Gorges and Cavemen

Still half asleep, we left Granada EARLY this morning. We headed to the airport to pickup our car, and what do we get, of course, a minivan. So we load up the mini and head out on the the road to Ronda.

The scenery was GORGEOUS as soon as we left Granda. The climate makes it perfect for growing olives, so groves are planted up and down the hillsides. As we got further into the mountains, you could see the snow capped tops leading down to these green olive groves. The sun was shining just perfectly, so we were just in heaven peacefully driving through something so beautiful.

Our tour guide in Madrid said that Spain was about 20 years behind the rest of Europe and the world, and that evidently applies to the music. Here we are driving through this beautiful place singing Material Girl, Wake me up before you go-go, and Blake´s favorite theme song from Rad, Send Me An Angel. Apparently this is a BMX movie he watched as a kid and they all go to the high school dance and do a bike dance, you know kind of like Sister Act, but for boys. I still don´t understand... Also, we've determined that the Spanish have an unhealthy obsession with Jon Secada... Everywhere we go... "It´s just another day with-o-out you!¨

As we climbed higher and higher into the mountains, through twisty tiny roads and olive groves we finally made it to Ronda. Ronda is one of what they call ¨The White Towns¨. These are tiny villages perched high in the mountains. The locals whitewash all of the buildings. They´re really quaint and cute.

The coolest things about Ronda is that it´s built across an enormous gorge. The bridge here is amazing!

And underneath it, the cavern is full of lush greenery, waterfalls, and caves. We did some CLIMBING here, all the way down to the bottom and then back up to the top... whew!

To rest a little, we took a tour of Ronda´s bullring. Ronda is where bullfighting was born, and this is the oldest bullring in Spain. We actually got to go down on the floor to see what it really feels like to be a Toro... OLE!

Well, being Toros and climbing up gigantic gorges wore us out, so we hopped back in the car to head to our next destination, the Pileta Cave. This cave is WAY WAY up in the mountains, and in the middle of nowhere. It was found by a farmer's daughter in the late 1800´s and the farmer's family has led spelunking tours through it ever since (when we get back to town I am going to rat on Kristen´s spelunking adventures to Dr. Mata... I am sure she will be pleased...). The most amazing part is that the cave houses paintings over 35,000 years old. No, that´s not a typo, that´s BEFORE the pyramids and before pretty much anything else. Our guide led our group of 20 people up and down slippery slopes, past bats, lakes, and stalagmites... all with a GAS LANTERN! Spooky! It was so amazing to stand in areas that cavemen had once slept and prepared their food. There are even remains of cavemen in one chamber of the cave, which is now impassible and unavailable for tourists. OH WELL... Kristen really wanted to see skeletons...

Our tour of the caves lasted approximately an hour which took us 500 meters in and 500 meters out. According to our guide, this is approximately 25% of the area in this one series of caves alone. The weird thing is, in the last room, which was enormous, the guide pointed out that the floor below our feet was hollow. He banged his foot against the floor which resonated a thunderous boom throughout the cave. The room below our feet was an astounding 72 meters from floor to ceiling. 72 METERS!!! That's a fourteen story building!

We left the Sierra Nevada mountains in route for Sevilla. The trek was made more interesting by the farms that dotted the valleys between Ronda and Sevilla. Come to find out, the Andalusia region of Spain is known for a couple of crops, olives and sunflowers. There were dozens of sunflower farms with what looked to be millions of sunflowers. I´m not sure if they produce sunflower seed oil or sunflower seeds or just sunflowers, but hillsides of these flowers is quite a sight.

After dealing with some traffic, we made it into Sevilla, dropped off the rent car at the airport and were able to rest for a few moments before heading off to dinner. Just one more day and night in Spain before we return to the states. I am sure it will be as good if not better than the first five.

Give Me Some Moor¨ish¨

For those of you keeping tabs, the place where Isabella and Ferdinand (with the help of one Spanish army) pushed back the Muslim people creating one united Spanish country was at Granada, not Toledo. So all of you making a big deal in regards to that error can rest easy knowing that we know we made a mistake.

