Day 2 - Madrid/Toledo

16/9/2010 - Madrid to Toledo

Not a great morning. I've been having a hard time sleeping, and Geoffrey's back has been bugging him so he's been tossing and turning a lot, which keeps waking me up. So this morning, after getting to bed at 2:30, he got up at 6:30 to go out and explore - without a map. I fell back asleep for a while, only to be jolted awake at 8 realizing that Geoffrey still wasn't back. I was reaching total panic zone when he got back about an hour later (without the map, he got pretty lost) and we had a nice, pre-breakfast discussion about how his trying to be considerate and let me sleep was completely undone by the fact that I was trying to figure out how to find someone without a cell phone in a strange city. After trying to get a little more sleep, we checked out of our hotel but left our bags, then headed down to breakfast, then to the Mercado de Anton Martin just a few blocks from our hotel.

I love food shopping at home, and I really love food shopping in a foreign country, so I was in paradise picking out cheese, bread, meat (for Geoffrey), fruit, and juice for a picnic lunch in the park. It was a muggy, overcast day, and we were planning to spend a couple of hours exploring El Parque de Buen Retiro, which is kind of like Madrid's Central Park. We sniffed our way through the beautiful rose garden before visiting the Palacio Cristal, which I has somehow overlooked my first trip to Madrid. We found a nice spot for our picnic, then headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and get to the train station to leave for Toledo.

El Parque de Buen Retiro

I had talked to Natalia that morning, and she had told read me the times for the train to Toledo, and we decided to aim for the 13.50. With Estacion Atocha only 2 metro stops away from us, we headed over around 1, thinking that would be plenty of time to buy tickets from an automated kiosk for the quick, easy, 30 minute trip to Toledo. WRONG. For some insane reason, you can't buy a ticket to Toledo from one of the fifty or so automated kiosks throughout the station, you have to take a number and wait in line forever to talk to a live person. I'm really not sure why, it's a simple, one-stop only train ride that leaves no room for confusion, so it's not like we were trying to figure out how to take a night train to Moscow or something complicated. So of course we missed the 13.50, and the train after that, and instead of getting into Toledo at 2:30 as we'd planned, hoping to have a decent part of the day to explore, we got there about 4:30. Geoffrey was very excited about the trains, which was good, because there are a whole lot more of them in our future.

Estacion Atocha, Madrid

The train station in Toledo is small, and simply beautiful. It's very old, with palm trees and a nice little cafe/bar where we grabbed a quick coffee (Geoffrey, of course) and another tortilla. After our snack, we bought a map in the station and asked if the people working there knew anything about where La Vuelta would finish the next day. One of the station police knew and showed us on the map, so we went to catch the bus to our hotel with an idea of where we'd need to be the next day.

The bus ride into town can really only be described as terrifying. Toledo is a medieval hill town, with very skinny, winding streets that are pretty narrow for a car, never mind for a bus. Geoffrey was very lucky that his seat was facing backwards, so he only witnessed the successful results of the dozen or so harrowing near-misses I had to watch head on. We got off at the stop for Plaza de Zocodover, which is as close as you can get to the cathedral, which was just a few streets from where we were staying. We ambled our way up to the cathedral with only a few wrong turns and found where we were staying, Hotel Santa Isabel. We checked in and were shown to our room - it was heaven. On the top floor, sleek and simple, modern but with a definite old world feel, and a view from a small balcony that opened onto the rooftops of the city and the cathedral. It was absolutely breathtaking, and only 55 euros a night. We did get a good laugh about the bed, which was actually two twin beds pushed together, very 1950's.

The view from our balcony

The view from our hotel's rooftop deck

After we got settled into our hotel, we headed out for dinner to a restaurant recommended in our Rick Steves guidebook, which turned out to be awful. A great deal, but way too fried for our taste - I had gazpacho (ok) and fried seafood and fries, which I could barely choke down beyond a few bites, an okay dessert and a nice glass of wine. Geoffrey had a salad and venison "tacos" which turned our to be about as similar as Spanish tortillas are to Mexican tortillas - it seemed to be some sort of venison stew, also with fries. Not good. The restaurant was at least not smoky, and pretty cool looking, to focus on some positive points. After that travesty of a meal, we headed back to our hotel under a cloudy sky. It was just starting to rain when we got back, and as we got ready for bed, the rain was really starting to come down and we could see lightening in the distance. That night there was a pretty big storm (luckily I had closed the doors to our balcony before it got too bad) and the next day it was clear and sunny.

