Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Girona, Cadaques
Post by Charlie: This one could use some updating in the technology area although the people-related parts are just the same. Comment by Wynette: Notice we took a picture of the “take no pictures” sign. Nearly everyone was taking pictures so we figured it was ok to take pictures as long as we were careful not to use the flash. It was an amazing cathedral. Not a poor one. They had many original paintings by El Greco, Goya, many other famous painters.
Toledo is know for swords and weaponry. The shops show a wide variety of fancy swords, seem to be the real thing. Not for people going back on the plane I guess but maybe they ship them. Also knight’s armor and especially helmets, right out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They branched out into kitchen knives and cleavers. Does anyone really use a cleaver this big?
We walked along the river that borders toledo on three sides. Here is Wynette on a bench with more of those “right” angles. Even though this is by the river you can see how dry it is. Central Spain seems very dry.
Here is the sink in our hotel:
And the toilet is squared off too:
But not as much as the one we saw in Italy last year:
Holy rectilinear Batman!
What is going on in the land of Guadi? We are looking forward to seeing the Gaudi architecture in Barcelona in a few days, and Guadi, as a sort of angular anti-Will Rogers’s never met a right angle he liked.
The sink, by the way, does not really drain well with its flat bottom.
Here it is:
It seems obvious now and probably to you.
We ate at Alfileritos 24, at Calle de los Afilteritos 24 (cute huh?), the guidebooks said “Modern international”. Our hotel manager, Enrique, recommeded it and called it just “24”. I guess that is what the young, hip crowd calls it and Wynette and I, with our combined 125 years, always try to go where the cool kids go. Overall it was very good.
This is the appetizer we got “carpaccio de pulpo” Somehow, despite our hipness, they gave us the English menu which called it “Roast octopus”. When we got it, it seemed like the wrong order. Where’s the octopus I thought. And it seemed kind of small for 10 euro. Wynette agreed although she was looking at it from the other side of the table so I guess it is mostly my error. We were this close to asking the waiter about it when I suddenly realized that the plate was all black and the pattern on it was, in fact, our octopus. It would have been highly embarrassing and a big hit to our hipness if we had asked. Anyway, once we found the cleverly cleverly-hidden-as-a-pattern-on-the-plate octopus, it was very good and we were off to a great start with the meal.
The play-doh does look like a kid shaped it. It was potato and turnips (and purple coloring) and was good too.
I’ll refrain from posting pictures of all the other courses, which we did take.
What’s the deal with Irish pubs? It seems like everywhere I go there are Irish pubs: England (understandable), Albuquerque, Italy, and now Toledo, just a couple of blocks from our hotel, John Daley and Company. I’m Irish myself but not a big drinker so maybe that’s why I don’t understand.
I talked about tapas before. Here is “todos tapas”:
Post by Charlie: We started walking around Toledo. It is an old city with lots of twisty little passages, some too small even for one car to go, some where cars should not go but are allowed anyway. It is about 7pm and we are walking from the main square and there are a lot of people all going our way. In Italy, every evening, they have the pasiogiata (or some spelling like that) where people stroll in the evening. Spain has a similar thing that (maybe) is called the paseo. This seems to be one so we go along enjoying it.
Then a group of young people comes along with red flags and chanting slogans, not usual for the paseo but the Spanish are a spirited group. We turn the corner and see hundreds of people in the square with lots more red flags. We finally figure out this is a rally in support of the general strike.
We hang around for a while being supportive. My “Power to the people” experience at UCLA in the 1960s proves useful. It gets pretty crowded so we wound our way out.
Post by Charlie: The tourist office at the airport told us that our plan to go into Madrid on the subway would not be a good idea because they were on strike and offering minimal service so we might have to wait a long time. She suggested the shuttle bus. We went over there and ran the last 100 yards to catch a bus that was just leaving, good luck. On the bus we talked to a woman for Portland OR who lives in Madrid. She said the bus was a lot easier anyway. But she had waited an hour for a bus that is supposed to run every ten minutes. then she said this was not just to subway strike but a general strike for all public transportation in the whole country. Our plan was to take the train to Toledo where we had a B&B reservation. Normally the train runs every hour and takes 30 minutes. She was skeptical of our chances of getting to Toledo. Apparently the law is that that can only do an 80% strike and must have “servicios minimos” of 20% capacity. But she said they often ignore that.
We got to the main train station and went to the phone store and got Vodaphone SIMS for our (unlocked) phones. Easy peasy and nine euro for nine euro of call time, at about 8 euro cents a minute. So that worked. Next went over to where the Toledo trains were prepared for a wait. No trains for you! They said no train was going to Toledo (or anywhere) today and suggested the bus. The train station was pretty empty, just some tourists like us walking around looking lost and wondering how they were going to get where they were going. We were thinking we might have to stay in Madrid for one night.
We stopped at a coffee place to have our first cafe con leche but they only had cafe latte and cappuccinos. We checked and found we had wandered into an Italian coffee place but they made us a coffee con leche anyway.
We called our hotel (hostel actually) in Toledo and talked with the manager and he thought there were buses but he would check and call back. He called after a while and said there was a bus from Plaza Eliptico at 3pm. It was about 11am then so not too bad. We took a taxi over there and went down to where the buses loaded. Again not much happening. the information window was closed and a few people were wandering around looking lost and/or disappointed. We looked around and found a ticket window open and the guy in a uniform comes up and says something like “bus to Toledo?” We can’t figure out how he knew. Buses went to dozens of places from this terminal. Anyway there were lots of signs about “servicos minimos” and this included a bus to Toledo at 3pm. It was the local but we were glad for anything. It was 10 euro for us both, the train would have been 20.
We walked around the area and asked about restaurants and found a place. It was okay but not great but lots of food and pretty cheap, 10 euro each for the menu of the day including two courses, dessert, wine, and coffee (con leche, of course).
The bus was very local and took an hour and 15 minutes but we saw a lot of places around Madrid. The area is quite dry, more than we expected it to be. We took another taxi to near the hostel, which is in an area where cars cannot go and we were finally there.
The place is very nice. It was a relief after 26 hours of travel to be able to unpack our bags and rest a bit. Then out for a bit of Toledo.