Today started early. Kristen and I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and left the hotel by 7:00 for a short metro ride to the train station and a train ride to Granada. Luckily, because Madrilenos party hard and sleep late, the metro was calm for our dash across Madrid. Let´s just say that carrying two large bags and two carry-ons up and down flights of stairs in the metro is not fun and you hope that you have a clear path so as not to annoy anyone and not be annoyed by anyone. Couple that with the fact that my baby is having a baby and I got double bag duty. Kathy, I have a new nickname for your red monster, THE HERNIA! But, we made the train station and boarded our long awaited 4.5 hour train ride to Granada. Funny thing about trains in Spain, they have boarding and schedules down to an exact science. Not like Italy, where 5 minutes before your train leaves you could be changing platforms, but very efficient. Considering their relaxed atmosphere and long breaks, we both found this to be extremely un-Spanish like but very welcomed.

Kristen and I used our time wisely, catching up on our lack of sleep (Kristen snoring, me drooling) most of the way to Granada. I even watched the in-route movie in Spanish...of course I am terrible with the language so I watched with no sound, made up the story and relayed it to Kristen. I am sure that my version of The Illusionist is way better than the movie itself.

Arriving in Granada, we hopped a cab headed for our hotel. What a great place! The only drawback being that it is on the most dangerous street in the entire world. Hardly wide enough for one car much less buses and pedestrians on both sides. Did I forget to mention that one side is up against the front doors of a building and the other a small wall with a deep ravine. The view is excellent, but the road...treacherous...After refreshing, we wandered the streets of Granada, even making time to stop to see the 2nd largest cathedral in Spain. The cathedral in Granada is in the renaissance style and leaves much to be desired, but it is gigantic. Unfortunately, that's about it. The most interesting thing is that Ferdinand and Isabella are buried on the premises. For those who don´t remember them, they commissioned Chris Columbus to find the new world. Pretty awesome!

After a quick tour we made our way to the main attraction in Granada, The Alhambra. Don´t feel bad if you don´t know what I am talking about, Kristen and I had no idea before planning this trip. Turns out, it ended up being one of our favorite spots. Granada is actually the location where Isabella agreed to send old Chris Columbus into the sunset. We actually went in the room where this happened and re-enacted the scene. Blake was Chris... right... but before all that happened, it was a Moorish masterpiece. Ferdinand conquered the Moorish king (Bilbao... I just love his name).

At the top of Granada is an enormous palace. Now most palaces we´ve seen have been kind of stuffy, full of old dusty carpets and pictures of dead kings. THIS was very different. The whole compound was made up of about five buildings and many of the most beautiful gardens I´ve ever seen.

The old fort or Alcazaba (say it dramatically in a whisper it´s REALLY fun) is basically the ruins of the first fort built on the land. Blake got to climb, so he was really happy.

All the way up at the top you got to see these sweeping views of the city and the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains (Yeah, I never realized they were in Spain either... F for me in geography).

The main palace was full of intricately pressed designs into the stucco. The Koran forbids any human or animal images as decorations, so it is all intricate designs and pattern work. Imagine it all painted in bright blue, red, gold, and green.

The other magical feature of the place is that water is seen as a view of paradise in the Moorish culture, so water is EVERYWHERE. There are tiny fountains, waterfalls, elaborate water gardens, and dripping springs. Even inside the most remote parts of the castle you can hear water running.

The other sound is birds chirping from the gardens. The whole effect is so calming and peaceful. I could definitely imagine me in my long flowing princess dress, frolicking through the gardens, my servant feeding me grapes. In fact, Blake and I decided to just go ahead and buy the whole place. It´s an Alhambra Christmas this year everyone. Instead of yapping on more, we´ll just post some pictures. It was BEAUTIFUL!

So our new palace is lit up really well at night and the cool thing to do is eat in the light of the Alhambra.

Very romantic. We did just that, and had a wonderful meal before calling it a night. We wish we had a few more hours to spend here, we missed out on a few things. Guess it´s always better to leave wanting more.

Tomorrow, pray for Blake´s standard driving skills as he takes on the Sierra Nevadas in a standard. We're off to Ronda!

Holy Toledo!

Today we left Madrid on a high speed train bound for Toledo!

Toledo is the former capital of Spain, where Isabel and Ferdinand defeated the Muslims to make one united Spain. It´s a walled city full of tiny alleyways, twisted streets, and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of hills!

