Around the World in 180 Days: June 2010

We had originally planned to go to Santiago de Compostela, a city in northwestern Spain at the end of a pilgrimage route from Southern France, but the sleeper train was sold out….and there did not appear to be another affordable option to get there. Instead, we changed our itinerary and flew to Lisbon, where we spent three nights. The city is beautiful, and is reminiscent of San Francisco and Madrid.

After a beggar came up to us for money. "Sorry, I don't have much money myself..."

At the Castelo de Sao Jorge in Lisbon

One day we took the train out to a place called Sintra. It is a small town nestled in the mountains, littered with castles from many different centuries. We didn’t have much time so we only visitied one of them: Quinta de la Regaleira. The best feature of the palace was the grounds itself, including gardens, stables, ponds, waterfalls, and a Knights Templar underground “well of initiation.” We entered from the top and climbed down over 100 feet below ground. There are several passageways out of the well at varying depths, but because we didn’t bring a flashlight, we chose the one at the very end which was lit. Each passageway lets you out at points across the gardens: one behind the waterfall, another through a cave, another behind a fountain. It was a very cool experience!

A hole in a wall at Quinta de la Regaleira

View from inside the well

One of the secret exits from the bottom of the well

View from the top of a tower of the palace

Our last night in Lisbon, we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant across from our hotel. Everything was absolutely delicious. The oysters were HUGE, the calamari was the softest we’d ever tried, and the “medium” grilled prawns (about 7” long each…) were amazing. We felt like we were in a Red Lobster commercial…but you know, better food. The restaurant also had tiger prawns, which are nothing like the tiger prawns in America. They cost about 20 euro each and are the size of small lobster! Ridiculous.
The next day we took a train to Porto, where we stayed for one night. It was gorgeous! On one side of the river is Porto, and on the other side is Vila Nova de Gaia where they actually make the port wine. We stopped by the many big name port companies, but their tastings were a little out of our budget (15 euro for a tour and a half ounce taste of each of 5 port wines). Our guidebook had said that many places offer free tastings, or if not free, only cost 1-3 euro. Of course we couldn’t find any of those places. We did, however, find a wine shop that had free tastings. We tried about six kinds of port, and bought a half bottle to enjoy with chocolates and cheese later on. While we were being served, a short local woman came in asking our shop owner for help. Two skinny, old, clearly American men followed her, looking concerned. While the two women were trying to figure out what these men needed, one man took matters into his own hands and blurted the only three words he knew to relate what he needed: “Liquor?! Vodka?! Scotch?!” Our shop owner excused herself and showed the men a liquor store across the street. These men were clearly not interested in sampling any port. It gave us a good laugh.
After our tasting, we went back across the river to the Porto side and had a beer along the river. Later we sniffed out a place for good local cuisine, and got ready for our flight back to Madrid the next day.

By the Duoro River

One of the men demanding liquor

Yummmyyyyy

The Duoro River

We had originally planned to go to Granada on Friday morning because there is only one train per day from Ciudad Real, but we moved it back because Jeff’s bag had been lost and was taking an absurd amount of time to get delivered to my apartment. After failing to arrive by its schedule delivery of Thursday by 5pm, we thought it was best to change the train to Saturday in case it didn’t show up again. And of course it didn’t arrive before the train would have left, so it was a good thing we changed it.

Then, on Saturday, we missed our train to Granada for various reasons related to overall slowness: eating breakfast, lethargy, and unmotivated taxi driver (“Our train leaves in 7 minutes!” “Oh yeah, don’t worry.”). After a “minor” freak-out, we spoke to Renfe (train company) customer service, and they were amazing enough to arrange another itinerary to get us to Granada that night by stopping in Cordoba for the day, and we only had to pay a 10% change fee.

