Spain Day 9 - One Week Late

Ok, the last day of my trip to Spain became more of an adventure than it needed to be but not because of anything much from Spain, but what had happened at home.

I had a flight scheduled to take off at 1:55pm Spain time and that meant I was to take the 10am shuttle van from the hotel to the airport because that would only cost me 8Eu rather than the 35 or so it would be for a taxi. I woke up early and decided to eat breakfast at the hotel to kill some time before getting fully packed and heading to the lobby to check out. That was quick but they apparently didn't have a van ready for me for some reason so the hotel paid a cab to drive me to the airport. The driver was a nice guy and I tipped him a couple Eu because I felt generous. Madrid airport apparently separates the US international flights from the rest of the international flights but they won't let you to the gate areas until around an hour before departure. Check in and all that was fairly simple but I had to wander around the airport for a while to kill time before I could get to my gate. For whatever unknown reason though the plane took off at least 45 minutes late even though we started boarding on time. This was the single most disorganized boarding process I've ever seen. It was terrible. So with the late departure the basically uneventful flight arrived in Boston over an hour and a half late. I was seated next to one of the flight attendant's son.

When I got home I got a ride to my house by way of Flightline and found that the snowstorm on Saturday had knocked power out all over the place including my house. It had been out of power since Saturday and it was freezing when I finally got home (aside from being dark and having no water). I unpacked a bit and eventually tried to get to sleep but it was just too cold so I ended up driving to my brother's house to spend the night. And I had to do that all the way until Thursday when we finally got power back. The outage set me back a lot on getting things sorted out.  So that is why this post was late.  Anyway, I enjoyed Spain a lot. I wasn't sure going into it, especially with the lack of prep on my part but things sorted out well and I had a lot of fun. Aside from the bad weather day things were good.

Spain Day 8

So guess what. The time change happened here already. It happened last night at 3am back to 2am. That is good for the fact it was light out much earlier but it is bad for the fact I get to do it twice because the US happens next weekend.  Bleh.  In any event, I woke up and got cleaned up and headed to the Dunkin Coffee (it is not Dunkin Donuts here for some reason) across the street from the tourist place. I had a coffee and a chocolate donut which I forgot to take a picture of then headed over to the office to check in for the tour. Today was the monastery of El Escorial. The tour was actually a combination of 2 tour groups. Those just going to El Escorial like I was an then a lot of people who were going to do a Toledo tour in the second half of the day.

The drive was about 40 minutes out of town back towards the mountains. El Escorial is a 16th century monastery built by Phillip II. The idea was it was going to be a tomb first but I guess he decided along the way it could be more than that and he built up a monastery, cathedral and residence in the location. In its time there was no supporting town because the king wanted his privacy so everyone was kept far away. The theme of the monastery was St Laurent who was tortured by being cooked on a grill as a martyr so the there is a theme of looking like a grill that is present in the monastery. The building is quite large and unfortunately no where in the tour did we get a good place to take a picture of the whole edifice. I would have liked that opportunity. On the outside I suppose it is the size that is really what is impressive about it. It has the look of a very large French style palace but without any adornments or at least very little. In that sense I guess it is not picturesque.

Because it was Sunday the tour started in the Library while they had services in the Cathedral. Apparently it is still an active library for the monastery which is still active with Augustinian brothers. The books are kept spine to the back so that the pages have more ability to breath. They do not get much humidity so the books are well protected. The entirety of the monastery's decorations inside are Italian in style. Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed and I didn't get a chance to find a good book of the site so I will have to go without. The inside did remind me of a lot that I saw in Rome and was very much distant from the dark lesser adorned cathedrals I had seen so far in Spain.

I was apparently the only person in the tour who required English which made things a touch difficult at first because I think the guide wanted to dispense with a bilingual tour but I ended up meeting Inez and Jessie who are both from Florida and they helped translate for me a lot of what he said that he didn't translate himself. Jessie apparently owns her own translation business and Inez works for her. They were very nice and very helpful and I had a lot of fun talking to them for the remainder of the tour. The tour moved on from the library to the cathedral which did remind me of the cathedrals I had seen in Italy and was much more bright and agreeable looking. The residence of Phillip II and his wife were built just off the church and we visited those next. From there we wound our way through their residential and show areas and then finally back out to a small cafeteria for a few minutes where we had coffee then on to the tour bus and back to Madrid by say 1:30. The tour was basically more interesting than this telling but without pictures it is probably not as good a story. I did like the place. Apparently a support town has been built in recent centuries and approximately 10000 or so people live in the vicinity.

After we returned to Madrid I ended up eating lunch with Inez and Jessie and we chatted until they had to move on the second part of their tour in Toledo. I obviously hadn't signed on for that as I had already done the full day tour in Toledo. We ate at a small tapas, cafeteria type place and had their menu of the day. For me I had their black rice (which is black by way of squid ink) and their roasted lamb chops. The rice was excellent and very tasty. The lamb was good but very fatty. They included a bottle of wine for us and we had an inlcuded dessert which I had flan. Inez suggested we have a carajillo which is a coffee with brandy in it and we all had one of those as well. It was interesting and the brandy must have been sweet because the drink was very sweet in flavor. As we finished it was basically time for them to rejoin the tour so I brought them back to the tour office and then headed back to the room for a pit stop.

At that point it was just past 3pm and I decided I would see the bullfighting ring by walking there. I knew that I needed to head up the Gran Via to Calle de Alcala and that the ring was a fair distance down there. I would pass the parks I was in on Saturday along the way so I really was retracing a fair bit. After passing the park I was basically in a not very interesting standard city area. It took me about 50 minutes or so to walk to the ring. It was of course closed probably because it was Sunday. All the same I took some pictures of it and the couple statues around it and then headed back. All in all the process took me just short of two hours and I think it was probably in the 3.5 mile range for distance based on my walking speed which was mainly my get somewhere speed since there was little new to see until I got there. For good or for ill it had gotten very warm out and I was glad I was wearing a short sleeve shirt unlike the majority of people out here. Aside from the rain my first full day in Madrid the weather has been quite nice. At times the breeze had a bit of a chill across it when it happens but I quite like that. I suspect today was in the 25C or so range. Upon returning to the room I basically wrote this then relaxed for a while before heading out to dinner early.

Being that I had to travel back home on Monday I decided to just head back to the Italian restaurant for dinner. I knew it would be a sit down meal and that it would be open early. I also knew it wasn't going to be too expensive so it all worked out for me. I had a more Spanish type lunch anyway so that requirement was fulfilled. At Pizza Marzano I had a beer and their calzone vesuvio which had spiced beef, pepperoni, green peppers, red onions and mozzarella. It was actually quite good though the spicy was on the tamer side. Still I really enjoyed it so I guess that was what mattered. From there I just headed back to the room to start the packing process in order to be on my way home.

Not a lot of pictures for day 8 but they can be found here.

Spain Day 7

Today I planned to visit the Palacio Real de Madrid. I wasn't sure what time it opened but I figured it would be later than I wanted. The night before I had been talked out of taking a walking tour of the city then having a tour of the palace after the walking by the guy at the hotel desk. He said most guests don't find it that good and it is cheaper to do it on your own or to even take the hop on hop off bus of Madrid to get the tour stuff. After I got cleaned up I just headed on down towards where the palace should be. I knew I needed to take a left when I reached the Plaza de Espana but I wasn't totally sure how long it would take to get there. I reached the Plaza de Espana with it still being too dark to take any good pictures of the couple monuments there so I kept on past it and down the hill further. I eventually came to the Jardines de Sabatini which is on one side of the palace. I knew it was still early so I walked through them a bit. They were more in the Italian style as a landscape garden rather than a flower garden type. After that I walked up and around to the side of the palace where I found another park that was completely covered in litter. I suspect it was too early for the city cleaners to have gotten out to have picked up after the messy punk kids and thoughtless tourists. However it go there there was a ton of trash. From there I walked on through to the entrance of the palace to find out that it opened at 10am. It was still before 9am by a good deal at this point. So I basically wandered around for the time to kill. I entered the cathedral and took a couple quick snapshots but they were about to have a service and there were a bunch of nuns there as well as a camera crew that was going to shoot something happening there. From there I found the ruins of a Roman crypt being excavated. After that I wandered around without purpose to kill the time. About 20 minutes before 10 I decided to just get near the entrance and wait. People started to line up so I did as well. When the doors opened I bought the ticket, had to screen security and headed to the royal apartments first. I really must have moved quick. I think the few people ahead of me must have stopped right away in the gift/book shop. I managed to get more than half way through the apartments being the only non-security person I saw. Finally folks moving through at a quicker clip did catch up to me but I was happy to be in a royal palace and mostly uninterrupted for as long as I was. Unfortunately they had a no pictures indoors policy so I had to buy the book for that. They were fairly nice estate rooms most of which had been set up the way they are in the 18th century with some done in the 20th century. In any event I quite enjoyed the royal apartments and moved through them at a reasonably slow pace to look at everything. From there I moved on to the temporary exhibit of their clocks collection. I had noticed that some of the clock pieces referenced were missing and this turned out to be why. Apparently some of the former Spanish royalty had a huge interest in clocks so they collected a lot, especially from England and France.  It was a cool exhibit which might have been nicer if the clocks that had animations were displaying them. There was a movie that did so though. After the clock exhibit I went to the royal pharmacy followed by the royal armory. The armory was mainly a collection of armor owned and possibly worn by the Spanish kings.  It was nice but of course it was small, or smaller than many other collections I've seen. It took more than a couple hours to get through everything.

