Madrid: Pics and Commentary

Let me start off by saying that Madrid was Sean and I's favorite city that we stopped at. In fact, Spain in general was just awesome. The food was amazing, it was probably the cheapest western European country we've visited and we had pleasant weather while we were there. Our flight from Amsterdam was delayed a few hours, but we still made it in plenty of time to enjoy a good 1.5 days there.



One of the first things we did after checking into our hostel, was to get some lunch. I had a calamari sandwich and Sean had a tortilla espanola sandwich. Both sandwiches were delish, but Sean's was my favorite.

I really don't have much to say about where we stayed. It was a hostel (Las Musas Residence) but it wasn't anything special. The location of it was nice, but I found the beds incredibly hard and noisy (we had bunkbeds). The breakfast was also less than stellar. I don't think if I'm ever in Madrid that I'd stay here again.



This is standing in Puerta del Sol looking at the Tio Pepe billboard (the only billboard that is allowed in the square)



After we walked around Puerta del Sol and the surrounding area, we decided to try our hand at tapas. Boy am I glad we did! I could probably live off tapas because there are so many choices and they are simply cooked and delicious! The above picture is pigs' ears with some spices and oils. I think they're fried, but don't quote me on that. I found them to be pretty tasty, similiar to bacon, but with some cartilage.



These are Pimentos de padron. Grilled jalapenos with salt, spices and oil. They were very, very tasty!



These covers have the official seal of Madrid on them: a bear with a Juniper tree.



An early morning, more expansive view of Puerta del Sol.



I loved these street signs with pictures on them. From what I understand, the pictures come from when back in the day when many people were illiterate and couldn't read the names, so they put pictures on the signs to help them.



This is Casa de Correos in Puerta del Sol. It is now a post office, but I believe when Franco was in power, his political prisoners were kept there.



There is a convent here where nuns make cookies/other sweets and sell them throughout the week. We came by on a Sunday when they are obviously closed (as the sign says) and we meant to come back the next day to get some, but forgot. I was so disappointed!



This is supposedly the oldest door in Madrid. How they know this, I have no idea, but it does indeed look quite ancient!



This is the Royal Palace of Madrid. You can go in and tour it, but we chose not to. For one, it was a bit pricier than we wanted to spend. Also, I've been in one palace and I got bored just looking at room after room after awhile. Besides Versailles, I'm not sure I'm really that interested in seeing another palace.



I liked this sign, just because it was eye-catching and it also has the last name of one of my friends on it.



We had a simple, but delish meal in the Museo del Jamon (Museum of Ham) There are several of these in Madrid and we wanted to try it out. We got two sandwiches, a plate of cheese and water for about 6 Euro. The ham in Spain is amazing, I think I almost like it better than prosciutto.



Blue roses at this huge antique market near our hostel. Seriously, it was massive. It had a huge number of stalls and a large crowd of people. I wanted to buy some old bullfighting posters, but again...no space in the suitcase.



This camera was at the antique market. I'm not sure I've ever seen one of these for sale. Would have been awesome for my collection!



The street performers in Spain were by far the best I've ever seen. I still have no idea how this guy was hanging out like this.

While we were in Madrid, we checked out the Prado Museum which was on my "must-see" list. I was not disappointed. We happened to catch it when it was free, but of course the trade-off was that it was very crowded. I still was able to see some great works of art and really enjoyed the collection they had there. If you go to Madrid and you love art, I really recommend you checking it out.



If you ever go to Spain, get the churros and hot chocolate. You will NOT regret it!

Traveling in Europe: Planning

Now that I think about it, I probably should have done this post at the very beginning of my Traveling in Europe series, but hopefully it will still be some help to someone out there.

I've had trip planning on the brain ever since Sean told me he wanted to take a long vacation. In all honesty, I constantly plan trips, even though we don't always take them. Trying to juggle going away at the spur of a moment with the military doesn't always work.

