Hello and Goodbye to Madrid!

Our last day in Europe was our only day in Madrid! We had heard that Madrid was a great town to go to if you wanted to go drinking and clubbing, but otherwise was not the most interesting destination. Since our plane was leaving from Madrid and we needed to go there, we decided to spend one day there, largely to make sure we got there in time for our early morning flight.

Our one day in Madrid made us disappointed that we had spent so much time in Barcelona in comparison to less than 24 hours in Madrid! The city is beautiful and friendly, and struck us all as much cleaner and more put together than Barcelona. Since we had only the one day (half of which was spent on the train), we did another quick "highlights" walking tour.

We started by walking to the palace, which was pretty from the outside but closed on Saturdays. We instead wandered through the gardens outside the palace and then walked through the city to see the river and bridges. Along the way we saw a few street performers, some of who were pretty impressive! One guy even played the entire Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from the Nutcracker -- on the rims of water glasses.

We stopped by one of the larger grocery and department stores on our way back to change for dinner to pick up a few things -- and when we came out, found ourselves in the middle of a huge crowd of people protesting. We couldn't tell what they were protesting, and made our way to the side of the square where we noticed van after van of incoming military and riot police. At this point we decided it was time to leave and took off as quickly as we could for our B&B. After eventually making our way through the police cordon surrounding our B&B (which was across the street from an apparently important government building), the streets went from incredibly crowded to eerily silent, with groups of police on every corner and the sound of helicopters overhead every few minutes. Patrick and I went to dinner at the restaurant next door to our B&B -- which was luckily open! -- and figured out that our one day in Madrid was apparently the day that 50,000 people from all over Europe had gathered to protest recent decisions by the UN. By the time we had sat down for dinner, 13 people had already been detailed. Needless to say, the rest of our night in Madrid was very quiet!

This certainly wasn't how we had imagined our last evening in Europe, but we did enjoy a last quiet dinner over a carafe of good Spanish wine and a few plates of unique vegetarian food. I think we would both be happy to go back to Madrid some day -- a day when the city was quieter! -- but I also don't think it is on the top of our to-go list. It was a beautiful city with a lot that we didn't get to see, but I'm afraid by our last day we were both getting a little worn out, which may have colored our perspective.

We are so thankful that we had the opportunity to take this trip, which we enjoyed thoroughly! We've gotten to see, taste, hear and experience so many amazing things. Thank you for sticking with us through this journey!

Almost Gone: Last Day in Barcelona

It's hard to believe that our time in Europe is almost over during our last day in Barcelona! A month sounded like a remarkably long vacation, but since we only stayed each place for a few days, the time flew.

We started our last day off with one of the must-see attractions in Barcelona: The Sagrada Familia Cathedral. This Cathedral is still being built, and has been in construction for well over a century. It is absolutely unique, and should be breathtaking when it's finished (in another 20 years or so). The architect who designed Sagrada Familia, Gaudi, is very well known in Barcelona, and the cathedral is being built to his specifications from the 1880s, even today. While the exterior of the cathedral struck me as more weird and fantastical than beautiful, the inside was just breathtaking -- especially the stained glass. The church is lined with stained glass and when the sun peeks through the windows, entire sections of the building seem to glow green or blue or yellow.

 

After a tour of La Sagrada Familia, we headed off to another one of Barcelona's favorite attractions: the beach! Patrick and I weren't prepared with swimsuits since we didn't have a lot of space to bring extra things, but we enjoyed the view and a little bit of wading while Chris and Paige enjoyed the water and sand.

After the beach, we explored the Gaudi Museum (which used to be his home and overlooked Park Guell) and learned a little bit more about one of the most prominent architects in Barcelona. To finish up our day, we went to Placa Espanya to see the Magic Fountain show. The fountains here were impressive even before they began the show, and the show was amazing. It lasted for hours, combining lights and music and a lot of water effects.