After the palace I headed up Calle Mayor and found the Plaza Mayor. I ended up eating a quick lunch at the McDonald's there mainly because I couldn't see any lunch places that had seats otherwise. There were a lot of people just sitting and drinking coffee at a lot of the cafes around. In any event I had the McNuggets meal with a coke and was out the door quick. After the plaza I headed up toward the Parque de Madrid and wandered around that. They had a largish boat pond and a couple other things but mainly it was a park that was just filled with people. I got a beer at a stand and watched the boat pond for a while then headed on to see the Palacio de Velazquez which turned out to be nothing but a museum with an exhibition for some awful looking paintings from some artist I haven't heard of. I of course am not good with art and maybe, probably, others think it looks good. In any event, I didn't go in. After that I found the Palacio de Cristal but that was closed for renovations it appeared. There was a lot of heavy machinery inside it anyway. There was a smaller pond outside it though and that had a fountain and a fake waterfall. It also had water fowl of various sorts and a bunch of turtles too which was unexpected. After that I just wandered the perimeter of the park and eventually because I couldn't find public toilets and it was getting urgent I headed in to the hotel, perhaps a bit earlier than I had intended. The weather remained beautiful all day though. I had basically done a giant loop around the older part of the city so far as I can tell. It really wasn't difficult to figure out at all. Since it was early I chose basically to make it just a pit stop and drop off the stuff  I had bought to lighten the load. From there I headed back out to see the Plaza de Espana in better light.

The crowds were already beginning to pick up but I did a quick run down to the Plaza and took a few pictures then headed on to Calle Mayor again. On the way I found a place for helados and had a dulce de leche ice cream which was good. From the plaza I worked my way back towards the hotel and then spent a couple hours watching another Japanese movie called Tajomaru which wasn't quite as interesting as Machine Girl though it was about samurai. After the movie I headed downstairs, booked a tour for El Escorial and then headed back to the Plaza Mayor (or perhaps the Plaza Santa Cruz depending on how bad I read maps) and found dinner sitting outside at a restaurant called Helgar. I had a set menu which started by my choice with a fish and seafood soup that was tasty but most of the fish in it (especially the shellfish) was extremely chewy.  The main course was a grilled Dorada which is a whitefish around here I guess. It was very good and fresh but there were a couple spots that weren't properly cooked. Being a sushi eater it wasn't a big issue for me but I should bring it up. I had two large Cruzcampo beers (it was my birthday after all) and finished with an espresso included in the menu. All in all it was a decent meal. Not bad for a totally tourist place anyway. Maybe a touch more expensive than it need to be. The beers were really too expensive comparatively to what I have been paying. The price of finding a tourist place which is more understandable. From there I headed back into the hotel and crashed for the evening.

The pictures for day 7 are here.

Spain Day 6

Today was another of the packaged tours, this time to Toledo which is south of Madrid.  I woke up at the typical time and got ready then headed out to find something like breakfast without having to spend 9Eu on a not so thrilling buffet.  There really aren't a lot of breakfast place choices so I ended up at the McDonald's down the street. I went in trying to order a toasted muffin and black coffee. The toasted English muffin showed right on the menu. I instead got an Egg McMuffin with bacon and a double shot of espresso. Not really being a fan of eggs I managed to eat it anyway. I guess it was similar to what I ordered though. It did have bacon. I would much have preferred a plain old cup of coffee but that was not in the cards either. The espresso was fine but just not what I wanted.

The tour departed on time and we had a bus ride south to Toledo. The landscape to the south was similar to what I saw heading towards Avila and Segovia except it was missing the mountainous rock formations.  Everything was still grey, yellow and brown. There were less trees also. The weather however was proving it would cooperate for the first time since I arrived in Madrid and we had sun the whole day and by the end of the day it was fairly warm too.  The bus ride had a brief stop outside of Toledo at a tourist trap rest area but I didn't really bother with much there as it was a shortish ride of maybe an hour and the place was crowded with every tour bus heading to Toledo when we got there.

From the rest stop we headed into town by way of a scenic road that allowed us to stop and take pictures at an overlook across the valley from the city. I have the feeling it is expensive to own a home around Toledo. Those on the outskirts are quite large. According to the guide, Magdalena, there are about 80000 inhabitants in Toledo. So it is not really a large city by any stretch. The city of Toledo dates back 2500 years in many various forms. The land was owned by the Romans, Visigoths , Arabs and Castillans throughout its history and there are buildings and ruins from pretty much all the various cultures. I will state that the tour was a series of visits mainly to churches. I cannot expect much else from the very Catholic Spanish. It started with entry in to the city up a long escalator installed in 2000 that brought us up to the city wall. The wall was 12th century if I understood the guide correctly. Some of it had been modified by the various inhabitants along the way. From the wall we walked in to the center of town where stood the cathedral. Apparently this one took 500 yeas to build and dates between the Gothic and Rococo periods. The front of the cathedral shows the Rococo influence. There are baroque elements as well. As with the cathedral at Avila it was not the most impressive church I've been to having that same never finished quality to it.

From the cathedral we walked to a small museum of the back of the church of St. Tome depicting a painting by El Greco of The Burial of Count Orgaz that is considered his most important work. Wasn't thrilling but I guess it was a good painting. From there we moved on to a synagogue that was built by the Arabs for the Jews in the 12th century then bloodily captured and made Christian in the 15th century. Now it is just a museum. Apparently though there are Jews in Spain there is not a true Jewish community here since they were driven out in 1492.  The Arabs were also driven out in 1492 incidentally. In Spanish history 1492 is a very significant point. The synagogue was not decorated much and was mainly empty. It style was definitely more Arabic. I thought it was an odd novelty and would have liked it a bit more without the Catholic work put into it. From the synagogue we walked on to a Franciscan monastery, the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes, that was built by command of Queen Isabella and dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The church here has the honor of being the church most used for weddings in Toledo. I will give it credit that it is bright and well lit and looks much less gloomy than most of the churches I've seen in Spain so far. From the monastery we walked to a small cultural museum on a nice terrace at the edge of the city. The former owner was an artist named Victorio Macho who donated the land and belongings to the city for display. I was mostly interested in the views of the Arabic bridge off the balcony. I liked looking down at the river from up there. At this point we walked down to the bridge and across it and then took the bus to our restaurant.

The place was named something like El Cigaralle or something like that. It is in reference to the types of homes that exist in the region. The big expensive ones I mentioned before. I assume this place was built into one of them.  In any event I had the typical lunch which started with water and wine and bread and olives. The first plate they gave us was a starter course of various foods. There was a couple of fritters of some sort as well as a couple slices of a tort or somesuch and a lot of mushrooms and a slice of cheese and some form of tomatoey sauce. I ate the stuff, it was all good. From there we moved on to the main course which was roast lamb shank with boiled vegetables and french fries. The lamb was extremely tender and just fell of the bone and melted in the mouth. Needless to say I really liked it. The veggies weren't so exciting and the fries were soggy. The lamb juices couldn't really save them. Fortunately I really wanted the lamb most so that is what I ate. There was a lot of meat on my piece too.  After the main course there was a cake with vanilla ice cream. The cake had many layers with different flavors on it. It was tasty and very moist. The ice cream was not as good quality as the day before unfortunately but I never turn the stuff down.  They also gave a small coffee included with the meal. I was quite full by the time we were done and headed on to the bus to get the people who didn't buy the included lunch in the tour back at the bridge.

After picking up the rest of the tour we headed up into the city to visit a small shop that shows how a specific gold and steel craft is made in Toledo. It is called Damascian if I heard the girl correctly. Basically they take gold thread and wind it into patterns then hammer it into place in the steel and then heat it to blacken the steel. The whole thing was an excuse to get you into a shop and make you spend money but I am not particularly interested in stuff like that, nor do I have the space for it so I had to just wander in circles until we could finally move out of there. Of course many people bought stuff. One Mexican man bought a Toledo steel show sword. Have fun taking that on the plane...

From the shop we headed to the Alcazar of Toledo. Like in Segovia the Alcazar is a palatial fortress. The term Alcazar can only be used on fortresses in cities apparently. In any event this Alcazar was destroyed in 1936 in the Spanish civil war and was rebuilt again in the 40s. When it was rebuilt it was made into the Army Museum. They intended it to stay as museum from that point on. Apparently in more recent years there have been many collection additions and it also home to what used to be the military museum of Madrid. The building is quite large and though destroyed some sections of it are original if restored. Some of it is fully rebuilt. According to Magdalena they tried to copy the original building as best as possible at least on the outside but concessions were made when building it into a museum. I was a bit curious about the story and she explained that the Alcazar of Toledo had always been a symbol of power in the region. In her words it was like to the world in its time as the White House is to the world in our time (I got her to concede that Wall Street is the real power though). So throughout the list of cultures that had inhabited Toledo over time all of them used the location for some form of stronghold or fortress. That Toledo is not really in any strategic location towards conquest must accentuate the importance of Toledo itself. She went on to say that when the civil war happened the rebels took hold of the Alcazar as a symbol of political power. The fact that they did not hold the rest of the city was probably bad for them but they wanted the symbolism more than anything strategic out of it. I didn't get great details on how it was destroyed but she did tell a story of an important man whose son was taken hostage and he basically let the son be killed than give up the Alcazar it was that important a symbol to both sides. In any event she said that the government has been trying to improve the reputation of the building because to many the Alcazar of Toledo is synonymous with the civil war. Obviously there are still people alive who remember it.  As such that is why the so many additions to the exhibits.

