¡Excelente Comidas y Bebidas!

Hi All!

Boy are we tipsy and stuffed...well not really but we did do our fair share of eating and drinking while in Spain!  Excellent food and wine are really what motivated our visit to Spain.  Neither of us were really up on our Spanish history so we were really just following our stomachs and some beautiful scenery in this part of the world.  Actually, that's been the winning motivation for most of this trip.  That and an incredible opportunity to spend every day beside each other in another incredible location!  The wine, cheese, tapas, sangria, and vermouth were just out of this world and widely available EVERYWHERE.  We love the old tradition of offering a free small tapa plate with every drink order and fortunately this still lives on in some areas.  Come on NYC and take a lesson from Granada!  Needless to say we had a wonderful time.  We didn't do anything out of the ordinary really but just enjoyed the vibe of the three cities we visited and the region's beautiful weather.  It was exactly what we needed to get us right back into the groove of traveling for a bit longer. 

Madrid

We arrived early in the morning after an overnight flight from Philadelphia so we were quite tired.  We grabbed a "quick" nap (meant to be 1 hr turned into 4 hrs, haha!) and went out exploring.  In Madrid, we visited the yearly rose exhibition in the Parque del Oeste with roses from all over the world in every color you could imagine.  It was beautiful and smelled great all through the park!  We also enjoyed time in both the Botannical Gardens and the Retiro Park which was very similar to Central Park with a Spanish flair.

Rose exhibition

Since recognizing in Athens that we aren't so much museum people we decided to take advantage of the free museum hours at the Prado museum and boy are we glad we did.  Not to sound cheap but you don't feel nearly as guilty breezing through a museum when you didn't spend money to get in!  While we were quite impressed with the Prado and all of its art, we may have been more impressed with the Museo del Jamon ("ham museum" but really a small chain of Spanish food shops).  Check out all the different kinds of ham!

Museo del Jamon's racks of hams

 One of our best memories from Madrid is seeing a Flamenco show in a tiny theater in the back of a restaurant.  We enjoyed the traditional band that played along with the man and woman dancing but our eyes didn't leave the dancers feet!  Finally, the food....our favorite place to eat was called Mercado de San Miguel and it was so great we ate there 3 times!  The market is composed of dozens of stalls run by different vendors selling different kinds of food from fresh and cured fish, cheese, paella, pastries, ice cream, tortilla (spanish omelet), sausages, olives, and various wines and cocktails.  Each vendor has a small standing room eating area and the market has a general seating area in the middle.  We tried almost everything over our three visits but our favorites were fresh mozzarella on toast with tomato jam and balsamic reduction, goat cheese with grilled onions, and garlic marinated olives.  Vermouth on tap is a new favorite for Wes and Christine loved the Sangria!  We were sad to leave, mostly for the food, but luckily we had no idea what the next stop had in store for us.  We caught a six hour bus down south to the Andalusian town of Granada.  The trip was an experience in itself through endless olive groves, vineyards, and across beautiful mountains.

Madrid isn't the best place to see Flamenco apparently but we loved it!

Mercado de San Miguel, our food home for three great nights!

The chaos inside.  You have to be a bit pushy to get a spot at the vendor's bars.

Two weeks later we can't look at this picture without our mouths watering.

Definitely the most modern paintings we've seen in a church on our trip.  We loved the colors!

One of the numerous open squares throughout Madrid.

Just the post office.  What, your local post doesn't look like this?

Endless olive groves on the way to Grenada.

Granada

We loved the smaller city feel of Granada with the beautiful cobblestone streets, a great boutique hotel, and amazing food.  We visited the "must sees" of the Alhambra and Generalife which we were both very impressed with even after all that we've seen on this trip.  We walked the Albaycin which is the original Moorish town that Granada started from centuries ago and enjoyed the views over the city.  We enjoyed having coffee and churros with melted chocolate for breakfast, taking a long walk by the river through the center of town, visiting centuries old churches, and just absorbing the relaxed Spanish lifestyle.