We headed first to the Cathedral.

Now, we´ve seen a lot of them and this one definitely makes the top 10. Much better than the Case Ole Cathedral in Madrid. The cathedral in Toledo was awesome, full of intricately carved pieces of gold and alabaster. When one artist created an altarpiece, he decided it was too dark inside, so he just punched a hole in the ceiling. Now this made the cardinals slightly peeved, so he had to create another gigantic piece of art to cover up his oops. The weirdest thing is that when a cardinal dies, he gets to pick where he wants to be buried in the church and then his special red cardinal hat is hung from the roof over that point until it rots and falls off. There were two crusty hats on display. Eww... how long have those guys been dead?

Toledo is actually known for it´s Marzipan, you know, the cute little fruit shaped things that no one knows what they taste like. Well now we do, Blake had naranja and I had fresa, and we ate them in the Plaza Zocodover, the central hub of the city. (By the way, they´re almondy with jelly goo inside.) Yum! Although, as we learned later, purists of the dessert do NOT eat marzipan with any filling what-so-ever! Their loss is our gain!

Next, we decided on Rick Steve´s advice, to take this cheesy ¨train¨ around the city. More like a series of boxes on wheels attached to a diesel powered truck. Since Toledo is bound on three sides by a river and is High up on a hill, the train takes you outside the city walls to get the gorgeous view of Toledo from the river banks. Good views of the Alcazar and one of the entrances to the city. STOP LOOKING AT THE BIRD ON THE LEFT! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TOLEDO!

Yeah, old Rick forgot to mention that it shakes the crap out of you before it gets there. Old cheesy train + smoking driver who doesn´t give a crap and goes way too fast + cobblestone + 50 minutes = throw up marzipan. Seriously, the view was great but let´s just say that pregnancy makes certain parts grow, and those parts do not take nicely to being shook violently for 50 minutes!

After we got off and kissed the ground, we took a little time to wander the streets and alleyways, shopped a little, found El Greco´s greatest masterpiece in a tiny church, St. Tome, and wandered over to see the Alcazar, the GIANT fort sitting on top of the city. A little picture from the top of the city walls. Behind us, left of Blake´s head, the castle from El Cid.

We also must confess that after all this walking (which we SWEAR somehow really is uphill both ways) we were starving, and we´re reaching our ham limit. So we did something I swore we wouldn´t do and ate McDonald´s. They promised it was Authenico Americana. Right... even if you´re staring at something beautiful and eating it, it´s still slightly gross. At least the McDonald´s in the city square where we ate is controversial. That made us feel better about it. The locals protested its arrival for quite some time so when it finally came the city limited Mickey D´s to one arch for advertising. McDonald´s is persistent! Luckily it made the picture! Here´s us under ¨the golden arch (single)¨.

Holding our heads in shame, we headed back to the train station for the quick trip to Madrid. We´ve wandered around a little more tonight, taking in the big shopping district, el Gran Via. Madrid has so many cute stores. All Zara like and affordable! Laura, you would be in heaven! But, we learned if going out for a stroll, do not try it during Spanish ¨walking¨ rush hour (after work, going to eat-DRINK, going to shop). Remember, we´re talking 8:30 p.m. here!!!

We´re off now for our last churros and chocolate (we SWEAR we didn´t eat them yesterday) and then packing up to head off to Granada and the Alhambra.

Pinturas and Ham

In two days, we´ve realized that Madrid is a city made for us. Everyone sleeps late, takes a nap in the middle of the day, eats ice cream whenever they feel like it, and eats dinner REALLY late. See, all our married lives, we´ve just been preparing for our trip to Spain. Things really don´t get going here until about 10 o´clock. We just ate an ¨early ¨dinner at 8:30 that lasted 2 hours without dessert. Yes, Madrid is chill and we are loving it.

Today was museum day. We got a bit of a late start and headed out to the Prado. Today must´ve been museum day at local schools also because there were a ton of little kids running around. Our favorite moment was when a huge pack of them surrounded the statue of the famous painter Goya and then all of the sudden we heard them all spontaneously chanting ¨Goya, Goya, Goya¨ like they were cheering for a sports star. Spaniards love their painters I guess.