I should also point out that there were ruins of all sorts all over the city it is quite beautiful and I am very happy I made this visit and much happier that the weather cooperated. I would probably not have liked it as much in the rain. I also will use this moment to point out something I should have a while ago. The Spanish are further behind in their smoking cessation than even the French and Germans are. The hotel rooms are all smoking and people here smoke like crazy. I have eaten outside a lot and have not been to a true Spanish restaurant for dinner really so I am not sure if they smoke in restaurants. I wouldn't be surprised. The otherwise restaurants were non-smoking indoors so hopefully they at least have that law.

After the Alcazar it was an hour long bus trip back to Madrid where we disembarked at the tour office and I headed up to the room to rest and get this started before heading out to find food again.  We got back at about 5:30pm.

Seeing Madrid with a bit more sun from the bus I still think it has a grimy feel even if it is clean. I mean the sidewalks and buildings look stained and blackened a bit. I am sure that affected my belief that it felt dirty. I don't think it is a dirty city but it just doesn't fully feel clean either. During my relaxation time I watched a bizarre Japanese movie called Machine Girl. It definitely had a nod to the old Peckinpah days but was often quite amusing. After that I headed out to find food in the official Spanish time frame but really fell over on my back trying to locate something that didn't look to cafeteria style for me. I guess they must like that a lot. Tapas would make sense but it really seems a social food and I am solo of course. So I ended up at the Rong Hua Chinese restaurant where I had Chicken with Hot Pepper that had no hot pepper in it but at least wasn't sweet. I coupled that with white rice and a couple beers. It was good anyway. After dinner it was back to the room to crash for the night after maybe a short time kill to digest for a bit.

The pictures for day 6 are found here.

Spain Day 5

Today I was set up to do the tour of Avila and Segovia. The weather was threatened to be cold and rainy and I decided I should be prepared for it even if there were significant bus times on the tour. I therefore opted to bring an umbrella with me and I guess I am glad I did.

I started out first trying the buffet breakfast at the hotel which wasn't bad but isn't worth 9Eu. So I won't be doing that again even for the coffee which was from a machine but not bad. After breakfast I had to make my way to the tour office which is literally a 5 minute walk down the street. I think it is closer from this hotel to the tour office than the walk in Prague. This tour office is a bit more hidden but the girl at the desk of the hotel gave me great directions so I had no issues getting there. It rained pretty much until the tour actually started at 9:15 but when we got outside there was actually sun. This lasted for maybe about 25 minutes of the drive as we headed up into the mountains and then pretty much it was rain or overcast the rest of the day. The landscape around here is all shades of grey, brown and yellow on the rocky ground. There is a dark clay for soil it looks like and there are more rocks than back home perhaps. I would hate to have to dig around here. The shovel blade would be blunt in minutes.  The yellows came from the dried tall grass that is everywhere. They have a lot of conifers around here and some deciduous trees which did sprinkle in the green that was still overwhelmed by all the darker colors. I am curious how much different it looks out here in the summer. I hope it is more green. If not for all the rain I would say the countryside looks arid.

The first stop on the tour was the city of Avila, which is one of the oldest cities in Spain. If I understood the guide Andres correctly the city was formed somewhere around 2400 years ago. I am not sure if I heard him right though.  In any event it has a well preserved city wall from the 11th century that I suspect must have been reconstructed a couple times. It was beautiful but in too good shape to be completely the original. The guide said there were 88 towers along the wall. Avila was the birthplace of St. Teresa who formed the Carmelite monastic order. So we visited several churches that had a theme involving her existence. The church of St Vincent was where she was baptized I believe. We did not go in the cathedral but only walked the perimeter and heard a little bit about it. I guess it wasn't too stunning inside or it must have been too expensive to include in the tour. The last church we visited was the Convent of St. Teresa. It was built on the land where her familial house was. Apparently there is a chapel in there that represents the location of her mother's room in the house and therefore is the place where she was born. There was a lot of history about St. Teresa in this part of the tour. I'll be honest with you. I didn't know who she was before the tour.

After Avila we headed on to the bus and drove to Segovia. Segovia really is an old city as well. It has a Roman aqueduct that dates back 2000 years or so easily. That was supposed to be the first stop the guide brought us to but I guess we were behind schedule and the included restaurant was just down the hill from it so he brought us to the restaurant and dropped us off. It was called El Cordero I believe. I had the Gastonomic lunch which included a bottle of wine for the table, white bean soup (the beans were huge and it had smoked pork in it), roast suckling pig (they gave me a huge hunk), salad and bread. The pig was very tasty but the skin on it was very thick and hard and I didn't try to eat it. The dessert was a "Segovian cake" which tasted like it had rum in it and vanilla ice cream. That was followed with a coffee. Around lunch time I met Mary who is from Michigan, though originally she is from Hungary so far as I could gather. She was very nice and owned a spa in the richest town in Michigan, Bloomfield I think. She had been to Spain before and told me a couple things to do. So we chatted away lunch until we were done then I headed up the hill to see the aqueduct before heading on to the cathedral. Since the guide had dropped us off we were on our own to make it where we needed to be. I took a few pictures and climbed up along the aqueduct then headed toward the cathedral. I was among the first to get there even though I took the long way around. He told us to go into the cathedral and wait for a few minutes at the main altar while others came in. Even then he started his speech with less than half of the tour there. I spent the time wandering and taking pictures of the place while I waited. It is a strange place in the sense that the outside is Gothic but the inside is a mess of Baroque and Romantic styles that really make it unusual to any other cathedral I've seen. I can't say it was all that impressive as it was dark and not very decorative. The high ceiling of course is a feat but after seeing so many cathedrals it becomes sort of banal. From what I understand it was built externally then stopped for nearly 250 years when the construction resumed. I would guess financial issues. In any event it was interesting but kind of ugly.  From the cathedral we walked down to the fortress of Alcazar which has an Arabic name but the place wasn't really Arabian at all. It was a full on medieval style castle that overall had been kept in good condition but for a fire that happened in 1819 (might have been 1890) which damaged some of the wood work in ceilings. That was rebuilt according to the original plans according to Andres though so what we saw was basically what it looked like before the fire. It was fairly cool looking and I only wish the weather was more cooperative for pictures of the outside. In any event I liked it a lot. It had a nice series of views over the lower part of Segovia.

After the Alcazar we headed back downhill to the bus and then on the road back to Madrid. I think we got in about 6:15 which wasn't too bad. I was expecting and possibly hoping for a tad bit later knowing that dinner would be later for my standard and it meant killing time. At least it was not raining when we got off the bus at the tourist office. I basically headed back to the room and freshened up and wrote this in the time I had then headed down to buy a tour to Toledo for Friday. No not Ohio... After doing that I walked around for a few minutes and it was still terribly early for dinner in Spain, at least in Spanish places, so I opted to try Pizza Marzano which turned out to be a reasonably good Italian place. I had a couple Mahou Classicas, garlic bread and penne quattro formaggi. The food was tasty though the garlic bread could have used a touch more garlic to the flavor. That was basically enough for me to head in to the hotel and watch a Korean movie I had in my collection. It was strange but funny, called The Good, The Bad, the Weird. Ask me about it some day.

The pictures from day 5 are here.

Spain Day 4

My flight to Madrid was at 11:20am so I really didn’t put a lot of effort into getting up early. I wasn’t about to move around town when nothing was really open so basically it was clean up, pack up and eat breakfast. I basically had toast for breakfast along with orange juice and coffee. The buffet hadn’t changed much from the day before and I really am not into the cold cuts as a start for the day concept like most of these people seem to be. The fact the hotel is able to survive with how much the majority of people take is sort of surprising. I think they don’t expect to eat again until the next breakfast or something. In any event the whole morning was basically bland. After finishing up breakfast I went back up to the room and surfed the web for a few minutes before heading down to check out and get a taxi to the airport. It was only a couple minutes wait for that and I will say that she was the best looking taxi driver I’ve ever had.  Ironically I had female taxi drivers in both directions here in Ibiza.  Interestingly the cab fare was even cheaper to the airport ringing in at about 11.50Eu.  From there it was a quick check in. I don’t think Iberia does a lot of flights to and from Ibiza. The line was non-existent and the security check moved quite fast.  I did ring off the metal detector but I am not sure why. Either my buttons/zipper on my pants or perhaps my chain did it?  Never has before.  I was fairly early for the airport as is my usual. I don’t like to show up late. So I had a lot of time to kill before the flight. The airport was small of course and there weren’t a lot of shops to look at. I did find a book store with a really interesting non-clubber’s guide to the island and would have bought it if it was not a paperback for 26Eu.  That means it would have been in the range of $40. It was not worth that by any stretch. It did have history though so I read it for a couple minutes.  As I suspected there were all sorts of folks that lived here from pre-Roman times on. I am fairly certain it is that way for all the inhabitable islands in the Mediterranean.

Of course I was on the one flight that was delayed. The weather was basically perfect out so it was something causing the plane to come in late from Madrid. I think it might be the regional airline of Iberia that is perpetually late as that was the only late departing flight when I headed to Ibiza.  The flight was delayed departure at least half an hour. We were late for boarding for more than 40 minutes.  We also arrived to the airport at least 50 minutes later than scheduled. I can honestly say that this was the worst conceptual flight I have been on yet. Why? Delays are one thing but they must have surveyed the passenger roster and asked themselves which person dislikes children on planes the most and surrounded him with as many children as they possibly could. That person was of course me. They were loud and obnoxious from beginning to end of the flight. I realize it was only an hour and change on the plane but it seemed like an eternity. I really question why people travel with children under 3 years of age all over the world. One couple was doing 26 hours of flying to get somewhere they said. That with 2 children.  Basically the flight could not be over fast enough for me. It was not unpleasant by way of turbulence or anything though.  After we finally landed I was able to get my bag and get to the taxi stand and on my way to my hotel, the Best Western Atlantico on Via Gran. The ride was bearable and about 35Eu, so I guess it was cheaper than I was expecting. I always think the taxi is going to cost 50Eu.  Of course I would prefer not to pay for a taxi but I was not fighting with trains or buses by this point. 

