We left the hotel to drag our luggage down the hill to the bus station and caught the 7:30am bus to Madrid. Arrived in Madrid and found out what metro lines we had to catch to get to the Renfe Atocha train station to catch our Altaria train to Jerez. The subway trains were so full twice that we had to wait for the next one, but finally reached the Renfe Atocha station with almost 30 minutes to spare! Lesson to be learned... leave yourself plenty of time to catch a connection! After a 4 hour ride to Jerez, we were [View Full Entry]

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Started our day by hiking down the hill to the Monasterio de Santa Maria del Parral. A monk (from India) gave us a brief tour of the allowable areas and the chapel. Pretty informative and was probably free, but we gave him a donation. After checking out a couple of other sites nearby that were uninteresting, we hiked back up the hill (phew!) to visit the Alcanzar. This is the castle/palace that Disney modeled their Magic Kingdom castle after. For 8 Euros we toured inside, and I climbed the 152 steps of the tower (pant!). The Alcanzar had a lot of [View Full Entry]

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Segovia Day 1: Took the bus from Avila at 12:30, arriving at Segovia about 1:30. We could see the Alcanzar, the castle that Disney World loosely copied for the Magic Kingdom castle. After heading in the wrong direction for a ways, we asked some locals and found one of the city tourist information offices. They easily got us oriented towards our hotel. After a pleasant stroll, mostly uphill, we found the Hotel Las Linajes and checked in. It is a very nice hotel, the best place so far. Tired from the trip, we decided to eat lunch in the hotel. A [View Full Entry]

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Slept in late, 8am, then decided to stroll thru the southern part of Avila (old part) down to the restaurant I found on the internet, El Molino de la Losa. It wasn't open yet, since lunch isn't served until 1 or 2pm, so we climbed around the southern part of the wall looking for a supermarket we'd heard about. It wasn't open on Sunday so we went to get the bus tickets for our trip to Segovia tomorrow. By the time we got back to the hostal it was after 1pm, so back down to the restaurant for lunch. Had a [View Full Entry]

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Took the early train (8:30am) from San Sebastian to Avila. The train wasn´t as nice as the one from Barcelona... no tray table or reclining seats, but it still had movies and a cafeteria. Arrived in Avila about 1:30pm and decided to walk to the hostal in the old city, about a mile or so. Didn´t have much trouble finding the hostal, Hostal Bellas. The hostal is very nice, although again, no internet available. Just been remodeled and our room was pretty and spacious, with our own bathroom/shower, and twin beds ( :( ). Took a nice stroll in the afternoon [View Full Entry]

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Woke up at a reasonable hour and decided to take a stroll up the nearby Mont Urgul. Very natural, with awesome views of the bay and San Sebastian below. Also had a cool castle, Mota Castle from the 12th century, with the Status of the Holy Heart atop of it. We hiked back down the other side and around La Concha (Kontxa in Basque) beach, stopping at the Miramar Palace briefly, then around the Playa Ondaretta until we reached the foot of Mont Igueldo and the funicular. Manoli seemed to have no problem with the funicular, so we rode it up [View Full Entry]

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SanSebastian: Checked out of the hostel and headed to the train station early. They only give you about 20 minutes notice as to which track your train leaves from, so you have to be ready to go and paying attention. The monitors on each track platform show which train for that track, when its due, and display the car order so you can be waiting somewhere near your car. Got onboard and away we went..sort of. The train takes 8 hours to go from Barcelona to San Sebastian, and I bet half of that is slowing to a crawl thru populated [View Full Entry]

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Today we decided to visit El Corte Ingles (a giant department store like Maceys) where we had a very nice lunch at the top we a scenic view out the window, then walk along Las Ramblas, a boulevard crammed with stores, booths, entertainers, and lots of other people. Most of the entertainers were the "living statue" type, something that seems to be taking hold in alot of the tourist spots. People suit up as some character (anything from a knight, to a goddess, to the creature from Alien), usually all one color as if made of gold, bronze, or silver, and [View Full Entry]

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Sorry, still no way to upload photos. The computer in the hostal doesn´t have a memory card reader and there are few internet shops around, none of which have wireless access for my handheld. Will try again at Renfe train station before we leave Barcelona. Our first full day in Barcelona. The first stop was La Sagrada Familia. Unfortunately they were working on alot of it. Apparently this wonderful building is always being added to, and would have been much nicer without all the scaffolding. The architectural style is amazing, with pillars like trees and "flourishes" everywhere such [View Full Entry]

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The flight on RyanAir from Dublin to Barcelona went well...once we boarded... 1/2 hour late, but we still arrived in Girona/Barcelona Airport 1/2 hour ahead of schedule. Most of the folks waiting for the flight to Barcelona were Spanish, and acted alot like Italians... a big herd vying for head of the line. We didn´t try to fight them, just sitting down, but got lucky. They were lined up 50 or so deep and 2 or 3 wide in front of the gate...when the airline staff showed up just before the flight, they told everyone (in English) that they had to [View Full Entry]

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