We’ve explored so much of Rome! Sunday afternoon we took it easy and went and enjoyed the sun and festivities in the Piazza de Santa Maria right around the corner from our apartment. There were performers out entertaining the kids and people eating gelato and just relaxing. The cutest thing we’ve seen so far is a little boy who was trying to be a street performer. He was standing very still and put a cup out so people could give him money. His parents were sitting outside nearby cheering him on and getting it on tape. He did this for the entire time we were there (at least an hour) and managed to collect some money!
Street performer in training
Monday (today) we slept in and recovered from our miles and miles of walking. When we checked into the apartment, they told us that there was a grocery store right around the corner but we haven’t been able to find it. This morning we were on a mission to locate it. We missed our American coffee! We kept asking people on the street “supermarket, grocery store?” and pointing to the word in the dictionary. One person would point right, so we’d go right. We’d get to the end of the street, ask another person, and they’d point left so we’d go back in the direction we came from. The store was clearly between person A and B but we couldn’t find it! Finally someone said it’s O-V-S. I’m thinking, “obvious? “ That it’s not. We walked back down the street and saw a department store with clothes in the window and the letters O-V-S in the name. Turns out the supermarket is on the bottom floor. We’d walked by that place no less than 10 times! We are now stocked with coffee and breakfast food (and know where to find more!)
This afternoon we followed a walking tour listed in my guidebook. It took us to Campo de Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish steps. The book said the tour was a mile long – I think ours was longer due to all the wrong turns we made! However, we made it to every stop and even explored some churches that weren’t on the list. I just asked mom and Aunt Cindy their favorite place we went today and Aunt Cindy said the Campo de Fiori market with the food and wine samples and mom said the gelato place named Giolitti. Clearly food outranked the centuries old sites we saw!
Wine tasting in Campo de Fiori
We nearly lost Aunt Cindy today due to pigeon panic. We stopped for a glass of wine near the Pantheon so we could rest and map out our route. There were pigeons everywhere so Aunt Cindy didn’t stay seated for long. She’d run back to the table every now and then and drink a few sips of wine in between pigeon visits. We even had the hostess standing by our table trying to scare them away for us! Even though the pigeons were running her off, she still managed to finish her glass of wine – she’s such a trooper!
It was a great day of seeing the sites at our own pace and wandering the back streets of Rome. Tomorrow we are going to go to the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel and are searching for a must eat restaurant to go to tomorrow night. Wednesday we’ve booked an all day trip to Tuscany – should be fun!
Spanish Steps
Interesting Door!
View from Spanish Steps
Where’s Aunt Cindy? She left to escape the pigeons!
We walked around our neighborhood a little while and then headed over to the Colosseum for a tour. It took us a while to find it and by the time we got there we were starving. We settled for some mediocre pizza in a very touristy restaurant. Not the best but it killed the hunger!
We started the tour at the Colosseum – it’s breathtaking! Our guide was great and really painted a picture of the history. It’s just concrete now ,but it used to be covered all in marble. Our guide said the popes stole or “recycled” all the marble to build the Vatican. After that we went to the Roman Forum, which is mostly ruins of where business was conducted and people gathered during Caesar’s day. We then walked up Palatine Hill, on of the seven hills Rome.
Colosseum
We walked on to Trevi Fountain and then took a break at a little café. A couple from Athens, GA sat next to us! They were in town for her brother’s wedding. We then took a cab to a restaurant mentioned in my guidebook but when we got there the next available table wasn’t until 10 pm! They walked us to another place where it felt like mama was cooking for us. It was super small and great food.
This morning we were supposed to meet Father Tim (a priest Aunt Cindy has a connection with from Statesboro) at St. Peter’s Basilica. Well, that didn’t go so well. We got there right as the pope came out and blessed the crowd – we aren’t Catholic and have no idea what he said but we were grateful for the blessing! The crowds were CRAZY getting through security and into the church so we missed Father Tim by 5 minutes. Oh well. We gave ourselves a tour and then walked to a little café for lunch and then topped it off with some great gelato!