Overlooking Barcelona

We spent most of our second Barcelona day overlooking the city from one place or another! Patrick and I woke up early and left Chris and Paige to catch up on sleep, and went back to the Olympic Park to find their Botanical Gardens. We found that we'd walked right past them the first day, thinking that the sign pointed up the road instead of across it! He and I spent our morning wandering through them. As it was late in the season there weren't a lot of flowers, but they have a very interesting layout that is grouped by region, and have plants native to everywhere from southern Africa to Australia and California.

We went back and collected Chris and Paige before lunch, then headed off to find our way to Tibidabo, which is one of the highest peaks around Barcelona and has an amusement park on the top. It took us awhile to find our way there, but once we made it we toured the Cathedral at the top of the mountain and climbed to the top for a great view. The cathedral itself was pretty, although quite a bit smaller than those that we'd seen before, with a lot of mosaics throughout. After that we wandered around the top of the peak for a little while, had some sangria and headed back down to Barcelona.

 

 

We did our best on this day to find an interesting restaurant that didn't have tapas--and it took a VERY long time! There were plenty of good restaurants, but most were either tapas restaurants or nothing very unique. After dinner, we took off exploring to find Bar Marsella. This was an absinthe bar that Chris remembered from his time here, where Van Gogh and Hemingway used to spend time while they were in Spain. We made it, although we discovered that the surrounding neighborhood had gone quite a bit downhill since Chris' time there--and for that matter, so had the bar! We found it just as we were on the verge of turning around and leaving, and each tried our obligatory absinthe. (It tasted like black licorice and was certainly strong, but nothing out of the ordinary.) I'm glad we stopped in -- drinking absinthe in what is rumored to be Hemingway's favorite absinthe bar isn't something you get to do every day -- but other than the novelty I can't say I would have made it through the sketchy street to get there or stayed when I saw the holes in the ceiling and bar that looked like it might have shut down last week.

Barcelona Day 1: Olympic Park, the Gothic District and Placa Catalunya

We started off our first morning in Barcelona by hiking up Mountjuic Hill (which, if you're from flat Minnesota, feels much more like a mountain!) to see the Olympic Park. It's a nice walk from which you get a good view of the city, and the park itself is still pretty. It's still used as an athletic venue, with lots of people jogging or doing aerobics on the grounds. (Or ignoring the signs to let their dogs splash happily in the water of the defunct fountain!)

From there, we hiked up the rest of Mountjuic Hill, searching for the Botanical Gardens (which we didn't end up finding) and then taking the gondola back down. We took a quick walk back to the busier part of the city to eat yet more tapas for lunch, and then toured through the Gothic District. This is one of the oldest sections of the city, and still has some of the original, charming architecture.

We wound up in Placa Catalunya, one of the main metro and shopping centers and somewhere that we'd spend quite a lot of time in the next 2 days. After a little bit of shopping and looking over the fountains and HUGE numbers of pigeons, we met up with one of Patrick's friends who lives in Barcelona and another who was also travelling there for dinner (tapas again!) before turning in for the night.

Travelling Day: Rome to Barcelona

We left Italy on our only flight within Europe. We were both pleasantly surprised by the ease with which we made it through the Rome airport and onto our plane, but most of our day was spent on travel.

Barcelona is thankfully a little bit cooler than Rome - Rome was HOT (I think about 90 most days, at least in the sun). It's still warm and beautiful here, but not quite as painful!

After meeting up with Pat's friend Chris and his girlfriend Paige, we got to enjoy our first Spanish wine and tapas - delicious! Thanks to Chris' fluent Spanish, we got a taste of some of the owner's favorite tapas that weren't on the menu.

Our Jam Packed Last Day in Rome

We had a lot we still wanted to see when we woke up on our last day in Rome - starting with finding some pizza for lunch! (In case you're curious - we were not nearly as impressed with Italian pizza as we thought we would be.) 

