Dear Fodorite Friends,

I have now been home for three weeks from my 2-1/2-week trip in Spain, and am far along enough in my writing to thank you by starting to post the trip report. First, many of you helped me a great deal in planning for a 2-1/2 week long trip to Spain (http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34954915). I really enjoyed it all, drove almost 3000 km in eight days (out of a 18 day trip.... used metro/buses in the rest which was very convenient in Madrid area, actually), went to Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Sevilla, Granada, Nerja, Mijas, Ronda, Jerez, etc.

I have already thanked many of you who helped me big time! These include Josele, lincasanova, Annhig, Kenderina, laartista, annabelle2, and amyb. Much of the advice was very specific and right on the mark; the kind that is really hard to get unless someone has done it himself/herself.

To be honest, my report is really meant for my family to be able to revisit memories and a bit long. This is also my first trip report, and actually the first trip where I personally spent so much time planning (usually others do it for me…. I found that those trips were not as much fun because they had less anticipation when compared to this trip). For this forum, I will try to cut as many sections as needed to keep it specific. Hopefully it will still provide some good information to help others doing similar trips.

Quick overview with some background. First, we visit Spain every two to three years, because we have close family that lives in and around Madrid. So, in this trip, we stayed with family for the first week and explored Madrid and nearby areas, then drove down south to see the other towns. Since it is a part-family, part-road trip, there are many dinners and lunches etc that are simply too personal to post and I need to skip’em. Second, there were four of us traveling: yours truly, my wife, my son (six), and my daughter (nine). I will use the usual Fodors symbols for them (DW, DS, DD). Come to think of it, on some days, ADD may fit some of us well Third, my wife is fluent in Spanish, and I can understand every third sentence and do NOT speak well. I need to mention this because language generally is not a problem for us, and thus the trip has a slightly different flavor than to other places.

Should you have questions, please post here. If you need my itinerary, and many have, I am happy to email (send me a mail at [email protected]. Just be patient because I check it only once a week or so).

Obviously, my observations are my observations, only! I LOVE Spain (so much so that during almost every meal I had there, I felt so jealous of Spaniards ) but I obviously see it as a visitor. Please do keep this is mind, should you disagree with any specific detail.

With this, I will be back shortly with the first two day's report soon.

hi, comfy - welcome home.

looking forward to the "meat" of your report.

regards, ann

Yes, looking forward the "meat"

Ann and Kend, You are both very kind.

Day 1: Getting there!

The flight for Chicago was to leave at 1:30 pm, and then after a three hour stop over in Chicago, we had the cross-Atlantic flight to Madrid lasting nearly eight and a half hours. Outside, it was windy, cold, and snow flakes were flying everywhere! It is mid-April so wonderful beginning of a spring! We had a British-American family wanting to keep our ninety pound dog (lab retriever) as well as DD’s four hermit crabs and two gold fishes We were happy to let them do so because they are very nice, and because it saved a chunk of change over 20 days! Memo to ourselves: Get something really nice for them

At 11:30 am, the kids were delighted to see the ride at the door, and happily grabbed their little, cute backpacks. DD decided to bring her Huffalump that she calls “Huffy” and carefully held it close to herself. We had three large suitcases, a camera bag, and a laptop bag (without a laptop, for once!) that contained passports, tickets, some medicines, and other small stuff. We drove through a maze of snow flurries. Flight to Chicago was on time, and the Northwest attendant told us that although our next flight was on an independent ticket through American Airlines (Iberia actually), she was happy to check the luggage all the way to Madrid. Whew, good riddance to the luggage! Personally I really didn't want to have to retrieve'em and then check them again.

We arrived in Chicago right on time, and had three hours to get the next set of boarding passes. As we proceeded to the only Iberia gate at O’Hare, we found there was no one there except a middle age American Airlines attendant who was busy chatting with a man who looked like Bob Marley. During the long chat with him, she frequently ruffled, shuffled, and touched her hair, and then giggled. The man also reciprocated with similar gestures (have you noticed people frequently copy gestures in conversations? it is fascinating to me). After what seemed like forever, she turned and very politely told us to wait until an hour before the departure when Iberia attendants typically show up. Having not had a vacation for some time, I remember feeling extremely anxious to get in the plane, and remember frequently checking my emails on the mobile phone. As a workaholic, I find it oddly therapeutic. Yes, totally sick, I know! Knowing myself, I had asked my assistant to disable my password while I was gone, so I definitely had no way to check my work mail (which I may have been tempted to check too!).