We are having a great time – we’ve walked a ton and are going to take it easy the rest of the afternoon. I see a patio and wine in our near future! Aunt Cindy’s spotted every pigeon in town but has done a good job keeping her cool around them!
A slideshow of some of our pictures is below. To view on an iPad/iphone, you may have to click here. Hope you are all doing well!
Had a really good flight and smooth check- in. I slept just about entire time so I’m ready to go! Just had espresso and cappuccino at neighborhood bar with local Italians–one man offered to share his scone with us!
Going to Colesseum at 3:00 for tour–in meantime will be checking out our neighborhood and Cynthia is ready for wine but it’s only 9:00 am!!!
We made it to Madrid and have had a great time so far. Our hotel is awesome – it’s actually owned by Best Western so we were a little nervous but it turned out great. It’s on Gran Via, the main street, and our balcony looks right over the street. It’s also got a rooftop terrace that has a great view of Madrid.
View from the rooftop terrace of our hotel
Once we unloaded our bags we hit the streets with my handy-dandy Rick Steve’s guidebook. He’s got a walking tour for Madrid that goes to about 13 sights so we decided to follow that. It took us a while to actually figure out where we were supposed to start but once we did that we were good to go. Below are some of the highlights:
Plaza Mayor: Square built in 1619 and was where people were tried and killed during the Spanish Inquisition. It’s also the place where a street performer scared the daylights out of Michelle while she was trying to give him money.
Mercado de San Miguel: food market that over the years has turned into an upscale foodie marketplace. Lots of vendors selling wine, tapas, etc. Of course it would be one of our favorites stops.
Secret convent selling sweets: as we’re reading in the book and heading to the next place, I read a paragraph about how if you go down the alley to your right, you’ll see a brick building and a door to the left with a buzzer. We followed the directions in the book and pressed the monjas button and then waited for the sister to respond over the intercom. We said dulces and then she buzzed us in to the convent.
Let us in please!
We followed the sign that said torno and it lead us to a lazy-susan which allows the nuns to sell their sweets without being seen. We had some trouble with the protocol of buying goods from cloistered nuns via a lazy-susan. After a few spins, we finally got it figured out and were on the way with our shortbread cookies. It was a cool experience and one we never would have known about without the book.
Royal Palace: Europe’s third greatest palace but the royal family doesn’t live here anymore. It’s used for state dinners, royal weddings, etc. It was commissioned by King Phillip V who was very French so it looks very much like a French palace even though he ruled Spain for 40 years.
We decided to go see a Flamenco show that night. The guidebook recommended a few places and also said that if the concierge at your hotel recommends a different place, say no. Any places not on that list are full of tourists and not authentic. Sure enough, the guy at the hotel said he would go somewhere else but I told him that’s what my book told us he would say. We stuck to the book and were so glad we did – it was FANTASTIC!! The concierge booked us a table for the early show – 9pm. The next show started at 12am.
Ready for flamenco
I wasn’t sure what to expect (though I was not expecting feathers, like Michelle) but whatever expectations I had it far, far exceeded them. The venue only held 120 people, and we were only about 10 feet from the stage. I thought it was just dancing and only women – I didn’t know there were men flamenco dancers too. The dancing was the highlight, but there was also a band of 4 people and two singers – the amazing thing was how passionate they all were. The way they used their feet and clapping to add to the music was amazing. Apparently flamenco used to be only singing and is the oldest form of songs known today. In the past and today, it is typically performed by gypsies. Below is a video but it doesn’t even begin to do it justice. I think if I lived here I might be a flamenco groupie.
Today (Saturday) we took a bus to Segovia – a small town about an hour outside of Madrid. It was rainy most of the day (I know, I know – the weather there is beautiful!) but we still had fun. Segovia’s main attraction is a Roman aqueduct that was built in the 1st century and was used until the 19th century. I read this in the guidebook and thought, hmm. . . kinda cool I guess. Well, it was really cool. I had no idea how big it would be. It’s 100 feet tall, and when it was built it was 9 miles long. It still carries a stream of water today.
