goya's works but Valazquez definitely surprised me and I found myself enjoying his paintings quite a bit.
The Royal Palace was magnificent as only a palace could be. With its 2,800 rooms and ornate sculpture decorations and the throne room!! Wow.
We putzed around several more places before we knocked the McDonalds meal off of our to do list right away. I enjoyed the beer I had with my McPollo (McChicken) quite a bit.
Barcelona is a completely different city than Madrid, (duh) The roads are wider the sidewalks accommodate more people, randomly all over the city you catch truly awful scents of old musty urine and there are so many more exciting things to do in the city.
Walking around on our first day we found our way to the top of Montjuïc looking over the city and our first glimpse of Sagrada Família. Down to the harbor area we saw a nude couple of men and boy one of them was immense. I still can't get over how long he was. I'm convinced he could accidentally swing it into someone trying to pass him. A beautiful dinner looking into the harbor and out to the Mediterranean was how we finished the night.
Our visit to Sagrada Família could be a post on its own, so I'll keep it brief and let the pictures do the work. This was began in 1882 by Antoni Gaudi and it is slated to be finished in about 30 years. It is still being built to the original designs.
Gaudi's Park Guell is also spectacular, if it weren't crawling with tourists and was within walking distance to me I would hang out there all the time.
Our third day in Barcelona we stopped by the beach for some sights and a swim in the sea. I had a great time floating around in the water and looking at all of the boobies. Laura and I even found the not so hidden away nude portion of the beach where we saw one guy who aside from us was overdressed by wearing just his iPod/headphones.
Hiking around Las Ramblas and the Gothic quarter was outstanding. I had fun imagining shit all over, horses, no cobblestones while trying to find my way to the blacksmith to have my sword repaired.
One of Laura's favorite parts of the trip was to La Boqueria. Apparently one of the oldest, or largest or something like that, food markets in Europe. And holy cow was it a place to behold. We had a great time looking at all of the different sorts of animals that were splayed out in various forms of death and butchered-ness. I loved all of the different fish and sea things. and the fruit stands were extremely welcoming because of all of the warm colors and delectable different fruits. I bought a bottle of juice and I used to think Naked Juice was thick and tasty but its nothing compared to the fresh pressed juice I drank while strolling around. We were pretty impressed with the number of places you can find olives, and the different things stuffed into them. If the market was open earlier on our stay in Barcelona I think we would have had a grand olive feast, instead we had a few garlic stuffed olive snacks. And the peppers! we saw the largest red peppers I've seen in my life, I could hold one with two hands easy.
Try to ignore that woman looking right into the camera, I think she is casting a spell.
One of the less exciting parts of our trip happened this evening. At our hotel we found a pamphlet for a free Ghost Tour in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. We were thinking YES! this sounds sweet, old city, old ghosts, creepy area, what could be better? So we decided we would attend if there were other people there as well. Sure enough there were a couple of other guys and we were early so we hopped into the group. Unfortunately for us one of the guys was the guide's friend and he took off in the first minute of the tour, and we were left with a strapping young man who looked like he could have been a linebacker in college, quite athletic and muscular. So here we are walking around dark narrow roads in a foreign country on a ghost tour walking through nearly vacated streets, with two dudes and my new wife. This is pretty much what horror movies are made of.
Well the tour was kind of Lame and we were more scared of the possibility of becoming kidnapped than with any sort of haunting. Our guide didn't seem confident, nor did he seem to believe his own stories, but it was still neat to walk around that part of town. We escaped with our lives and tipped our guide 5 Euros and took off like a couple of bolts of lightening.
We needed wine afterwards, and some dinner.
The next day we headed into the Penedes Wine country and toured a couple of wineries and a Cava (sparkling wine) producer. While on our tour we got a wine and cheese pairing lesson, sampled some grapes from the vine, and snacked on some jamon and bread. I had a great time seeing how wine production is just a humongous version of what we do at home, plus harvesting.
Day seven took us to Seville, a city I fell in love with and will go back to again. To start our adventure we got conned into having our palms read by some crazy chain smoking Spanish ladies with some sort of weed sprig they were handing out. So after I had my palm read in Spanish she very rudely asked for money, When I saw Laura pulling out her wallet I grabbed her and we headed for the hills and threw away their leafy thing. It was a very odd moment since thy obviously didn't know English yet knew monetary words extremely well. Apparently they didn't get the lesson of polite word usage.
