NH Principe de Vergara Madrid

... something that smelled familiar. I ignored it. Until I overheard him explain kokinisto to someone as a "Traditional Greek Dish." I have to say that I was impressed with a Greek guy traveling, let alone cooking, let alone cooking kokinisto. We struck up conversation and I found out that he is Greek, from Athens but lived the last bit in Vensezuela and traveled back and forth as a flight attendant. He left there ...

... Megg arrived - YAY!

I was quite jet-lagged so it took me ages to get to sleep, plus we had a few inconsiderate people who talked really loud AND closed the window of a 12 bed dorm in the middle of a hot summer night - the room was SO HOT! So I slept in and hung out with Laura and Seho (who was melting in the heat - he just keps saying 'Oh, its sooooo hot..'. We wandered the streets, go ice creams, looked in the nice air-conditioned shops and went back for ...

... which was nice for us. On our first day in Madrid we were walking around trying to find things to do when this Italian woman comes over to us, asks us if we speak Italian, and proceeds to give us 4 tickets for a bus-tour of the city! (Italy must love us!) We found out that the tickets were like 17 euro each so we were grateful that we got them for free! The weather was beautiful and we sat on ...

... Tapas, we also tried seafood Paella rice. It was fair, but more expensive and of a poorer quality than the Paella we had in Barcelona.Overall, we found Madrid's architecture rather boring and unimpressive. The city is located on the Spanish highlands, somewhat in the middle of nowhere--a bit like Denver. There seems to be little of outstanding interest in the city. We sampled the nightlife and clubs, but found them lacking in general and quite inferior to other European ...

... dos (Valley of the Fallen) each day. I had visited the Valley of the Fallen during my last trip to Spain, but I did not get to see all of it. The last time I was there, there was a wedding being held in the basilica that night and I had to rush through it. The Valley of the Fallen is about a 15 minute bus ride from El Escorial. It was built during 1940-1959. The facist dictator Francisco Franco commisioned it. It is his final resting place along ...

... just like if we had not seen each other for a few days and had to give the last news... In the evening Ana joined us with a friend and we went out for more tapas and red wine, absolutely brilliant! I love beeing back to European food and healthy beverages !!! It IS strange to be back in Europe however, although I am still in a spanish speaking country... I had been thinking over the past few weeks about going home, seing ...

... and they´re all pretty nice. Instead of going to the Prado museum, we went to the Palacio Real today. It was beautiful, and full of rococo designs. I took pictures and will post them as soon as I can figure out how to do that from the road. Then we ended the day passing by Madrid´s famous stature of Cervantes and his creations: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Afterwards, we are a three course dinner at a little restaurant ...

... and you would probably recognize some of his works.) Next, we walked to El Prado, which is an amazing classical art museum. It's only a few blocks away from the contemporary art museum, and the walk is very pretty because you walk past a big botanical garden and it's just a very pretty area of town because it houses such important buildings. The Prado museum has a much more public appeal because classical art is much easier to understand if you have never studied art ...

... power of the crown of Spain under divine guidance. The palace is home to one of the most well stocked libraries in the world, but most importantly, the palace is home to the royal crypt. Begininng with Carlos V, every king but 2 has been buried in this room. The room is so very ornate in style that words are not necessary to express your reverance for the most important figureheads of a country as great as Spain. In addition to the crypt, there are many rooms for royal ...

... never failed me. Even in Portugal, where I couldn't understand the language, I never got lost. But here, where I can at least pronounce the names of the streets, I actually had to get on the Metro to get back to somewhere familiar. In fact, I almost walked out of the area covered by my map! If I'd gone one more block, I wouldn't even have been able to the use the map anymore. Anyway, I have a few more (unexpected) days here, and that ...