Advertisement
Published: January 15th 2012
Edit Blog Post
The last 10 days or so have consisted of a lot of sightseeing, shopping and of course – eating. We spent 5 days in Madrid and 5 in Barcelona, and we can only say - well what a stark contrast between two different towns of Spain.The sightseeing was just a time-filler until our next awaited meal in Spain (although we loved the sightseeing!). The tapas was out of this world– the most flavoursome jamon ham on freshly baked ciabatta, mini grilled ox burger (made to order ‘medium rare’), garlic prawns & pineapple kebabs, sautéed mushrooms stuffed with melted blue cheese. Other food highlights included: Seafood Paella, caramel crepe, butterflied chicken with a ham and mushroom sauce, fresh pasta rolled in front of you and an amazing tapenade. Ben gets frustrated at me when I keep eating the bread as he thinks I will fill up and not have room for the rest of the food – there’s always room!
In Madrid we enjoyed the street-lined shopping and found many bargains – Nike running shoes were just $35! Our favourite thing to do in Madrid was go to Retiro Park every day, sit in the sun at the cafe, get some
cold drinks and people watch. Opposite the café was a massive lake with bright blue rowboats. We hired one out for just 4 Euro for 45 minutes, which was fun. We went on a 3-hour bike tour around Madrid, which ended up being 4 hours. It was just Ben and myself on the tour. The guide was so friendly and knowledgeable about the town, and we ended up seeing most of the city on our bike ride. Highlights included stopping by the Grand Palace where it was ‘Kings Day’ – their National Holiday. All of the streets were closed off waiting for the king to arrive. Pulling up by the Palace and overlooking the balcony, many noisy white horses were backed by the Kings guards wearing silver and gold helmets and red/navy cloaks. We cycled past streets tainted with the blood of witches (the inquisition), and visited the oldest restaurant in the world (their speciality is suckling pig). It was very quaint walking up the warped stairs and seeing the wonky pillars that supported the building.
We also visited St Miguel’s Markets that prides itself on its fresh gourmet produce so we decided to see what all
the fuss was about – we were not disappointed. Again the tapas were amazing and it was an interesting cultural experience standing at each bar and eating the tapas at the cluttered counters.
I will say one thing though - obviously ‘service with a smile’ is not a common job criteria in Spain.Barcelona wasn’t what we were expecting and we probably could have seen all that we wanted to in just 2 days. It was possibly since we had such high-hopes after Madrid. The streets were much dirtier and the general atmosphere didn’t appeal to us as much. Ben enjoyed seeing Camp Nou- one of the biggest football stadiums in the world. We got to sit up in the media boxes (what a view!) and there was a massive interactive FC Barcelona museum.
We had a long journey from Barcelona to our next destination Nice, leaving quite early in the morning (definitely not my best time of day!) We had 3 trains to get to Nice and arrived last night. The first train was great, the 2
nd train was definitely quite frustrating as the lady sitting opposite us would just no sit
down and kept getting in and out of the row leaving her little baby there. The family right opposite had yelling kids who threw food everywhere and kept demanding things for the whole 4 hours of the leg. We were both very pleased to get off the train and onto the last one. So we are now in Nice and needless to say we are both very impressed by the French Riviera. Our Bed & Breakfast is on the 4
th level of quite a high-end street which features labels such as Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany & Co & the like. There are approximately 12 flights of stairs, so it was a little ‘exhausting’ getting 25kg bags up to the top. We feel like every time we eat a meal (we had the BEST pizza by the way), that we work the entire meal off by the time we reach the door of the Bed & Breakfast. The rooms at the B&B feature a lot of marble, glass doors and great views through French-style windows (go figure).
We went back to the same pizza restaurant tonight since it was so good, and were shown to a seat upstairs. There were a couple of spare seats at the table next to us, which were quickly filled by a middle-aged couple, and who else but their LABRADOR! (Well the Labrador wasn’t sitting on the seat, but close enough to have its head on the table). Both Ben & I were a little confused as to why there was a dog in the very popular and visually refined French restaurant. We were waiting for it to steal some food off the table at any minute. We looked around and no one seemed to mind or even flinch at the fact that the dog was there, I guess it must be the norm in France! I could only imagine what a waiter would say to us in the Hills District if we bought Cassie along with us though….. haha. The Lab may aswell have had a bib and be sitting at the table.
We have had the best sunny weather so far which is great for exploring.
Plans for tomorrow: ‘Castle Hill’ in Nice is actually the best spot to take some snapshots of the scenery, so we will be going there tomorrow. Missing everyone and will keep you posted!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0288s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb