Spain Part VII: Barcelona

On Monday morning, we flew from Madrid to Barcelona. It is important to note that on our plane, one seat was marked by a small banner that claimed that Rafael Nadal (professional tennis player and one of Matt’s personal favorites) had sat in that particular seat after winning a tournament in Rome. Anyways, we arrived in Barcelona around 1 PM. With a bit of hustling, we were able to drop off our bags at the hotel, grab a quick lunch, and make the 2 PM walking tour. We wanted to get a brief introduction to the city as soon as possible. The majority of the tour was spent in the Gothic Quarter of the city –picturesque narrow streets that make you feel like you’ve traveled back in time. We learned about Barcelona’s history and gained an understanding of the Catalonian culture. Barcelona is located in Catalonia, the northeastern region of Spain that is made up of four provinces. This region is particularly unique as it is well-known for its intense pride. Catalonia is actually its own officially recognized nationality. Throughout history, they have continually set themselves apart from the rest of the country of Spain. In fact, they even have their own language, which seems to have a strong French influence. It was really bizarre to be in Spain but have all of the signs in a different language, with the Spanish translation being below in a smaller font. Even today, many people in this region would like to secede from Spain. When you walk through the city, you can see the Catalonian flag waving on balcony after balcony (not the Spanish flag).

Also on the tour, we stopped at the site that is said to be where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella welcomed Christopher Columbus after his voyage to the Americas in 1492. They really love Columbus in Barcelona. He also has a huge monument near the harbor. We spent the rest of the day exploring more of the city.

These steps are where they greeted Columbus...

Here you can see the Catalonian flags.

On our second day in Barcelona, we did another walking tour. This time, we did one that was specifically about buildings that were built by the famous Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was a Spanish architect who is known for leading the Modernism movement. He has many works in Spain, and quite a few in Barcelona. Because we have a lot of cool photos and interesting facts about the buildings that we saw on this tour, we will follow up with a separate post.

After the walking tour was over, we enjoyed a late lunch at a cute café in the main shopping district of the city. We then decided to walk the rest of the way back to the hotel (which was really really far haha) so that we could explore more areas of the city. We ended up walking mostly through the L’Eixample district. “Eixample” translates to “extension,” as that is exactly what this area is. It is the “newest” part of the city and was added to Barcelona in the 1850s in order to accommodate the growing population of the city. There is some really impressive architecture in this area, including more Gaudi buildings.

We finally made it back to our hotel and rested up before heading back to the Gothic Quarter for a late night tapas dinner. The nice thing about tapas is that you can eat a smaller dinner if you had a huge lunch at 3:30 PM! Also, I can’t believe we haven’t mentioned this yet, but meal times for Spaniards are a bit later. For example, most people eat lunch between 1:30 and 3 PM and dinner between 8:30 and 10 PM. Most dinner restaurants didn’t even open until 8 or 8:30 PM. Since we usually eat dinner around 7 or 7:30 anyways, it wasn’t too much of an adjustment. But definitely something worth noting in regards to the Spanish culture.

On our third day in Barcelona, we used our time to scope out the areas and sites that weren’t covered on our walking tours. First up – La Boqueria, the main market in the city center. This place was really cool. We’ve seen a lot of markets like this in our travels, but this one was definitely one of the best. We also walked along the waterfront, spotting both a gigantic Columbus statue (as mentioned above) and a huge crayfish. It was a really beautiful day to walk along the water. After lunch, we visited the Picasso museum. Although Picasso wasn’t from Barcelona originally, he spent a lot of time there and had a deep connection with the city. While I really enjoyed the museum, I do have to say it was a bit disappointing. I guess I didn’t realize that since many of his most famous works are held in larger museums throughout the world, there aren’t many at the Barcelona museum. However, they did have a large collection of his works from his youth. You should have seen some of the stuff he was painting when he was only 14 years old! Incredible! Another highlight was seeing his collection of Las Meninas works. As I mentioned in the Madrid post, one of the most famous pieces in the Prado Museum is Las Meninas by Velazquez. Picasso paid homage to Velazquez by creating a series of works, which are all interpretations of Las Meninas. Picasso painted 58 paintings of Las Meninas, all using different colors, sizes, shapes, etc. It was really cool to see Picasso’s interpretation when we had just seen the original Las Meninas a few days before. I was genuinely in awe.

