by Jim Bellomo | Oct 12, 2024 | Food Experiences
We woke up and found everyone here! Yeah! It was fantastic to walk into the breakfast room downstairs in our hotel and see the whole gang. We hadn’t seen Jamie and Steve since they left for the airport in Norway in June, and we hadn’t seen Mike and Cathy since we sailed from Montreal to Miami a year ago this month.
I want to say right up front that the Hotel Preciados serves a fabulous breakfast. It’s just amazing. I could just eat the bread and the incredible jambon ham. Put that together with the outstanding coffee, and I was in breakfast heaven.
After we all got caught up and fed up, we decided what to do yesterday. Mike and I (as your tour planners) had decided to go light on day one since we would all be a little jet-lagged. The only thing we had scheduled was lunch at Botin Restaurant—the world’s oldest, continuously operating restaurant. Really. They have operated under the same family’s ownership since 1725. The building has been there since 1590 (Isn’t Europe glorious). Their other claim to fame is that the wood-burning ovens they use to make their signature roast suckling pig have never gone out during that entire time. This might be an excellent time to show you our food pics from yesterday (with captions, of course). It is OK to look at these on your phone because I took them with mine ?. This is all of them, from the few at breakfast to the incredible lunch to the tapas Mike, Cathy, and I had to finish off the day.
The Breakfast Room at the Hotel Preciados
Our waiter (who looked like he came with the restaurant) at Botin
The third-floor dining room.
Jamie and Steve
Kathleen and I with their beautiful handpainted pitcher.
Mike’s amazing gazpacho.
Kathleen had the lamb.
I had the suckling pig
Mike and Cathy split a flan
We split a Catalunya broulé
The Menu
An incredible eggplant dish.
Olives and Patatas Bravas at the tapas place Mike, Cathy and I finished our day at.
Once we were done with breakfast, there wasn’t much to do anyway as the skies had opened up, and the torrential downpour Mike and Cathy had experienced the day before while transitioning planes in Lisbon finally got to Madrid. It just poured! So far, the only thing I have forgotten is a small waterproof bag I use to shield my camera when wet. So before lunch, I wandered off to find a Googled photo store to see if they had something to keep my camera dry. I never found an actual camera store, but I found just about everything else in a nine-story department store. I settled for some small draw-string trash bags that should do the job.
After that, it was almost time to head to lunch (which I have already described), so we did that. Most of the group walked the mile or so to Bodin, but with Kathleen’s bad knee, she and I decided to take an Uber. The only problem is that yesterday was a national holiday in Spain and there were parades, crowds and traffic jams everywhere. (MASSIVE PET PEEVE: The Uber app says the ride is five minutes away. The Uber driver who accepts rides that are actually 15 minutes away and not moving.) We waited for almost half an hour before we gave up, canceled the Uber and got a Bolt (European rideshare company) that was there to get us in two minutes. But we made it, and that is all that matters.
After lunch, we sent Kathleen back to the hotel in another Bolt (lots more of those, so I will be sticking with Bolt in Madrid), and the rest of us went off to walk around the city for a couple of hours. We started at Plaza Mayor, which looked like it would have been very cool if there hadn’t been a big stage for a concert that afternoon. Hopefully, it will be gone when we return to our Madrid walking tour on Monday. After that, we walked down to the Madrid cathedral and palace. And, of course, on this walk, I took a lot of photos, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Bodin, the world’s oldest restaurant.
A nearby hostel Ilked the color of.
Steps leading down from Plaza Mayor.
Two upstairs doors just outside Plaza Mayor.
Beautiful buildings in the plaza.
The HUGE stage that blocked everything else.
Every square seemed to have an equestrian statue.
And Icarus was nearby.
On the way to the cathedral we passed smaller churches.
Some of them were very photogenic.
Some had beautiful gardens.
Others were just cool looking.
The street signs were marvelous and easy to read.
We finally reach the Cathedral.
I love this statue. It’s like he’s saying, “Eh! How you doing?”
The back of the cathedral facing the palace.
Two of the mounted palace guards.
A lilac apartment building.
A female palace guard—it’s about the damn time.
The blue crested sparrow is seldom seen with a red-topped chickadee.
The palace. They were having a big to-do for the holiday.
The front door of the cathedral.
Beautiful, aged copper.
Inside the cathedral had a MASSIVE organ.
And a beautiful altar.
With some great stained glass.
And the ceiling of the dome as well.
On the way back to the hotel I found a square with a line of statues.
And one big one in the center…with a fountain.
And this happy crowd getting their photo taken.
