This was a three week trip departing SF on October 11 and returning to NYC on Nov. 1. We stayed in hotels for our shorter stays and rented an apartment for our longer stays in Valencia and Seville. I give prices whenever possible to allow the reader the possibility of judging where our travel standards may differ.

We flew from San Francisco to Madrid and then Seville to NYC on TAP ($1.532,00 RT for two) and used vouchers +$46 to fly from NYC to SF on JetBlue

Valencia apartment: $579 for five nights.
Seville apartment: $782 for six nights.

A word about our apartments rented via AirBnB. If ever we travel on our own again and stay long enough in one location to warrant an apartment rental, I will try to avoid AirBnB and other international rental agency for one simple reason. I was particularly bothered on this trip by the fact that the kitchen did not contain a single cooking item: no salt, no oil, nothing. That meant that we could eat take-out meals but not really cook for ourselves. It is not an issue of saving in our case, although it might be for those on tighter budgets; it was a desire to not have to eat all meals prepared by someone else. It worked at times, we bought a seafood salad from the central market in Valencia to which we added lettuce and other fresh salad ingredients, but it is frustrating to have a fully equipped kitchen without the possibility of really cooking. In contrast, when we stayed in Copenhagen a few years ago, both apartments had fully equipped kitchens, including condiments, because they were clearly lived in apartments by permanent residents. AirBnB apartments are functionally sterile, although the Valencia apartment had Nespresso available; we preferred the local bakery that also provided coffee. On the other hand, we made sure that each apartment had a washing machine, which saved us the time of finding and using a local laundromat which are becoming rarer and rarer.

Another thing to keep in mind: The Seville apartment had a system by which a phone call in front of the gate to the complex would release the lock, but that assumes a phone that works without WiFi. That does not work in our case , nor for anyone without an activated E-U phone account, and after several e-mail exchanges, a lockbox was provided for the key that would allow us to enter the courtyard, where there was a second lockbox by the door of the apartment to provide the key to the apartment. That apartment also had unforeseen problems: the shower drain was severely clogged; we called, and presumably it was fixed, but it wasn’t as the next shower proved. We also had the main electrical breaker go down three times. Twice I was able to reset it. The third time it would not reset, so our final packing the next morning at 6 a.m. was by flashlight. I could not call to tell them about it since my phone required a WiFi connection to work. I called them from NYC a couple of days later, and my impression was that they were unaware of the problem, which was surprising as we left on a Friday morning and thought that the weekend would have been booked.

In both cases the apartments were located in old buildings but had been completely redone. Both are probably examples of tourism displacing permanent residents.

Cash: Some establishments require cash for purchases less than 10€ The transaction charges vary wildly. Near as I can figure out, I was charged $48 when I withdrew 40€ from Euronet cash machine (I know that the euro is stronger than the dollar). Both Euronet and Caxia Bank strongly urge the customer to take the receipt in dollars. Caxia Bank also charges $5 per transaction and speculates on the screen that the charge might be as high as $15 if we let the U.S. bank do the conversion. My credit union charges only the 1% Visa conversion fee. Deutsche Bank, which was around the corner from our hotel in Granada charges 3€ per withdrawal. Another bank in Seville charged only 1.6€ per transaction.

Only once did the hand-held card reader suggest a variety of tips. Generally the server comes with the device, registers the amount and leaves without a hint of requiring a tip. My understanding is that the tip is loose change if available. Given that most payments are by card, and that the change is as worthy to leave on the table for the server in the establishments that require cash, loose change is not jingling very much in the pocket.

And a final comment on cash and card: The bus from the airport to the Atocha train station only take cash or a card that is tapped. Our cards require the slot in order to be read. The bus credit card readers do not have a slot. We missed one bus because I had to go back to the airport and find a cash dispensing machine, which was Euronet. The self-serve ticket machines in the Atocha station accept no cash and only touch credit cards. A live agent can be found in the old (?) part of the station where chip cards are accepted, as they were in the rest of our trip. The whole process takes time, especially if done after an overnight plane ride; luckily there are frequent trains to Toledo.

Whenever possible, purchase train tickets ahead of time. All trains require a specific seat assignment and once the train is full, there is no last minute standing room only opportunity. For any train access passengers have to go through security, which never found my knife even though once I was pulled to the side for a questionable object. Even when transferring from one train to the other one must go through security if there is a platform change. 15 minutes might not be sufficient for a transfer because of potential security lines. This is particularly true if transferring from the suburban line to the long distance lines in the Chamartin train station in Madrid. It is under major construction and the signage was not very clear nor was the path through the construction site very obvious.

We stayed two full days in Toledo, which was enough to visit the principal sites: the two synagogues, the cathedral, the El Greco museum etc. as defined by the stars in the Michelin Green Guide. I thought that we would visit the synagogues on separate days, as one is closed as a museum on Mondays, but they and the El Greco museum are so close to each other that they can easily be seen on the same day. We visited the cathedral the next day which was a Monday.

