Madrid, Spain

Our last stop on our Spanish excursion was Madrid. Friday morning we took a train from Seville to Madrid via Rail Europe. We arrived in Madrid just after noon and to be honest, by the time we arrived in Madrid, we were exhausted; but, we persevered and continued on our journey.

One great thing about Madrid is their metro system. We were able to catch the metro at the train station and it took us pretty close to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Quo Eraso which was pretty nice. It was close to several metro stops so it was easy to get where we wanted to go quickly.

After checking in to the hotel we ventured down to Puerto del Sol which is the most central point of Madrid. This is where the Bear and the Strawberry Tree statue is (also known as the "symbol of Madrid").

We then made a stop in a cafe called San Gines which is known to have the best Churros con Chocolate in town. This place was actually recommended to us by a native of Spain. One of my boss's friends grew up in Madrid and provided several "local" recommendations which was awesome. I'd have to say, San Gines did live up to its reputation; the Churros con Chocolate was pretty amazing.

We then took a walk around Plaza Mayor which is a well known spot in Madrid with a lot to see. There were a lot of great artists at work there which was cool.

On Saturday we did a hop-on, hop-off bus so we could fit as much in as possible. Unfortunately this one wasn't near as good as the bus in Barcelona. The sound on the headphones didn't work half the time and it was a rainy day, so we couldn't take all of the pictures of the various sites that we wanted to.

We made a stop at the Museo del Prado and took a walk through Parque del Retiro which were both nice.

Another great recommendation from my boss's friend was La Mallorquina, a pastry shop in Puerto del Sol that has been there for more than 100 years. We had a great snack and certainly recommend it to future visitors.

El Museo del Jamon was also recommended to us. It's a chain restaurant so there are plenty of options. We stopped in one and had every intention of eating there but when we looked at the menu and saw pretty much the same pictures we've seen since we arrived in Barcelona, we decided we just couldn't eat another jamon y queso sandwich, so we went elsewhere. We actually ended up finding a McDonald's because at that point we needed a taste of American food. Our time in Madrid was short but just long enough. We took the metro to the airport on Sunday to catch our flight back to Jacksonville, Florida. We decided for the next trip we're going to fly back on Saturday so we have an extra day to recover before returning to work.

When we arrived at the airport we noticed there were quite a few cancelled flights. Thankfully, ours was right on time and we had no trouble at all. We were completely oblivious to the volcano eruption in Iceland that had grounded many flights. When we travel internationally we like to disconnect completely and leave our phones behind. We didn't find out there about the eruption until we were on our layover in Philadelphia and Brian talked to his dad. We were extremely lucky because there were people across Europe stranded for weeks! Overall we had a fantastic time in Spain celebrating our third wedding anniversary. It was pretty busy though, so I think we're already planning a beach location for our fourth wedding anniversary trip!

You can check out the rest of our Madrid photos here.

Granada, Spain (Alhambra)

Mid-way through our time in Seville we took a day trip to Granada to see the Alhambra, a palace and fortress complex constructed during the mid-14th century by Moorish rulers. When planning our trip to Spain we were unsure if we wanted to add Granada to the itinerary since it is about a 6 hour round trip and we were already visiting three other cities. When soliciting advice from others who have visited the area, we were told it was a must-see, so we decided to go for it.

So on our anniversary (Wednesday, April 14th) we took a bus via ALSA from Seville to Granada. Each trip cost about 22 euro per person and the bus ride was about 3 hours each way. We were debating between the bus and train for this trip, but due to timing and availability the bus won out; it was actually a really smooth ride and not bad at all.

When visiting Alhambra you have to buy tickets and make reservations to visit the Palacios Nazaries, the main palace in advance of your visit. You have a 30 minute time slot when you can actually enter and aren't allowed entry if it doesn't fall within that time frame. From our experience, these reservations go pretty quickly, so the earlier you make your reservation, the better chance you have of getting a time slot that works with your schedule. Also, your entry time to the Palacios Nazaries determines the time you're able to enter the complex. For example, our entry to the main palace was at 6pm so we couldn't enter the complex until after 2pm. My good friend Rick Steves does a great job of breaking all of this down here.

To kill time before our entry into the Alhambra complex, we took the city bus from the train station to the city center where we checked out Granada and had lunch. The "downtown" area of Granada is a pretty neat area to explore and we could have actually spent longer there. Using the time we had we grabbed some lunch (I'm pretty sure it was another jamon & queso sandwich) and some snacks at a little shop with all organic dried fruit. We then took the city bus up to the Alhambra complex and began our journey there. As written by Rick Steves, the Alhambra consists of four sights clustered together atop a hill: Charles V's Palace (Christian Renaissance palace plopped on top of the Alhambra after the reconquest, free entry), Alcazaba (empty old fort with tower and views), Palacios Nazaries (exquisite Moorish palace, a must-see), and Generalife (fancy gardens).

We trekked around the complex all afternoon taking in the views. We were lucky and had a beautiful day to explore. Here are a few pictures from our visit:

in Generalife (the gardens)

at the Alcazaba (the fort)

leaving Palacios Nazaries (the main palace area)

You can see all of the pictures from our day trip to Granada / Alhambra here.