After our walk back, I reviewed photos until Mike and Cathy asked if we wanted to go out for tapas and a drink. Kathleen and Jamie decided they were done for the day, but the rest of us headed out and found a cool tapas place about a block away. Steve decided he was just too tired and not hungry enough, so he headed back. Mike, Cathy, and I had a marvelous time trying their food, and we drank a glass of Madrid’s favorite drink, vermouth. Photos of the food are above in the food gallery. After the tapas, Mike and Cathy went out to explore. On the other hand, I returned to the room to check in on Kathleen, changed into my walking stuff, and headed out to take photos. I wanted to get a sunset shot of the Temple of Debod. This is a complete Egyptian temple (built in the second century BC) that the Egyptian government gave as a gift to the city of Madrid to save it from being submerged when they built the Aswan dam in the 1960s. It was truly beautiful. On the way there and back, I got some photos I am very happy with. Here’s the place where you can check them out. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…
Returning from the tapas place I saw the sky was clearing.
On the way to the temple, I passed by this set of statues.
They depict Don Quixote, Sancho Panza in the front in copper and behind them the author who gave them life, Cervantes.
The Temple of Debod. My best shot on this trip…so far.
From the side.
Looking out across Madrid.
On a beautiful night.
And on the street walking back.
In a city that was just ALIVE!
Our hotel is straight ahead.
I want to make one last point about Madrid (and most other European cities we have visited). These cities are ALIVE! At night the populace is outdoors, walking around, eating, drinking, listening to music on the street…just living. In all our travels, I have found nowhere like this in the US except New York City and maybe Las Vegas. And the living goes on late. Last night was Saturday and we could hear crowds in the street below our hotel still going strong at 1:00 am. It’s phenomenal. Of course, they don’t eat dinner until 10:00 pm, so they have to stay up that late to digest their food ?.
Madrid is what I call home, but also the States. —Penelope Cruz
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 12, 2024 | Air travel
This is just a quick note this morning because I have some free time while Kathleen sleeps in. I am writing this in a small sitting area on our floor at the Hotel Preciado in downtown Madrid. Yesterday was an interesting flying day for the six of us, coming from different directions.
First, we are all on a group text we started about three months ago to plan and discuss tours and other stuff. And on flight days, it gets hectic. With Mike and Cathy flying out of Miami and Hurricane Milton hitting to the north of them, our group text got a lot busier, and we talked about flights a lot earlier than usual. Yesterday alone, we sent each other 297 texts between 5:15 AM Pacific time Thursday and 11:52 PM Pacific time Friday. I know. I just counted them.
We spent the first half of the day tracking our flights and planes. We used various websites and apps to see how our flight was doing and where the aircraft that would be flying our flight was at the time. If you have yet to use one of these websites, it’s worth it if you’re worried about missing connections or want to know when you should be able to get going.
Mike and Cathy started the day with their incoming flight being two hours late. On FlightAware, you can see your flight and its predicted departure time, but they also have a feature that you can click that says, “Where is my plane?” That shows you where the plane is that the airline has scheduled you to fly on. In Mike’s case, he tracked the plane and found it was two hours late leaving Lisbon (they were flying on TAP Air). This did not present a real problem for them as they were connecting through Lisbon, and if they missed their connection, they had a plethora (I love using that word) of choices on TAP to make the quick jump to Madrid. The end of their journey to Madrid got them in while we were in London, and Steve and Jamie were in Frankfurt.
Steve and Jamie, coming from LAX on Lufthansa, saw that their flight would be an hour late. This made things a little dicey for them as they were flying LAX to Frankfurt and had only about 90 minutes between their flights. They were flying the furthest as well because they were coming from Southern California, going east of Madrid and then coming back west and south. Things really went south for them when they taxied out for takeoff at LAX and had to return to the gate due to a medical emergency on board. BTW: Did you know that when they remove someone from the plane for medical reasons, they have to search the cargo hold to find their checked luggage and get it off as well? I can’t even imagine crawling into the cargo hold of a 747, trying to find just one or two bags.
I just wanted you to see a shot of our texting. At this point, Mike and Cathy are in Lisbon, and Steve and Jamie just missed their connection in Frankfurt. We were in the air about to land at Heathrow.
When they finally arrived in Frankfurt (I am sure that Steve will comment if I mess any of this up—I am just working off our texts), it looked like they would make it to their connecting flight. They got to the gate of the connecting flight with five minutes to spare, but the plane had already closed the doors, and that was it.
