Spain Diaries: Madrid

The Madrid Airport is huge. Like really huge. I got to spend about 5 hours in it. Damien and I caught a flight from Alicante to Madrid in the afternoon and he had a flight home that evening. Since it was the last time I’d see him for 12 days I hung out with him at the airport. We had coffee and lunch. Then Damien caught his flight home and I caught the metro to my hostel.

The directions for the metro were easy. Finding the street when I walked out of the metro… not so easy. But I did find it and checked in. the keys were super annoying to use. You had to swipe the key on the knob then turn the knob either left or right till the door opened. The fist time it took me about 5 minutes to get in the room. Thank goodness no one was there while I was trying. I was in an all girls dorm so obviously just girls. I talked to a few of them. They were from England, Australia, and France. They were nice but totally girly so I stayed in instead of going out with them for drinks.

I had set my alarm early in hope that I’d get a good start on sight seeing. I had seen a poster for a free walking tour offered by my hostel and I wasn’t sure if I’d go or not. So I struck out on my own. I took a few streets and ended up in Puerta del Sol. I took a few more streets and came to the conclusion that I’d rather go on the walking tour. I pulled out my map and navigated back to the hostel where I ate a power bar for breakfast and waited in the lobby. And off I went on a grand tour of Madrid. My tour guide was an English girl with red hair. Her head popped into a lot of my pictures.

What did I see on my tour? Well I saw a lot actually…

Puerta del Sol
This used to be where the gate to the city was and it was decorated with a brilliant sun. sadly it was knocked down when they wanted to expand the city. But they still call the square Puerta del Sol.

And in Puerta del Sol is the official symbol of Madrid.

It’s impressive right? A statue of a bear. It’s all over everything in Madrid from street signs to garbage bins. And if you don’t mind I’ll share why this is the symbol. The tree the bear is eating from is special because the berries ferment on the tree and these trees used to be all over the area that’s now Madrid. So basically the bear is getting wasted. Fun right? And it’s a female bear… something to do with ursa major. I’d rather not botch the explanation so I’ll leave it with I don’t really remember it what it has to do with ursa major.

The Opera House
Before Isabella II the arts were mainly funded by the church and the church saw plays and acting as the devils work so there were a lot of poor actors. Then Isabella had a lot of money to throw about and funded the royal opera house. Today it’s on the major opera circuit so you can see all kinds of major operas there. It’s also really boring looking. But that was the style…

Palacio Real
The Royal Palace was cool to learn about. Today it’s also a huge museum that you can visit with tons of priceless works of art and history. It also has a funny history. I’ll try to keep it short I promise. So remember the Moores? They had a royal palace of their own in the spot that is now the royal palace. When the capitol was moved to Madrid (it used to be Toledo) the king thought it was shabby but the Madrid-ians loved it so he couldn’t wreck it and start all over. Instead he threw a huge party for new years or something (I forget) offered free wine and food and obviously the whole city went out of the city to party. When they came back they found their precious Moorish royal palace burned to the ground. Suspicious right? Even more suspicious before it was burned all the art work and treasure was taken out. And that’s how the new palace was started.

Cathedral de la Almudena
This is just as boring looking as the opera house… apparently the inside is amazing. I didn’t get a chance to go back and pop inside. But the back of the cathedral is so much prettier it’s like a normal cathedral.

Plaza Mayor
This has another rather funny story to go with it. You see the king originally built it to make his people happy as a place for recreations and so on. But he built it of wood. So the first winter rolled around and it was burned to the ground. They built a total of 5 wooden Plaza Mayors before they got the grand idea to build it of stone and that’s the one we see today. Sadly there was an exhibition in the middle of the square so I don’t have very good pictures…

Gran Via
This is the road you go to splash some cash as my tour guide said. I walked up it after the tour and there were some pretty cool buildings.

The old Post office now the Town Hall
Check out this huge building. It used to be the main post office hub, it’s not anymore because the post office has down sized and it’s the new town hall. It’s huge inside as well there’s a couple floors underground as well.

Fuente Cibeles
This is where the football (soccer) team goes to kick off the celebrations. It’s the unofficial symbol of the city.

