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Spain Trip - Introduction
This was written on the plane about three hours from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on the way home to San Diego. If you click on the Yellow links, you'll be taken to a web page for lots of photos and more details.
It seems like we were in Spain's long time!
Over three weeks ago we arrived in Madrid. We rode on the red bus. We did a tapas tour, we walked a lot and we went to museums. We tasted Sherry or "Jerez" or whatever the Spanish call it. We tasted "vermut" too and I bought a bottle that I drank and used for martinis, finally getting rid of the last couple ounces at our last hotel. We went to "bull" bar, we went to the oldest restaurant in the world and had pig and lamb.
We took a cab to the train station and rode the high speed rail to Barcelona. We noticed the landscape looked similar to areas of California and the US.
In Barcelona we went to the Picasso Museum, the Miró Museum and the Catalan Museum of Contemporary Art. We walked a lot in Barcelona too! We ate and drank a lot everywhere. We did a tapas tour here too. We took a half day trip to Monserrat and saw the boys choir and rode the funicular. We walked the Rambla. We took a cab to see Sagrada Familia. We had drinks by the beach and dipped or feet in the Mediterranean. We had pinchos and wine at a small place in the Jewish Quarter with Skip and Josie and ordered more wine when the rain came. We saw giant puppets marching down La Rambla to celebrate the Mercé Festival
We took a cab to the airport to pick up a rental car and drive to our Villa for our week with our traveling buddies. We stocked up on food and wine and other less important stuff at the Carrefour in Rues on the way. We stayed in a giant house that was more like a Museum. The inscription over the front door said "1602", and a nearby historical marker mentioned that the house foundations may be over a crypt from Roman times. We toured Priorat and Montsant. We went to the weekly market in Falset. We drove to the beach town of Cambrils, we drove to the mountain town of Siurana, and we searched for sundials in the little town of Porrera. We bought and drank a lot of nice Grenache based wines. We saw the ruins of a Roman colosseum and forum and circus in Tarragona.
We split from our friends and drove to Pamplona where we spent a great Saturday night walking the old town streets, watching the local families and young ones, soaking it all up. We walked on the Camino de Santiago, we walked the route of the bulls. We had a great hotel room in the middle of it all.
The next stop was San Sebastián, the foodie capital of the Basque Country, Catalonia, and all of spain, maybe. We had my birthday dinner with Skip and Josie who happened to be there too. We had many pintxos and wines in the Old Town. We met a young guy from San Diego who has opened a craft brewery here. We found a place the carried his IPA and enjoyed a glass.
After San Sebastián was Logroño in the Rioja wine area. The girls at check-in recommended places for tapas and we tried them all. We went back to the sautéed mushroom place three times! We had a picnic lunch with Jamón Ibirico Bolletta and cheeses in the park by the Rio Ebro. We drove to the hilltop town of Laguardia, explored it, and had a great lunch at a small cafe. We mingled with the locals for tapas and wine.