Monday, April 19, 2010

Me Gusta Madrid

Our latest and greatest adventure so far was a long weekend in Madrid. We had some great suggestions from friends (how many trips do I need to take Rick Steeves on before he's considered a friend?) on things to do, places to eat, and places to siesta. We took in a bullfight, a traditional flamenco dance, did a tapas bar crawl (were we repeatedly ran into two other groups... also friends of Rick Steeves) and spent some quality time siesta-ing.
The matador below is in a typical outfit- very masculine! They all wear pink socks and ballet flats, but the suit itself varies.
I will spare the weaker readers of my wonderful blog the more gruesome photos of the bullfight- you couldn't help but feel bad for the bulls. They looked confused, and only charged when taunted with the pink and red capes. The matador's assistant would stab things into their backs, and then a man on a horse would come out and shove a spear into the backs of their necks, which in turn would make the bull head-butt the poor horses which you also end up feeling bad for. We saw a horse get knocked down by the bull and land on the rider, but all the assistant matadors came rushing out to distract the bull and get the horse and rider up. The bulls weren't nearly as aggressive as I had thought they would be, and it seems inhumane. At least the meat does get sold to market, so I guess some spectators would say its just playing with your food.
This is outside the Plaza de Toros
This is a nice little lake in the middle of the main park in Madrid, Retirio Park where we rented row boats and rowed around. There is lots of people watching and just sitting around, which is nice and relaxing when on vacation!
This is the Spanish Royal Palace. It is supposedly in the top three along with Schonbrunn in Vienna and Versailles- having been to all three I would chose to live at one of the others (as long as I could go somewhere else to live in the winter)! It is still used today for the Royals to hold dinners and events, but they live somewhere else.
This is one section of the Plaza Mayor. It is a very old square that has long buildings such as this on all four sides.
... just a pretty balcony with potted plants
A Spanish street
This is in the Plaza de Sol- the zero kilometer point/ exact center of Spain.
Another view of the Plaza Mayor
This is the view of the Plaza de Sol from our hotel balcony. It was great to be able to take a rest in our hotel while still experiencing Madrid's culture. There were tons of people hanging around the plaza, and there was a large mariachi band that played in the afternoons.
I'm not sure the significance of this statue, but its a symbol of Madrid and was in the Plaza de Sol.
And a final picture of us at the lake to prove we were there and didn't just steal someone else's photos off the internet and pass them off as our own :)

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Keukenhof

The Kuekenhof is a huge tulip and flower show/display that takes place every year in Holland. We stopped on our way to Amsterdam, but unfortunately all the famous tulips haven't bloomed yet. There were a lot of other flowers that were in bloom and several indoor expos. There was a woman showing how to arrange flowers, a man carving wooden clogs, and a petting zoo.
Someone's got big feet!!
Ignore my face and focus on the pretty tulips... it was a long drive and raining out!
One of the green houses with hundreds of different varieties of flowers and tulips
Muttnick! This was a cool sculpture, but where the wood was held together there were exposed spikes- you can't pet this dog!
Typical wooden windmill. You can climb stairs to the observation deck and see thousands of tulips in the field... when they are in season...
More flowers and walking paths outside.
Cameron wouldn't let me pet the baby cow at the petting zoo, but he looked a lot furrier and softer than I would expect of a cow. They also had chickens, roosters, rabbits, sheep and lambs.
This was my favorite sculpture, two bears dancing together
Funny sign, with all the tourists you'd think they'd have someone check their grammar.
We spent the rest of the day in Amsterdam, but there were really long lines for Anne Frank's museum and the Van Gogh museum, so we didn't have enough time to wait in line to see those. It was a great weekend despite the cold, rainy weather!

Luxembourg and Brussels

March was a long, boring month with Cameron gone for most of it, but we are back to sightseeing and traveling for the next two months. Over the long Easter weekend we took a road trip with another couple through Luxembourg, Brussels, and Amsterdam. The weather wasn't great but it was fun to get a taste of each city (taste... we ate a lot!)
First was Luxembourg- here we walked through the city center and to the outer wall. Like Amberg and most European cities, the city was fortified with a wall. This wall was interesting because it has a system of tunnels still intact that can be toured deep into the wall.
This is a street in the city center- all cobblestones and row houses. Below is a picture of a section of the wall. You can see the holes for weaponry and tunnel entrances. In the World Wars Luxembourgians used the tunnels as bomb shelters. And yes, Luxembourgians speak Luxembourgish.
Beautiful view of the town from atop the wall ramparts. The water is part of a canal system.
After spending the day in Luxembourg, we went on to Brussels for two nights. The food in Brussels was amazing; french fries are actually Belgian, and their signature dish is french fries and mussels. The first night I had the best salmon of my life and a delicious waffle to wash it down. Cameron had rabbit, and surprise surprise, the Easter bunny didn't come on Sunday morning.
There were gourmet chocolate shops on every street, this one had a wall/waterfall of chocolate (like some places have a waterfall wall) as well as this chocolate baby filled with coco powder. Another thing that we saw frequently in Brussels were these chocolate tipped spoons. You melt the chocolate in hot milk for a delicious hot chocolate. Mmmm!
Brussel's "mascot" is this little boy peeing- Mannekin Piss they call him. There are several different legends telling his significance, but nobody really knows why he is there. He also has hundreds of costumes that different countries donate, and on special occasions the city officials dress him up. Its not impressive for the crowd that gathers to take pictures of him.
These are Cameron's mussels he had on Saturday night. They were tasty, but I had fried Haddock that was tastier. Our stay in these two cities was nice and short- there is not that much to do in either of them that we would need more than a two days in each.