For our final dinner in Spain, we chose a highly recommended tapas place that actually ended up being near our hotel. It was a bit more casual than we were expecting, but the tapas were pretty unique and modern, and everything we ordered was really excellent. It was a great last night in Barcelona.

On Thursday, we had a few hours to kill before we had to head to the airport for our flight back to Munich. We relaxed in the city, picked out our Barcelona magnet, and enjoyed an American brunch at a cute café. Matt enjoyed a huge omelet, while I had pancakes (both are rarities, if non-existent, in Munich). It was the perfect way to end a wonderful trip. Our journey home was uneventful and although we had a blast, it was nice to be home, sweet home, after 15 days on the road.

Spain Part VI: Madrid

From Cordoba, we drove straight to Madrid. It was about 4 ½ hours in the car, but it was a super easy drive. When we arrived in Madrid, we checked into our hotel. The hotel was designed by world-famous architects, with each architect designing one floor. All of the lobbies and rooms are artistic and crazy, as you might expect. When you check in, they actually hand you an iPad at the reception desk and let you pick which architect's floor you like best. Our room was all black with an Asian-style screen on the entire wall covering the windows and our bathroom had a wooden tub. It was pretty strange but also cool to stay somewhere different. They also have an indoor pool on the top floor of the hotel and the pool is made of stainless steel. We went for a quick swim one night before dinner and it was pretty awesome.

After checking into the hotel, we dropped off our rental car (finished with the driving portion of the trip) and headed off to explore the city. We spent most of the first afternoon in the “Barrio de las Letras” quarter of the city, which is known as the “literary” neighborhood since so many famous writers have spent their lives here. It is filled with quaint streets, hip bars, and modern restaurants. We also explored the luxury shopping district of the city known as the Salamanca neighborhood. Later in the evening, we chose a Thai restaurant for dinner. At this point in the trip, we had eaten Spanish food for 8 days in a row, so we thought it would be nice to switch it up a bit. It was delicious.

The next day, we did a walking tour of the main sights in the city center. Madrid is the capital of Spain and the largest city in the country with a population of a little over 3 million. We learned all about Madrid’s history (well, as much as you can learn in 3 hours, anyways). It was originally a Muslim settlement, until it was conquered by Christians in 1085. Although Madrid was the original capital of Spain, it was one of the worst cities as far as cleanliness and crime. Boy, has it changed since back then. The city is just stunning. In some ways, it reminded us a lot of Munich. Although it is much bigger (Munich is only about 1.5 million people), it has a similar feel to it – just a very liveable city. However, you can definitely feel more of an international presence in Madrid. Though we love Munich, is does feel very “German” most of the time. And we had just spent 8 days in cities that felt very “Spanish.” So it was really fun to spend a few days in a city that felt a bit more international and diverse. Anyways, since we were pretty worn out from all of the walking on the tour and the day before, we took it easy the rest of the day. We strolled through the busier areas and took some more photos. For dinner, we chose a Spanish restaurant that was a bit outside the city center. Since it was further from the tourist center, it seemed like there were only locals there, which is always a good sign. We shared two traditional Spanish dishes and a nice bottle of Rioja. It was really great.

Sunday was our last full day in Madrid and we started off the day with a morning stroll through Chueca, another chic neighborhood. There were so many cool buildings in this neighborhood. We were also surprised at how many of the shops were open on Sunday – we’re so used to Munich requiring all stores to close on Sundays. Since Spain is still pretty Catholic, I had assumed it would be similar. Not so in Madrid.