The NH Victoria, our home for a few days.

View over Granada from the Albaycin hilltop.

So many windows and balconies look like this in the area.  Beautiful!

Generalife gardens just outside of the Alhambra.

Arches inside Generalife walls.

Lots of Islamic architecture similar to sights in Turkey.

We've seen more pretty tile work on this trip that we know what to do with!

River Darro through the center of town.

 For our first dinner in town we found Bodegas Castaneda, which would become our favorite restaurant in all of Spain.  We enjoyed it so much that we returned two more times!  See a pattern here?  Some favorites were smoked salmon with avocado and caviar, bacalao (salt cured cod), grilled pork loin topped with roquefort cheese, steamed mussels, shrimp, tortilla, and marinated mushrooms.  Their vermouth and sangria were stellar as well.  As we previously mentioned, they give free tapas for every drink ordered so sometimes we would only order one or two plates of food and end up having eaten seven or eight plates.  We did find the time to visit several other traditional tapas restaurants and they all had something that we will definitely remember.  If you're ever headed toward Granada, we can certainly tell you where to eat that's for sure!

Christine bellying up to the bar at Bodegas Casteneda.  We were waiting at the door when they opened to avoid crowds!

Wonderful smoked salmon on its own, but topped with avocado and caviar, on toast. 

Camembert cheese wedges fried in breadcrumbs on blackberry jam with raspberry syrup.  Not a free one but sooo worth it!

This is a torta from Los Italianos which is basically an ice cream cake slice stuffed into a cone.  Apparently the First Lady loves this place but as pretty as it was, we were a little disappointed. 

Just a quick note on all the talk of vermouth...  Whereas most of the USA keeps vermouth for a splash in a Martini, Manhattan, or gathering dust on a shelf for other occasional cocktails, in Spain it is common for many tapas bars and restaurants to keep their own vermouth in a barrel with a tap (Vermut del Grifo).  It is frequently served with a quick spritz of seltzer, maybe a slice of orange, and a little simple syrup if preferred, and it is wonderful.

Barcelona

After an overnight train ride from Granada we arrived tired and cranky to Barcelona.  (Didn't we say we would never do one of those again?)  Luckily, our hotel room was ready when we arrived at 10am so we took a nice long nap.  When we woke up we took a nice long stroll around the city to get our bearings.  We walked Las Ramblas and while we were happy to see it, it's kind of like visiting Time Square in NYC but not nearly as cool (aka VERY touristy).  While in Barcelona we visited the Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi.  You can imagine that it's quite beautiful but they are currently doing restoration work so most of it is under scaffolding sadly.  Guell Park was another stop and while we were surprised by the large number of people there, the park had spectacular views over all of Barcelona.  It was well worth the hike up San Fransisco sized hills to reach it.  We wandered through the beach side neighborhood of Barceloneta, strolled through Ciutadella park, and visited Barcelona Cathedral.  One of our favorite sights in Barcelona was the Magic Fountain of Montjuic.  It is a water fountain show set to music located in front of the National Art Museum.  The view of the fountain and Barcelona behind it at night was stunning.  The sangria and tapas were still flowing in Barcelona though not as easy as Granada to find top quality, and this time we had to pay for it all...oh well.  Unfortunately tourism has eliminated the old Tapa traditions in most cities.  For some reason things you pay for just don't seem to taste as good!

Sagrada Familia Cathedral.  Looks like something from a Tim Burton movie!

One of Antoni Gaudi's crazy apartment buildings. 

Guell Park and the crowds!

Colonnade under Guell Park overlook.

View over Granada while we took a break from strolling around the city.

Magic Fountain of Montjuic.  It is still powered mostly by the original waterworks from the 1920's and 30's.  The art museum is on the hill in the background.

Looking back toward Barcelona downtown from atop Mont Juic.

We thoroughly enjoyed our three stops in Spain but were excited to move on to a smaller and more rural area in the south of France.  We will update you from Provence soon!