The Prado was awesome. We´re learning more and more about art the more museums we visit. But since we´ve seen so many, we´re becoming a little jaded. The cool thing about the Prado is that they have a lot of Spanish painters, Goya, Picasso, and del Greco. The coolest thing we saw today was Goya's ¨black paintings¨. Around 70 he was widowed, deaf, and really pissed off. He locked himself in a house in the middle of nowhere. They later found his house covered in these paintings made of printers ink with lovely themes like Saturn eating his own child, giants terrorizing villages, and witches meeting with a Satanic goat. Yes, nice cheerful stuff to surround yourself with.

After getting museumed out, we headed for a garden retreat. We first toured the Botanical Gardens accidentally.

It was really like a museum of plants, and since we´re not botanists (killing them most of the time by looking at them), we quickly headed out to the park we thought we were visiting. The Retiro used to be a Royal Retreat. It's kind of like Central Park. Here we are at the entrance to the park. The Prado is behind us.

In the middle of it is a giant lake where you can rent a rowboat and spend your siesta with a lazy boat ride. We rented a boat and gained a new respect for rowers. It´s freaking hard! This is us in the middle of the lake.

We turned in a lot of circles, but had a nice relaxing time watching the kids run around the park.

Next we headed over to the next museum, the Reina Sophia, or as we soon learned, Musuem of weird modern stuff called ¨art¨. The most famous thing here is Picasso´s Guernica, which protested Franco letting Hilter bomb a small Spanish town, Guernica, to test their bombs. It´s gigantic and somber, but being Picasso, still strange. After we saw that, we wandered through the rest of the museum, saw a painting that consisted of one black dot on a white canvas, and left still without an appreciation for modern art.

After our time wondering through the art galleries in Madrid, we returned to what we know... eating... Getting off the metro it was time for chocolate delights from the corner bakery and my favorite, their rich truffles and my new friend, Tinto De Verano. Spaniards don´t drink sangria, but they do drink this...

Then after the sugar had settled, we found time to share an early evening drink and a plate of fries at the cafe attached to our hotel. This place is great for people watching as it is located next to La Puerta Del Sol. I think we lost track of time, because we were up and thinking about dinner reservations and suddenly realized it was 8 p.m. Time flies when you´re having fun!!!

We wanted to partake in a restaurant in Madrid that just so happens to be the oldest restaurant in the world. It started serving customers in 1725, no lie. It's called Casa Botin. Look it up in the Guinness book of world records. We were told that they served a particular dish better than any restaurant in the city, roasted suckling pig. Suckling pig, for those unaware, is a piglet that is six weeks old or younger. Kris just so happened to take a great pic of one in one of the many restaurant windows here in town.

We were told that reservations would be impossible on this late of notice, but went to see if we could squeeze in the first seating (8:30 p.m.) anyways. We arrived, waited for five minutes and got a feast of manchego cheese, Iberico ham, sauteed green beans and the famous suckling pig. With suckling pig, you eat everything. I mean everything. The Spanish eat the snout, the ears, the eyes, the tail... everything. There is a saying that ¨Spaniards each everything but the oink!¨ This is a true statement. Being new to the game, we had a selection of ribs and a thigh and leg. AMAZING! Even Kristen enjoyed crunching on the crispy skin of the pig and eating the roasted pork. If any of you get a chance to do this, be prepared to spend, but do it. Its unlike any pork product you have ever eaten! Now we know why Bogey and Watson enjoy those crispy pig ears so much!

For now, we are off to rest and get prepared for tomorrow. We travel by train to Toledo sometime in the morning to discover some more history and soak up the culture (walking up and down hills of course). By the way, I am sure that tonight will not end until Kristen gets her chocolate and churros... I mean... the baby gets its chocolate and churros... it sure does love those things...

Bienvenidos a Madrid!

Let´s just say that yesterday was a blur. It started early, lasted over 30 hours and then ended with us losing our post on the hotel computer and giving up trying to get it onto the internet at 2 a.m. After sitting on the tarmac at Bush for an hour we made our way to Newark only to sit and wait while our loved ones splashed in pools and ate BBQ on Memorial Day. One 4.5 hour layover later, we were on the plane to Madrid and starting our vacation. We arrived in Madrid a little jet-lagged but ready to start our adventure immediately. We found the nearest taxi, hopped in and made our way for La Puerta Del Sol, the city center and home to our hotel in Madrid.

