La España 2021

Our last day in Madrid was less busy.  We hit our travel wall and needed to rest a little.  But we did get up and out of the apartment by 10:45 because we had 11am tickets for El Prado Museum (the Louvre of Spain). We realized we hadn’t shown our apartment. That’s Kristi at the building entrance.  We are on the first floor; our windows are the two on the left. At El Prado, we saw lots of sculpture and painting by artists like Goya, Rafael, El Greco, and others. It even included a sneak peak at an official copy of the Mona Lisa - a copy done under the direction of DaVinci.  It was different than the original, more vivid colors were used. Pictures inside were technically not allowed. We smuggled these out.  We’ve figured out that siesta is not necessarily the same everywhere or the same for everyone.  We have noticed that people are eating and drinking (not buckets), and casually passing time in small restaurants for several hours in the afternoon.  Some...

Today we headed out of the city to see some sites not too far from Madrid. At 10am we hopped in the car and headed northwest to a town called Escorial to visit El Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. The monstrous edifice has been both a monastery and palace: home of King Felipe II. It is now a national monument and is kept in pristine condition. It is perched on the side of a mountain. Today’s weather was amazingly sunny and clear. We could see Madrid in the distance 30 miles away.  We had lunch at about 2pm in Escorial; we opted for a bigger lunch knowing we probably wouldn’t be going out in the evening. We had pig’s ear — amazing — beef sliders, pork belly, braised beef, and a pigs’ feet tapas dish (just a bite for each of us).  Each dish was exquisitely seasoned.  We usually try to find a place where it looks like locals are eating. Sometimes it’s ok, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s great. We hit the jackpot with this one.  After lunch we headed to ...

We started the day with coffee in our apartment and then made a quick stop at a mercado/traditional market just across the street from our apartment: little shops selling meats, fish, cheese, olives, etc. It appeared that the locals from our neighborhood, mostly retired folks, we’re doing their daily shopping. We actually found some French cheese we had hoped to get in France if we had gone back there.  We picked up some “pan barra bocadillo” (Spanish-style baguette/bread) to eat for breakfast as we headed to our main stop for the day.   At 11:00am we headed out. We walked from our apartment to El Palacio Real de Madrid: the Royal Palace of Madrid.  It was about 1 1/2 miles away.  We had tickets purchased ahead so entry was easy. The time of year plus COVID restrictions limiting visitors made for a very nice visit: no huge crowds.  This photo highlights the weather we’ve had. It’s been about 50 degrees and sunny most of the day. It’s actually perfect for walkin...

We all had a relatively good night’s sleep. And maybe we all might be adjusted to the time change by tomorrow. After sleeping in a little and enjoying a coffee, we left Lleida at about 11:30 am to make our way to Madrid. The trip is about 4 1/2 hours. About a third of the way through the journey we made a stop in Zaragoza. In Zaragoza we visited the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Pilar. It was an impressive church. The square next to the church had Christmas shops set up and a beautiful walk-through nativity scene. Alas, we arrived just before 2pm, which means things were winding down for siesta … the nativity and shops literally closed up for a few hours.  We were able to have coffee, churros, and ice cream before getting back on the road.  The landscape so far has been mostly rolling plains with some low mountains as we got closer to Madrid. It appears fairly arid. We saw dormant stone fruit orchards and land that appeared to have been used to grow corn and maybe wheat. The a...

Last May, COVID was waning, airfare was low, so we decide to book a trip to Barcelona. DJ and Carlos decided to go with us on the adventure. And, little did we know, Cecelia would be living and working in Netherlands, so she could easily join us.  As the departure date drew near, the Omicron variant of COVID reared its ugly head and had us worried. A week before our departure we actually decided not to drive into France for part of the trip, as their COVID restrictions were intense. But Spain is open as can be … for us vaccinated folks. We decided to go to Madrid in place of France.  So, here we are, all checked in. We are flying from SF to Barcelona through Paris on Air France … looking forward to the complimentary champagne and wine with dinner.  ¡Hasta pronto! We arrived in Barcelona without incident. Cecelia was waiting for us as her flight arrived two hours ahead of ours. We shuttled to our rental car company and after quite some time there were finally off. We drove...