September 12: Madrid & Toledo

Last night everyone decided that they wanted to go to Toledo for the day today so we took a half hour train ride out there. Toledo is a small fortress city that is surrounded on three sides by the Tagus River, which is the same river that Lisbon is on. It has a rich history and many different people have ruled the city throughout the ages including the Visigoths, the Moors, the Arabs and the Romans.

The city is also renowned for their sword making and their damascene ware (black steel inlaid with gold, silver or copper thread). When the taxis dropped us off at about 10 am in the center of the city this man immediately started talking to us about how the cathedral didn't open until 10:30 and that just down the road there was a cooperative of damascene and sword artisans, so being the tourists that we were we followed him to the site and got to watch someone as he was making some damascene brooches which was really amazing. 

After watching the craftsman for about ten minutes we went into the store and let the ladies shop around some.

The store also had a lot of swords and replica guns that my dad and I found fun to play with. We both really wanted to buy a sword and bring it home, but we both thought it would be too big a hassle to check it on the plane.

Once the women were finished shopping we headed to the Catedral (cathedral), which was now open. The cathedral was pretty impressive and as I was trying to take pictures of the façade I realized I had broken a cardinal rule. I forgot to check my camera battery before we left Madrid and I had left my extra battery in our hotel room, AARRGH!!!! But thanks to Auntie Shirley I still have some pictures to post. Once we went insde the cathedral it made you a little suspicious of the Catholic Church in some ways because of the opulence that it was decorated in and the magnitude of the whole cathedral. There were 54 woodcarvings all around the choir stalls and above the woodcarvings were alabaster carvings. Without trying to be too long-winded, the cathedral had about twenty little chapels around the perimeter of the cathedral; a Sacristia that housed paintings by El Greco, Goya and even one by Raphael; a Claustro which housed about thirty cloaks worn by archbishops throughout history; and a Tesoro (treasury) which housed many lavish artifacts that the church had used in the past including a three meter high monstrance that contains gold that was brought back by Christopher Columbus.

After the cathedral everyone was getting a little hungry so we found a restaurant called La Campana Gorda not too far away. They had a pretty good menu and I ended up ordering the Perdiz Estofada a la Toledana, which is stewed partridge and supposedly a local specialty. My mom ended up ordering Rabo de Toro or oxtail stew, which she had been looking for since we landed in Barcelona. The partridge stew was pretty good. It tasted a little stronger than chicken and the braising liquid was light and a little vinegary, which helped to enhance the flavor of the chicken.

The oxtail stew ended up being better than I had expected, especially since I am used to the Chinese style oxtail stews. This one was actually very flavorful with a lot of garlic, cumin and coriander as a base and the meat was cooked long enough so that it was fall-off-the-bone tender unlike the other European oxtail dishes I've tried.

Once we finished lunch we headed over to a tourist "train" that we had heard about that takes you around the city for just five euros. The tour was a little disappointing, but it was worth it with some of the panoramic views of the city that we saw (damn that dead battery!!!).

Once we finished our ride we headed back to the train station to go back to Madrid. Back in Madrid we wandered around our hotel and ended up finding a restaurant called Wagaboo which looked very trendy inside and it had a combination of Italian and Asian dishes, but they advertised hand-pulled Chinese noodles so we had to give it a try. All the chefs in the kitchen were Chinese, which calmed some of our fears and the food actually turned out to be pretty good. Even the Italian pasta that we tried was flavorful. It was a surprisingly good ending to our trip and now it's time to get ready for a 24-hour travel day.

September 11: Barcelona to Madrid

This morning I wanted to try and get some gifts to take home so I walked down to Mercat de la Boqueria and when I got there it was closed. So then I walked to Cacao Sampaka to buy some chocolate, but that was closed as well. It turns out that today is the Catalan National Day so most shops were closed. Once I got back to my room I finished packing up my stuff and then we headed out to the train station to go to Madrid. The three and a half hour train ride went by really quickly and the countryside we traveled through was spectacular. We went through some arid canyons with olive groves growing in them, pine forests, and villages that had cathedrals and buildings that looked centuries old.

Once we got to Madrid we took a taxi to our hotel, which my dad loved because our taxi driver drove a lot like him and we beat Auntie Shirley and Auntie Bev to the hotel by at least three or four minutes even though we left train station at the same time. After we got settled in we headed out to the Prado Museum to check out some of the art that Madrid is known for.

The Prado contains thousands of works of art from artists like El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, Caravaggio and Raphael to name a few (or at least the ones I've heard of). The two most displayed artists were Spaniards Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya. In fact the painting that was interpreted so much in the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, Las Meninas, was displayed in the Prado. As I walked through the museum and looked at the different styles each artist had I've found that I'm not as big a fan of the Spanish artists as I am of the Italian artists (with the exception of Picasso and Dalí). I'm no art buff, but the Spanish works seem more rough and they have a kind of dark quality that makes even the most pleasant scenes seem a little disturbing, whereas it seems that in the Italian paintings no matter how unpleasant the subject is the use of colors and lighting seems to soften the blow, and when there is an enjoyable subject it makes it that much more pleasing to the eye.