Aqueduct in Segovia
Another of Segovia’s claims to fame is roast suckling pig and some type of flat, white-bean stew. We happened to go to the most famous pig restaurant (as we later read in our book) and when we asked for a table at 2pm, they said come back at 4pm. So we did. They bring a whole pig down and then cut it up and give it out to those that have ordered it. The pigs they use are only 21 days old and have never eaten anything except their mother’s milk. Clearly, Segovia is not a place big on vegetarianism. The pig was good but kind of tasted like baked chicken. We decided that it must be such a big deal here because they don’t have good barbecue like we do in the south! The stew was fantastic – the waiter brought a big clay pot full of it and served it to us right at the table.
We’ve got one last day in Madrid and are going to play it by ear. After that, Michelle’s headed home and I’m off for a whirlwind, 24 hour stay in Paris!
We made it to Madrid and have had a great time so far. Our hotel is awesome – it’s actually owned by Best Western so we were a little nervous but it turned out great. It’s on Gran Via, the main street, and our balcony looks right over the street. It’s also got a rooftop terrace that has a great view of Madrid.
Once we unloaded our bags we hit the streets with my handy-dandy Rick Steve’s guidebook. He’s got a walking tour for Madrid that goes to about 13 sights so we decided to follow that. It took us a while to actually figure out where we were supposed to start but once we did that we were good to go. Below are some of the highlights:
Plaza Mayor: Square built in 1619 and was where people were tried and killed during the Spanish Inquisition. It’s also the place where a street performer scared the daylights out of Michelle while she was trying to give him money.
Mercado de San Miguel: food market that over the years has turned into an upscale foodie marketplace. Lots of vendors selling wine, tapas, etc. Of course it would be one of our favorites stops.
Secret convent selling sweets: as we’re reading in the book and heading to the next place, I read a paragraph about how if you go down the alley to your right, you’ll see a brick building and a door to the left with a buzzer. We followed the directions in the book and pressed the monjas button and then waited for the sister to respond over the intercom. We said dulces and then she buzzed us in to the convent. We followed the sign that said torno and it lead us to a lazy-susan which allows the nuns to sell their sweets without being seen. We had some trouble with the protocol of buying goods from cloistered nuns via a lazy-susan. After a few spins, we finally got it figured out and were on the way with our shortbread cookies. It was a cool experience and one we never would have known about without the book.
Royal Palace: Europe’s third greatest palace but the royal family doesn’t live here anymore. It’s used for state dinners, royal weddings, etc. It was commissioned by King Phillip V who was very French so it looks very much like a French palace even though he ruled Spain for 40 years.
We decided to go see a Flamenco show that night. The guidebook recommended a few places and also said that if the concierge at your hotel recommends a different place, say no. Any places not on that list are full of tourists and not authentic. Sure enough, the guy at the hotel said he would go somewhere else but I told him that’s what my book told us he would say. We stuck to the book and were so glad we did – it was FANTASTIC!! The concierge booked us a table for the early show – 9pm. The next show started at 12am.
I wasn’t sure what to expect (though I was not expecting feathers, like Michelle) but whatever expectations I had it far, far exceeded them. The venue only held 120 people, and we were only about 10 feet from the stage. I thought it was just dancing and only women – I didn’t know there were men flamenco dancers too. The dancing was the highlight, but there was also a band of 4 people and two singers – the amazing thing was how passionate they all were. The way they used their feet and clapping to add to the music was amazing. Apparently flamenco used to be only singing and is the oldest form of songs known today. In the past and today, it is typically performed by gypsies. Below is a video but it doesn’t even begin to do it justice. I think if I lived here I might be a flamenco groupie.
Today (Saturday) we took a bus to Segovia – a small town about an hour outside of Madrid. It was rainy most of the day (I know, I know – the weather there is beautiful!) but we still had fun. Segovia’s main attraction is a Roman aqueduct that was built in the 1st century and was used until the 19th century. I read this in the guidebook and thought, hmm. . . kinda cool I guess. Well, it was really cool. I had no idea how big it would be. It’s 100 feet tall, and when it was built it was 9 miles long. It still carries a stream of water today.
