Spain Week 2: Madrid & Sevilla
This week kicked off in the best way possible - with a food tour.
Food Stops from the Tour
Two types of Iberian ham, Iberian loin, salami, chorizo, and extra virgin olive oil
We went back here right before leaving Madrid to get some jamón!
Deep-fried calamari sandwich & patatas bravas
Vermouth
Spanish Omelette, Manchego cheese, padrón peppers, steamed mussles, shirmps
Bartolillo
We were so full by the end of the tour we headed back for a much needed siesta before a smaller charcuterie Tuesday (iykyk) to end the day. After finally figuring out how to connect to Peacock we were able to watch Below Deck (where my Bravo fans at) just like a normal Tuesday back in Indy.
Madrid has so many museums to see we’ve been trying our best to space them out as we’re, here so Wednesday turned into Free Activity day. We started the morning at the Royal Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. Luckily for us, the first Wednesday of the month has a longer ceremony attached to it so we were able to watch for about an hour. There were lots of different groups in the procession and it was very cool to watch.
From there we headed back to make a quick lunch at home before stop number 2 & 3. The La Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando has free access before closing on Wednesdays so we walked around for about an hour and saw most of the museum. One of the floors was closed but we were still able to see a lot! After we finished walking through, we headed to the Navel Museum which was Steinar’s selection. This museum was also technically free but we donated the recommended amount of €3 per person. The space has lots of paintings, model boats, weapons and the earliest known map of the Americas. Steinar was super excited to see the Moon rock that was supposedly in the museum, but after searching for it we found out it had been moved to another museum (which is temporarily closed, of course) and was only the size of a couple grains of rice. We rounded out the evening with attempting to pick up a couple Too Good To Go bags - one of the restaurants was unexpectedly closed when we got there and the other one was in a food hall that had been blocked off for movie filming. Luckily we found a back door and took home a meat and rice dish with an orange vegetable we couldn’t identify (kind of like if a sweet potato and a pumpkin had a baby) - but it was pretty good! As we walked back to the apartment at 8pm we also passed the line for the Golden Disco! There were a lot of grandparents out on the town, dressed in all white and ready for a good time.
We ventured outside of Madrid for the first time on Thursday on a day trip to Avila and Segovia. We stopped at Avila first to see the best preserved city walls in Spain and I believe a finger of Mother Theresa is also there (?). We did a quick lap through the city to see a couple of the churches before heading to Segovia. We spent about 3 hours in Segovia and were able to see the Aquaduct, the Segovia Cathedral, and the Alcazar de Segovia. The Cathedral was massive and had a small art museum in the basement in addition to all of the art throughout the main building and the Alcázar had incredible views of the country side and a large garden in front of it.
After our lap around the city we headed back to Madrid and straight to our dinner reservations where we watched the Spain game. While we were surrounded by lots of tourists, it certainly made for good people watching. Unfortunately for us, we couldn’t celebrate the Spain win for too long since the game ended around 11pm and we had to be headed to our train the next morning by 6:00am.
We luckily did make our train with just minutes to spare due to a slight mixup with where our train actually was - there’s two platform 9s and at that hour of the morning we couldn’t figure it out. A chaotic start to our trip to Sevilla! We spent the morning walking around Parque de Maria Luisa and the Plaza de España (Star Wars fans where you at - Picture 1 below) where a massive festival had been set up. Then we walked toward the Cathedral and we met up with Megan for a couple days!
Unknown to us when planning this portion, Sevilla had decided to welcome us to its wonderful summer weather with a high of 106 degrees, so we tried to balance direct sunlight and AC as best we could. Steinar enjoyed cooling off with his #1 used spanish phase - “una cerveza por favor” (One beer please)!
After meeting up with Megan we headed to Casa de Pilatos to explore the different rooms and gardens (and stand in the air conditioned gift shop), and headed to lunch. As we cooled off at lunch, a pigeon also made himself at home in the restaurant popping around the floor. Later in the afternoon we headed to the Royal Alcázar and spent about 90 minutes walking around the gigantic gardens and parts of the building. It was massive and you could easily get lost for hours, but we were there right before close. We headed out to do some more walking around the city and grab a drink on one of the main streets. Later we ventured up a couple of blocks where we had a fantastic dinner at La Mocalova and walked under Las Setas during the light show. We ended the night with some yummy ice cream and headed back to get ready for day 2 in Sevilla!
After sleeping in a little bit in the morning to recover from the soccer game evening/train morning situation, we headed to the Cathedral de Sevilla. The Cathedral is giant with sky high ceilings with paintings and stained glass throughout the whole way up. We spent about 30 minutes walking around the main space before we found the remains of Christopher Columbus that are kept in the church, which was of the more popular photo stops for people on tours. It was then time for our tower climb to we headed over to start our adventure up 34 ramps to the top of the Giralda. The views were great but the space was pretty crammed so we didn’t stay for too long before venturing back down the ramps!
We headed to a late lunch (typically Spanish lunch time) at Taberna Coloniales and it was definitely one of our favorite places we’ve ate at so far. The service was great and everyone working was having such fun with each other. It was a little off the main tourist streets so the tables were empty of tourists, but ours quickly became fulls of plates. Everything we tried was delicious and the portions were giant for the price. After lunch we headed over the Palacio de las Dueñas for one last stop. It was a beautiful house and it was filled with interesting history of the families who had lived there. After Las Dueñas, we said goodbye to Megan (she thankfully drove us to the center of town so we avoided some of the sun), and walked around a couple more parks before our long and very toasty walk to the train station. Once we got there we were greeted by a 90 minute train delay (the train station was hot as shit, definitely hotter than the 100 degrees it was outside), but we found some water and snacks for the train ride and back to the apartment in Madrid we went.
So we thought - we realized our chaotic adventure home was far from over when we arrived back in Madrid. The city was alive for Pride!! There was excitement everywhere and the streets were full on our way home. It was so cool to watch the city so busy, but unfortunately for us our apartment was on the other side of main celebration which had been full closed off. Our walk home at 1am ended up being around an hour and we quickly fell asleep once we got back. We spent Sunday resting up for another full week to come!
Steinar’s additional comments throughout are in parentheses :) Back soon with Week 3 in Madrid which includes a few days in Barcelona and Valencia! We are catching up on our missing posts this week!! Only a few more days in Spain for us!
