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Published: March 27th 2009
Packed and Ready to Go
One last shot of the apartment before we left for Barcelona. Madrid - On Wednesday we decided to stay in Madrid and see a few more of the local sites. We first visited the Museo Reina Sofia where one of Picasso's famous paintings, Guernica, is on display. He painted Guernica in protest to the bombing of northern Spain by Hitler under the request of Franco. The painting was in the U.S. until Franco's death in mid 70's. It is a large painting that is about 20 feet high and 50 feet wide and very impressive to see in person. We viewed the other works in the museum and then left to walk to the Museo de Prado. At the Prado we had a plan to see the most famous works because it would take two days to see it all. Some of the paintings we saw were Goya's The Third of May 1808, The Naked Maja, The Clothed Maja and The Family of Chales IV. We also saw Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, Durer's Self Portrait and Velazquez' Las Meninas. We saw more but these were on the must see list. After the Prado we decided to get a bite to eat so we walked back to the Plaza
Picasso's Guernica
No pictures were allowed in the museum so we purchased a small framed copy and this is a picture of our copy. de Mayor which is close to home. We ordered the menu de dia, or menu of the day which is a three course mail for set price. We also ordered a pitcher of Sangria to enjoy with lunch and enjoyed the sun. It was a tourist area so it was a little more expensive but we really needed to sit and relax after all that walking. We were there for almost 2 hours just soaking in the sun and watching people - very entertaining!
After lunch we headed back to the apartment to get a start in packing for our trip to Barcelona the next day. Both of us were worried that all of our stuff would not fit in the suitcases but we made it all fit. The problem was that each bag must have weighed about 60 pounds. After we did most of our packing we headed out for our last tapas crawl in Madrid. Jim wanted to go back to the first tapas bar we visited when we arrived in Madrid one last time. The place is Cerveceria Naviejo. This was our third visit and we felt like regulars as when we walked in the servers
Tapas Alley
This alley was very close to our apartment and was lively into the wee hours of the morning. This is where we had our first Pacharan. behind the counters welcomed us with a loud HOLA! For a moment Jim felt like Norm in cheers. We sat down and ordered a vino tinto and the server quickly gave us a plate of corned pork shoulder. Jim was surprised to find out the pork was corned as usually only beef is prepared this way. It took a little gesturing from Jim and the server to identify the food as neither could speak the other's language. We brought along with us a handful of key chains that we purchased at the San Francisco airport because we read that if you make friends it is nice to give them something from where you are from. We gave the two servers behind the bar each a key chain and Jim said in Spanish that is where we live. At first we were not sure if they knew what they were for but soon we realized we had two new friends.
After the corned pork the server brought us Manchego cheese on bread with a single anchovy on top. Since Lisa does not like fish Jim got to eat both of them. The tapas kept coming, the next one was a
Our Local Cerveceria
This was our favorite spot for tapas. We got to know the servers very well even though we had a hard time understanding each other. mixture of potatoes, peppers, peas, in a aioli on a slice of bread. Then came cured olives the size of golf balls. We paid our bill and the server poured us another glass of wine and served us Cabrales cheese on a slice of bread free of charge. Cabrales cheese is a blue cheese on steroids, strong and delicious. Needless to say we did not want to leave but it was getting late and we needed to get up early in the morning. On our way back to the apartment we decided to stop once more close to home to finish the night with a Pacharan.
Madrid to Barcelona - On Thursday we had to check out of our apartment at 10:00. We had some time to go back to Casa Carmen. There was a waitress there that had helped us the last couple of times we went in for breakfast. She didn't look like she felt very good but when we left, we gave her a keychain as well. Her face lit up like we had given her a million Euro. Hopefully we made her feel better.
We checked out of the apartment and headed for the
Barcelona Apartment
The living room of the apartment. More space than Madrid but a little older. Taxi stand. The taxis are small and our luggage is large. The driver struggled to get two bags in the trunk and the third one went in the front seat. I bet the taxi drivers hate to see us coming at them with all that luggage. Our trip on the train to Barcelona is 3 1/2 hours. That will give our feet time to relax.
We arrived in Barcelona on time and made the call to rental agency that we were on our way. We found the taxi stand outside the train station and again we got some strange looks walking up with three large bags. The driver was a small man and needed help lifting our bags into the trunk of the taxi. The ride to our apartment was only 15 minutes and the rental agency said it would take their representative about 45 minutes to show up. So we stood outside the apartment with all of our bags and got some strange looks. Everyone must have thought we were moving into the neighborhood since we had so much stuff. Once we got unpacked we decided to take a walk to get our bearing since Barcelona is such
La Rambla Street Artist
You can see what this guy is doing, not sure if it is art! a large city. The area around our apartment is a melting pot of different cultures and the small restaurants offer Greek, Indian, Middle Eastern, Philippine, and Spanish food. We found the La Rambla which is a large pedestrian walk in the middle of the main avenue that travels North to South through central Barcelona. The area is like Fisherman's Wharf but 20 times as large. Street performers, artists, and vendors are literally every 20 feet. Also for sale along the La Rambla are live chickens, rabbits, birds, including pigeons for some reason. It was time to get a bite to eat and the area we happen to be in at the time did not have as many tapas bars as we have been used to so we popped into an Irish pub sports bar. Jim spotted a Fuller's London Pride tap handle and got real excited only to find out they have not had Fuller's on tap for a few months. Jim had a Guinness and Lisa had a Murphy's Irish Red ale, the light lagers were getting old. We ordered a small pizza and ate at the bar. The girl behind the bar was from Australia and asked us
Easy Rider
Dogs are all over Spain and people like to take them wherever they go. This little guy was waiting for his owner outside a bar. where we were from and about our trip. While we were eating our pizza the big screen was showing the World Premier League of Darts, yes darts. The lady sitting next to us was watching intently and cheering for her favorite. Jim struck up a conversation with her and found out she was originally from Finland but now lives in Barcelona. We spent the next hour talking to her and she gave us some great tips on what to see around Barcelona. She even went to a spot in the pub where they keep flyers and handouts on what's happening and explained each one. Good thing all the flyers were in English. After another pint we headed back to the apartment to read through what she gave us and plan out what we want to do on Friday. It was a nice start to our stay in Barcelona.
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