The last we heard from them was that they had just boarded their flight from Frankfurt to Madrid. Mike and Cathy had just finished dinner and were headed to bed in Madrid, and we had just landed in Madrid. It is 7:45 am here in Madrid as I write this, and we are still not 100% sure they made it. But I am pretty sure they did since we would have had a text to the group if they hadn’t.
We were flying from Seattle to Madrid via London Heathrow. Our flight left at the latest. British Air has two flights a day from Seattle to London Heathrow, one in the afternoon around 2:00 and the other leaves at 7:45 in the evening. We last did the late one a while ago, but it worked better this time. But, strangely, you have your entire day before you even think about going to the airport. I got up, had a leisurely breakfast, drove into downtown Redmond for my weekly injection, walked six miles through Marymoor Park, went home, and had lunch with Kathleen. Then she went off to get her haircut, and I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed the house. We had waited to shower until that afternoon because we knew it would be our last for probably 48 hours or so. We were finally picked up by our Welcome Pickups driver for our trip to SEA at 3:30. I know that’s early, but we like to be at the airport for an international flight at least three hours early. Due to a Seahawks game in Seattle on Thursday night, the traffic was HORRENDOUS, and our usual 45-minute drive to the airport turned into 90 minutes, but we did make it.
I have kept this a secret from our group text, but it must come out eventually. While Mike and Cathy were slightly inconvenienced and Steve and Jamie had massive scheduling problems, we had what might have been our best flying day ever. And a lot of it was in our control.
We (OK, I) had decided that since we were flying at around 8:00 p.m., I would stay on my usual schedule as much as possible. That meant that I would not eat dinner on the plane. You pay for Business Class, so you should at least get to eat the meal. So we ate dinner in the Business Class lounge at SeaTac. It was snacky-type food, but they had a nice salad bar, some good sandwiches…and cold water. You see, another thing I had decided not to do was drink alcohol on this flight. I have been reading a lot on the best ways to avoid jetlag, and one of the biggies is no booze. We ate dinner at our usual time (around 5:30) and boarded at 7:45. I had a very nice mocktail and told the flight attendant I was skipping dinner to wake me for breakfast, and I got out my Kindle and started reading my current book. Please note that I did not turn on the plane’s entertainment system. I knew that if I did, I would find a movie or TV show I would get hooked on, and that would prevent me from sleeping.
And it worked. I reclined the seat to flat, pulled on a blanket, read my book until I felt tired, pulled on the provided eye mask and went to sleep. The next thing I remember was six or seven hours later when the flight attendant woke me for breakfast. I got to sleep for a good six hours, and that’s about as much as I usually sleep at home. Kathleen didn’t quite do as well, but she did get some sleep.
Another thing that was different on this trip is that due to Kathleen injuring her knee (she is going to physical therapy) and the size of the airports we would be traversing, I asked British for a wheelchair for her. She didn’t need it (and we didn’t use it) at SEA, but it was a godsend once we got to Heathrow. Moving through any airport can be a pain, but it is a total slog at Heathrow. On the plane, we were met by a very lovely young lady who got Kathleen off the plane and up to the gate, where she was transferred to a cart-type conveyance that took her and six other wheelchair flyers to passport control. I got to walk an entirely different route to meet up with her at the other end of the trip through the airport just before we got to passport control. The only hold-up was that we had to stand (Kathleen sat) through the regular security line, but once we were through that, we were dropped off in the Business Class lounge for our terminal. Before he left, our wheelchair attendant wrote down our table number in the lounge so they would send someone with the chair to that table when it was time for our next flight (to Madrid). That lovely person came and got us and took us to the plane, where we were the first people on board.
When we got to Madrid, the experience was truly unusual. As we were about to deplane, the flight attendant motioned us to wait in the first row of seats. A few minutes later, they opened the door on the other side of the plane, and there was a lift truck with ten seats in it pulled up right to the plane. We got on (with another party needing assistance). They lowered us to the ground and drove us about 100 yards to a door where we were met by another man with a wheelchair who took us through a bunch of doors to another place where we could get a different attendant. Then we went through passport control and a short walk again and got into another van. That van took us on a 20-minute ride around the airport, driving all over the runways, behind planes up and down tunnels. If you had asked me to find that route again, I could not have done it in a hundred years.
But the end was great. Our luggage made it, our driver waited, and after a 40-minute drive, we were at our hotel in downtown Madrid.
I took a break there for breakfast, and everyone was there! We all made it. Now for a leisurely day in Madrid. Lunch will be at Boudin, the world’s oldest restaurant. I will let you know how it is tomorrow.