After strolling for a few hours, we stopped at an American 50’s diner for lunch. Matt was skeptical, but I was really craving some American food. We felt a bit silly being Americans at an “American-style” diner chain while in Spain, but we just don’t have this kind of stuff in Munich and it was nice to have a taste of home. Matt had a peanut butter shake and I had an Oreo one, and wow, they were so delicious. After lunch, we checked out the Parque del Buen Retiro. It used to belong to the Spanish monarchy, so it’s full of beautiful gardens, fountains, statues, etc. The weather was so beautiful, which made the afternoon even more perfect. The park is near the main art museums, so afterwards, we visited both the Reina Sofia, for modern art, and the Prado, which is the main Spanish national art museum. We visited the Reina Sofia first. Although I never really understand modern art, it still interests me and the Reina Sofia did not disappoint. The most famous piece at this museum is Picasso’s Guernica, which is a painting that was influenced by the bombing of a Basque village during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. If you don’t know much about the Spanish Civil War (we didn’t either before Madrid and Barcelona), this particular bombing incident was done by German and Italian warplanes in support of the Spanish Nationalist forces led by General Franco, who would go on to become the dictator of Spain after the war. The painting is huge and pretty emotional. It was amazing to see it in person. After the Reina Sofia, we headed over to the Prado. The Prado is one of the most famous European art museums. It is huge. Since we were limited on time and pretty exhausted by this point, we browsed the galleries, but focused on two main points: the painting Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez and Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings. I won’t go into too much detail since I don’t think any of our readers are passionate art fans (correct me if I’m wrong), but I will say that both were stunning. Even non-creative nerds like us could appreciate these works.

After the museums, we stopped at a cool restaurant back in the Barrio de las Letras. Since we were still pretty stuffed from our milkshakes, we enjoyed some wine and split a pizza. Then we headed back to our hotel to pack and prep for our final stop – Barcelona!

Spain Part V: Cordoba

Our last stop in Andalucia was Cordoba. The planning for this town couldn't have worked out better: we had two full days in Cordoba (more than enough time to explore the relatively small old town), so we used part of our time here to relax and refresh before heading to much faster, larger cities in the north. Our hotel in Cordoba turned out to be really nice with a perfect rooftop pool! Laying by the pool and reading consumed most of our first day, and then we made the short 10-minute walk into town for dinner. We had picked out another great tapas place on a quiet street. We had tried a lot of great tapas by this point, but these were easily the best empanadas we've ever had in our lives. The entire dinner was amazing!

 The following day, we explored the old town some more. Similar to Granada, it has a really laid-back atmosphere and almost feels stuck in time as you wonder around. Again, the weather on both days could not have been better!

                                  

                                 

Instead of yet another meal out, we decided to stop in a grocery store and take a picnic back to the hotel. We picked up a tasty platter of Spanish cheeses and little toasts and ate our lunch while laying by the pool. Since most tourists are busy exploring during the day, we practically had the entire rooftop to ourselves.

Later in the afternoon, we ventured over to Cordoba's cathedral, which is the main attraction of the town. The cool thing about Cordoba's cathedral is that it used to be an Islamic mosque until 1236, at which point it was converted into a Christian cathedral. The decorations inside are mostly Christian, but the core architecture of the cathedral is still obviously Muslim. It was a really interesting twist in comparison to a lot of other cathedrals we'd seen lately.

These arches are typical of Islamic architecture and cover the entire expanse of the inside of the cathedral. It's really impressive when you first walk in!

Similar Islamic decoration to what we saw in the Alhambra in Granada and Real Alcazar in Sevilla.

                               

Here you can see Jesus on the cross, surrounded by Islamic arches and decoration...

A Christian-themed fresco painted onto the original arches...

A view of the outside of the cathedral...

Leaving the cathedral, we had some time before we went to dinner, so we decided to grab a drink outside at a random bar. While we were sitting there, one of our friends from Munich just casually walked into the bar. He's an American ex-pat as well, and we met him at Oktoberfest through some acquaintences and were just watching football with him two weeks ago. We had no idea he was going to Spain, let alone Cordoba and this bar, specifically. It was an unbelievable coincidence...

We finished off our last night in Codoba with some paella in a restaurant and headed back to our hotel. Fnishing up just over one week in Andalucia, we can honestly say it's been a great experience. The people have been incredibly nice (probably the nicest of all the places we've traveled), the weather was near perfect, the wine and food were excellent and the culture was far more interesting than we were originally expecting. All of this made leaving Andalucia a bit sad, but we were also excited for our final two stops: Madrid and Barcelona!

Bis später,

Matt and Kristin