There was a craft fair ending that Monday and we tried to get to it without success. I was relying on a tourist map and was not familiar with the geography of the city. The fair was located on fair grounds outside the old city and I did not realize that leaving the old city meant using a specific road. In essence, old Toledo is on a hill, modern Toledo is in the flats and access in either direction from one area to the other is limited. The tourist map available at the hotel desk does not make that clear. My impression is that there is no reason to frequent the flats without a specific goal in mind. I did leave the old city once to walk up the opposite hills and get a panoramic view of the city:


I can’t say that we ate particularly well in Toledo. Here and there we had interesting dishes—on the first night I had the traditional pork stew, on another we shared a wonderful seafood timbale and I had deep fried sweetbreads which were good but I prefer pan-fried to deep-fried. I believe that the latter two dishes were in a restaurant which also has tables on a triangular plaza off the Calle de Santo Tomé.

Our hotel was very conveniently located between the cathedral and the Jewish quarter, closer to the former. It had a old section with an interior patio and a new section which had the elevators which can be used to access all the rooms. Our room was in the old section. The bathroom and been re-done if somewhat badly when it came to the shower stall and the only window was a very small window in a far corner of the room. The desk was manned 24 hours a day, and they provided tourist maps, but that was the limits of the information that was offered to us. My Spanish is nil, and their English skills might not have reached the conversational level. It was the Eurico hotel, Santa Isabel, 3, 45002 Toledo and it cost 348€ for three nights. While the old section had a dining room, breakfast was not offered, nor did I see any evidence that the dining room was used at other times.

Losing our way in the meandering streets, we came across few shops such as grocery stores, bakeries, that would serve the local population. Undoubtedly some exist, but for serious shopping I suspect that one goes to stores on the flats. The Toledo we experienced belongs to the world of tourism.

Here is the Toledo album:

https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBSQ54

From Toledo we took the train back to Madrid, then a commuter train (no reservations) between Atocha station and Chamartin station and finally a train to Valencia, Estación Joaquin Sorolla. As in each overnight stop on this trip we took a taxi to our address, but walked back to the station at the end of our stay; it took us 20 minutes. Regardless of the city, the taxi ride would cost between 8€ and 10€. We rented an Airbnb which was spotless to the point of sterile. We had problems with the electric range (all my fault) which was fixed by the cleaning person. While not in the center of town but within the circle of avenues that define the core of Valencia, we were close enough that we could walk to all the sights in the old town. We used public transportation to get to the Casa Carmela and Calatrava’s Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias.

We liked Valencia. There is a decent mix of things to see through the ages, starting with the religious buildings often on older foundations to pre 19th century secular palaces tp late 19th century structures and Art nouveau. ending with the Calatrava creations. What is within the center of Valencia is all reachable without the use of public transportation. Here’s what we saw: The central market especially for its food, the Mercado de Colon which is now mainly a food court (good for lunch), the silk exchange a stone’s throw from the central market, the cathedral, the San Nicola church (more interesting than the cathedral), city hall and its plaza, the Palacio del Marqués de Dos Aguas, now a ceramics museum, even a Brutalist MuVIM (What's the MuVIM? | MUVIM) which had an exhibit of anti-Nazi cartoons and a permanent exhibition on The Invention of Thought. The contemporary is represent by Calatrava’s City of Sciences and the Arts (I call it The Fish). When we come to the last item, we barely scratched the surface, deciding to see just the aquarium, somewhat of a disappointment compared to the Monterey aquarium. On the other hand, the aquarium is a maze and we might have missed a large part of it.

All in all that’s what we saw and recommend.

Here are the pictures:
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBSXfR
They fill in the time and space between the mentioned venues.

As mentioned earlier, we did go to the Casa Carmela for a paella. The trip was an adventure. The tourist map, it turns out, does not quite extend to the restaurant’s location, so the icon representing it on the map was somewhat misleading. We took a tram at the Pont de Fusta which past the Torres de Serrans, and got off toward the end of the line in the middle of a Technical University and a sterile modern apartment neighborhood with not a soul in the streets except a street sweeper. There was a language barrier which was sufficiently broken that he knew I spoke French. He took us to another street sweeper who did speak French acquired as a foreign laborer in France. We were a distance from our destination and it took us 25 minutes of fast walking to make it in time for our reservation. We had the traditional Valencia paella ($135), which was a disappointment. The chicken and the rabbit were dried out, half a dozen snails smaller than periwinkles with no implements to dig them out of their shell, and the rice was not crusty at the bottom. It turned out, as we passed the kitchen on the way out, that the paella pans with rice are stacked on top of each other waiting for the final cook time to add the meat or sea food ingredients, which, in my mind, represent the problem with mass cooking. But the appetizers we had were excellent, the restaurant (now closed?) could well be worth a visit for everything but the paella; other seafood seen at other tables looked interesting. I admit to being spoiled. Our Spanish daughter-in-law got a recipe for paella from a Spanish chef and did it over a fire pit in her backyard. It was fabulous.

