Spain Road Trip: Days 20, 21, 22 (Madrid, Lleida, Vaison)

     This re-cap of the last three days of the epic Spain road trip of 2012 is brought to you from Vaison la Romaine, France.  That means we arrived back safely, which was the first priority when we left on our trip three weeks ago.  (Grandma, you can stop worrying now.)  Here's the overview:

     Thursday (we were still in Madrid) was the quarterfinals of the Madrid open.  We had 5 tickets to two night matches (for the nuclear family, plus Averil's cousin, Dana Rothrock, who is living in Madrid).  In the morning, before tennis, we took a long walk through the city to the Museum of the Americas.  Then we walked back to the apartment, with a much needed stop for lunch.  It was in the mid-high 80s and Ivy was trying to set the world record for longest tongue hang-out.  We saw a lot of Madrid on foot that day.

     That night, it was time to see the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open!  Dana came over to the apartment and we took the subway to the Caja Magica on the other side of the city:

Interior

Exterior

When you get tickets to a tennis tournament, you don't know beforehand who you'll see.  We hoped we'd see someone good . . . maybe even famous.

     We had to settle for watching Roger Federer in the first match of the night.  Have you ever heard of him?  According to Wikipedia, "[m]any experts of tennis, former tennis players and his own tennis peers believe Federer is the greatest player in the history of the game."  He has won more major tournaments than anyone in history.  And he's currently ranked number 3 in the world.  So he's pretty good.  And it was fun to watch him make mincemeat of his opponent (Gasquet).  Here are pictures we took of Roger Federer:

     In the second match we had to settle for watching Novak Djokovic.  Have you ever heard of him?  He is from Serbia.  He is currently the No. 1 ranked player in the world.  And he dispatched his opponent too (Wawrinka), though not as easily as Roger Federer beat his.  Here are some pictures of Djokovic:

     It was fun to go to the Madrid open and see the famous players!  We got back to the apartment just before midnight.

     On Friday it was time to leave Madrid.  It is nearly 700 miles between Madrid and Vaison.  That's a long way.  We picked what appeared to be a logical halfway point to spend the night -- a small city in Spain called Lleida.  So we drove and drove, and saw many bulls on the way (and the Greenwich Meridian):

     It took us 6 hours to get to Lleida.  We had reserved a hotel in the city center.  As we made our way into the city, we found that all of the streets were blocked off and police were directing traffic away from the middle of town.  Hundreds of people were walking into town on foot.  It was a grand festival of some sort.  And it would have been great to stay and be part of it, but we simply could not get anywhere near our hotel, with our car, luggage, dog, etc.  So the adults held a meeting and decided we'd need to proceed to the next city and find a hotel on the fly.

     Just north of Lleida we stopped for much needed food at an auto-stop.  We had a lot of mediocre meals in Spain, but this one was truly terrible.  Ed noticed that Asha was not eating her meatballs.  When he asked her why not, she replied that "they had hair on them."  Sure enough, Ed looked and saw that they had fuzzy mold on the outside.  So Ed took the plate of meatballs up to the cashier (along with the yogurt Averil had ordered that was both warm and expired).  The following conversation then ensued, in Spanish:

     Ed:  "Hello Senora.  This meat is not good.  There is a problem.  [Showing meatballs]."

     Cashier:  "What problem?"

     Ed:  "You can see."

   Cashier:  [Looks at meatballs.  Cuts meatballs open.  Smells inside of meatballs.  Shrugs shoulders.]  "There is no problem."

     Ed:  "Yes.  Problem.  Problem with meat.  There are hairs on them.  Many little hairs."

     Cashier:  [Smells meatballs.  Shrugs shoulders.]

     Ed:  "No. On Exterior.  ON EXTERIOR OF MEAT.  MANY LITTLE HAIRS ON EXTERIOR OF MEAT!  NOT GOOD!  AND YOGURT.  TODAY IS 11th, NOT 1Oth.  SIMPLY GIVE MONEY FOR MEAT AND YOGURT!"

By now other customers were looking over.  So the Senora refunded the money.  But everyone was kind of grossed out.

     We found a hotel by the side of the road.  And it was fine except for the noise and the room that smelled really bad (we asked for and got another).  But it was near a giant field of wheat, so Ed and Ivy and Ford got a good long walk through the wheat field.  That was fun.

