Seville

  Monday morning started with an early and quick breakfast at our hotel before taking two cabs and two trains to our final destination for the day, Seville.  With good planning by Kathleen we were able to drop off our bags at our AirBnb and start our sightseeing.  
  First stop was the Real (Royal) Alcazar Palace.   We had advance tickets at 1:00 so her timing was perfect.  We learned that the palace is still used periodically by the Spanish Royal Family.  Our tour guide explained how for over a 1000 years the city has been ruled by Muslims and then Christians.  During the tour she showed us signs of both within the palace grounds.  
  Next door to the palace is the Seville Cathedral.  Parts of the Cathedral were once part of a Muslim Mosque.  It is the third largest cathedral in the world after the Vatican and St Paul's in London.  It was built in a very unorthodox manner.  To be sure there are many, many opulent side altars and a very elaborate sacristy.  One of the side altars is huge and contains 300kg of silver brought to Seville from Mexico.
  We came back to our home for the night which is really quite nice. After taking a few minutes to settle in we took  to a quick dip in a roof top pool to cool off.  The pool is very small and comfortably fits 6 people max.  
  We walked down the street to a mom and pop restaurant for dinner.  We all ordered something different and shared everything as it came out at different times.  We finished dinner just in the nick of time to pay a quick visit to our neighborhood church just before they began 9:00 pm. Mass.  
  To say that many of the streets in our neighborhood are tiny would be an understatement.  Pedestrians literally have to go into a doorway when they see a car coming down the stone paved road. 
  If I were an old time newspaper man, you'd say I have buried the lede (yes, that's how you spell it.  Look it up)  in this story.  The temperature today in Seville hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit.  The heat is truly opressive.  We finished dinner at 9:00 and it was still 104.   
  We only have another half day here tomorrow before we head to Lisbon where we hope to meet up with our nephew Anthony Kolb  and Anthony's cousin who are also  traveling Spain and Lisbon right now.

                 The baths at aThe Alcazar Palace

                   The silver laden side altar 

               A thorn from Jesus’ crown of thorns

                  The main Altar at the Cathedral

                     Outside the Cathedral

                    Actual temperature 

              

The remains of Christopher Columbus

Torremolinos

    Ok, I lied.  We are not technically in Malaga.  We are nearby in Torremolinos.  It is very much a seaside resort much like Fort Lauderdale or Cancun.  There are swimming pools, beaches, vendors and restaurants almost everywhere.

   If you were wondering what we did today reread yesterday’s blog entry.  

   So instead let me just reflect on an omission from our blog from the other day when we were in Madrid.  We were in Puerta del Sol. The tour book referred to this huge square as Spain’s  Times Square It’s where people gather to celebrate and to protest.  For many years it was the center for the nation’s government and now serves as the center for city’s government.  On the outside wall there are three and only three plaques which were about 10 feet tall.  One commemorates the invasion by the French, another commemorates a terrorist act in 2004 and the most recent remembers all those who have died from Covid. It reads:  

THE PEOPLE OF MADRID

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE VICTIMS OF COVID-19 AND ESPECIALLY THOSE

WHO DIED ALONE.

Malaga

  Our train arrived in Malaga at about 8:00 Friday night.  We went to the car rental place to see if we could find an alternative way to still get to Tangier.  We found it interesting that Hertz said they would rent us a car without an international drivers license but they said Spanish law says we need one to drive in Spain.  They explained we would only have a problem if something occurred that the police would have to be involved.  We didn't rent the car and it looks like the day trip to Tangier is a no go.
  We had a 20 minute cab ride to our hotel and still made it to a beachside restaurant for dinner at 10:00, just as the sun went down.  People eat bizarrely late here.  Our hotel has a restaurant and they don't even start serving dinner until 7:30.   After dinner last night, the four of walked a portion of the board walk but still made it up to our rooftop bar just before midnight to see the fireworks celebrating both the summer solstice and the feast of a saint (Perhaps San Juan).   
  Saturday was scheduled to be our beach day.  We rented chaise chairs and an umbrella for the day.  The rented umbrella and our sunscreen seemed to work.  Even though we spent some time in the water nobody got horribly sunburned.  For anyone who follows the UV index, you know 7,8,9 is dangerously sunny.  Today the UV index here was 11.   
  After showers we dressed and had dinner at a different beachside restaurant.  Nobody finished all their food, we shared a bottle of wine and paid for 4 waters and it was still less than $22 per person.  Prices here seem to be reasonable compared to NYC... And Door County.  
  We'll be in Malaga again tomorrow.  

 

Madrid Day Two

 We were up and out of our hotel a little earlier this morning - but just a little earlier.  It's difficult to eat dinner at 9:00, get home after 10 and fall asleep right away.

   Our breakfast was eaten at the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid.  If you've ever been to MIlwaukee's Public Market it's very much like that.  However many of the foods on display were unknown to me.  We ended up having ham, cheese, and empanadas.  Ham seems to be everywhere and is called Jamon.  