As we sat munching on the stuff we had bought, DW commented how the manners of the Spanish travelers reminded her of some of her family. Spaniards, like almost any other culture, seem to have certain body movements that are uniquely Spanish (or Mediterranean?). This includes getting up every so often to emphasize a point, keeping the shoulder raised just a tiny bit up, and showing outwardly open palms while talking. I find people watching fascinating, and sat in a corner observing the old, the young, and the in-between.

Fortunately, Iberia attendants arrived on time and within ten minutes we had the tickets that sit us two and two, separated across an aisle. That worked well for us. DS, who would rather have sat with his mom (who doesn’t seem to ever get tired of playing kid-games with them.... Yes, I know I am very lucky), graciously offered to sit next to me, and I whispered in his ears that half way through the trip, he could go and change places with his sister. He was obviously delighted but was polite enough to try to hide it Sweet, sweet kid.

I had taken a book on Dalai Lama that complimented weekend Chicago Tribune perfectly! The daily stories of mean street danger contrasted with the supposed serenity of the Dalai! I devoured the newspaper first, and then started reading the book. The trip was actually very comfortable, kids having become old enough to behave well (I distinctly remember a trip to Venice when my son cried so much that a lady brought him warm milk, I KNOW, hoping he would go to sleep!!)! They are actually fun to travel with because every time we feel stressed, they always have a comment or two to take the edge off. Only once, DS left his one shoe somewhere and walked half the plane before telling me "I "sink", I have one of my shoes missing"! His "announcement" was so cute that I found it very funny and, fortunately we found it quickly enough.

Iberia decided to show Little Miss Sunshine which, unfortunately, we had seen. Still, the kids had their head phones on, and every so often, they would giggle, and finally, when the movie was over, they promptly fell asleep. DW and I spent some time talking, telling each other that we would make the best of the trip, and then snuggled to go to sleep. Well, basically that meant that DW slept for three! long hours and woke up all refreshed, while I kept walking to the back every so often to stretch my legs and drink some juice (or zumo as the Spaniards call it) or whatever.

Day 2: Arriving in Madrid

Day 2: Arriving in Madrid

The Iberia flight arrived in Madrid’s Barajas airport right on time. We found ourselves in the new T4 Terminal that Barajas now has. It is a giant facility, with yellow color, wavy roofs that reminded me of Aladdin’s carpet. Designed by Jose Lamela and Richard Rogers, it was inaugurated in February 2006. Barajas now has the world's largest single terminal area, with an area of more than one millon square meters. Here are someone’s pictures of it http://www.flickr.com/photos/biomaxi...7594062251021/. It took us almost thirty minutes to walk from the plane to the baggage claim! Jokingly, I told DW that our flight’s luggage would arrive at least half an hour later, and then we would find that we lost half of it. DW had more faith than me, and disagreed. Well, the luggage didn’t arrive for half an hour which resulted in the American travelers looking quite anxious. The Spanish people, on the other hand, happily chatted away. Fortunately, we got all of our luggage.

As we walked outside, we saw Jose, Maribel, Chola, and Manuel (not real names, obviously), waving excitedly at us. We did the traditional Spanish greeting of strong hugs followed by kisses on both cheeks. Jose immediately held my shoulders and then complimented my flat stomach (I had been working out at the gym six days a week for the last few months). I didn’t exactly understand what he said at the time (I get better at that with time) but he made motions of muscles on my forearms and gently touched my stomach, and I politely nodded and smiled.

On the way to Navata, Manuel and I chatted about our jobs and life in general. We discussed politics and Mr. Zapatero’s recent moves. Somewhere on the way to Navata, I found myself repeating the same sentences and realized that I was terribly exhausted having missed an entire night’s sleep on the plane.

Navata is a sanctuary for the family partly because it is nestled in hills 35 kms outside of Madrid, and the house is made completely of giant granite slabs with terracotta tiles on the roof. It is a house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms but everything is a slightly smaller version of a typical American house. Still, it is very comfortable and cozy, and has a large, (extremely) well tended yard complete with Plums, Figs, and Pine trees, and a plethora of great smelling herbs etc. And it comes with a twenty-five meter swimming pool as well as a colt farm next door! Hard to beat that!! The view from the backyard to houses far away on the hills is equally amazing. Quite a contrast from our Midwest home, for sure.