We had reserved tickets for the Vatican Museum, and set off for there once we finished lunch - which ended up being a MUCH longer walk than we remembered! Between speed walking for an hour, the near 90 degree heat and the dress code of pants and sleeves in the Vatican, we were not very presentable when we arrived - but they still let us in. 

I'm not sure what I expected from the museum, but it was much cooler than my expectations. A good part of the museum is open air, and you walk between rooms in some beautifully made courtyards. The sheer number of statues, frescos and paintings is also astonishing. Similar to the Louvre, any room we walked into was just as likely to be striking because of the mosaic or marble floor, painted or carved ceiling, or other architecture as for the art itself. I really came to see the Sistine Chapel (which we found after a path that took about an hour to walk), but found many other amazing fresco ceilings along the way.

The Sistine Chapel itself was certainly worth seeing, but not at all what I expected. I thought we would see a ceiling with one large scene - instead, the ceiling and walls are covered with many different, smaller scenes. There is a LOT to look at, but the "sacred space" idea is quite a bit disturbed by the guards continually screaming "NO PHOTOS! NO VIDEOS!! SILENCE!!!" It was still completely worth seeing, however!

On our way out, we made it to one of the last groups going up in the cupola for St. Peter's Cathedral. The view from the cupola was pretty, but it didn't compare at all to the inside of St. Peter's. It was awe inspiring - one of the hugest buildings I've ever seen and incredibly decorated. We nearly skipped this because of the time and I'm so glad we didn't!

At the end of our day, on our way back we FINALLY made it to the Pantheon, just before it closed. This was also cool to see, especially the open ceiling, but was a little anti-climatic after St. Peter's. We enjoyed dinner right by the Pantheon before going back for one of our last time packing up!

A Day Exploring Rome

We planned to spend Sunday wandering around and exploring Rome, and we did - just not all the places we expected to!

That morning on the spur of the moment, we decided to head to the Vatican to see the Pope's Sunday audience. It was quite a hike but definitely something to see (and hear). St. Peter's square was absolutely filled with people for a service. Although it was all in Italian and so we can't comment on the message, the music was absolutely beautiful. It also appears that everyone takes it seriously - even the armed military guard in front of us took part in the handshake of peace. We did see the Pope (albeit from VERY far away), but once again didn't understand a word he said. 

After this we checked out the line for the Vatican Museum, decided it was too long to wait, and headed up to visit a park Patrick found on the map. The beginning to the park was beautiful (and on a steep hill!) and we kept going to try to figure out what the monument in the middle of the park was. About 20 minutes in, we discovered that the "monument" on the map was a big, empty field with a closed off sports stadium underneath! We spent awhile longer trying to find our way back OUT of the park before heading down to see Trevi Fountain, and then spent another 20 or so minutes wandering in circles trying to find the fountain before we realized it was the huge wall we had passed that was under construction! (On the positive side, it was a very painless 20 minutes since we found a great gelato shop!)

At that point, we were pretty far away from the other items on our list, so we started heading back. On the way we took a quick break to listen to a military marching band that we tumbled across, before going back up to enjoy the view from the hotel roof again.

Rome and the Colosseum

We took an early train from Venice on Saturday to arrive in Rome. By the time we got checked in and finished some lunch, we figured that we would only have time to see the outside of some of the big sights since we didn't have advance tickets, and set off.

On the way to the Pantheon, we saw the Colosseum down the street band headed that direction. Once we got that far, we noticed that the line was short and decided to go in!

The inside of the Colosseum is interesting to see, and it has a reasonable amount of information displayed inside. I'm glad I went in, but what made the ticket price worth it was the included admission to the Roman Forums/Palatine Hill archeological site. There were so many things to look at! We unfortunately didn't know a lot about any of them, but still enjoyed it.

After finally being chased out of the archeological site as they closed, we decided to call it an early night and went back to our hotel's bar at the roof, which had been highly recommended in reviews. The reviews were right - the view of Rome at sunset was amazing!