The weather was a bit chillier than in Ibiza. Though it said it was 21C out there was definitely a chillier wind on the air (apparently it was 14C so the thermometer I saw must have been wrong) and it made sense that people would be wearing jackets. It also went from sunny to overcast during this flight so I may have left the good weather behind too. Check in was a snap and the hotel room is small but nice although I would prefer a view better than a very tight alley. I must be on the inside of the building which is a tad depressing. I got into the room at about 2:15pm without having had lunch. In theory I should have arrived around an hour earlier. I got settled in then decided I would have to forage for food. I was very hungry by this point. Foraging became walking next door to the Burger King and having a XXL Bacon Double which was probably more than I should have ordered. I didn’t see anything normal sized on their menu. I did notice the chicken tenders later but by then I had already eaten the burger. I will say that the burger was better than the McDonald’s fare a couple days before but that will be it for American fast food for me on this trip I hope.  They had Pepsi products to drink so I ordered the lemon soda which turned out to be a carbonated lemonade. Not at all what I was expecting. This was possibly the most busy Burger King I’ve seen in my life. Odd for about 2:45pm on a Wednesday how busy it was. There were people flowing through like crazy. The lines never died. I wonder if 2:30pm is lunchtime around here? 

After eating I decided to walk around a bit and see what I can see. I am going to reserve judgment on whether Madrid is a clean city until I can see it under the sun. I know I have an unfair assessment right now because it was cloudy and darker than it should be which makes all the building seem darker and the place in general more dirty looking. I did not see much trash on the ground. I can say that for certain. But things looked grimy probably because there was no sun. Plus they are starting into fall season now. It is a bit behind home as the leaves are just starting to turn it appears. That’s also going to make things seem more grim.  Overall I don’t think I walked very far but there are a couple main streets and a huge messy maze of side streets it appears. I am on one of the main streets of the city on Gran Via.  That means that in general it should be hard to lose my hotel. The fact there is a spider web of cross streets up and down hills and in all directions definitely does make it a touch more difficult though. I tend to like cities formed up like this though. I just didn’t feel like pushing too hard as it was getting later and the weather wasn’t looking like the dryness was going to hold out. After pushing around a little bit I headed back to the hotel room to relax for a while then consider trying out the bar/cafeteria at the 9^th floor a bit later on.  

First I headed downstairs and purchased a tour of Avila and Segovia for Thursday. It is more Grey Line Tours. I did these in Hong Kong and in Prague.  Obviously the ability for them to vary country to country is great but I figured I could take the risk and if I liked it I would book a couple more. After that I headed upstairs to the 9th floor. It basically turned out to just be a bar, and  not a busy one at that. I was the only person there for a while. I had two beers. The brand was Mahou (no idea how it is pronounced). The label said 5.5% alcohol. They weren't bad but nothing to write home about either. Better than a Bud or a Corona. It was on towards 7pm but I was still full from the BK and decided to just call it a night sans dinner. The late lunch early dinner was probably a bad idea, at least it being fast food was. I should have tried to find something more enjoyable. Giving up for the night I headed back to the room and watched The Mechanic which is probably the worst Statham film I've seen in entirety.  I will admit I haven't seen Dungeon Siege and don't intend to. But The Mechanic was basically nonsensical and didn't even have that much action. Not sure who thought it was a good idea. 

The pictures from day 4 can be found here.

Spain Day 3

I was able to start earlier than the day before by a fair bit after waking up and getting breakfast once again down at the hotel buffet. I managed to have less people there so getting toast for my ham and cheese sandwich was easier. I was not being blocked by the old guy again. Still it was basically the same except I swapped the plum for a tiny orange instead. I finished quickly and headed out. My agenda for the day was to find postage for a postcard for my nephew William, which proved to be tougher (or at least less intuitive) than I expected.  I had expected there would be a post office of some sort once the idea of perhaps having the hotel sell me postage and mailing it for me fell through. Apparently that is not the case. I had a map that suggested there were post offices somewhere. At least the map had pictures of envelopes on it so I assumed that meant post office. I didn't find anything resembling post offices where the symbols were on the map though. After wandering for about 20 minutes I gave up and figured I'd come back to the concept later. It was still around 8am or so and I figured things were still closed.

I opted to walk up the coastline to a beach area called Talamanca. It was on the map and probably not too far beyond what I'd walked out past the port the day before. It turned out there is a lengthy boardwalk that follows the beach. I walked along that all the way to the other side. It was very early so of course no one was out there in the sun. There was lots of sun but also a cool breeze. The humidity of the day before was missing as well. It was quite nice. Beyond the beach boardwalk was more rocky shoreline trails like I had found the day before. I figured that was my sort of thing so I just followed it out as far as it would let me. I am not sure on the distance but I think it took me more than 2 hours and 30 minutes at least to get to the furthest point I reached. I only turned around because it appeared I had hit dead ends on any trails I could find. There were some steep drops and a walled off area that basically prevented further passage.  I would guess I was at least half way to St Eularia (the next town up) by the time I turned back. I really didn't waste much time and just headed back into town to once again do the postage search. The weather was still very nice and breezy so I had a good walk back though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It had the potential to be really hot out if it wasn't for the wind.  Getting back in town I tried again to find postage and after asking around a couple times and failing I basically found the tourist office and they said to go to a tobacco shop across the street in a galleria and there I was able to buy postage and mail the card. I know why I don't like doing that stuff now.  It is certainly a lot of hassle. In any event it was basically 1:30pm by the time I had accomplished the task so I figured lunch was a good idea so I headed in towards where the cafes were and chose the Madagascar Cafe. Same menu different name. I had a couple more Estrella Damms and a toasted cheese sandwich which was open face. It was reasonably good at least.

After killing some time at the cafe I opted to climb back up to the Dalt Vila and look around some more. With all the sun it was going to provide different pictures than the day before I figured. Still it was basically a lot of repeating what I had done the day before and I didn't necessarily linger a ton in any specific area. It did give me a lot of uphill to walk as well as a lot of downhill too. I think my broken in hikers from when I went to Machu Picchu are now broken and I will have to get a new pair when I get back. The heel area of the upper has finally worn out and is starting to cause chafing. Bleh. In any event I am sure I will survive this trip with them. After wandering around for a while it was getting on past 4pm. I knew I wasn't going to eat dinner so early as the night before (or at least didn't plan to) so I headed to the hotel to rest my feet for a bit before I decided to forage for food. I thought it a good idea versus trying to walk around for 4 more hours without purpose.  I will say that I am not sure how much I would like it here if it was peak season. I am sure it would be overrun with hippy druggies trying to get the music vibe that is promoted around here. Fortunately all that ends by the end of September or  maybe early October it looks and the majority of tourists aren't looking for that. The scenery is quite beautiful though. I love the rocky ocean coasts a lot. The local architecture is probably very typical Spanish but quite nice. I need to do more research on the Vila so I can speak better to it. Unfortunately the Museum of Archaeology was closed both days I was here. I suspect it is closed for the off season. Couldn't see much else that would give me information.

Back at the hotel I started to write this up then basically relax for a couple hours. I decide to watch The Green Lantern. It was bad, but not as bad as I expected. Not an endorsement. It just could have been much more painfully worse. After watching it I moved my way on to finding dinner. But first I thought I would try to catch sunset over the island. I pretty much hauled butt to get to the top of the hill where Dalt Vila is and missed the actual sunset all the same. I suspect it is because the sun was behind some hilly mountains or whatnot to the west side of the island from Eivissa.  All the same there was a little bit of color to be seen. Since there were few to no clouds I should be happy I saw anything at all I guess. When I had filled of that I worked my way back downhill and then into the streets of the city where I found a restaurant named La Caracola not too far from the marina. It already had a couple people eating there so I figured I could risk it. I had a couple glasses of red wine and the waiter suggested the seafood paella which I ordered. It was good but the shrimp were whole and not deveined so it was a mild difficulty to eat. All the same the seafood was all very fresh and tasty. There was a ton of rice so I didn't remotely finish it. I ate quite a lot though.  When I had finished I settled up and headed back to the room for the night. I sort of wanted dessert but I decided to stay off it for the sake I already ate a lot and spent a lot. At the room I finished this up and pretty much took it easy until bed.

The pictures from day 3 are located here.

Spain Day 2

I started off late for me today but that was mainly because it isn't really getting light out until 8am. I find that strange since it is later than at home yet I appear to be in a near tropic area. They appear to be on DST also as they are only 6 hours off from us. Either way I chose to get up a bit late and then have the buffet breakfast at the hotel which was basically breads, hams and cheese, a few fruits and a small thing of corn flakes. I just had a ham and cheese sandwich on some form of multigrain bread.  I want to toast the bread but there was this old guy getting in my way every step, almost like it was on purpose (maybe it was?) so I just took my stuff to the table and ate it. I had the tiniest plum I've ever had along with orange juice and coffee. The coffee wasn't even terrible if it wasn't really very good either. I will call it passable.