An El Greco painting

Once the museum had closed we headed over to Restaurante Sobrino de Botín for dinner. According to the Guinness Book of Records it is the oldest restaurant in the world since being founded in 1725.

They are famous for their cochinillo asado or roast suckling pig, so of course I had to try that and my dad got their roast baby lamb. Both were really good, but the suckling pig stood out in my opinion. The skin was extremely crispy and the meat was still really juicy.

Once we finished dinner we grabbed a taxi to take us back to the hotel, but the driver didn't even know where our hotel was! He ended up dropping us off two blocks away, but I guess after the rich dinner we had the extra two blocks of walking was warranted.

September 10: Barcelona - Day 3

For our last full day in Barcelona we woke up early to head down to the Mercat de la Boqueria to browse the marketplace. The market is amazing, the aisles are pretty narrow, but there are hundreds of vendors selling everything from meats to fruits and vegetables and even nuts and sweets. If you're not familiar with the market the first time you visit it will seem like a maze of food stalls and vendors. It's definitely an experience you don't want to miss if you're in Barcelona. 

After leaving the market we went to a chocolate store named Cacao Sampaka for some hot chocolate. The owner of the store is Albert Adrià, renowned chef Ferran Adrià's brother. The chocolate was really good and rich, and the consistency was almost like pudding but just a little bit thinner.

After we finished our hot chocolate we went back to the hotel to get Uncle Phil and Auntie Bev and then we headed to the Picasso Museum. At the museum there was a special exhibit on Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas, which included a bunch of other artists' interpretations of the subject including Dalí, Goya and of course Picasso. 

The permanent part of the museum consisted of Picasso's works throughout his lifetime and they covered each of the periods in his life. I hadn't realized that later in his life he had even dabbled in ceramics, some of which were really incredible. Unfortunately they didn't allow us to take pictures in the museum so the pictures I did take are not centered.

I hadn't been feeling real well the last couple of days and it came to a head after the Picasso Museum so my dad and I walked back to the hotel where we rested the whole afternoon. The rest of the group ended up going out for tapas at around 5:30 or so. At about 8 we headed back out to visit Gaudí's building La Pedrera (the stone quarry) because admission was free after 8 for all the museums in the city for some festival or something. The roof of La Pedrera has some pretty cool sculptures on the top and there's a lot of stairs, especially for a rooftop.

After that we were going to try to go to Casa Batlló, but the line was around the block and they hadn't even started letting people in, so since I wasn't feeling that well I decided to head back to the room while everyone else went to the Palau Nacional de Montjuïc (National Museum). Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

September 9: Barcelona - Day 2

Casa Batlló
I thought that since we were off the ship and my bed in the hotel is relatively comfortable I might be able to get a good nights sleep last night, but no. I woke up at 6:45 am and my back was killing me, granted I have a low tolerance for pain, but it still sucked. Anyway, Auntie Shirley wanted to go out and get some breakfast so my mom and I went with her to try and find the famous churros and chocolate of Spain. We went to a bakery about a block away from the hotel and unfortunately we should have researched a little more. The churro was more like a French pastry (and not a good one) and not a donut and the chocolate was like regular hot chocolate, not like the super thick stuff Spain is known for. Not only was it not the authentic food I expected, but it cost an arm and a leg. After breakfast we went back and got everybody else and hopped back on a bus tour. 

The tour today went to the northern part of Barcelona and covered more of Antoni Gaudí's works. Our first stop was at La Sagrada Familia. Gaudí started construction on the Temple in 1882 and they have been working on it ever since. 

The tour guide said that during his lifetime Gaudí only finished about 15% of the project and currently it is about 60% completed.

After La Sagrada Familia we went to Park Güell where Gaudí lived before moving into La Sagrada Familia. The park was originally a real estate development, but only one house was built (Gaudí's) and the project never took off. 

The park has some beautiful fountains and sitting areas that are very unique and it has a great view of Barcelona.

After Park Güell we got back on the bus and headed back towards the hotel and looked for a place for lunch. Everybody wanted to eat close to the hotel and the only restaurant I had researched was a high end one named Casa Dario. It was a Galician seafood restaurant that was a little bit expensive, but it was good. 

I had some grilled langostinos or prawns, my dad had some monkfish in a lobster cream sauce (baudroie a la crème de langouste), and my mom shared a seafood paella with Auntie Bev. 

The best dish in the group though was Uncle Jim's sautéed cod in a tomato sauce. After lunch we headed back to the hotel to relax for a few hours and then we headed out at around 8:30 pm to wander. We walked from our hotel down to La Rambla and spent some time browsing the area. 