     Saturday we drove the rest of the way.  That was a long day.  It was 7 hours of driving.  It was windy and hot and our car was covered in bugs and the inside was covered in crumbs.  It smelled like a dog.  The car was making noises.  We had to yell at the kids to "Be Quiet!"  All the symptoms of the end of a 21-day road trip through Spain were apparent.  So we knew we must be near the end.

     And then we were home!  We kissed the font yard:

It was the prettiest place we had seen for 21 days.

     Final statistics:  3,653 kilometers (2,269 miles).  No deaths, injuries, thefts, Spanish scams, lost items, food or water poisoning, lost dogs, or mechanical breakdowns.  Nothing bad happened.  It was a great trip.  Highlights include bicycling in Barcelona, fishing on the Ebro, being in Madrid with Spanish people, watching professional tennis, and finding a juicy bone in the bushes.  You match the highlight to the participant.

Spain Road Trip: Days 18-19 (Madrid)

     The Madrid Open is not the French Open or Wimbledon.  But it is a professional tennis tournament and El Generalisimo is tennis-crazy.  All the big names were going to be there:  Nadal, Federer, Djokovich, and others, and the top women players too, like Azarenka and Serena Williams.  (It's not a coincidence that we happen to be in Madrid when the tournament is going on.)  And on Tuesday we went (by Metro) to see almost six hours of tennis at the "Caja Magica" tennis stadium.  We saw all or part of four matches since, unlike other sporting events, you can go from court to court and see whatever matches are being played.  These were the early rounds of the tournament, so the stadiums were not full (we have tickets for the quarterfinals on Thursday night).  Here is proof of our presence at the Madrid Open:

#2 seed Sharapova awaits service- she wins easily in 2 sets

#1 Seed Victoria Azarenka - she has a little more pressure, forced to win her second set in a tie-break against Czech Andrea Hlavackova, unseeded, who took an injury time out but still held her ground against the imposing Azarenka

The Frenchman Monfils- he lost a 2nd set tiebreak and had to win the 3rd set (in this tournament, the men play best of 3); most impressive shot was one between his legs that saved the point for him!  We watched this on a smaller (more intimate) court and Monfils was a hoot, talking to the crowd.  Beat German Kohlschreiber-- good fight!

The Umbrellas Came in Handy . . . and Not Because it Was Raining!

And here's some commentary from the cracker-eating tennis nut:

Our fourth and last match of the day was another close one between Feliciano Lopez, a hometown favorite, and Melzer from Austria, who finally took it in the third and final set after Lopez let it get away from him in the second set and lost the 2nd set tie-break to Melzer, whose momentum grew.

After getting back from tennis we had an early dinner (9:30 p.m. -- they opened the kitchen for us) and then it was time for bed.

     On Wednesday Ed got up and went to his new Madrid gym -- "V-35."  Everyone is friendly and welcoming there, and they keep letting him in for free.  Then he came home and got everyone up (as is the pattern).  Then it was time for breakfast at the counter of a bar where we got to throw our napkins on the floor.  Then we headed off to Madrid's big park:  Parque Retiro.  (We took a taxi . . . we have taken many taxis in Barcelona and Madrid, and we find that about half of them will accept a dog).  Here are pictures of our time at the park:

We walked home from the park in 80-degree weather.  Yummy!

     After "chillin" at the apartment for a while, we went out again about 6:00 p.m.  We took the metro to a stop near the Plaza Mayor, which is sort of the main square of Madrid.  We had tons of fun sitting and drinking drinks and watching the street performers, which included a man with no head, a man with only a head but no body, a scary baby, a fireman painted all gold, and a goat with flashy fur.  We laughed when the goat man went to take a cigarette break on the side of the plaza, leaving his costume lying on the ground next to his money cup . . . some silly person went up and put money in the cup not realizing it was simply a costume lying on the ground!  Here's Plaza Mayor:

Asha Walks Past the Goat

Dinner was all sorts of delicious tapas at the Mercado de San Miguel near the Plaza Mayor.  That was fun.  Then to the metro, back home, and bed (late as usual).