Afternoon and evening are a mélange of talk with family and couple neighbors, flipping TV channels on to see a bull fight in Madrid’s Las Ventas. We had initially planned to visit the Chinchon, a small village outside of Madrid, but that didn’t make sense given we hadn’t visited for a long time. Also, the jetlag was a big help in making that decision! Night approaches, we had a great dinner complete with a 1958 Rioja Reserva Especial Cosecha which Jose described as a special vintage wine (very smooth...... fantastic wine), and as we went to sleep, I remember hearing steady songs of grasshoppers interrupted occasionally by some far away neighbor’s dog barking. It all still felt soothing and I slept almost right away.

Day 3: Madrid City Visit (this is where the "meat" comes in ).... I need to wait till tomorrow to post, however.

I absolutely loved Madrid's airport! The wavy ceilings were surely an interesting sight after being on a crowded, noisy plane for 8 hours. (We were in the last row right by the bathrooms. UGH!) I was disappointed going from Barajas to Malaga's dinky rundown airport. But Marbella was beautiful!!

ComfyShoes- Can't wait to read about your time in Granada...That was my favorite city in Spain.

I agree with you, Mesale: Málaga is the worst airport in Spain. It works, but it holds too many low cost and charter flights, so it looks crowded and non organized.

However, the terminal is being remodelled.

Keep it coming Comfy!

I have never been to Spain except for lunch once (I was in France at the time lest anyone think I flew to Europe just to have lunch).

I do hope to visit Spain someday and am enjoying your trip reports.

great report. so easy to read.

mesale, Yes, T4 is quite something. I live in a city with a fantastic airport that recently underwent couple billion dollars worth of renovations. Barajas's T4 beats even that hands down. And, I promise to try to do justice your favorite city.

travelgirl2/lincasanova, Thanks you!

Fauxstemarie, If I had the money and one could visit spain rather quickly, I could see going to spain just for a lunch Just kidding.

This is the longest day report. If the historical info distract you, feel free to tell me. As I said, I wrote it primarily to revisit memories down the road and wanted to have that sort of information in the trip report.

Day 3: Madrid: Plaza Mayor, Plaza Oriente, Reina Sofia, Cathedral Almudena, Royal Palace?, and Churros-con-Chocolate!

Someone was literally shaking me at 7 am to wake me up! My wife! I felt being in some kind of a twilight zone and really wanting to sleep but we had to get on with our "vacation!" itinerary so I had little choice. Chola, who is an Architect, was all dressed up and ready to go to work, and politely commented that I looked very sleepy. Great observation!

Thanks to advice on Fodors, we had decided to forego bothering with a rental car, and were simply going to use a combination of buses, metro, and trains during the first week in Madrid. As we found out, this turned out to be a great idea. Parking in Madrid and neighboring areas is a pain in the rear, and underground Madrid Metro is about as efficient as it can get. You can get Metro to almost any location within the city, and many nearby places, and they run nonstop with a new train coming every five or so minutes.

We took a bus from Navata to Madrid’s central bus terminal Moncloa, roughly 30 kms away. As I looked outside of the window, I realized how lucky we were! At 8 am on a weekday, I could see miles and miles of cars stuck in rush hour traffic! Our bus moved swiftly because it was in the car pool/bus lane, and dropped us off at Moncloa in less than 20 minutes. At Moncloa, we bought the Metro transit tickets and hopped on to the train going to Plaza Mayor. On the metro, feeling a bit out of place with a camera bag, I looked around and found no one really seemed to care, and people were busy with their own lives (and those who did care, were smart enough not to make it obvious!). It took us less than five minutes to get to Puerta de Sol and Plaza Mayor.

Plaza Mayor is a grand arcaded square in the center of Madrid, and popular with tourists and locals alike. The symmetrical rectangular square features a uniform architecture, very similar to the contemporary Place des Vosges in Paris. During the middle ages, apparently, the site was just a market place outside the city walls. In 1560s, King Philip II asked Juan de Herrera, architect of the Escorial, to turn the market place into a real square. It took until 1617, during the reign of King Philips III, before the construction of the new Plaza Mayor started. Under the direction of Herrera's successor, Juan Gómez de la Mora, the plaza was completed in just two years. The result was a large square, measuring 120m long and 90m wide. It was surrounded by wooden buildings, at one point up to six stories high. Fires destroyed all the buildings around the Plaza Mayor three times in history. Today’s Plaza Mayor is a design by Juan de Villanueva, and is the center of festivities, bull fights, royal coronations and executions.