It was a pleasant way to end the day and I'm really looking forward to a good night's sleep (finger's crossed).

view from the top of the hotel, Casa Batlló is the brightly lit building in the middle left of the picture.

September 8: Barcelona - Day 1

Well, we are finally off the cruise ship. Compared to the previous two cruises I've been on, this one was sub-par, not to say that it wasn't fun, it was just not as good as I was expecting. Maybe I had cabin fever, but I was about ready to go home, and then we stepped out into Barcelona. I'm still pretty homesick right now, but being in a beautiful city like Barcelona eases the pain a little bit.

By the time we got to the hotel it was about 9:30 in the morning and still too early to check in so we dropped off our luggage and caught a city sponsored bus tour. The tour was nice because you could get off whenever you wanted and they had enough buses running that you could get back on in about 3-5 minutes. 

The first time we got off the bus was at Mont Juïc, which is where a lot of the Olympic events took place in '92. After that we rode the bus down around the port area and out to Port Olimpic where they held the sailing events. Then we circled back around to the downtown area and got off the bus in the Barri Gòtic or the Gothic Quarter. We wandered around for a little while and then decided to head to Barceloneta, which is down by the port, for lunch.

We ended up going to a little place that had no signs whatsoever, but it was called La Cova Fumada. When we first got to the restaurant most of the tables were taken, but we were the only people waiting to be seated. By the time we left all the tables were stuffed to capacity and the bar was shoulder to shoulder. There were probably 15-20 people waiting outside the restaurant.

We had a huge selection of tapas style dishes including potato "bombas," garbanso beans with garlic, garlic toast, tomato toast, grilled mackerel (barat), grilled squid, grilled octopus (pulpo), chorizo sausage, sautéed cod or bacalao, salt cod fritters (buñuelos de bacalao), beef cheek stew (cap i pota) and finally some mushrooms sautéed with garlic. 

bomba

bacalao

cap i pota

barat

The whole meal was amazing, it was probably the best meal we have had on the trip. It's always a good sign when you're the only tourist in a restaurant, even when they are packed to the gills. After we finished lunch we walked back to the Barri Gòtic and caught the tour bus back to our hotel.

buñuelos de bacalao

octopus

September 6: Tangier, Morocco

When I think of Morocco my mind automatically goes to couscous, tajines, crowded marketplaces, and Humphrey Bogart. Well, I would have to say I think my mind was right. Even though Tangier is probably outside of the norm for Morocco, given its proximity to Spain, the stereotypes seemed fairly true for our daytrip. First, we drove around Tangier towards the high-end neighborhood of California. The residences here are huge estates and the owners include the Governor of Tangier, the current President of Morocco, Mohammed VI, and a prince of Saudi Arabia. Once we had finished looking at all the extravagant estates we headed outside of Tangier to the Cap Spartel, which is supposedly the most northwestern point of Africa and it is also where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea. 

We spent a few minutes there and then we drove to the Grotte d'Hercule or Caves of Hercules where Hercules allegedly died after separating Gibraltar from Africa. Inside the Caves of Hercules there are several places where you look out into the water and one of the openings looks like a mirror image of the continent of Africa and the island of Madagascar and at another opening there is a rock whose silhouette looks like the head of a lion. One chamber off of the main cave has round carvings in the rock where they quarried circular millstones. After the caves we headed back into Tangier for lunch. Originally I was disappointed because September is the month of Ramadan in Islam and Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset during the entire month, so I wasn't sure if we were going to get to eat much local food. Luckily our guide took us to a place that was pretty good despite being touristy. Our Lunch was family style and the entrees were very tasty. we had a preserved leon and chicken tajine, a couscous with a chicken and vegetables, and chicken pastilla, which is like a Moroccan phyllo pie. The preserved lemon and chicken tajine was the best. The chicken was moist and tender and the sauce went well with bread or couscous.

The chicken on the couscous was a little dry, but the couscous itself was better than i've had back home, it seemed lighter and the grains seemed more fluffy.

The pastilla was interesting in a good way. I had read that it is usually a layered pie that can be quite thick, but this one was pretty thin and all the filling seemed to be mixed in together. The pastry sheets were really crispy and light and the filling was flavorful, but the powdered sugar and cinnamon they sprinkled on the top make the dish a little too sweet for my taste, but it was still really good.

After lunch we walked around the Kasbah or fort for a while, then we went into the Medina or old town and walked around some of the shops and the market or souk.

The market was packed and just walking around was a chore, but I guess that's kind of what I expected. There were vendors selling whole goats and lambs, fresh fruits and vegetables, preserved lemons, olives, dried figs and dates, breads and crepes, and various other foodstuffs. 

Once we exited the market we met up with the minibus and headed back to the boat. For the most part Morocco was just as I had imagined it, even if I didn't see Humphrey Bogart.