Another of Segovia’s claims to fame is roast suckling pig and some type of flat, white-bean stew. We happened to go to the most famous pig restaurant (as we later read in our book) and when we asked for a table at 2pm, they said come back at 4pm. So we did. They bring a whole pig down and then cut it up and give it out to those that have ordered it. The pigs they use are only 21 days old and have never eaten anything except their mother’s milk. Clearly, Segovia is not a place big on vegetarianism. The pig was good but kind of tasted like baked chicken. We decided that it must be such a big deal here because they don’t have good barbeque like we do in the south! The stew was fantastic – the waiter brought a big clay pot full of it and served it to us right at the table.
We’ve got one last day in Madrid and are going to play it by ear. After that, Michelle’s headed home and I’m off for a whirlwind, 24 hour stay in Paris.
Finally, I’ve got a better internet connection and can upload a few videos!
Below is the human tower building. There is a human tower building club and they let everyone in regardless of age, gender, etc. because it signifies working together. The little child to the right in the video below couldn’t have been more than 9 or 10.
The video below is the dancing of the Sardana. When Catalunya became a part of Spain, this dance was outlawed for a while. It’s now a way they keep their culture alive. They put their things in the middle of the circle to signify community (and, of course, it cuts down on theft!) Very traditional dancers wear espadrilles that have the ribbons tied up their calves. It really is very impromptu – people gather hands with who is around them. When the music stops they mingle about then grab hands with new people when the music starts again.
The last two days in Barcelona were great and super relaxing. Since it was sunny on Wednesday, I decided to head to Sitges, a town just outside of Barcelona that’s right on the Mediterranean. It’s a popular vacation spot for people in this area. The round trip train ticket on only cost 6.8 euros and the ride was an easy 45 minutes.
When the train got close to Sitges, I knew I’d made the right decision in coming. It literally looked like the train was riding on the water and the view was wonderful. There’s not much to the town other than a town square and the beach – fine with me! I walked around town for a little while and found a place a place for lunch near the water.
Sitges
One thing that’s common in Spain is a set menu. Many restaurants give you a choice of an appetizer, entrée and dessert plus a glass of wine (or soda – but who would choose that option?) for anywhere between 10 – 20 euros. Since it’s a good way to try to some different things, I opted for that for lunch. My appetizer was a salad – really, really delicious but nothing out of the ordinary. The entrée I choose was Fideua – basically it’s a regional version of paella. It’s made with small vermicelli noodles instead of rice. I’d read about it before coming here and was excited to try it.
Since paella is saffron colored, that’s of course what I was expecting with the noodles. Not so – I was served a dish of jet black noodles and seafood. Luckily, I’d read that another regional thing to add to paella or fideua was squid ink. I didn’t think I ordered that option but apparently I did. It’s served with a side of garlic aioli that you add to the pasta. It was actually quite tasty but it was a little disconcerting eating black food, especially seafood! For dessert, I wasn’t quite sure what was on the way but the waiter said it was good. It looked just like ice cream with walnuts, berries and honey. Turns out it was cheese with walnuts, berries and honey. It was similar to ricotta but I’m not sure if that’s what it was. Once I got over the surprise of biting into cheese, it was really good!
Squid Ink Fideua - tasted much better than it looks!
After I made sure that my teeth and mouth weren’t black from the squid ink (apparently that can happen), I went in search of a place to hunker down and enjoy the ocean view and my book. I found a gloriously wonderful bench that sat on top of a rock and looked straight out over the Mediterranean. The waves would hit the rocks so hard that the water kept splashing up to eye level about 7 feet in front of me. I propped my back up against the side, stretched my feet out in front of me and took in the view for hours. It seriously is my favorite place I’ve ever sat. It was a perfect, relaxing day.
View from my bench - fantastic!
