Hola!

We have spent the last couple of days in Madrid and have had a great time!

Our first experience in Madrid was to park in the tightest parking garage I have ever been seen. It is a good thing my Dad (who just happened to be my driver’s ed instructor too :)) spent a lot of time on maneuverability with me! Thanks, Dad!

We spent the first afternoon at two fantastic art museums – Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Prado. Both museums were very interesting, and we were even able to schedule around a free viewing day!

We also went to gardens behind the Prado and caught some nice pictures of flowers!

We had a fantastic lunch on an outdoor terrace nearby the Prado at 3 PM. Yes, people eat very late in Spain. Lunch often runs 2-3:30 and dinner from 8-10! Our stomachs haven’t quite adjusted so our 3 PM lunch was big enough and late enough to cover both lunch and dinner! 🙂

Classic Gazpacho – Served Cold on a Warm Day!

Our next day in Madrid, we had lunch in a lovely plaza and visited the Royal Palace which has some of the most ornate rooms I have ever seen. Unfortunately no cameras were allowed inside so you’ll only get to see the outside photos 😦

Paella – Chicken and Rabbit!

We had a delightful afternoon as we stopped into a very local cafe for water and had a fun chat with the cafe owner in broken spanish (definitely dusting off the cobwebs from high school language classes!). It was neat to see that even with a simple order for waters, customers were offered small slices of bread with different spreads. The cafe owner even brought over slices of cured ham – a Spanish tradition.

Next up, we visited Basilica San Francisco Grande which was incredible. The entire tour was in Spanish so we caught only about 20% of it, but the dome was incredible as was the entire inside of the church. Wow!

It’s normally very hot in Madrid (105+ degrees) in the summer due to Madrid’s location on high inland plateau. This location results in really hot summer and quite cold winters for this part of Europe. We have been quite fortunate with temperatures between 85-95 degrees in Madrid but have felt the true Spain summer heat in Toledo. We have found lots of refreshing items on menus such as gazpacho and have seen lots of ice cream shops. I can certainly see why! We also noticed that the city had even installed sun shades over the major shopping area.

We’ve also noticed how many of the names in California came from Spain – San Francisco, San Bernadino, and Santa Barbara to name just a few.

Interesting as well is the amount of US music you hear in cafes and on the radio. As I’m typing in a cafe, an 80s rewind is on… currently Footloose by Kenny Loggins. Probably not a Spanish tradition! 😉

The rest of the Spain tour continues with Toledo, Seville, Granada, and finally Barcelona! We post more in a few days.

1000 miles driven and counting… 🙂

Our 6th stop was San Sebastián, Spain, which is a nice 2.5 hour drive from Bordeaux. When we were planning the trip, we noticed that almost every major interstate in Europe has tolls. Since we’ve used a toll transponder for every trip to Chicago, Ryan researched to see if transponders also existed in Europe. He found that you could rent transponders for a small fee so we took the plunge and had transponders for multiple countries sent to our hotel in Paris. The transponders have proved to be fantastic for France and Spain as they are saving us a lot of time versus waiting in every toll booth lineup up!

The lanes on the far left are for the transponders 🙂

July 28th was Ryan’s birthday so it worked perfectly to be in San Sebastián that day since the city is considered one of the dining capitals of the world. Ryan had several awesome options for dining out on his birthday. He chose Akelarre, a 3 Michelin Star restaurant with 270 degree views of the Atlantic Ocean! We had an 8 (!) course menu. It was fantastic!

A fun take on suckling pig (a Spain specialty) with the discrete little pig pork rind

We also visited two mountains that overlook San Sebastián. They both have fantastic views of the area and kind of remind us of our visits to Catalina and Rio de Janeiro (in a small way).

San Sebastián is also known for its fantastic beaches. We walked along the three major beaches on a beautiful 80-degree sunny day.

We finished off the day by going to the historical center of the city and sampled pintxo tapas. We weren’t super hungry after lunch so small plates were perfect. Unlike US Tapas restaurants we have visited, the San Sebastián restaurants set all dishes on plates on a table. You just walk in and pick up what you want and then pay. This is pretty neat as you could try tapas from several restaurants in a night.

We have never seen a street xylophone and accordion combo. Ryan said that this reminded him of middle school general music where there was always a marimba concert each year!

We helped contribute to the economic solvency of the Chunnel (remember that case Kellogg friends?) by taking the train from London to Paris. We had just one day in Paris but will be returning for 3 days at the end of our time in Europe.

We had an absolutely wonderful day thanks to a co-worker/friend Ryan worked with 7 years ago who took a day off work to show us the city. Not only did she take a day off work, she designed a whole walking tour around different foods we wanted to try and several key sites we wanted to see. Wow – it was amazing – thank you so so much Marie-Odile!!!

To help offset a portion of the calories we were about to consume, Ryan and I kicked off the morning with a walk/run in Tuileries Garden (a park right in front of the The Louvre that overlooks of the Eiffel Tower). It was beautiful!

Our taste of Paris during the day included:

-Macaroons from Laduree, the original maker of macroons – these were incredible!
-Cake from Pierre Herme, known for its chocolates and beautiful cakes

-Tea from a historic tea shop

-Local cakes from the Brittany region (cake used loosely… Really they were just butter and sugar :)) + carmels (fleur de sel)

-Chocolates from Jadis et Gourmande Choclats
-And finally we finished off the day with Gelato

Marie-Odile led us through so many beautiful back streets which had incredible architecture. We visited multiple famous sites including Sainte Chapelle, Isle de Cite, Notre Dame, and the Jewish Quarter. I love stained glass (and actually used to make stained glass pieces… until work and grad school :)) so I particularly enjoyed Sainte Chapelle as it is comprised entirely of windows showing major books of the Bible.

Saint Chapelle

Notre Dame

We finished our day with a wonderful dinner at Le Violin de Ingres, a Michelin 1 star restaurant by Chef Constant (for you foodies). They had a surprise tasting menu. The food was fantastic… and Ryan was excited that the surprise nature of the menu made me try some dishes I would have never ordered. This included Foie Gras and Pigeon which were both delicious. The meal finished off with an incredible cream pastry covered in salted carmel sauce. Wow!

Since the restaurant was near the Eiffel Tower, we strolled by for a look at the tower twinkling at night. What a great way to end a wonderful day!

The next morning we picked up our car for the next month, and the car is great! We are “leasing” the car from the car manufacturer Citroen so it’s a brand new car. The lease is like a traditional car rental to us but offers the car manufacturer a tax benefit when selling to car rental companies. We’re now on the road in the Normandy and Brittany region in France.

More to come from these areas soon!