After breakfast it was time to start exploring. I knew I wanted to heard towards the Dalt Vila location and figured I could do so by heading first towards the shoreline then up the hill. It sort of worked out as the shoreline was quite spectacular. It was a series of rocky areas that met the water with some very incredible views and a lot of good hiking around. I walked my way around the shore towards the Vila and took a ton of pictures. It was definitely not hot out but there was a humidity in the air. I'd say it probably got up to about 25C which should be about the mid 80sF.  There was however a very nice breeze out there most of the day and the sun kept hiding behind clouds at intervals to make things a little less horrible.  Certainly there were people dressed in jackets and sweaters here but fortunately there were also a lot of people in shorts and t-shirts too. I've gotten used to the winter clothes at relatively high temperatures out here in Europe but there were some people I can consider less insane here anyway. I'd say my tour around the shoreline might have taken an hour and a half to 2 hours by the time I turned into the Dalt Vila. The Vila is basically an old castle turned gun fort so far as I can tell. There is a cathedral on the top of the hill. I think if there had been a little effort to preserve the chronological integrity it would be quite stunning indeed. It is still very nice to look at even with the touches of modern sprinkled throughout it. I will forgive the cranes that are being used to help restore some of the buildings at the top as they mean it will probably look even nicer in the future. Basically I wandered through the fort until about noon when I had found my way downhill again. I chose to eat at Cafe Vila which was on the opposite end of the square from the place I ate at the day before. It was a small cafe and like most of them had a very limited menu for around lunch time. I ended up having to Estrella Damm beers and a ham and cheese sandwich which was actually quite good. I know, it repeated breakfast. Such is the breaks but there really weren't a lot of choices. The beer is actually Spanish though I suspect someone of either Dutch or German origin imported it into Spain many years back (it said since 1904 I think).  It wasn't bad if a touch sweet.  It had 4.8% alcohol.

After lunch I decided I would walk out towards the port area and maybe beyond. The marina and port is gigantic. I don't think I've seen a place with near as many boats as it has.  And many of them look very expensive.  I walked all the way around the port to the sea wall on the far end of the harbor then turned around and headed back into town. I will say that it is nearly impossible to get lost here. By the way, here is the town of Eivissa. It appears to be the largest city on the island if not the coolest.  When I turned back inland I found the downtown area of the city and wandered that for a bit. After I felt I had seen most everything I turned back towards the Vila and wandered around that some more. My intention was to try to locate restaurants for dinner but it was still moderately early by Spanish standards. I did a lot of climbing up and down the hill that the Vila is on and found a lot of places that looked very closed and perhaps like they were closed completely for the off season. It is the off season here which is probably why it is crowded but not overcrowded. I bet it is nuts in the dead of summer. There is no question this island makes all its money on tourism and the other businesses here only exist to sustain the tourism.  After quite some time of wandering I decided to have a beer at a cafe near the top of the Vila and kill some time. The brand was named Cruzcampo and it was also Spanish. I can say it wasn't terrible but I definitely liked the Estrella Damm more. The place did leave some to be desired as the service was terribly slow and the glass they gave me was quite dirty to the point I drank out of the bottle as there was no saving it. Still that killed some time for me and then I started wandering around a bit more. It was getting on towards 6pm which is still 2.5 hours too early for dinner here but I was feeling optimistic I could make it to then.  That is until it started to spit some rain. I am not really a late eater if I can help it. In fact getting to 6:30 is basically late for me to eat. Once the rain started I chose to cut my losses and walked to the McDonald's to get a quick dinner and then head into the room. I wanted to try something authentically Spanish but I fear that might have to wait until Madrid as I had not spotted a lot of restaurants that might be open out here.  In any event, I had a McBacon menu which means a burger with bacon and what tasted like cheese-wiz on it. It was not awful.  I followed up with a soft serve ice cream sundae which I ate walking back to the hotel. It had stopped raining while I was in the McDonald's but started to pick up again while I was walking back. Traffic also seemed to be picking up as I was walking to the hotel. It had been relatively normal all day that I had been out but there were definitely more cars out at about 7pm than at any other time I have seen. I assume that is normal for them. It also appeared that some shops that had been closed started to open around 6pm. I realize the island is known for a night life but I figured with it being off season that most of them just weren't going to open at all.  In any event with the rain I felt I would just head in and call it a day. It was a pretty full one anyway. Certainly many miles of walking.

Today's pictures can be found here.

Spain Day 1

The day started with a fairly early departure from Boston at about 12:30pm. Unfortunately the first flight was to Chicago O’Hare.  I do not like going backwards to go forwards but there were other reasons to accept this sacrifice. The flight to Chicago on a 737 was basically uneventful and the time in O’Hare really wasn’t bad.  I found a bar named the Prairie Tap and had a couple Sam Adams and a mushroom burger with cheese. The food was ok, though the burger was cooked more than I like, all the way to well destroyed.  By the time I was done I had to figure out where my gate was and of course it was basically one of 2 not listed on a giant departures board of over 50 (and probably more). I solved this problem by asking a girl at a desk for a different flight and she told me to go to gate K19. It wasn’t posted right away but a few minutes later it did pop up on their screen. Boarding was easy and the flight itself was a little bit bumpy here and there but not much to mention. I was stuck in a window seat but only 2 people on the sides as it was a 2 5 2 configuration. The plane was an A340. They had limited entertainment system and only showed one movie which was Mr Popper’s Penguins. I did actually watch it even though I am not a fan of Jim Carrey.  It was about what you would expect of it. Aimed for children and not remotely plausible and of course with the jerk turns nice guy ending.  All because of the penguins who touched his life.  Anyway it could have been much worse than it was. I was able to get through it which is more than I can say for The Green Hornet.  The meal was either beef or chicken and I tried the beef and it was like a beef stew with mashed potatoes. It didn’t taste bad but I think it negatively affected me because I was having stomach pains the rest of the flight.

Nonetheless I was able to survive and get off the extremely hot airplane into a cool hallway in one piece. I was of course deceived because the rest of the airport was as hot as the plane. I was also confused because it was nearly 8am and it was still very dark out. I wasn’t prepared for that. I was beginning to think I had my timetables wrong though it couldn’t add up any other way than just before 8am unless I entered an episode of Dr Who.  After disembarking I had to ride a tram to get to my checked luggage then exit the arrivals area and find the departures area. It was very early but I still had a flight to Ibiza to take at 12:35pm.  I figured I would have some trouble trying to check in as it was so early for that flight and basically I was right. There are boards that tell you which counters to check in with in Madrid Airport. The boards only went so far as 11:40 for a long time and I had to wander around to kill some time until I found a place to sit.  I chose to spend a few minutes jotting down the early part of transit to help kill the time better but I still had a lot of time to kill. They didn’t post where I could check in until about 2 ½ hours before the flight. Of course it was self check in.  That was fine because I bypassed a lot of lines. From there it was the brief tour through security which wasn’t bad at all then on to the get section where all I could find was that I was in the wing named K.  No gate posted. I walked to the end of K and found a departures board there and then found a spot to nap some more while waiting for the gate to post. It did eventually post to pretty much where I was but not until less than 45 minutes before the flight was supposed to push off. Of course that was because it was late. It turned out to be almost exactly ½ hour late.

The last leg of my flying was in a Bombadier CRJ200 which is a 50 passenger plane. There was one flight attendant on the plane but it was indeed a jet. We had to walk out onto the tarmac to board it and again to exit the plane. I’ll be honest, like a lot of these flight legs I slept through almost the whole thing. By then my stomach was feeling better somewhat which was nice. So basically I can say little about the flight except the boarding and disembarking procedures which were both quick. The airport reminded me a little of the airport at Cusco but maybe a bit nicer.  Getting my bag was quick then it was to the taxi stand where it took probably at 10-15 minutes to drive to the hotel. It is the Hostal Europa Punica.  With the word hostel in the name it sounds scary I guess but it turned out to be quite nice. Maybe it is not on a prominent street but the room is largish and clean and there is even a nice patio to sit on. Of course it turned out to be blazing hot with the sun (at least to a New Englander) so I wasn’t aiming for that right away. I of course needed to get settled in and cleaned up. After that I figured I would take a small exploration walk.

I really didn’t end up going too far before I found an area with a few cafes and decided to stop and get a beer and something to eat. It was practically 5pm and I hadn’t eaten since the dinner on the flight across the ocean. Unfortunately I think my stomach was still a touch messy. I had a couple beers which appeared to be German Warsteiners. I also ordered the pizza carnival which was basically a cheese pizza with bacon on it. It tasted really good but I started to feel full almost instantly. I only ended up eating half of the pizza.   I hung out for quite a while before moving on.  I then started to do a more random walk around the town. It reminds me a little bit of Palermo only cleaner and more well off.  Of course, both of those would not be difficult feats to achieve. It is obviously at least close to tropical here with all of the palm trees and such and the weather was definitely humid and about 23C it said so not terribly hot but the sun is very effective here. If it wasn’t for the cooler breeze I would probably not like it much.  With a short play at trying to get myself lost and found I ended up back at the hotel rather early but I was exhausted from the travel so I decided I would relax and finish out watching Yamato which I had started to watch on the Jeep Jamboree.  After that I pretty much crashed for the evening even though it might have been a touch early.

The pictures from day 1 can be found here.

Departing for Spain Today

Spain in Less than 2 Weeks

While I have been so busy I haven't really had a lot of time to mention things, my Spain trip is less than 2 weeks away. With all I have been doing for work over the summer I'm really looking for the week of freedom.  Granted I will be forced marching all over the place but I find it relaxing.

Unfortunately I haven't had a lot of time for extra research either so it will probably fall as a similar trip to the Czech Republic for me in that I will have to wing a lot of what I intend to do.  All the same I am sure I will be able to figure out something. I may take some day trips on my own or find a tour company to take them if that seems cheaper and easier. The difficulty part I am worried about is dinner times which don't start until 8pm at the earliest. It is going to be like on Sicily. I was not terribly happy with that. I will have to eat good lunches I guess. I hope that lunch places are easier to find than in Sicily.