Spain Road Trip: Days 16-17 (Madrid)

     We left Granada on Friday morning and drove toward Madrid, which is about 4 hours north.  Did you know Spain is the world's largest producer of olives?  On this drive, it seemed obvious . . . one passes what must be tens of thousands of acres of olive orchards.  They are vast.  How do they harvest so many olives, especially since many trees are on fairly hilly terrain?  They must need to bring in crews of thousands of people.  Here is what it looks like along the road in all directions for miles and miles and miles:

     We stopped in Toledo, which is about an hour south of Madrid.  Toledo is home of El Greco, and a very historic (and steep) place.  There is a cathedral there that is considered by some to be the best in Spain.  It is full of treasures and famous works of art.  We found a parking spot and walked into the town to see the cathedral and other sites of Toledo:

     Then it was time to leave Toledo and head up to Madrid.  There was a period around this time when El Generalisimo's mood-O-meter was reaching the dangerously-low red zone.  Details are unimportant.  Suffice it to say that it involved urine on her feet (not her own) and bad directions into Madrid (we are navigating through Spain by hand because our French phone with navigation won't work, despite umpteen visits to the Orange cell phone store near Vaison and the assurance that it would work).  But soon her mood-O-meter had returned to near-normal readings and we found our abode for the next 5 days:  a fantastic (though small) apartment right in the heart of a residential neighborhood in central Madrid. Wow!  A courtyard with clotheslines, and a tiny balcony that looks out onto the street.  Our front door is painted with graffiti and we are minutes away from lots of great things.  Few tourists around here!  Did you know that Madrid is the third largest city in all of Europe?  It's huge!  Our address is Calle de Valarde 20 if you care to mapquest it.  Here is a photo of our front door and interior stairway and courtyard:

Our Front Door

The Apartments are Too Small to Have Clothes Dryers Anyway

We ate dinner at 10:00 p.m., as is the custom.

     In the morning, Ed went to work out at the nearby gym, called V-35.  According to one website, V-35 is not "the biggest or the most luxurious gym in town [but] it's definitely the gayest and known for sporting the capital's hottest bodies."  He returned to the apartment at 10:00 to find El Generalisimo and all the others still sound asleep.  Here is a picture of breakfast, which occurred near lunchtime:

     Then we took the metro to one of Madrid's most important museums -- the Centro del Arte Reina Sofia.  We saw many Picasso pictures, including Guernica and other paintings by important painters we had never heard of.  Here are a couple of photos of the afternoon (no photos allowed inside the museum):

Metro

Outside the Museum

     Tomorrow:  Watching tennis at the Madrid Open!

Spain Road Trip: Days 14-15 (Granada)

     On Friday we left the Costa Blanca.  (We think it should be called the Costa de Blanca Personas.)  Now it was time to go west to Andalucia!  To Granada!  It was a 5 hour drive, but the scenery was great.  Spain now looks the way Ed remembers it from his trip with his mother and grandmother in 1989: beautiful hillsides full of orchards and striking geology with no high rises.

     We arrived in Granada in the early evening and had a good dinner at a restaurant in a plaza.

     On Saturday it was time for our whirlwind tour of Granada.  This is a special city.  After breakfast (including churros y chocolate) we started at "The Chapel" where the coffins of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand are.  We saw the jewel box that Queen Isabella supposedly gave to Columbus (filled with jewels) to finance his first trip to India . . . er . . . America.  Then we went to "The Cathedral" (the second biggest in Spain).  Then it started to rain, so Ed purchased umbrellas from a street vendor.  Then we walked around the Moorish quarter.  That was fun.

     The afternoon was dedicated to seeing the Alhambra.  Turns out the Alhambra is a kind of water park.  Not only were there many fountains and reflecting pools, because the Moors associated water with God, but also copious amounts of water from the sky this day.  It was pouring!  (But it didn't matter until near the very end of the visit when we were quite wet.)  Anyway, the Alhambra was a place the Moors built back when they controlled this part of Spain.  It's kind of a special palace and fort and gardens all rolled into one.  It is very ornate and detailed. In 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand came down to Granada and more or less took it over and expelled the Moorish leader.  And then Spain was united and Catholic.  Washington Irving stayed there in the 1800s and wrote a book of tales of the Alhambra.

     Anyway, here are pictures of our day in Granada:

Park near Alhambra

Behind Queen Isabella Chats With Columbus

Donuts with a thick chocolate dipping sauce

Behind the Chapel Where Isabella and Ferdinand Rest

Finally, in the Alhambra

Granada behind the old fort at the Alhambra

Next stop:  Madrid.