Spain in a nutshell – Barcelona and Madrid

Holy cow – I just realized I never finished and posted this. Here it is in a brain dump format:

Spain

• Why Spain in January? First of all, It wouldn’t be 100 degrees. The thought of schlepping around in such heat is not much fun in my book – I remember struggling to see the reclining Buddha and other sites in Bangkok because of the weather. Also, it’s off peak – it’s great never having to make reservations, wait in lines, or be stuck in crowds. Finally, prices for hotels were pretty awesome.
• Bring an Ethernet cable. At our hotel in Barcelona, my PC wouldn’t work with the wireless. At the Madrid Iberia Lounge, they have a lot of stations for you to plug an ethernet cable into.
• High speed train from Barcelona to Madrid was great – but here’s a tip, don’t try booking your tickets on http://www.renfe.es/. It’s great to find information about trains and their schedule, but it is impossible to book a ticket from America. Just look for the phone number there and call them directly. You’ll even get the fares that are on sale.

Barcelona

• Did you know that they speak/write/read Catalan first, then Spanish, in Barcelona? Some signs can be confusing – “Why can’t I understand what it is saying? Oh! It’s in Catalan, not Spanish.”
• We purchased the 4 day Barcelona Tourism Card. I would not recommend it as it’s incredibly hard to get the maximum benefit from it – though I suppose if we had picked it up at the airport and used it on the bush that would’ve helped recover some value. But with luggage that’s no fun either.
• Most guide books warn about crime and sketchiness in La Rambla. A few people I spoke to were victims of crime in Spain. Maybe it was because it was January, but things weren’t particularly sketchy to me. But then again I grew up walking by 1980’s Columbus Park in Chinatown (it was a lot like today’s SF Tenderloin.)
• http://www.calpep.com/ is a great restaurant.

Figueres

• As a side trip from Barcelona, we went to Figueres to the Dali museum. A pretty surreal place. It was very easy to go there by train, and following the street signs through the town to the museum was manageable. We did not bring a map. Note that there are no signs that tell you how to get back to the train station – so pay attention as you go to the museum. It’s about a mile walk, and rather pleasant.
• The Dali museum is rather surreal.

Madrid

• A great guide for Madrid that’s free: Mariblel’s Guide to Madrid.
• Learning from Barcelona, we wisely did not purchase the Madrid Tourism card.
• We did purchase 5 day unlimited ride metro tickets, and I’m not sure that was a great value either. Actually, I’m not sure we even cleared 10 rides per person in the time we were there, as things in central Madrid are fairly compact! In retrospect, I would’ve just purchased 10 ride tickets and refilled as necessary.
• We stayed at the Best Western Atlantico. Great location – very convenient to the Metro. We were able to walk to the various museums, Plaza Major, the Royal Palace, and more. (Hence the above bullet point about buying a 10 ride metro card instead!) The hotel offers free transfer from MAD airport (we did not take them up on this as we came via train) and charges 6€ per person for rides to the airport, which was handy.
• Note that this hotel may not be for everyone. There’s two things I can think of: it is basically on Broadway (NY)/Market St (SF) – so if you’re not into the “when I step out of my hotel, I step into a giant crowd of people walking” this may not be for you. Also, the first room we got (416) had two beds and was very small. So small that you really couldn’t lay open two 26” suitcases. I managed to do it by balancing one on top of the minifridge. Personally, I don’t have a problem with small hotel rooms since after all this is a European city. But that some Americans go to the supermarket in vehicles larger than this room – again, not for everyone. That’s an exaggeration, but now that I think about it, the only time I had stayed in a room smaller than this was at the Sheraton NY (or was it the Sheraton Manhattan? I always get them mixed up). Other Manhattan hotels had larger rooms. Eventually we were able to switch to another room, which turned out to be accessible and was far larger. Note that noise was not a problem in either room as the windows opened up into interior areas. Also, perhaps this was just because it was Winter – but in both rooms the air conditioning system was pretty much inoperative. (It got really warm.)
• Botin restaurant, which is the World’s Oldest Restaurant was great. I would strongly recommend their suckling pig. The skin was amazingly crunchy. We also ate at a chain called Museo de Jamon – which roughly translates to “Museum of Ham”. It’s actually a deli with an restaurant area – so you can watch the action. Fun.
• We had a churro with hot chocolate at Chocolateria San Gines near Puerta del Sol. I think the place opened in 1894. You go, pay 3.50, get a receipt, give the receipt, then get this a small stack of churros and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is basically molten chocolate – kind of like the goo inside a chocolate lava cake if you’ve ever had one. The churros are very greasy. Together, it’s a great combination:

• I enjoyed the Reina Sofia art museum the most, followed by the Thyssen, and then the Prado. Personally, I felt that the Prado had one too many instances of different takes of “La Sagrada Familia” (The Sacred Family).
• Restaurants at the museums are very, very good. We were quite shocked and surprised.
• The locations of the El Cortes Ingles are surprisingly close together.

Ok, there’s plenty more, but I’ve gotta go back to work and school.