Jeep Jamboree 2011 Bethel, Maine Day 4

We woke up late. It was still pouring out. I would have nothing to do with running. We got cleaned up and aired up our tires and eventually met the Watermans at a Shell station to gas up and then get breakfast. We ate at a diner that was in way shape or form ready to handle the traffic that was there on an early fall Sunday morning. We were the only Jeepers there but there must have been a ton of leaf peepers. In any event it took us a while to get seated and then forever to get a refill of coffee or our food. I had blueberry pancakes and bacon which were good but the pancakes were gigantic and I didn't finish them. From there we split up into our directions for the long and rainy drive home. I managed to get home in time to see the Bills lose and the Patriots win so it worked out ok for me.  All in all it was a great trip. Minus the rain I really loved it. I would definitely do a Bethel Jamboree again. I would like to actually finish the Chili Trail next time. I would probably want to do the Chili trail on every trip I went up there.

Jeep Jamboree 2011 Bethel, Maine Day 3

The rain started before I woke up and I decided not to run with the dark and wet and the major thruway. If we had trails I would have considered it but the hotel wasn't near any. So we basically had breakfast, got cleaned up and again headed to the line up. We managed the same basic positions for the Chili Trail as the day before minus Aaron who was doing a different trail on the easier side. Since he was open/open with no winch he opted for the less difficult path. Before we actually hit the trail head they have a Saturday tradition of running a parade of the Jeeps through town. All the locals come out to watch it and even with the slight rain that was coming down we had a good turnout. It was fun to see basically all the Jeeps in the jamboree because we had to loop back and pass each other through it. After the parade we headed to the trail head and those that needed to disconnect and air down did so.

The rain was light in the morning and the Chili Trail had a different kind of mud than Ridgeline so we really didn't have a lot of traction issues. In fact I only recall one winching or strapping through the entire run. The lead guide, Scott, whom we had met in Killington a few years before is an awesome guide and spotter and we really kept moving the whole day with relatively few stops. I really liked the trails we took. There was challenge without it being so tight in the trees that every turn was a potential brush on the body. Instead it was a lot technical rock gardens that were relatively open and even the water crossings and mud holes were basically fun to go through. We got to our lunch spot basically a little bit late because there was a flat tire that needed to be fixed but overall it went well.

This trail is called the Chili Trail because the lunch stop is at Scott's parent's "Summer Camp" which is incredible to see and his mom makes a huge batch of Chili for each trip and they serve that to all the participants for lunch along with some bread, desserts and mulled cider and coffee. The chili was excellent as was all the foods there. As we ate the rain started to pick up and it got to a drenching type. My sister-in-law had fallen down a couple time while walking around the slick trails and had bruised her leg fairly badly and she wanted to get out of the trails. I knew David would take her out but I also knew he would much rather stay in and finish the trail so I let him stay and drove her back to the hotel. I had to exit through the trails because Scott didn't want to have to de-mud his dad's driveway but it was not too bad to get down.  The GPS on the Jeep failed me for the first time and we had to reset twice before we pointed in the correct direction and got back to the hotel. From there I started preparing dinner and watched a bit of a movie while they were still on the trails. I guess they did about 2 more hours worth of trail but a lot of it was basic with a couple neat obstacles. Based on the pictures they took it was obvious they kept moving the rest of the run and while I am disappointed I missed the rest I am fairly sure there was nothing so astounding I should regret I missed it. The better parts of the trail were definitely in the morning.

When David got back we headed out to the fire department Jeep wash. They were much better than the Killington version. When we returned we called Sean and Carl over and had dinner which was roasted chicken thighs, green beans and a pre-packaged pasta side. I enjoyed it. We had a couple beers and eventually the Watermans and Evelyn came over and had a couple too. I was exhausted again and I was glad to get to bed when we finally did.

Jeep Jamboree 2011 Bethel, Maine Day 2

Friday started with an early rise for me. The rain had stopped in the early morning along the way and I wanted to try to get a run in. The road were were on was wide with very wide shoulders also so I figured I could give it a shot. I ran 10 minutes out and then back and after checking with the odometer on the Jeep it appears I ran about 2.2 miles or so. It was still basically dark out and cars were moving through a lot so I didn't fully feel safe on it but I managed. When I got back Dave and Beth were having breakfast and such and I had to cool down for a bit before showering. Sean came over and joined us for some coffee then we gassed up the Jeeps and headed to line up for the trails.

We were up front in the line up behind the Watermans 2 Jeeps, they Noyes Jeep and  silver 4 door JK owned by a guy named Aaron. Dave got in front of me and Sean got in behind me. We aired down the tires and got the rigs ready for the run before the Jamboree meeting then we pulled out behind our lead guide to head to the trail head.  It was a short drive to the trail, maybe 6 or 7 miles. We had a large field to start in and there was the lead trail guide's brother-in-law and sister in a brand new Ford Raptor to follow us. They tore up the field a bit in it. Definitely not a cheap bit of equipment there.  After air downs for the rest of the folks who didn't want to drive the roads that way (and disconnecting sway bars for those folks too) and a brief meeting we headed into the trails.

I should state here that the weather was absolutely perfect and we had sun all day with just a few clouds at the very end. The trails however were totally greased up by the rains the previous couple days. It meant that a trail they listed as difficulty 5-6 on a scale of 10 was really probably 7-8 because this mud gave absolutely no traction. The obstacles were overall fun but it took us a very long time to get everyone through all the mud holes and hill climbs that we needed to pass. As the day progressed and we were moving so slowly, especially past 1 hill climb that David had to turn around and winch me up (first time I have ever been winched) they only let a couple more rigs through and then had everyone go around instead. By the time we got everyone around through that we were at the lunch spot. Ironically it was 4pm instead of lunchtime. At the lunch spot while we were waiting for a couple more rigs to show up there was a rockface climb that several Jeeps hit. I was just getting around the path to get to it when the lead guide returned and tried to do the climb himself. It would be lengthy to explain this the full way but basically his Jeep was seriously built up. I am sure it was thousands of dollars ahead of mine. He tried a couple times to get up the face but kept sliding back down. We think it was because he was too heavy in the back. In any event on probably the 5th try he skipped over to the left to a steeper part of the face and ended up rolling backwards. Fortunately for him it was a slow roll and he landed on his spare tire and didn't go all the way back. It meant his nose was fully up in the air. We got pictures from all angles. They eventually pulled him back to the ground and he backed out really pissed that he couldn't clear the face. Another guide took a few attempts to get over it with a flat fender Willy's but I went after him and got over it on the first try. I have to admit the guide scared me to it a bit but I had already committed and it wasn't really so bad after all.

After that he offered us the chance to go through one more obstacle called Moose Back and we said sure. It was a quick climb over a ridge that had a drop on either side then down a very steep set of steps made of tree roots. It was fun but the downhill part was a touch scary, especially for an automatic that couldn't really crawl down it even in 1st gear.  From there we headed off the trails and the into the hotel eventually and made dinner. David cooked fajitas. Sean and another friend Carl came in to join us and eventually the Watermans came over to hang out for the night. I will say I was exhausted from the day and I was able to sleep relatively well after all of that.

Jeep Jamboree 2011 - Bethel, Maine Day 1

The first day of the Jamboree started with a moderately early start at about 9am from my brother David's house. We started our way up to the Cabela's just off 95 where we met up with the rest of the convoy which consisted of the Watermans, the Noyes, Sean and Evelyn. I did convince myself to buy a pair of Merrell barefoot trail runners while there. The stop wasn't very long though. After everyone arrived we lined up and headed on to Bethel which was probably another 2 hours or so further up. As we drove in the rain picked up more and more until it was basically a steady rain for the rest of the day.

When we arrived in Bethel we needed to go through tech inspection and register for our trails but that wasn't supposed to start until 5pm and it was between 1 and 2pm.  Dave Waterman convinced them to leave our jeeps lined up at the front of inspection so we could get through fast. They closed up the entrance to tech inspection behind us. Bethel's administration building is right in the center of town and there isn't great parking there so we got lucky on that count. After getting lined up we ate lunch at the Bethel Inn which was probably a poor choice as the waitress was slow and didn't really seem to care about us. We were warned at about 3pm that they were going to start tech inspection and ran over to get that done. That went through quick but we then had to wait until 5pm for the registration portion. I would rather they had started both at the same time.

David checked us into the hotel and I stayed with the Watermans as they checked into their hotel which was next door to the administration building. At just past 4pm we got in line for registration. There were already a few people ahead of us. It was pouring out by this point and we got lucky to get inside the building to wait unlike the people behind us who got drenched outdoors. Another reason I would rather they started registration early. Once they started registration it moved rather quickly. We all managed to get on the same two trails except Evelyn who had a Jeep not able to do them (30" tires and no lift). We signed up for Ridgeline on Friday and the Everett Chili Trail on Saturday. Ridgeline was listed as the harder of the two.

After registration we headed over to Suds Pub for dinner where we basically got a lot of pizza and some beer. After hanging out there for a short while we split up to our respective hotels and relaxed for the night.  We were staying at the Inn at the Rostay. It is off route 2 I think, or was it 26? In any event it was only a couple miles outside of town. We got an efficiency apartment as we were able to register for trails only again and that meant we needed a kitchen. The place was nice, my main complaint being the shades on the windows blocked 0 light at all. I had to hang the bedspread over it the second and third night because I really didn't sleep on Thursday night.  Still the place had a lot of room, 2 bedrooms and even a spare set of bunk beds in the TV room.

Jeep Jamboree - Bethel, Maine

The Jeep Jamboree trip in Bethel, ME starts today. The trails run Friday and Saturday and we'll be home some time in the afternoon on Sunday. Here's hoping the weather holds up and the 4-wheeling is good.

Jeep Jamboree in Less than a Week and More...