First things first, an amazing first, our hotel room was ready when we got here! That lead to the luxury of a shower. After spending so many hours in the same clothes (and same underwear) we both wanted a change and a shower. We freshened up and set off to discover a little about Spanish life. We followed a well laid out walking plan that took us through many of the major attractions in Madrid, beginning with La Puerta Del Sol, or Gate of the Sun. The Bear and the Strawberry Tree (we don´t know what a strawberry tree is either) is the symbol of Madrid. It´s everywhere from street markers to man hole covers. This little guy is right in front of our hotel.

Next we took a walking tour to the Plaza Mayor. The funniest thing about this place is that after Franco, voting became very popular. They painted pieces of the square four different colors and let the entire city vote on a nice shade of burgundy. Thought you would appreciate that Lynn considering your current paint dilemma.

Next we wandered by the palace and to Madrid´s new Catholic Cathedral that was home to Saint Isidor, the patron saint of Madrid. Isidor croaked, after a life of helping the disabled, but when they dug him up for some reason 40 years later, his body was still intact. That's a miracle folks, and the Pope cantonized him. We saw his wooden coffin, made sometime in the 12th century, that is adorned with beautiful carvings and artwork. This cathedral was funny. Architecturally it looked like Notre Dame, but the decorations looked like a cross between a Mexican Restaurant and a Goya painting. They were very flashy and abstract. The stained glass windows were just shapes with the saints names written on them.

Our next stop was the Royal Palace! Since the European kings pretty much all married each other, a French king, who was at the time of course King of Spain, built this palace to rival Versailles. And we thought, dare we say, it was actually prettier! The entire palace is filled with georgeous chandeliers and a lot of the rooms are decorated in the Rococo style, which means really ornate panels and ceilings. They wouldn't let us take any pictures inside, but here´s an outside shot. You can see it looks a lot like Versailles.

At this point, Kristen and I were able to fully take in another Spanish tradition, La Siesta. The Spanish are known for their 3 hour lunch breaks in the middle of the day. Shops and restaurants close as the workforce heads to the house, a park, any area to eat, sleep and be merry. Madridlianos in particular catch naps in all possible places. Kristen and I experienced La Siesta head on as we attempted to travel to a less touristy area of the city to buy Harley-Davidson t-shirts for a friend only to have the shop be closed when we arrived. We had to do something with ourselves for 45 minutes as we waited for the store to re-open so we shopped for souvenirs.

Now we were dragging so much, that we did something very un-vacek-like... we took a nap. Yes, shocking I know, but it was only for an hour (one hour of sleep out of about 26 isn´t so bad). We had to get ready for our big night out eating Tapas! We met our tour guide James and another couple from Miami. James took us on a little tour of Madrid, telling us funny stories all the way about the history of the city. He taught us how to eat tapas like a true Madridliano. We started out in a little bar where Blake learned how to pour cider properly.

We learned that to really be Spanish, you push your way to the bar, joke with the waiters, don´t say thank you until you leave, and throw whatever you don´t want on the floor. We had a blast and we ate things I´m amazed at. (Yes, I actually ate ALL of these things. We just thought I got crazy with snails.) Over the course of four hours and five bars, we tried tiny little portions, or tapas, of blue cheese, chorizo (which even I loved), tuna empanadas, iberico ham and manchego cheese (yummmm). We joked about how much they love Ham here, but we went to a place literally called The Museum of Ham. There were probably 600 hams hanging on the ceiling around this bar. All with little catchers at the end because in the summer they drip. Gross!

Then we got crazy... tripe, black pudding, spicy peppers, anchovies (BLAHHHH! Fish in my mouth!) and even... drumroll please... LAMB PANCREAS in a lemon butter sauce, which actually wasn´t near as gross as the anchovy.

After four hours of eating and drinking, we decided we needed to make one more stop, CHURROS and chocolate! Let´s just say, we´ll be doing this three more times before we leave so we´ll share more pics later. We may be starting a churros and chocolate place in Houston.

We´re off to the Prado, to see Picasso´s work Guernica, and then to maybe a roast suckling pig dinner. Yes, it´s the whole little piggy, so sad. More tonight!