Madrid - contender for the 2016 Olympics

Chicago has pretty tough competition for the 2016 Olympics (Madrid, Rio de Janiero, and Tokyo).

Well, I haven't been to all the cities, but if Rio and Tokyo are anything like Chicago or Madrid, it is going to be a tough choice for the 2016 Olympics.

After my visit to Barcelona, I took a morning flight over to Madrid to explore for a few days. It was just under a 1 hour flight and cost about $120USD; however I was going to rent a car for 4 days and the 6.5 hour drive....but it was going to set me back about $400. So, I opted for the plane ride. Good choice, in my opinion.

Madrid was a little more my style. As much as I enjoyed Barcelona, it is a pretty fast paced city, filled with young(er) travelers and backpackers. From my estimation, the tourists in Madrid were 1) far fewer than Barcelona (always a good thing!) and 2) a little older than the 20-something crowd of Barcelona.

You could easily find a place to sit in Plaza Mayor for either lunch or a drink and watch and people passed by. Entering the Palacio Real (Royal Palace) was quick and easy...no need to queue forever just to be part of a huge mob moving from room to room.

I strolled through Retiro Park, the Botanical Gardens, Paseo del Prado and took in a few wonderful museums (The Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza).

A few pictures.

Palacio Royal (Royal Palace)

Plaza Mayor

Retiro Park

A monestary and cava tour

That is (kindof) an odd pairing, if you ask me. But, I wanted to see both the monestary at Montserrat and get in a little cava tour and tasting.

I'm not a fan of the large tour bus, so I searched high and low for a small (6-8 people) tour. Viola! I booked the Montserrat and Cava tour through Private Tours Barcelona. It was a nice tour; the other travelers were fun and interesting; the sights were good. It wasn't one of the best tours (Cotswolds and Absolute Touring), but it was good, nonetheless.

Our day started with a stop of Friexenet in Sant Sadurni d'Anoia for a cava tour and tasting. Cava is similar to champagne; however it does not come from the champagne region of France (trademark)...just as Chianti is from the Chianti region of Italy (trademark)...so Cava is Spain's version of champagne.

Our next stop was Montserrat. I think the biggest disappointment was spending 30 minutes on the winding roads up to the monestary. I was under the impression that we'd be taking the aerial gondola to the top. Luckily, I was prepared and had pre-emptively taken dramamine or it could have turned ugly.

Once you reach the monestary area, there's a main cathedral that has a boys choir singing at 1pm. Get there early to get a seat! There are plenty of hiking trails, of varying difficulty, to see the surrounding area. We only spent about 2 hours there and it's really best to allocate at least 4 hours, if not a full day.

A few pictures from our day.

Jesse double-fisting his cava.

Spain, glorious Spain

Chuck had a conference in Barcelona, so I tagged along and did some sightseeing while he spent his days locked up in a building. I remember when the roles were reversed and he was able to enjoy the sights and sounds of San Diego, San Antonio, Minneapolis, and Charlottesburg, while I was cooped up in a conference center.

I must admit, over the years, his conference (and work) locations far outshine anything selected for a local government worker...ie, no extravagance in the public sector!

We spent 6 days in Barcelona and then I flew over to Madrid for 4 days and Chuck returned to Denmark.

Barcelona was quite the city! I'm sure the Summer Olympics in 1992 helped revitalize the city and improve the infrastructure. The subway system was great and easy to use (probably the best I've even been on in Europe). The boardwalk area along the Mediterranean was amazing. And, the sites were pretty impressive.

What did we do...

...aside from our brush with the local law enforcement and a pickpocketer

• Sagrada Familia - not sure when this structure will EVER be finished. I can see why it's been a 'work in progress' for the last 127 years...no one seems to be working there!


• Palace of Catalan Music - stunning. I wish we would have planned ahead and got tickets to see / listen to a performance. No pictures as cameras weren't allowed, but it is an absolute work of art. Just stunning.


• Mercat de San Josep de la Boqueria (Fresh market) - if you've seen one open market, you've seen (and smelled) them all.


• Picasso Museum (and sighting of the naked 60 year old man on a bicycle)


• Catalunya Square


• Port Vell - the sight of our encounter with the pickpocketer. Nice place to get a beer, walk, and watch the boats and people around you.


• Olympic Village


• Day trip to Montserrat and a Cava producer - more on this under a separate post.


• Las Ramblas street (complete with tons of vendors selling birds) - the street is boulevarded with the center strip lined with vendors selling everything from touristy key chains and other crap to live birds. I wonder how a tourist from the USA get a little birdie on the airplane???


• Montjuic (Mountain of the Jews) - we took the aerial gondola up to the castle on the top. It was interesting, but there wasn't much to do.


• Museum of Contemporary Art - great art work, but not a lot of it. I'm not sure if they were between collections or if this was their normal exhibits. Good, but limited.

Stay tuned for the slideshow. In the meantime, here are a few pictures.

Ahhh, the beach!

Fresh fruit stand at the Market

Sagrada Familia - the cathedral that was started 127 years ago and isn't slated to be finished until 2020!

On the road again.

And we're off again....

• Barcelona, Spain


• Madrid, Spain


• USA


• Budapest, Hungary


• Hamburg, Germany

Getting your pocket picked

I think just about everyone I know warned me about pickpockets in (insert city here) in Europe. From Barcelona to Prague, it seems that most people know of someone that was a victim in some European city.

After 20 months in Europe, 14 countries and many, many, many cities....it finally happened to us.

We were sitting at a cluster of tables at Port Vell in Barcelona having a few glasses of beer. I had my purse on my lap and Chuck put his backpack on his chair (which was located in the dead center of the group). Of the 6 tables, all were filled with English-speaking folks and there were probably about 30 people sitting there.

Enter, the Barcelona police. Three cops on motocycles/mopeds ride up and say in Spanish, "Did anyone lose a backpack?" Hmmm, huh? What? I translate to Chuck, "They want to know if anyone lost a backpack." He turns around and his backpack is gone.

Chuck: "Uh, yeah, hey that's my backpack"

Cop 1: "Do you have a passport"

Chuck: "Yes, it's in my pocket. Here you go."

Neighboring tables: "We didn't see anything, what happened"

Cop 1: "Do you want to press charges and fill out a police report"

Chuck: "No, that's ok."

Cop 1: (reaching into backpack, looking at contents, and pulls out a book...says to Cop 2 in Spanish) "Hey, listen to this....Harmonic...blah, blah, blah"

Cop 2: Laughs and laughs some more

Little did the would-be thief know that Chuck's backpack would contain conference papers for the EPE (engineering) conference, a pad of paper, pencil...and his boss's PhD thesis...which is what Cop 1 pulled out of the backpack. Oh, I forgot to add that Cop 1 said the equivalent of 'nerd' in Spanish to Cop 2. Editorial note....no, my husband is not a nerd; just a very intelligent engineer. Yes, I know...that equals nerd.

So, yes, Chuck was the victim of a pickpocket. But, we were quite thrilled with how the Barcelona police officers were quick to return the backpack.

I'm sure the little thief was faced with 'some serious hurt' or tell the cops where to return the backpack.