For dinner that night Michelle and I decided to have pinchos. We’d had a few days break from them and were ready to taste all we could. The restaurant we went to had a huge selection so it was fun to try to a bunch of different things. I like the idea of pinchos, and all the topping were really good but the bread gets to be a bit much. We ended up ditching the bread on a lot of them. You get the cold pinchos at the bar and a waiter comes around to all the tables every now and then with a plate of hot pinchos. Both of our favorites was a roasted pimento stuffed with tuna – I’m adding that to the list of things to try to recreate. The overall damage was 15 toothpicks and that cost us about 35 euros or $50. Kind of pricey for what were basically snacks. Since we sat outside, there was a .5 euro surcharge per pincho. A surcharge for outdoor seating is common and many restaurants have two menus: one with indoor prices and one with outdoor prices. I hope that never catches on in the US.
Pinchos top to bottom: tuna topped with cheese, anchovy and pepper; spanish omelette with aioli; roasted pimento stuffed with tuna
The last day in Barcelona was not so perfect. It rained all day and was cold. There was one area of town that I hadn’t seen yet so I sloshed my way over to Barceloneta. It’s the neighborhood of Barcelona that’s right on the water. The beach there was man-made for the 1992 Olympics. I’m glad I saw it but it wasn’t exactly the type of day to be hanging out on the beach so I didn’t stay too long.
As I’m writing this we are on the train to Madrid. We were not good planners and didn’t even bother to get our train tickets until this morning. We hauled our suitcases on the metro, up and down stairs and finally found the train ticket counter just 15 minutes before the train left – glad it wasn’t full! It’s a high-speed train and the trip should take about three hours which will put us in Madrid around lunchtime on Friday.
It was sad to say goodbye to Barcelona – it’s definitely one of my favorite places I’ve been – but we are both excited about Madrid. Michelle won’t be working here so it will be nice to have a sightseeing buddy and will also be nice to stop asking strangers to take my picture!
So, I’m way past the point of looking touristy – I pull out my guidebook and map at least every other block to figure out where I am. I guess it’s just best to embrace it!
On Monday, I started the day with my favorite . . . chickpeas! Nothing says breakfast like chickpeas, but I figured if they were serving them then it was fine to eat them for breakfast. I seriously love those things and will be trying to recreate them as soon as I get home.
After my delicious breakfast, I decided that I was going to hit some more of the Gaudi sights (seriously, Barcelona is all about Gaudi) and decided to walk instead of taking the metro. The streets aren’t the easiest to navigate since there aren’t any street signs. They just have plaques on buildings so you actually have to turn onto the street and then find a building with a plaque to figure out what street you’re on – kind of an inconvenience if you picked the wrong street and then have to turn around. This, coupled with the fact that I was born with zero sense of direction, was going to make for an interesting day.
Overall I did fairly well and was proud of my navigation skills (more to come on this later). I went to two apartment buildings that Gaudi designed: Casa Batllo and Casa Mila. I didn’t go in Casa Batllo – heard it wasn’t worth the money – but I did go in Casa Mila primarily because it has an awesome room and I’d seen pictures of it in aforementioned guidebook.
While I was touring the roof, I met a girl from Korea who had been studying in Madrid and was visiting Barcelona before going back home. Since we were both by ourselves we toured around together and took pictures of each other so it actually looks like we’ve been there.
Top of Casa Mila
After that I walked back to the hotel area and hit up some souvenir shops. I’m looking for Christmas ornaments but there are none to be found. I’ve hummed “Merry Christmas” in multiple shops while demonstrating hanging something on a tree so they know what I’m looking for. No luck – ugh! One guy told me it was too early for that. Clearly he doesn’t understand that 99% of the people in his tourist trinket shop won’t be here around Christmas.
As I was continuing the search for the non-existent Christmas ornaments, I decided to take a left at a fork in the road right behind our hotel. I’ve walked this was several times but have always taken a right – this time I go left. About a minute up the street I see something that looks like the Cathedral square, the square where all the festival activities took place the day before. I’m thinking that’s strange, why do they have two of these? Then I realize that the day before I took the metro not once, not twice, but THREE times to this same spot. Not only did I take the metro, but I had to change from the red line train to the yellow line train which constituted a fair amount of walking between trains. Also the walk to the metro stop was further than it was than if I’d just walked to the Cathedral . All this to do a big freaking circle to end up just steps behind where I started. Again, I did this not once but THREE times in one day. Needless to say the smugness I felt from navigating the city early was gone. When I told Michelle about it she said she thought the Cathedral was near our hotel, but she took the two trains with me to dinner the night before so I’m not buying it.