Other food experiences ranged from so-so to excellent. Our apartment was above a Chinese restaurant serving all you can eat from a self-serve steam table. The cost was around 15€ per person. The lunch at the Mercado de Colon was good but pricey—good tapas are not cheap. We tried to get reservations for Rausell (https://www.rausell.es/) but we kept on getting an error message even though it was the correct number and my cell phone did work since I phoned the hosts a couple of times. We walked there on a Saturday around 1 p.m. and asked if they had a table. I let my wife do the talking to the owner who confirmed that the phone number was correct. He found us a table and we had a delicious seafood lunch ($118). I would not count on walking in and getting seated, but it has a take-out window.

I’ve decided to split the trip report of our trip. The next trip report will cover one way or another our stays in Granada, Córdoba and Seville.

Thank you, Michael! As always, you provide stunning photos. You brought back some wonderful memories.

Michael, this is wonderful! Timely for me since I just returned from Valencia last month.
I am astonished by the price of the paella at Casa Carmela--was that a typo?
I ask because, you perhaps you know from my trip reports, I am very food focused and did a lot of reading about where to eat rice in and around Valencia. We tried rice dishes in four restaurants, two a short taxi ride from the center in Meliana, and one in the center--Llisa Negra, considered VERY expensive. The last was about 40 minutes outside the city.

At least one of these restaurants (Napicol) has Michelin star. I'm prefacing with all of this before I say that our most expensive meal on the entire trip cost us less than $110 euro for two, with minimal alcohol.
The paellas we ate averaged around 35 euro per person, and the total meal was usually in the range of about 70 euros we had appetizers before the rices.

I know that Casa Carmela is mentioned in many places and popular with tourists but again, that price for paella is way out of line..especially since you did not enjoy it.

I will be following your report--it's so well laid out and provides very interesting info about AirB&B and some great points to keep in mind....You just know that previous guests would have left salt and oil and other things--I guess the cleaning people just toss it, or take it home......is there a way to inquire as to whether the place will be minimally stocked with the basics? I had considered renting a flat in Valencia since we were there for I think ten days, but we ended up at the ONLY YOU, instead. (I've rented in Sevilla,, but from an agency, and in Merida, Mexico, from Air B&B, but that was the home of the couple and was lovely....it just seems like taking a leap to rent a flat especially for a long stay when it could make or break your time in a destination)

Michael, your Valencia photos brought back nice memories of being there last spring. We didn’t have paella in a restaurant, but we did a paella cooking class, which was fun, and the paella was delicious. We shopped at the market first for some of the ingredients. I enjoyed your photos - especially the street views and architecture - so beautiful.

Not a typo, but ot includes appetizers, dessert, and drinks. Being used to SF prices, where the food itself could be the same price but 30% has to be added for tip and taxes and possibly 5% for health coverage, we did not find the pricing excessive. A premium might be charged for the paella Valenciana since it has to be ordered ahead of time, which is curious as the piece of meat might require maybe ten minutes more cooking than seafood. The snails were definitely on the underdone side.

Some advice: never use any EURONET or any other ATM that does not belong to a real bank, their charges are incredibly high. Any proper bank ATM, normally located at the bank´s office branch, will be much more economical.

Tips in Spain: they are welcome, but they have to be deserved, and are based on what you think is fair. Do not tip like in the US, it´s not the local way, waiters have fair wages and they would expect something between 5 to 10% of the bill...IF AND ONLY IF you are really satisfied.

Washing-machine apartments or condos: as a local, I do not know anybody without a washing machine at the apartment, it´s not like in the US with machines in the basement, that does not exist in Spain, to my knowledge.

Thanks so much for your report!

Apparently there is a bank in the Madrid airport, but I could not find it.

Euronet (or many other of this ATM traps) are normally located in "emergency prone" places, like airports, touristy areas, souvenir shops, bus stations, etc...they do not really belong to any reputed bank, and they do charge a lot for cash withdrawals. Despite their name, it´s a company from Kansas and their ATMs tend to look "official" bank ones. Not a scam, simply a more expensive way to withdraw cash, that should be used only on certain occassions (as was your case).

Thanks for the clarification. I live in New York City so prices for me are lower in Spain. But I think I said above, we paid not more than 70 euro or so for our paella lunches for two people, including drinks for me, appetizers (usually seafood appetizers) etc....I'm only mentioning it because you paid about double what we did and we ordered all of our rice dishes in advance. Paella Valencia does not have seafood--it's land based, so rabbit,, beans, etc. it's all about the rice and because they prepare in portions of two or more, those rice dishes take a little time to cook. And you have to show up on time, when your ordered dish will be ready, and hot. It does not cost more to order in advance, just so people know that.

Anyway, great report and many thanks!!