It turned out to be a great plan, as Cordoba is beautiful, has the Mezquita, and had their annual Feria de Cordoba (Cordoba Fair) that week. The Mezquita was originally a mosque, built by the Moors when they had control over that part of Spain. After the reconquista (when the Christians reconquered the land from the Moors), the Christians turned the Mosque into a cathedral. Now it has a mix of Moorish, Baroque, and Gothic architecture and artwork. There are more than 800 double-arched pillars throughout the mosque, each in perfect alignment.

Highly detailed chairs of the coro at the mezquita in Cordoba.

Double arched columns at the mezquita in Cordoba.

Tower of the Mezquita

Although it was hotter than Hades, we walked out across the river to find the feria. There was not much going on because it had just begun at midnight the night before, and it was in the middle of the afternoon, but parts of it were very similar to American fairs: roller coasters, games, booths, food, balloons. Jeff avoided playing any of the carnival games because it would be impossible to drag around a giant stuffed animal for 6 months in his backpack if he won (which he would have). The rides and their operators, who smoked and drank on the job, seemed questionable, so we avoided those as well. The other half of the fair took place in permanent casetas (tents/booths), where there were about a hundred restaurants and bars, with all the women and girls walking around in their trajes de gitana (flamenco dresses).

Feria de Cordoba

After training to Granada, we ran off to the Alhambra to catch the nighttime visit of the Nasrid Palaces. While it sounded beautiful and refreshing (as opposed to trudging around in the daytime in the scorching sun), it turned out to be a big disappointment. The palaces were still impressive, but the lighting was poor, and much of it was closed (due to it being a nighttime visit) and under construction. Interestingly, it still cost the same as a daytime visit that includes everything in the palaces, the gardens, and the fortress. In sum, it is much better to brave the sun and heat to see this unbelievable sight…

The next morning we headed out to Sevilla. We had three days of beautiful weather, amazing sights, beautiful parks, and tasty tapas. An absolute must-see site is the Alcazar (my favorite in all of Spain). The fortress was built using primarily Mudejar architecture (commissioned by Christians but built by Moors brought in from Granada), but has areas of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture as well. The gardens, filled with orange trees and peacocks, are very peaceful, sunny, and gorgeous. The cathedral, another impressive and must-see site in Sevilla, is another mosque-turned-Christian-cathedral. Our visit was fun, seeing the world’s largest pearl in their treasury, but tragically the Giralda (the old minaret tower that gives amazing views of the whole city) was closed for four days, starting on the day of our visit. How fitting!

We went to one particular tapas bar, Bar Santa Cruz, each one of our three days in Sevilla. We mostly kept going back because the first day they made a huge error on our bill…in our favor. They also had delicious paella and montaditos (little sandwiches); their specialty was pringa, which is mixed ground and shredded meat. We walked over to the Triana district across the river but found everything along the river to be over-priced, so we decided to walk away from it a couple blocks. We found a very cool local place that served fresh seafood. They give out two shrimp with every caña (small-sized beer), and we also ordered a racion (ration) of a particular kind of tuna with bread and mayonnaise: mini sandwiches! It was super delicious. We later found another bar that…

Sorry for stopping midsentence, but we are on the train from Lisbon to Porto right now and we don’t know what it is, but we just drove through the worst possible smelling area EVER. On the PLANET. I can still smell it. We almost threw up. It smells like a gallon of garlic salt spilled inside a heavily soiled port-o-potty.

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted…. We later found another bar that specializes in caracoles (land snails). Because Jeff had never tried them before, we ordered a small plate, and I explained to them that he was a first-timer. Nonetheless, they brought us a heaping dinner-sized plate of about 200 steaming hot caracoles. We set to work, piercing, extracting and de-pooping each one. Delicious, until we gave up, and Jeff settled for a bocadillo de jamon y salmorejo (ham and tomato soup-type sauce sandwich).

The next night, we met up with Jeff’s high school friend, Amanda, who is living in Sevilla teaching English. She took us to a great place for dinner, and afterwards we got amazing frozen yogurt across the street. It was a great final night in Sevilla before we had to head back to Ciudad Real for my final two days of work!