Spain, September 13-22, 2017
We took an 8 day trip to Spain in Fall 2017. Originally we were thinking of doing a river cruise but after looking at the costs we concluded that we could see and do more of what we wanted in Spain at a more reasonable price. We used Letango Tours, a travel agent specializing in Spain, and the owner set up a customized package for us.
Around Madrid - We arrived in Madrid in the morning after an overnight flight and stayed in Hotel Petit Palace Plaza del Carmen. It was a nice hotel, centrally located, and the staff there were quite helpful. It didn't take long for us to become a bit frustrated with the Spanish meal times and restaurant choices. Fortunately there was a restaurant adjacent to our hotel that opened for dinner at 6pm and had a number of tourist-friendly choices. We ended up eating there every night! Not exactly what you should do when you are traveling but it sure took the stress of finding food when we were tired at the end of the day. We used the Metro exrtensively to get around (that and walking). It made for very tiring days.
Our first look at the Gran Via, just north of our hotel. A very busy street with thousands of people milling around.
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Cooking Class - Jen at Letango Tours asked if we were interested in a cooking class and we said yes. It didn't occur to us that we would be making food and drink (paella and sangria) that weren't on Sharon's diet, but we still had some fun and learned some interesting stuff along the way.
Looking around and trying to find the place where the class was.
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Toledo - Toledo is an ancient city that has existed for over 2,000 years. It has loads of medieval monuments and buildings that are hundreds of years old. On our third day, we took a 35 minute train ride from Madrid to Toledo and met with our guide, Maria. We walked along the south side of Toledo, went into a few places and took pictures of the streets and churches.
Our first look at Toledo, a city that is over 2000 years old.
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Barcelona - We took the high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona. We thought we did a lot of walking in Madrid but Barcelona meant even more. There was a Metro in Barcelona but by the time we were there, Sharon's body was complaining so we walked and took taxis. We stayed in the Room Mate Carla Hotel which was very nice and had a lot of helpful staff.
This is part of the open air, tree-line, pedestrian boulevard called La Rambla. This boulevard became famous because of the terrorist attack on August 17, about 4 weeks before we arrived in Spain.
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Gaudi - On our second day in Barcelona, Josep took us on a tour of Gaudi's architectural works. It began at the Parc Guell, one of the most impressive public parks in the world. Gaudi planned and directed the construction of the park from 1900 to 1914 for Eusebi Guell for a residential park intended for sixty single-family residences.
This is a view from the Parc Guell, looking down over Barcelona and into the Mediterranean.
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Montserrat - On our third day in Barcelona, we decided to see the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, more simply known as Montserrat (serrated mountain). TripAdvisor said that it was easy to get there so we took a small bus tour that picked us up at our hotel and arrived in the mid-morning. We wandered around for two hours or so, had our lunch and then got back on the bus and headed to a local winery. We found the winery pretty much a waste of time so I didn't bother posting any pictures of it.
This is where you walk in to the Abbey. Vendor stalls are on the right side.
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