   We made walked through a number of smaller squares and made our way to the Madrid Cathedral.   It was completed in 1993 after being under construction for almost 100 years.  I'm not sure why but Madrid did not have it's own official Cathedral for almost 300 years.  

   Directly across the street is Spain's Royal Palace.  Thankfully, Kathleen had booked tickets ahead of time so we did not have to wait in the extremely long line in the extremely hot weather.  The Palace is no longer used as the king's residence but is still used for official occasions.  It is most often used for tours.  The opulence is mind numbing.  The ceilings, walls, statuary that took 100s of years to accumulate or create.

   We stopped at a cafe for sangria and water on our way back to our hotel where we had stored our bags.  An odd thing that happens is while you wait for your food or drink, the waiter brings a plate of large olives.  We took a cab to the train station during which Erin received another compliment on her Spanish.   We now head to Torremolinos, a resort town in south eastern Spain.  We chose Torremolinos for it's close proximity to the beach and the town of Tarifa. We planned on taking a day long guided tour to Tarifa and then a ferry ride over to Tangier, Morocco.  We were notified yesterday that because of expected high winds the tour was being cancelled.  So now we are considering renting a car, driving to Tarifa and still taking the Ferry over to Tangier.

The transcript at the Cathedral in Madrid

                    The Royal family.  

                In front of the cathedral

In front of the Royal palace

 

Madrid Day One

Cathy and I overslept this morning.  We had been up for about 34 hours so I guess it should have been expected.  

                    Outside El Prado

Plaza Mayor

A canopy in Ukraine’s colors across the street that went for blocks

  After our hotel breakfast we started the day with a Rick Steves walking tour of Madrid.  We saw pretty much what your suppose to see as a tourist, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, saw the outsides of the Cathedral and the palace.  We'll go back to those two place again tomorrow.   
   Our unique stop was at a cloistered convent.  The nuns are not seen.  They make and sell cookies to support themselves.  Their home is on a very short little streeet and their door is nondescript (Erin says it's nun-description).  One has to ring their door bell and when they answer their door via an intercom you say "dulces" (sweets) .  The door is then unlocked electronically.  You walk in and go down a corridor until you see a Reposteria (think Lazy Susan built into a wall).  You tell the sister what you want (thought the wall) put your money on the lazy Susan and your change and the cookies come to you when the lazy Susan is turned.  
  However, the highlight of the day was our visit to the world class museum, El Prado.  We took an audio tour but truthfully after a while you are almost numbed by the beauty and the splendor.  As we were walking from one to display to another, we almost walked past an entire wall of paintings by Ruebens!
   We left the museum and walked by San Jeronimo el Real which served as Madrid's cathedral for years. Also on our afternoon walk was the Retiro Park, which is very much like Central Park in NYC.  It has beautiful flowers, food and a lake with rowboats gliding around.  
  We've taken two cab rides in Madrid.  Both cab drivers asked Erin if she lives in Spain as her spanish is so good.   We had a similar experience tonight when a a waiter patted me on the back and told me how good her spanish was.  
   Kathleen has planned this trip to the last detail, plane tickets, train tickets, hotel reservations, museum admissions, tours and more. One of the best ideas she came up with is a mobile hot spot.   The device is about the size of a wallet and carrying it around provides wifi.  
    The evening was spent walking around the various squares near our hotel.  It was light out until almost 10:00.  Dinner consisted of various tapas and sangria.   
  We have more of Madrid to see tomorrow but sadly we leave late tomorrow afternoon and take a train to Costa del Sol.  

Iceland

 Greetings from Iceland where the sun sets at 12:03 a.m. and rises just a few hours later at 2:55 a.m.  So far our only difficultly has been packing carry-on luggage for a cold dip in the geothermal lagoon in Reykjavik where the temperature is 46, closely followed by our next stop in Madirid where the temperature is in the 80s.  

We only had 10 hours in Iceland, hardly more than a stop over and certainly not time enough to experience an entire country.  However it was long enough to leave an impression on us.  The scenery is eerily pretty.  It looks like a moon scape.  Lava rocks dominate the landscape and in the distance you see mountains or water.  

After landing, we picked up our rental car and headed to The Blue Lagoon, a natural hot spring.  The Blue Lagoon is a huge tourist attraction.  It's a spa built on/around a huge geothermal lagoon.  The water is 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit?), before it is pumped up from 2000 meters (6500 feet) below the earth.  Our admission included a silica facial mask treatment and one free drink.   Is it really day drinking if you have a beer at 9:30 a.m. even if you haven't been to sleep since the night before? 
After our dip at the Blue Lagoon we headed to Hallgrímskirkja Church.   It’s the tallest building in the country at 244 feet and serves as a Lutheran parish.  Thankfully they have an elevator that goes to the top where we had some beautiful views.  
We leave Iceland tonight and head to Madrid.

  

2023 Trip

 We’re taking a family trip!

We are going to Iceland (just 10 hours), Spain, Portugal and Morocco.  We leave June 20th and Cathy and I will return on the June 30th.   The girls will continue on to Scandinavia.