I hate everything about airports, from getting there to taking off. —Honor Blackman (the woman who played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger)
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 10, 2024 | Air travel
Kathleen and I are sitting in the British Airways Business Class lounge at Seatac. We just had a nice bite to eat, and we are waiting to board the first flight that will take us to London Heathrow. From there we change planes to fly on to Madrid.
So far, we are the only ones in our group of six who have been on time (we hope to stay that way). My brother Steve and his bride Jamie are coming from Southern California via LAX, and their Lufthansa Frankfurt started an hour late, got halfway to the runway where they were to take off and had a medical emergency and had to turn around and go back to the terminal so they could take the person off. Their plane finally got in the air almost two hours late. We hope they connect in Frankfurt, which was only 90 minutes to start with. Luckily, Lufthansa has three other flights down to Madrid tomorrow, so they should be OK.
Our friends Mike and Cathy live in South Florida, and even though they were south of the hurricane, they were worried that Miami airport might close. The good news is that their nonstop flight to Lisbon and then on to Madrid on TAP Air (the national airline of Portugal) made it out, but they were two hours late. Mike thought they might also miss their connection, but that would be OK as TAP has flights to Madrid about every hour.
So, if everything works out for us, we will be in Madrid at 7:55 tomorrow night (which is 10:55 tomorrow here in Seattle. Wish us luck. We have a three-hour layover at Heathrow, which I consider enough. More on Saturday. And hopefully some photos, but it’s supposed to rain, so we shall see.
Seems like half my anxiety dreams are about airports. —Lois McMaster Bujold
by Jim Bellomo | Oct 3, 2024 | Uncategorized
It’s been a while, but I wanted to let you know to get ready for a plethora of posts as we leave for Europe a week from today. I know—we are going to Europe again. In our defense, when we were there in June, we were just up north in Scotland, England and Norway. This time, we will be heading south to Spain and Portugal.
Last October, we sailed on Oceania’s Vista from Montreal to Miami. On that trip, we were joined by our good friends Mike and Cathy from Wellington, Florida, my brother Steve and his wonderful bride Jamie from San Juan Capistrano, California and our good buddy Jocelyn Hartwell from Chelan, Washington. Sadly, Jocelyn won’t be joining us for this adventure, but the six of us (Mike, Cathy, Steve, Jamie, Kathleen and I) will all be back together. (Just an aside, Mike and I were talking about three months ago that we should always vacation together in October, so next year, we are cruising the Columbia River, and in October 2026, we will cruise the Great Lakes.)
As I mentioned, a week from tonight, we will board British Airways flight 48 from here in Seattle, non-stop to London Heathrow, where we will have about three and a half hours to either rush or relax (depending on how late our flight from Seattle is) before we head south to Madrid, Spain. Although we have been to Spain before, all our visits have been on the Mediterranean coast, where we have visited Tarragona, Barcelona, Málaga and Valencia. But this will be our first time in Spain’s capital.
We are in Madrid from October 11 until the 16th. During our stay, besides seeing Madrid, we will go on day trips to Segovia and Toledo. Since we are traveling with the king of shore excursions and tours, Mike Preisman, we will be on some of the best tours in all of the Iberian peninsula.
After five full days in Madrid, we will catch a plane to hop over the mountains to Lisbon, Portugal. From the time we land there and for the next ten days, we will fully enter the world of Viking River Cruises. We will spend two nights in Lisbon and then board a “luxury motor coach” for a ride north to Portugal’s second city, Porto, where we will board the Viking Torgil for a six-night cruise up and then back down the Douro River. From the riverboat, we will do excursions to Salamanca, Spain, as well as Regua, Barca d’Alva, Pinhão and Lamego, Portugal. (See the map above–you can click on it to enlarge it) We are sure to have fun, food and a great time!
After we are off the cruise in Porto, we are taking a private airporter-type coach south and back to Lisbon, where we will spend another four days at one of our favorite hotels—Hotel Portugal (really original name ?). On the 29th, we will board a flight back up to London Heathrow, where we will spend the night at an airport hotel before flying home the next day. So this means we are gone from the 10th to the 30th! It will not be quite as long as last June, but it will still be long enough for us to have a great time.
This post tells you only a bit because I plan to blog as often as possible. So get ready for another bunch of posts with photos. Of course, as always, my posts will be totally dependent on Wi-Fi. That means good coverage when we are in hotels and, who knows, what we will get on the boat.
In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world. —Federico Garcia Lorca
by Jim Bellomo | Aug 29, 2024 | Uncategorized