It has been a while since I have posted because I have been so busy. I have actually traveled 3 times in the past couple months but all 3 trips were inside the US. I had a trip to Delaware and 2 trips to the DC area in Virginia (not necessarily in that order). During those trips I was working, either installing systems or having a few meetings and the like.  The trips were good but overall were work so there was not really much to report. I will admit that on the second trip to the DC area I was able to get a couple hours in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum which was really cool.  But that was about it. I do have some pictures from that visit even though they came off my cell phone and I will try to post them soon. Since my cell doesn't do image stabilization (for those of us with shaky hands) and has an interesting delay before the actual image is captured many of the pictures didn't turn out so hot. That said, they are better than nothing.

Another interesting development involved my planned birthday trip to Spain. I had booked a flight through Spanair to Ibiza right after I landed in Madrid. That flight got modified so that it would depart at 9:50pm instead of the 10am or so it was originally scheduled for. Spanair wouldn't do anything for me except refund the money. Ironically I was able to find a cheaper flight through Iberia after I canceled the original. It does depart at around noon instead but it is better than having to completely rebuild my plans to either skip Ibiza or do it in different days of the trip. I suppose it gives me more opportunity to make the flight I am delayed crossing the Atlantic. Since there is less than a month to that trip I hope that Iberia doesn't spring any surprises on me.

Typically I have done a lot of planning for a trip by now but since I am so booked solid with work I haven't had much chance to do more than the basics on it. I might have to do a lot of winging it. I hope it works out OK.

This all leads up to the fact that I have the Bethel, Maine Jeep Jamboree starting with this upcoming Thursday. I have the Jeep basically in order. There were no major modifications since the last time I went 4 wheeling and that was expected on my part. I did have some mechanical issues that I had to contend with and that ate up some of the Jeep budget. I think it will be interesting to try the Jamboree in a different location this time. I have heard good things about the Maine trip. However it was sad to hear how much damage Irene caused up in Vermont where we had done our previous 3 Jamborees. The folks up there are really nice and seeing some pictures of how bad the damage was I am sure they didn't expect nor deserve it. Hopefully they can recover in due order and get back to their lives.

Spain Planning

Ok, so I am making my birthday trip this year for Spain and I already had booked the flight before I even flew out to Prague but I had nothing else done. Over the past few evenings I have managed to make some decisions on the itinerary of the trip and book some more.

I have actually booked a flight to Ibiza straight after I land in Madrid. This is an hour long flight to the island that should be about 3 hours after I land. I would have preferred to be closer together but it will probably work out for the best if there are any delays. It really means that first travel day is going to be very long. I realize Ibiza is not an October destination but something about it is calling to me and I figured that was reason enough to book it.  I am staying at Hostal Europa Punico that is cheap but appears to have good ratings from guests for the price and is in a good location until the Wednesday when I will hop back on a plane to Madrid and then stay at the Best Western Atlantico which is a touch more expensive but also has good ratings and is supposed to be in a good location.

I expect I might try to make some day trips out of Madrid while I am there. Well at least one anyway. I am torn between trying to get to Valencia, Seville or Barcelona. I think the first two are more what I would like. A lot of people have said Seville is a really good visit so that might take some weight over Valencia. I haven't done enough research yet to sell me on Barcelona. It is there on name recognition alone. In any event I am going to make those calls later on. I am unlikely to rent a car or buy a rail pass for this trip as I do not think I will do more than one day trip. I can buy one round trip ticket for less than the pass will be I am sure.

I'll be flying home on Halloween this time. I had wished not to but the fact I needed to be home on Halloween to work on November 1st made me do it.  I also didn't want to travel the day after my birthday thus cheapening the day.  So Halloween was my only choice. If I didn't have the schedule issue I would have come home on the first.

Czech Republic Day 7

Today was of course the transit back day. I woke up at 6am because I had a 9:55am flight from Prague to Frankfurt. I got cleaned up and finished off packing and checked out of the hotel around 6:30am. The hotel has a taxi service and I used that to get to the airport. The driver was basically 95% psychopath and 5% criminal but he was also very funny so while I probably should have been scared for my life I actually enjoyed the ride. He told me since I was flying to Frankfurt I could have left much later and he was right. The check-in took a few minutes but the security line was quick and I was in the terminal by 7:30 which gave me two hours till boarding time. I had to find where the gate was but even that didn’t take long. Prague’s airport is 2 terminals and the one that I was in is apparently not that big or busy. The driver said the other is a mess with security and lines.

Inside the terminal I couldn’t find someplace reasonable to get breakfast so I just bought some stuff from the Relay store to snack on. Mainly a chocolate bar, a can of cold espresso (in concept like the canned coffee from Japan but not as good) and bag of potato sticks. I started with the sticks and coffee and that gave me something in my stomach well enough. Later on I had the Aero bar but it had been damaged and was very difficult to eat. The thing about Aero bars is they crumble real easily. It was sort of disappointing. I also spent a few minutes spending the remaining Czech crowns I had left, well most of them anyway. Eventually the plane arrived, maybe about 10 minutes late and disembarked and maybe about 10 minutes late we were able to board. I had a window seat but was next to a very narrow British (I think) woman and her husband was on the aisle so I had plenty of room. It was a short hop flight and not much bother at all. They gave us some Muesli for breakfast as the in flight snack which was odd but ok.

Frankfurt is a large airport and I had to make it from terminal gates B to A63 which was a lot of walking and a couple floors difference. Being insane I took the stairs up to the gates I needed. It was very fast work to go through passport control and be on my way to the gate. No security rescreening at all. I was surprised at that. I had basically 50 minutes to kill before the unofficial boarding time. I chose to just hang out at the gate. I had used my Euros for the cab on the way in so really didn’t have anything to spend except a couple hundred Czech crowns which I am sure they wouldn’t take.  The plane did board basically on time and I found myself seated way in the back in seat 53C. By the way, the first plane was an Airbus A320-200 and the second a Boeing 747-400. The flight started off really bumpy when we took off and remained very bumpy for quite some time before it finally seemed to even off around an hour to an  hour and a half in. They served drinks and snack first then the meal which I chose turkey with potato wedges. It was on the edge of not bad  which I guess is a triumph.   As the meal finished I worked on some documentation from work for a bit then they started to show Rio the animated bird movie and I watched that.  It was typical animated bird movie stuff but it wasn’t bad. I laughed a few times anyway. After that they showed Just Go With It but I don’t like Adam Sandler so opted to do some more documentation work rather than watch it. When I was tired of that I decided to watch a movie on the computer which was Kick-Ass. I am not fully sure what I think of it. I’ll have to digest it for a bit. It certainly was not typical in any way shape or form and that should be commended.  By that I mean that risks were definitely taken in its making.  By the time it was over we were about an hour out from landing and I just relaxed while the served the scary pizza I never eat.

We landed basically on time but I think my bag was amongst the last offloaded from the plane. The passport control guy was not in a good mood but I got outside without any hitches. I had figured he had set me up to be inspected by customs but fortunately that was not the case.   I had to wait a few minutes for my van and there were 5 people to be driven somewhere on it but fortunately I got split off to a separate van at Ballardvale and was driven home solo which definitely got me there a lot quicker. The traffic up 93 on the first van was fairly rough all the way past 129. I expected it to end at 128 but it continued for some reason. In any event once we turned off to 125 it got a heck of a lot easier.

All in all I liked the Czech Republic a lot. There was good beer and reasonably good food. Things weren’t too expensive and the city of Prague is beautiful. Pretty much everyone there speaks English. I never had an issue with that. My hotel was in a great location. The tour company I used was convenient so I didn’t try any others. I’ve used a lot of Grey Line otherwise but Premiant was closer. I don’t know that the experiences would have been that much different. They all sell the same basic tours. I am sure each company has its own spin on the same motif.

No pictures for today as it was a purely transit day and I didn’t feel like unburying the camera for the couple snack foods in the airport.

Czech Republic Day 6

The last real day of the trip I didn't have anything planned but had an idea of what I wanted to do. I got up at 6:30 and got cleaned up and had breakfast then walked into town and headed over the Charles Bridge to the Lesser Town and the castle. I had sort of intended to find the castle gardens and visit those along with another garden that had some fake cave walls in it but I did not really manage either though I did wander around the area and see a large park and a couple monasteries and/or churches. Being so early not much was opened yet and I walked around for a couple hours before I started to see the gardens open. I couldn't tell which one had the fake caves in it so I basically saved my Czech Crowns for another use. Most of the gardens looked quite small and I am not sure they were worth paying for. Besides, I thought a guide had said they were free which definitely threw me off.

After basically deciding I had given up on the gardens I walked back across Charles Bridge and into the Old Town and considered trying to get up the Old Town Hall tower to take some pictures but it wasn't opened after 10:30am so I feared it would not open for the day and decided to skip on it. I couldn't imagine it would open any later than 10am. I had sort of thought of doing the Kutna Hora tour the night before and decided that I would just go ahead and do it. A lot of stuff in Prague is closed on Monday and I wasn't sure I could fill up the whole day with stuff being closed. So I walked to the tour starting point and booked the tour for a 1pm start.  That meant I had a couple hours to kill so I walked back to the room for a few minutes then headed back out and bought lunch at the McDonalds. McNuggets meal. Nothing spectacular but basically what you'd expect. After that I walked around the corner and bought a two scoop ice cream cone, one called cookies and one called caramel, and ate that for what was the majority of the time left before tour while walking around. I quickly bought some water and waited for the van for just a few minutes.

