Madrid

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We woke up kind of late...arriving at the hotel/apartment at 3 am and going to bed around 4:30 made it hard to get moving.  We stayed at the Jardine de Sabattini which was right across the street from the  gardens of the same name.  It was easy to walk up and through the garden to the main parts of downtown Madrid.  

There was a stage set up for summer concerts.  We could hear the music from our hotel-it was Cinderella on Ice,sort of ironic in the 98 degree heat...

We walked up to the Palacio Real

and from there we could see the Cathedral and begin to head towards the Plaza Mayor.

Loved the matador dressed to take pictures with tourists.  This whole plaza area is up on a hill with views all around.   It was hot, very hot, but not humid and it was much more manageable than Singapore because you are not dripping wet all the time. I had to buy  a hat though-wish I had brought my Singapore umbrella...only Asian tourist use them here. 

Madrid is wonderful-maybe it's hearing Spanish spoken all over which is such a comfortable feeling. 

We walked to the Plaza Mayor and looked around.  The walk there was beautiful

And  the first on my series of Spanish doors.

Don't be surprised if you come over someday and find one of these overwhelming our little green house!

This furry thing was there every time we walked thru the plaza-lots of people dressed  up and tried to get their photos taken for money...seems a hard job on such hot days..

All the streets look like this -lovely old buildings and streets and cobblestones. 

I took a photo of this-candy or licorice-like stuff.  Loved the colors and they were so thick.

Sitting at the plaza before trying to find some lunch.

A ham poster -there are a million things to do with ham in  Spain.  It shows up everywhere. They have big hams hanging from stores everywhere and there are lots of flavors.  It is actually quite good although I am  little tired of Spanish food now. 

Kind of a weird shot but the shopping streets all have these awning-type coverings-probably as a way to manage the heat.  

I loved that someone was selling books on the street with built-in bookcases.

This is the National theater.   

Lots of red flowers in parks and squares-it's a real walking city.  We headed back to the hotel through the palace grounds.

This is the back side of the palace.  We opted not to wait in line to go in.

I dont have photos available right now but Luis does. I can add them later.  Our hotel has a roof terrace and serves drinks and tapas.  We made a  reservation and watched the  sunset over the Palacio Real while visiting with Luis' cousin-Gustavo, Juvenal is his father,one of Elsa's brothers.   He's lived in Madrid for ten years.  It was a really  great day-day two of Madrid in the next post.

Bordeaux to Madrid: Another Rush to See What We Could See

After breakfast, we checked out Bordeaux.  It had been a scary trip into town the previous night as we googled hotels and found a cheap one that was obviously on the wrong side of the river.  In fact it was closed down when we got there and luckily we saw a bridge and headed over to the obviously better part of the city.  Lots of good waterfront and pretty views. It's on the Garonne River.

Love the panoramic feature of my camera.  It really shows the expanse of sights I want to show in photos.

Next stop, Biarritz...which has a lighthouse.   This is really the La Jolla of France.  We loved it and wished we weren't trying to get to Madrid, still many hours away.  

We eie find a lighthouse, recommended by Gillian's friend, Gen.

This shot reminds me a bit of Tanoh Lot in Bali.  But it's for beach goers, not temple visitors.

We had a beautiful lunch by the water and then explored the town and headed over to the lighthouse.  It was so gorgeous there-hot but some breeze.

This rock formation and  bridge was right in town.   We saw plenty of people jumping off-reminded me of the Salta del Fraile in Miraflores in Peru...the priest who jumps off a rock like this and as it's part of a legend, jumpers reenact the story and come dripping wet for tips.

You walk out to the point past a Mary statue on  a rock.  

This is a shot of looking back on the town from the lighthouse site-beaches are off to the right  just outside of camera view.

French hydrangeas all seem to be this color...love the subtle shades and want this variety in my garden.

I love  this shot,  It took us a while to get it right but we finally did-not this one as Nana's eyes were closed.

Biarritz was a place to stay longer.  We loved it and wished we could spend more time.  I think our trips are often about this...finding lovely places, never having enough time and then wanting to go back.  Not sure if that is really the goal of traveling.  And this wasn't all.  we also stopped in San Sebastián since we were so close and wanted to see a bit of Pais Vasco.  This ended up being a couple of hours at most late in the afternoon, but it was a beautiful city.  We will go back..

The girls did some posing on the waterfront.  

It as a great day, exhausting and it meant a very hairy drive to Madrid, arriving at 3 am!!! We drove on pretty bad roads and stopped often for coffee...the rest stops with gas have strong coffee machines (the coffee is strong, not the machines-though they need to be).  we collapsed into bed....more on Madrid next post

 

On to Spain

As usual we had an overly ambitious plan for getting to Spain (Madrid to be exact)  We left after 11 because we had to meet the manager of our apartment.  Then came a harrowing ride around Paris looking for Gare du Nord to store Mariana's giant suitcase .  Once  we got there it was easy to store the luggage.   We were afraid that we wouldn't be able to due to the age of terrorism, but they just do the same thing they do at the airport...easy.

We drove to Orleans to check it out.  The cathedral is beautiful and although the place is closed down on Sundays, we could still eat and check out the area.

It was lovely.  Mariana and I have the same love/hate relationship with Catholicism-loving the music, architecture, and, as Mariana calls it, the religious shit...the art is beautiful.  However, there were and are a lot of starving Catholics and the money and time put in to build these cathedrals is scandalous .

Super lovely gothic buildings.

I'm a sucker for stained glass too.  

The town was lovely and so very quiet.

We had lunch in the square across from the cathedral and loved the flowers growing in  some weird container up the side of the buildings...

A reflection of Gillian drinking beer.

We headed on towards Bordeaux, arriving very late at night. We had also made a stop at

Limoges looked around the town briefly and headed on...too much to see in too short a time.

Mariana is a WW II buff and we stopped at a town, Oradour -Sur-Glane, that was bombed completely as the Germans retreated from France.  It was left as is as a memorial and a new town was built next to it.  Although it was too late and closed, we did manage to look around.   All the women and children were killed and it is an erie place.

The monument where you park your car...

Destroyed homes and shops-we had to climb into the bushes and peek over the walls to take photos.  It was dusk and the lighting was beautiful and sad.

It was really quite shocking...we were sad not to have been able to see inside and learn more but at least we could see it.  By then it was getting late-nearly 10 pm and we had to get to Bordeaux.

Our hotel was lovely,not cheap but very comfortable double rooms and a great breakfast.  Mariana and I managed to flood our respective bathrooms while Luis and Gillian took neat dry showers.