That rounded out our tour. After I grabbed a Starbucks I headed to my hostel to have a rest before going back out. If I was smart I would have gone right after the tour but my legs were so tired. Instead after I had a snack of another power bar I headed back toward where we ended the tour. There were 2 other fountains on the road that were part of the same commission. So I saw Fuente de Apolo

And Fuente de Neptune.

And it started raining at this point. Fun right? I thought Spain was always warm and sunny. But I really wanted to see the Crystal Palace. I got lost in the park, got soaked to the bone, sloshy shoes and only managed to find Estanque and a monument to Alfonso XII.

By the time I got back to my hostel I was rather miserable. I set my shoes out to dry. Hung up my coat and took a very hot shower. Then I went to reception to see how to get to the airport. The metro started running at 6 and it would take 45 minutes to get to the airport. My flight left at 7h45. Me being nervous I wanted to get there plenty early. Turns out there was a bus that left at 4h30 to the airport. I just had to walk about 20 minutes to the stop. No biggie. I’d just have to wake up early.


I went to bed early and got up even earlier. On my walk to the bus I realized I had no reason to be nervous or jumpy about walking so early in the morning by myself. There were still a bunch of Spanish out partying and drinking. I was hardly alone on the street. I made it to the airport and made my flight to Santiago de Compostela.


Cheers,

Spain Diaries: Granada

Have you ever heard of Granada? Know where it is?

There you have it Granada Spain. It’s got some epic history so bare with me as I educate you a bit as I find history interesting. Besides it helps to explain some structures. I’ll do it quickly… and probably quite horribly… but I’ll do my best.


Granada was originally part of the Roman Empire way back to start with. Then in 711 the Moors started conquering Spain and Granada became a Moorish city.


Hold on a tick you know of the Moors right? Well if you don’t know it’s a term that refers to a population of mostly Berber and Arab decent.


So the Moors took over Granada and kept most of the Roman infrastructure and so on and so forth. I’m fuzzy on what happened over the next few centuries. I’ll skip to the fun part. In 1237 Muhamad I al-Ahmar founder of the Nasrid dynasty installed his court on Sabika hill and began the construction of the Alhambra. The Alhambra is the palace fortress built by the Nasrid rulers. There are three palaces built in three different periods. On 02 Janurary 1492 the Alhambra was surrounded by the Catholic and Granada was ultimately surrendered. This marked the end of the Moorish rule in Spain and started the era of the Catholic monarchs. 1492-1516 Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon conducted extensive repairs an alterations. They installed the Royal House and the headquarters of the General Captaincy of the Kingdom of Granda in the Alhambra. And in 1870 it was declared a National Monument.


There you have it. A VERY quick history gathered from wikipedia and my guide I picked up at the Alhambra. Pretty interesting right? I would have loved to see the inside of the Alhambra but there is a certain number of visitors allowed in the palace each day and we didn’t get tickets far enough in advance. So we only got to see the grounds and gardens along with the Court of the Water Channel. Even thought it was raining it was still pretty cool.

Before we hit up the Alhambra Grounds though we swung by the Cathedral of Granada.

It houses the tomb of the Catholic Kings. The two most of us know are Isabella and Ferdinand. They have monuments above their tomb…

And their coffins with in.

I’m not going to lie it was really cool to be so close to history and to actually see the coffins of the Catholic Kings.


After visiting the Alhambra we ate a very Spanish lunch of Burger King. Lol. Then we had to find our way back to Murcia without directions. We did it but it was a wee bit frustrating. And Granada marked the end of our Irish reunion. Lenka left early the next day. Candice left the next afternoon. And Damien and I were off to Madrid the day after. Madrid marked the beginning of my adventures on my own. And that my friends is a whole other post.
Before I leave you here are a few other pictures i took while walking around.


 

Translation thanks to Ana : "You can't imagine how much I would love to be the fountain of your village, so when you come and drink, I will feeel your lips close

Cheers,

Spain Diaries: The Beginning

My housemates from last semester wanted to have an Ireland Reunion. We decided on a place nice and warm. We went to Murcia Spain to stay with Ana. While planning our way to Ana’s I got the brilliant idea that I could make a grand tour of it and see Spain. Turns out it’s super cheap to travel within Spain. So after we bought our tickets to Aicante I started looking about for cheap ways to see everything. Ana had given me a list of cities to see and I set myself a goal. See as many as I can, tickets must be less then €20.