A bronze statue of King Philips III, constructed in 1616 by the Italian sculptors Giovanni de Bologna and his apprentice Pietro Tacca, stands proud at the center of the Plaza. The most prominent building on the Plaza Mayor is the Casa de la Pandaderia, the seat of the powerful baker's guild. It was completed in 1590, before the square was even laid out. Its current design with symmetric towers dates from after the last fire in 1790. As I admired the colorful allegoric murals of Casa de la Pandaderia and commented that Spanish people are great at preserving stuff, DW (very gently) told me "Yes, although the murals were actually added only in 1992". Hmmm! Still, it is good someone has their priorities straight in Spain and enhancing monuments that are already great to begin with.

After spending a fair bit of time on the Plaza Mayor and nearby streets, and having an okay lunch in a place whose name I do not recall, we walked over to Centro de Tourismo located right on the Plaza Mayor. It is a surprisingly modern office with half a dozen public internet terminals with screens over your head so everyone can see what you are up to! DW started a discussion (in Spanish) of the sorts of transport options that were available, and the man seemed very attentive and professional. At one point, she asked him about the specific tickets she had done research on, back at home. Well, for once, he seemed stumped and flipped on his terminal and started to, guess what, Google! I found it so funny that I started laughing!, prompting the man to give me a confused look. Anyway, we bought three-day Abono Transport tickets that cost only nineteen euros for adults and half that for kids. These tickets were fantastic because you could take all buses, trains, and metro within the greater Madrid Metropolitan area (Navata, Toledo, Arajuez, El Escorial, etc all included). Very very good deal.

Outside, unfortunately, it had started raining! It was also nearly 3:30 pm so we decided to quickly head to Reina Sofia Museum for couple hours because it was Monday, and Prado/Sorolla were closed. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia was established in 1992 by King Manuel of Spain and Queen Sofía with a permanent collection from the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art. The transferring of Picasso´s "Guernica" to the Reina Sofía was a decisive milestone, and it is now considered as one of the most important contemporary art museums in the world. If you don’t know, Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso that depicts the Nazi bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-four bombers, in April 1937. The mural is a large piece of work, and a great one at that. We stood in front of it for nearly half an hour (no mean feat with two kids in tow!) and then moved on to
"Women by Picasso", Landscapes (Dali, Joaquin Mir, Joan Miro, and others), ending our two hour visit with female portraits by many painters. The female portraits I really liked were the ones by Fernandez Balbuena whose paintings were rather realistic and, shall we say, easy to look at. At the end, we went to the basement café, had a cup of coffee while the kids ordered their customary Zumo de Naranja.

From Reina Sofia, we walked over to the Royal Palace, and Plaza Oriente (east) which was quite a sight, especially now that although it had stopped raining, dark clouds hovered over the horizon. The plaza sits on the east side of the Royal Palace and derives its name from this orientation. The plaza was completed during the reign of Isabel II. In the Center of the Plaza is the statue of King Philip IV. Several newlyweds were being photographed near the Palace, and the whole ambiance with the clouds and what not, seemed rather interesting to me.

We were to meet Jose and Maribel here and then go for a walk. Finding them was easy enough thanks to an oddly shaped really tall but elegant hat Maribel had decided to wear, adding almost a half a foot to her already tall frame We all walked over to the Madrid Cathedral to take a peek inside. Madrid's cathedral was designed in 1879 by the Marques of Cubas in neo-gothic style and has a romanesque crypt. The construction work was finally completed only in 1993. The Cathedral is very pretty, and has very nice geometrical features on its ceilings but a bit shy so far as sheer opulence and elegance of the older Cathedrals we will see in other places in Spain (personal opinion! Feel free to disagree).

After the Cathedral, too late to go into the Royal Palace, Jose suggested we do what the locals do, which is to have Churros con Chocolates. His favorite is Chocolateria San Gines near El Corte Ingles and Plaza San Gines. We all crammed into its basement room full of hustle and bustle, kids, and very few tourists (I think). We ordered chocolate for everyone, and a sample (large!) of churros and porros. Jose proudly demonstrated the thickness of chocolate by putting the spoon on it which didn’t drop inside the cup. I found myself hooked to the porros because it was so juicy, and am embarrassed to say that I ate almost a third of them from a plate of nearly twenty or so (can you tell I was getting hooked to the Spanish food?!). Jose went into a long description of differences of various chocolaterias around the city, and but I understood only every other word

After San Gines, we walked over to El Corte Ingles where we mostly browsed some stuff for women (interesting store…. A hybrid of Macy’s and, well, some giant grocery store! Still, high quality items abound). El Corte Ingles dominates the market share in department stores (in fact, while I am sure there are many, I don’t think I saw very many chain stores in Spain…. Barring the ubiquitous Carrefour, that is). Then we took the Metro and headed back to Navata for a dinner complete with a large number of ham dishes (I really needed to keep my hands off of Jamon Serrano related stuff so I didn’t come across as a pig!…. I joked to DW that we should carry a whole Jamon Serrano leg in our luggage, and tell customs it is the leftover body part of our giant dog that died in Spain!).