Kutna Hora was once a very wealthy town due to some very prolific silver mines in the middle ages. The town housed all sorts of miners and even a mint to make silver coins. It appears it should be about 45 minutes out of town but apparently the roads are wicked bad and the ride was a bit over an hour by the route the tour takes. The guide was named Ysa. The first stop of the tour was the Ossuary that was decorated in human bones. If I understood the story correctly, the church housed a very popular cemetery because someone brought back some soil from the holy land and thus everyone wanted to be buried there. The cemetery housed people from all over Europe and not just Bohemia. As time went on the town's silver mines became exhausted and apparently the monastery/church was closed down. A wealthy family bought the church after some years and in order to renovate it they opted to use the bones of the people buried there to decorate it. The idea being that it was a reminder that we all will die one day. I am sure I am missing some of the finer points of the story but that was the gist. So inside the church is decorated with thousands of bones of humans. I can say it was a bit creepy I suppose but it didn't really bother me much. I will say for certain that it was strange and felt like it should have been out of an Indiana Jones set. All the same, they allowed you to take pictures so I took a bunch.

The next stop was the Church of Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners. As I said it was a mining town and apparently the church was built by the wealth of the miners and minters instead of the church or a wealthy king.  It was a large church originally built in the Gothic style then later made to the Baroque style. It fell into disrepair after the mines went dry and was rebuilt to suit the Baroque tastes of the times when it was renovated. It was certainly a large church and had unique decorations in it. Again we were allowed to take pictures. Some of the miner oriented artwork was definitely unique. It had nothing to do with the Bible or Jesus or anything other than mining. Not something I've seen in a church before.

After the church we walked a bit over to the Italian Square with a couple informative stops along the way. The Italian square housed a meeting hall and mint if I understood the tour correctly. At the least it was currently a museum dedicated towards the mint along with the stately rooms. We had a local guide who seemed quite young and self conscious but she did a good job other than she needed to speak a bit louder. The chapel in the building was quite impressive but we weren't allowed to take pictures of that.

After the Italian Square it was over to a small restaurant to take a break. Food was not included in the tour and I just opted to have a beer and speak with a Texan couple along for the tour too. That took about half an hour until the bus arrived and we headed back into town again. I sort of conked out for a bit of the ride back so at least it didn't seem as long as the way out. When I got back into town I headed to the room to use the facilities then quickly headed back towards the square with the intention of getting dinner. The funny part was the Old Town Hall tower was open so I decided to go up. They have installed lifts to the top but I trudged my way up the stairs then ramps because I don't see the fun in an elevator in a middle ages building. The view up there was nice. The town is not very tall in the region around the Old and New Towns and you can see right up to the lesser town quite well too. The modern parts of the town are not easy to see. I really only passed those on the various tours I took and went nowhere near them in walking. I managed to be up there as the clock chimed 7pm so I got to see the guy play the trumpet to sound off the hour up at the top of the tower.

After that I trudged back down and walked across the square to the Jazz and Blues Restaurant Bily Konicek.  It was outdoors seating and they served Gambrinus beer which was one I hadn't yet tried but had seen around town a bit. I ordered a yellow beer and they only came in .3L so I drank it sort of quickly. For food I had the beef goulash and this was much better than the first goulash I tried. They had 3 different sorts of dumplings to accompany. The beef was not overcooked and the sauce was not too salty so overall it was a very enjoyable meal. After I finished the yellow beer I tried the Gambrinus dark and liked that one a lot. When I finished eating I settled up and headed to the room to start the preparation for the long day of travel just ahead.

Pictures are located here.

Czech Republic Day 5

Today I didn't have a tour set when I woke up and I afforded myself an extra half an hour of sleep. After I got cleaned up I headed down to breakfast and mainly had coffee because I wasn't hungry that much for some reason. I did keep the stomach settled with some toast over the coffee.  From there I decided I would walk a little bit of the local area until 8am when the tour place opened. It hadn't made sense to keep getting rides for less than a kilometer of walking so I figured that it would be easier to buy a tour right at the starting point. This time I opted for Terezin which was a Nazi concentration camp though not one built for exterminating the Jews. Instead, this one was a staging area where most of the prisoners were eventually shipped off to Auschwitz for extermination.

The tour started at around 9 and there was about an hour drive to the town of Terezin. The guide was Helena, same as the day before. Her voice seemed bit stronger today but she was still struggling a bit with annunciation as I had expected. Nonetheless she seemed more confident in her knowledge about this tour and the material within so probably she had done it more often. She spoke some about the camp on the way in and a little bit about Reinhard Heydrich who was a Nazi official in Prague, the leader of the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under Hitler, because we passed the monument that marked the location where he was assassinated by the resistance.

Terezin was built in the 18th century as a gun fort to protect the region but it was never attacked and never used. It is a serious multipointed star shaped fortress with many ramparts and at the time a fully floodable moat (that again was never used though it did flood twice in 2002 and this year due to heavy rains). I was actually really interested in the location as a gun fort but obviously the majority of the tour consisted of the explanation of the Nazi concentration camp. The tour started out with a small museum in the center of the large fortress (there were two, the large and the small) where the majority of the Jewish prisoners were kept. The roads there had some great views of the ramparts and other parts of the construction of the fort but unfortunately all of our stops brought us no where near those points so I failed to get any good pictures of the large fortress. I won't take pictures from cars, vans, buses or trains because it just frustrates me. By the time I see it it is already too late to take a picture. The first museum involved some of the culture that the Jews had in their camp. Since this wasn't a death camp they were allowed to sing and have theater and write and paint. Though some of the paintings had to be hidden because they were anti-Nazi. There must have been other stuff as well.

The next stop brought us to the museum that was the house where the Jewish children were kept. We saw a brief movie on the location and saw some of the drawing the Jewish kids made while in the house. It was also a brief stop.  After that it was on to the Crematorium. Though the Jews should not be cremated the Nazis had to start burning their bodies because they were dying so fast of disease and starvation. The crematory was an interesting stop and a small cemetery was erected next to it where exhumed bodies were given gravestones though of course they are generally anonymous.  This also was a fast stop but probably more interesting than the first two museums to me.

After the Crematorium we made our way to the small fortress which was the prison used for important Nazi prisoners. The political and rich were brought here rather than just to the large fortress. The small fortress was all original as the Nazis left it. As with the large fortress it was all constructed in the 17th century and is part of the same fortifications. The small fortress housed the Germans who ran the town as well as the prisoners. Ironically that bit of World War I history hit here as well as the men who assassinated Franz Ferdinand including the primary Gabrielle Princip were imprisoned here and died before the Nazis took it over. There was a plaque explaining this in the dark solitary cell he was imprisoned in. The small fortress was a tour guided by a local guide named Eva who had a good strong voice and was very interesting. She knew a lot about the camp and the town and we got to see all aspects of the prison from the registration area to the large cells that housed hundreds of people each to the smaller cells that house around 70 each to the solitary cells for prisoners who were to be tortured and sentenced to execution. There was a lot of information packed into the hour long tour. We saw where the 3 men who successfully escaped were able to escape. The base commander had the ledges torn off so no one else could do it again. They did it in winter when they had 2 meters of snow to jump down onto.

We also saw the execution location after we got to walk through some of the original underground tunnels that were sealed up and never used by the Nazis. I liked the tunnels a lot. We did maybe 500 meters or so. The base commander had 3 other like aged prisoners killed in retaliation to the escape.  Eventually the Nazis realized they were losing the war and they started to build a gas chamber but in truth just about all the prisoners of Terezin died because of typhoid anyway. Most that should have been freed after the liberation still had to remain quarantined or they could spread the disease. Many also died from eating too much when they were finally allowed to eat again. Their bodies couldn't handle it.  It was certainly not a death camp but in many respects it did amount to one. It was the last camp that was liberated and also was used as a propaganda camp for the Red Cross to pretend Jewish prisoners were being treated well.

After the tour we made our way back to the van and the hour long drive back to town. I took a quick run to the hotel and then headed out to find lunch which I had at an Italian restaurant. I had a Pilsner Urquell and lasagna.  The food was good but it was a tad late for lunch for me being already past 2pm. I was starved so maybe I liked it more for that (put starved into perspective after visiting a concentration camp I guess). By the way, the tour consisted of 4 Aussies who didn't speak outside their own much, an American couple in their mid to late 40s who did the same and an around 40 year old guy who was an English teacher in Turkey for a very prestigious school there and was in Prague for a course on Czech literature. His name was Andy and I talked to him about literature for the majority of the ride back into Prague.

After lunch I headed towards the new town and found the New Town Hall and the Dancing House and then on to the Vysehrad which is an old cathedral that was built on the grounds where the other castle in Prague was built. That castle was destroyed many centuries ago but the fortifications remain and it was cool to walk through the park where the fortifications were. Well, it would have been if it wasn't over 30C (it was probably near 90F). I enjoyed walking around there though and even visited the cathedral for 30 Czech Crowns.  After that I headed back towards the old town and did some souvenir shopping to get it out of the way and then headed to the hotel to drop it off and back out to find dinner.

For dinner I found a place called Vasele Basy not too far from the hotel. I ordered the 1/4 duck which I knew would be leg and hindquarter meat. This was accompanied by Czech dumplings and red and white cabbage. I had a couple Staropramen to round out the meal. The duck was a touch overcooked but tasted good and the skin was crispy. The dumplings were very similar to others I have had in Prague already and were good as was the cabbage.  Overall it was a mid-range enjoyment meal that probably cost a bit too much money for what it was worth. Food here is still cheap by European standards but since I have gotten better for cheaper I will have to rate the place lower on the list. When I finished that I found an ice cream place and had a single scoop of coffee ice cream on a cone.  It was definitely good.

From there it was back to the hotel and time to crash for the night.

There are a lot of pictures and they are located here.