Later we toured the third largest church in the world, and it is also the largest Gothic church in the world. Holy cow it is grand. It is fantastically ornate and to know that its been essentially the same since the 1600s is just amazing. Also or main man Christopher Columbus lies in rest here which was actually really cool because his coffin thing is held by four statues of kings. There was also a crown on display that was just unbelievably lavish imbued with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other stones I don't know, all set in gold.
That night we had our most romantic evening including a walk along a river at sunset, a gourmet meal for two followed by a relaxing bath for two in the giant tub in our room. Perfect.
Day eight was probably my least favorite day, by a long shot. Today we rented a car and drove from Seville to Tarifa. If it weren't for the internet and it's vast database of things needed for navigation and crafty ways to obtain them we couldn't have made it to Tarifa. (thanks Garmin!) First I swear the Spaniards don't believe in Street Signs (if there is one there is no standard layout/height/size ect.). Second and worse, I had the opportunity to drive a Manual transmission with almost no experience.
To start the day off right Laura and I slept in and took our time getting to the rental place, only to be greeted with a 'we don't have your car. You're late.' Who knew you actually needed to show up when you said you would? Not me. After we managed to secure a car and I was pretty much shaking with nerves to the parking lot I somehow managed to pull out of our spot with absolutely no troubles, no stall, no rough start just pure smooth driving. Great!! That was until we go to the ticket arm to get out, I put in my ticket and the arm went up and I stalled the car, about 15 to 20 times in a row. I'm not exaggerating either, cars were honking, some dude even pounded on our window and fiddled with our emergency brake. Of course they were mad I was blocking the only exit. Laura was crying, our GPS was recalculating even though we hadn't gotten anywhere, and I was failing miserably.
Miraculously we escaped the lot and made it through the first light. But the next 15 or so lights we hit I stalled the car miserably each time, and many of those lights we went through several sequences of red to green. Another dude even pounded on our window at this point and in great English (after yabbering in Spanish) told us to put on our hazard lights, that seemed to help. Thankfully Laura pulled herself together and navigated us out of town like a pro. Once I managed to get the car moving, everyone was right, every gear past first is a breeze, I kicked ass on the highway. I even managed to make it through the toll with no troubles.
When we parked the car at our hotel in Tarifa I was badly stressed out and saw it as a good omen that we checked into our 8 room hotel at its bar. It was also relieving to have the biggest room in the joint and our short walk to the Atlantic Ocean calmed me the rest of the way. Needless to say I wasn't excited to drive back to Seville in a few days.
Our trip in Tarifa was an amazing experience that I want to repeat again. Our hotel was out of town so we ate at the attached restaurant that had a great variety of food and wonderful back terrace/garden that we hung out in nightly. We spent two days relaxing in the sun, and I took a day of Kite Surfing lessons which I would LOVE to take up as a hobby now. One day I built my first sand cathedral, AKA a cross with a spire and a wall around it. This was also the first time we figured out how to use the internet on our phones.
On our final day we were ready do leave, I was cached out on communicating in my poor Spanish to everyone, and we had to begin our travels westward. We found our first and only geocache of the trip near our hotel overlooking the Atlantic and Africa. Later we drove uneventfully (I figured out the car by then) to Seville and Took a train to Madrid.
The flight home was uneventful, I watched three movies and played some blackjack. It was fairly comfortable and we even got a couple of 'free' drinks! Scotch and Coke was my vice, Wine for Laura.
So altogether how was Spain?
Fantastic. We had a great time eating, looking, walking and smiling. Going into the trip I wasn't sure what to expect, now that I'm done I realize Spain is a phenominal country with tons of history wealth and art. We've learned a lot of cool things that we would do differently next time around and also a lot of great things we would repeat. For example future travelers, Pay the extra hundred or two and fly direct to Barcelona, Madrid is cool but Barcelona has way more and a beach. We would spend more time in Seville since it is such a fantastic clean city with new places to explore around every corner and tucked into every alley. The only thing we would change from Tarifa is to grab a hotel on the beach (instead of a mile walk from one), by then we will be Kiting pros and we will hang 10, (if that is even in style or proper slang). I would also like to hit up the Rioja region, Granada and the Costa Del Sol and perhaps Gibraltar. If we found ourselves there in the next 10 years, I would for sure give Ibiza a 3 day try. The country has so much history, culture and excitement to offer, it would be a shame to not return. We were after all on our honeymoon, walking in and out of museums wasn't high on the to-do list but add 30 years to our current age and we will be in our prime history appreciating age. Laura and I said we are going to go back when Sagrada Família is done and I don't think its an empty promise.
Thanks Mom and Dad for the tickets over, without your extremely generous gift these memories wouldn't have been possible, we had such a great time and I know we will never forget it.