Madrid - Day 1

Cervantes Pizza Bar, our local bar/breakfast place

15/9/2010 - Madrid

Cervantes Pizza Bar, Madrid - After an 11-hour sleep, we are recharged and ready to hit Madrid. Last night was sort of a comedy of errors. Our second flight ended up being about an hour late, getting us into Madrid-Barajas airport, where the Metro pass machines would not work with any of our credit cards, so we had to get cash at an ATM in the airport to get into Madrid (can't imagine we got the best exchange rate there, but really not a whole lot of choices). Because of that, we ended up getting to the hotel about an hour after I was supposed to have called Natalia to make plans to meet up for dinner. Our room didn't have a phone, and naturally the phone in the lobby wasn't working, so after dumping our bags and a quick change out of our grungy, travel soiled clothes in an effort to feel slightly more human, we had to go in search of a phone. After wandering around for a few minutes, we found a phone/Internet place, so I called Natalia's cell - and got her voicemail. I left a message letting her know that we had arrived safe and sound, didn't have a way for her to get back to us, and we'd call her back in a few minutes.We ended up wandering around our neighborhood, which was right by the Prado and Parque Retiro, and was still hopping at 10:30 on a Tuesday night, which, coming from a town that closes up at 8 seems like such a novelty. Finally got ahold of Natalia and made plans to talk tomorrow once we'd gotten some more sleep. We then had the very hard decision of figuring out where to eat. There were about a gazillion restaurants in our neighborhood, which is actually very overwhelming when you're exhausted and have no real information to help you choose one place over another or recommendations or anything. In the end, we settled on probably the worst place (loud Americans) we could find. The main reason for going to this place over any of the other numerous options? No one was smoking. We ended up ordering canapes instead of tapas, so we ended up with basically half-baguettes slathered with various toppings (cod & tomatoes, some small fishes, and tuna spread that looked exactly like an open-faced tuna fish sandwich). It was okay, but WAY too much food, but we were no longer hungry and tired, but just tired. After we wandered around a little more, we went back to our hotel and crashed.

First night's dinner

I have to take a minute to totally bitch about smoking in Europe, Spain in particular. It is HORRIBLE, people smoke EVERYWHERE, and cigarettes are really cheap, about $4 or $5 a pack versus I believe about $7 or $8 in WA. After Washington banned smoking in public, I got totally re-sensitized to cigarette smoke, and it bugs me even more than ever. Plus, having a tiny, capsule wardrobe I'm already worried about keeping clean, I now have to worry about it smelling smokey. Apparently a law was passed a few years back banning smoking indoors, but everyone ignores, which explains the "No Smoking"signs I see on doors of bars & restaurants full of people smoking. Natalia later told us that they're supposed to pass another law in December that actually enforces the no smoking law. We'll have to wait to come visit again after that. Seriously.

It's pretty hot out, and we're enjoying what will become our staple breakfast in Spain - coffee, hot chocolate, and tortillas at a bar. Our plans for today are pretty basic, we're going to La Reina Sofia, the modern art museum that houses Picasso's "Guernica" (one of my all-time favorite paintings) and some amazing Dalis & Miros. Then we're meeting up with Natalia in la Plaza del Sol and she's going to help us get a cell phone to use throughout the rest of our trip, then go to a market near her neighborhood and walk around a bit, then go back to her apartment and meet Javi for dinner.

The courtyard of La Reina Sofia.

Lunch.

It ended up being a great day, lots of walking (we're so centrally located, we probably won't get a whole lot of use out of our metro passes) and it was really nice to be walking around with someone who knows where they're going so we don't have to keep whipping out our map every time we turn a corner. The museum was spectacular, though we started out with the temporary (and practically deserted) exhibit of Manhattan mixed media pieces, mostly photography, where we spent about 45 minutes more than I thought necessary before heading down to the older works. After a quick outdoor lunch of bacalao for me and a jamon y queso bocadillo for Geoffrey, we headed over to el Prado (the line was WAY too long, so we sadly didn't even try to go in) and checked out Parroquia San Jerónimo El Real, a cool church right behind it. We headed to Plaza del Sol to meet Natalia after that. We ended up taking the Metro, basically just to avoid getting too lost. It was so great to see Natalia, she looks so at home here, Spain definitely agrees with her. We walked through the Plaza del Sol, which was probably the most crowded place we'd been to so far, and headed to a Vodafone store, with the hope of getting a disposable cell phone that we could use in Spain and switch out the SIM card when we got to Italy. According to the (incredibly unhelpful) sales lady, you can't do that. I really think she just didn't feel like helping us out, since I'd read in multiple places that it's really easy to do exactly that. Sans phones, we headed to a really cool indoor market which seemed like a cross between Pike Place Market and Whole Foods, where we got some olives, stuffed peppers, wine, chocolates, juice, and coffee and ate them at a standing bar area.

The market.

After the market, we headed to Natalia & Javi's through la Plaza Santa Ana and a couple of other really cool plazas. One of them had a fountain in the center, and while we were there, two dogs came running up to it, and jumped INTO the fountain to get a drink. It was obscenely cute. They were eventually joined by another dog (Geoffrey has been singing "Three Dogs in a Fountain" ever since).

The fountain, pre-dogs.

Three dogs in a fountain.

We eventually got to Natalia & Javi's apartment, which is fantastic. It's in this great old building, but the apartment itself is really modern. We went to dinner with them and met their friends Lucia & Tony. It was great, I got to practice my Spanish a lot, since Lucia doesn't speak English. We ate at a really cool local place where I'm pretty sure we were the only non-locals there. The food was really good, we had some delicious wine and some actual salads (I was craving some fresh veggies after a day of mostly fried food) and I had black risotto with bacalao (good but very rich) and everybody shared dessert (a brownie with violet ice cream - the brownie was so-so, the ice cream was definitely better). After dinner we walked around some more (poor Javi had to work the next day, so he had to head back home because it was getting pretty late). The rest of us stopped for drinks at a bar, then Tony & Lucia walked us back to our neighborhood, since their apartment was really near us and we had no clue where we were at that point and didn't feel like getting lost at 2AM. We finally got to be around 2:30, exhausted and happy about our first full day of our trip.