Anyway, after so much walking and good food, we slept earlier, fortunately, and well.

Advice: Consider getting public transport tickets in Madrid because it is dirt cheap and super efficient. Do your homework before you go because they frequently have sales. Make sure to review the schedules of the museums etc to know when they are closed (yes, I know it seems obvious but we forget). I strongly advice taking Maribel’s guides with you for a speedy version of the Museum visits (in fact to Thyssen and Prado too) and to rent the audio guide so it all makes sense. Guernica is a must do master-piece. Finally, do not miss trying Churros con Chocolate in a good chocolateria because it is so uniquely Spanish.

On a totally lighter note!!, I also advice you to watch where you go if you head to the restroom in Reina Sofia. The gents’ room is, so it seemed to me or may be the line was way too long!, through the exterior door of the ladies, and as I walked in, I suddenly found myself staring at a bunch of ladies anxiously balancing their weight on one leg at a time (how alike are men and women are in this weight balancing thing….!)! As I uttered "oops" or "oh no" (don’t remember which, and I didn’t note it down either…. Juts kidding about that!) and turned around, a lady started calling me "caballero". First I thought she was calling me horse’s rear (caballo = horse) but she was actually kind enough to point the doorway to men’s room right through their line! Oh well!

Tomorrow: A day in Toledo.

Thank you for this wonderful trip report! DH and I are headed to Madrid, Segovia and Toledo in October.

I'm enjoying the report a lot I can see your male relatives at the airport
praising your abdominals. Very typical spanish LOL

So you get hooked on porras...much better than "porros" , I think. Better quality drug

By the way, our king is called Juan Carlos...not Manuel

Keep on writing !!!

This is amazing, I actually live in La Navata, I'm delighted you'd liked La Navata

About king Manuel, you must be carefull when you use your PC's replace function... And, as Kenderina said, never ask for 'porros', you'll get a drug to smoke

Please, tell us more...

The Phillip IV statue in Plaza de Oriente is the first one ever erected in which the horse stands on its hindlegs only. The most important geniuses of the time were involved: Velázquez (design), Martínez Montañés (sculptor) and Galileo, who made the calculations and weight distributions. And I forget the name of the forgers.

AnnMarie, Thanks! I am certain I will be done with my report by October Hopefully you will find some worthwhile information from these.

Kend, Very observant, as always! For some reason the "Edit Post" function didn't work as always which is also the reason behind couple other errors. And thanks for distinguishing porros and porras! It reminds me of something. In a shabby cornershop in a really run down neighborhood in Detroit, I once made the mistake of loudly asking for Coke (short for Coca Cola), and had a drug dealer (pretty sure) come to me with his cocaine offerings So, he looked at me, I looked at him, we both shook our heads and walked away!! I will change the spellings in my report.

Josemacall, Small world! There is also a pretty good Andalusian Restaurant that I forget the name of (right by the Navata-Galapagar train station) that I have been to more than couple times.

Josele, You keep teaching me interesting stuff. Hmm.... I think I will include it in my report. Thanks!

book marking- been away but can't wait to read this

Hi, the Andalusian Restauran is called "El Tablao" (translation: the place where flamenco is danced), and you're right, it's wonderfull, many people from all over the region come to El Tablao to get some sea food. They drive even a hundred Kms in order to taste it.

In fact, I live just closed to the restaurant (approx. 200m), just where the last bus stop is set (those white houses with green windows if you can remember).

Next time you visit your friends we would meet at El Tablao ;-)
Regards

Some edit, as I was writing last night and relaying on my memory. I have checked that the Phillip IV statue was made in Italy by Tacca. Somewhere I read once that Martínez Montañés made in clay the face of the king for Tacca's perusal, but have not been able to confirm.
Josema, thanks for the Tablao info. I'll have it in mind next time I travel the place.