That night we went in search of non-Spanish food, specifically Thai or Japanese. We landed on Japanese based on a recommendation by the hotel. Considering it was Valentine’s Day we were expecting a restaurant full of couples. Not so. It was a restaurant full of tradeshow people (the one Michelle’s here for). The food was great but we basically ate dinner with a restaurant full of tourists (many with their tradeshow name badges still on. Really? How hard is it to take those things off?)
Today (Tuesday), I went to a monastery at Montserrat, which means serrated mountain. It’s about an hour outside of Barcelona by train and then you have to take a cable car (funicular as they call it here) up to the top. This has been Catalunya’s (Barcelona area of Spain) most important pilgrimage site for thousands of years. The monastery was started in 1025 and the basilica there houses a black virgin (La Moreneta) that is said to have been carved by Luke and brought to Spain by Peter. Apparently she was hidden in a cave during the Moorish invasion and later discovered by shepherd children. In the early 1800’s Napoleon’s troops destroyed the Montserrat’s building but the monks hid the black virgin and it survived. It’s now in the church and you take a stairway up to see it – it’s in a little balcony up high in the front of the church. People touch Mary’s orb with one hand and hold their other hand up to show that they accept Jesus. I went up there and touched the orb – it was amazing to do something that people have been doing for thousands of years. I also took a discrete picture which I’m sure you aren’t supposed to do, but it was from the side and I promise no one could see me!
Monastery on top of mountain
La Moreneta - the Black Virgin
When I went back to the cable car stop there were only three people there waiting to go down and one of them was the Korean girl from the day before – small world! Once I got back to Barcelona I went to the Picasso Museum (close to our hotel and this time I was smart enough to walk.)
Picasso is from Spain and spent ages 14-21 in Barcelona; this museum has the world’s best collection of his early works. His early works were very different and much more realistic that the paintings that you associate with Picasso today. Picasso gave over 1,000 paintings from his personal collection to the museum. However, since he vowed not to set foot in a fascist, Franco-ruled Spain and died two years before Franco, he never so the museum.
Some fun tips about Spain:
Cell phone minutes: I’ve got a Spain SIM card for my phone which means I have a Spain number. To add more minutes to the SIM card, you can go in any bookstore or grocery store and give them your phone number and the amount of money/minutes you want to put on your phone. They ring it up like you are buying milk. I tried to do this on my own at a grocery store and asked to recharge my minutes. They told me no and someone who was shopping there came and explained to them that I wanted to add minutes – turns out they thought I wanted to plug in my phone.
Credit Cards: If you pay by credit/debit card at a restaurant they bring a mobile credit card terminal to your table. It’s kind of nice because it’s much quicker than waiting on them to take it, run it, and bring it back.
Tips: You don’t tip nearly as much in Spain (or Europe) as you do in the US. Typically you just round up to the nearest euro or leave one euro per person for a nice meal. It’s cheap but the service shows. You have to flag down waiters for service and they never bring you check without you asking for it.
Meal times: Lunch is typically 2pm – 4pm here and dinner doesn’t start before 9pm. I was in a restaurant today at 6:45pm and they were just getting the napkins, etc. ready for dinner. When we left the restaurant at 11:30 tonight it was still 90% full.
Sandwiches: They really love sandwiches –bocadillos – here. Sandwich shops are every few steps, some chains and some part of a local bakery shop. They are typically on a baguette with just ham and cheese or chorizo and cheese. People eat these walking down the street for breakfast or lunch. If you don’t want a pastry for breakfast, then a sandwich is about your only other option.
That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m debating on what to do the last two days in Barcelona – I definitely want to take another day trip but I don’t know if it will be to the beach town of Sitges or the city of Girona.
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