My hop about costs are as follows:
Alicante > Madrid €6.48
Madrid > Santiago De Compostela €15.12
Santiago > Seville €15.99
Seville > Cordoba €10
Cordoba > Murcia €33

Now the bus from Cordoba to Murcia was the most expensive…. But I just had to swing back by Ana’s to annoy her some more since I won’t see her till the spring. And How did I get back home to France? I swung by Milan because it was cheap but that’s a later post.

Damien and I got up at 3h00 to catch our bus in Metz to Frankfurt Hahn airport. After a coffee we were off to Spain! And when we walked through the gates Ana, Lenka, and Candice were there to welcome us. I have to say seeing my friend outside of Ireland was such an odd experience since in my mind when I think of them I think of Ireland and no where else, it’s like they don’t have a home they just float around in the thought that is Ireland. But they were indeed in Spain and we kicked off our stay in a grand fashion.

We arrived at Ana’s house and were greeted with Spanishness. And by Spanishness I mean food. If I were to move to Spain I might very well become obese and die from eating so much amazing food. Spanish Ham is one of my all time favorite foods. I wanted to feast only on ham while I was in Spain but there was yummier food to be had. Like Paella. Ana’s mum cooked us paella for lunch on the first day. It was beyond amazing it had huge shrimp like I shit you not the size of my hand shrimp. They were tasty and I wish I could have eaten more. But we had tapas before. Tapas are pretty much appetizers so we had Spanish ham, olives, sea food, and other yummies before we even ate the paella. It was like that with every meal tapas before an epic main dish. And so much food. I ate till I was so full and there was still so much food. I loved it.

I think the best part of my Spain visit was staying at Ana’s house and actually getting to “be Spanish” I got to eat home made Spanish food and pretty much lived on a Spanish timetable. Get this they eat dinner at like 22h00! And they have siesta in the afternoon. And they eat lunch late too. It was really cool to experience it all.

So the first night we’re in Murcia after napping for a few hours Ana informs us we’re going to do Botellon. What is this? It’s drinking on the streets. We met up with a few of Ana’s friends and found a nice place in a park to do some drinking. I stuck with orange juice as traveling most of the day and no sleep didn’t sit too well with me, so yeah I was lame. Ana’s advise for the night “If you see a cop run.” Botellon is illegal, but everyone does it. And we saw a lot of people in the same park as us drinking just like us. Midnight rolled around and the Spanish were just getting warmed up.

Since dinner is late you leave to bars late like midnightish then you go to clubs around 2 or 3 then you get home around 6 in the morning. Thank god we didn’t do the whole deal otherwise I might very well have died of exhaustion. We only went to a bar and stayed till around 3 I think. Then we made our way back to Anas to eat yummies (aka ham, cheese and bread). Then finally I was so relieved to get to bed since I’d only had about 6 hours of sleep since 3am the day before. The lack of sleep was worth it though since I got to “be Spanish” and drink on the streets.

The next day we were off to the coast town of Cartagena.

It’s only about an hour from Ana’s and it was so pretty. Ana’s parents came with us and showed us around the city. We saw the Roman Theater that’s there.

It’s restored so that’s why it doesn’t look so old. It dates back to the first century AD (if I remember correctly). While we were walking back to the car we saw epic graffiti. I was a huge fan of it.

After we ate a picnic lunch in Cartagena we started driving. Ana’s dad took us to some really pretty places where you had an amazing view of the Mediterranean.

I got to put my feet in the Mediterranean for the first time ever. And the beach had black sand! How cool right. Or last stop of the day was Faro de Cabo de Palos. It’s a lighthouse that was built in 1865.

And there was a cute cove right by it too.

We made a little stop on the way home.It's the church Ana's parents were married at and it gives her her middle name. It's so pretty. And while we were there there was a wedding about to happen so there were a lot of people all dressed up then there was us in our jeans and tanktops. It was quite funny.

Then we drove back to Murcia to take a siesta before dinner. I think we had tortilla for dinner. Tortilla is Spanish Omelet and it’s so amazing and tasty. The next day we were heading off to Granada!
 
Cheers,