Anyway...I've majorly planned for our upcoming vacation. Normally I at least plan on what sights we want to see and get a few ideas of what there is to eat where we'll be staying. This trip I've gone all out. Because it is a long trip, with many destinations and flights, I've planned more than usual. I've done a Word document for each individual city with details like:

What time we get to the city
How to get to our accommodations from the airport
Name of hotel (hostel, etc) phone number and e-mail
Balance due for the room, whether breakfast is included
Sights we want to see, plus what the hours of operation are and what the cost is

I find it easier to break it down like that because I want to keep an eye on how much money we are spending and how much we can expect to spend on this particular trip.

Because we are flying on a budget airline, it means the size of our suitcase and weight allowance are pretty low. Because of this, I try to pack as light as possible. This means I don't want to haul 3 or 4 bulky guidebooks around. For instance, I have the full Spain and Germany guidebook. I only need the info for three cities in those guidebooks. So, I bought the Snapshot Guide for Madrid, Barcelona and Berlin. Much smaller and more compact and I don't feel like they are using up a bunch of extra space. (By the way I got mine on Amazon for much cheaper)



(See how much smaller they are?!)

I've mentioned that I use Rick Steves guidebooks and the site Tripadvisor, but I also have a few other recommendations for sources. The magazine Budget Travel is one of my favorites, I often go through my issues, tear out pages that I think we are interested in going to and then put the pages in plastic folders and into a large 3 ring binder. That way before a trip, I can just flip through it, see if anything applies to where we are going and add it to my planning. The website for Budget Travel magazine is also very helpful.



(My travel binder)

Another source I utilize is blogs. There are some great blogs out there that detail life in cities all over Europe and the rest of the world. Some are written by natives of that country or city and others are Ex-Pats that now consider that place their home. I have some helpful sites on the right side of my blog. Others I keep in an special folder under my Favorites tab. I just recently stumbled upon a blog from Rome that had great non-touristy recommendations for gelato and dinner.

I realize there are some people out there that don't like to plan and would rather fly by the seat of their pants when the travel. My husband is like that, I'm not. I think in the long run you end up paying more money when you don't plan you trip out. I know that firsthand from several trips that we've taken in the past.

Traveling in Europe: Transportation

One of the questions I get asked about a lot is transportation around Europe. I know everyone has their preferred way to travel, but I wanted to give my opinion on the three major ways to travel around Europe.

1. Train- Before I moved to Europe I thought I'd be taking the train a lot. Not so. Train travel has it's advantages, you don't have to show up hours before in order to check in, you can take large bags on the train without having to worry about weight restrictions or liquids. However, I find train travel incredibly expensive, unless I'm going a short distance. I take the train to Venice a lot, because it's a mere 4.00 Euro from my nearest stop, but taking it to Rome or even Florence can be quite pricey. Not to mention if you're taking it country to country, I just couldn't justify the price of most train rides to make it my regular mode of travel.

In case you didn't know, use this website for train travel in Italy: www.trenitalia.com



2. Plane- Probably my favorite way to travel around Europe. For our upcoming trip we spend around $500 for a total of seven flights for 2 people. That's ridiculously cheap in my opinion. I normally use EasyJet or RyanAir to travel, but I will say that EasyJet is my favorite of the two. On our trip we are also going to be using Vueling, so I'll have to give my opinions on that airline after the trip. If you book far enough ahead of time for one of the cheaper airlines like EasyJet you can score some amazing deals. The longer you wait the more expensive it is and can also sell out. I'm not a fan of the restrictions on bags on the cheap airlines though. On EasyJet you are limited to one item only. That means no carry-on and a purse. It's strictly one item.

3. Car- I love exploring Europe by car. I recommend avoiding the large cities if you are driving by car though. It's way too crazy for this girl to drive in European large cities (minus Munich, I found it quite easy). For the countryside and smaller towns, driving is perfect. You get to see a bit of the land, haul as many bags as you want and in our case, take Boomer. Another plus is if you drive in Italy you have the delicious AutoGrills to stop at. Seriously, I wish AutoGrills existed in the States, they are soooo much better than truck stops. The downsides to driving are of course the ridiculous gas prices and the tolls. Italy has expensive tolls. Austria has the toll vignette you must buy, plus tolls. Slovenia has a vignette, but it's probably the best bargain of all. I've been told that some countries look for you to have an International Driver's license, but I've yet to see one required.

If you have any questions about anything I mentioned in this post, feel free to e-mail me!