Greetings from Sevilla!
Woohoo, we´re in Sevilla! I´m at a real Internet Cafe this time, rather than the 15mins for free access at the hotel in Madrid.
Yesterday, as Jenn said, we went to Toledo. Absolutely great place. Really amazing old twisting streets and great old buildings. We each took about 100 pictures. I think for me the highlight is the old city gates. We entered through the east one (took many pictures) and existed through the north one (took many more pictures). The cathedral is also simply amazing! But, we didn´t go inside since they didn´t allow picture taking (pretty common for the major cathedrals).
However, I wouldn´t be Greg if I didn´t have my complaints... :-) First, the Lonely Planet map in the guide book was somewhere between useless and misleading. Ugh. Once we bought a map locally we finally could get around. Second, although the streets are only about 6-7ft wide, they allow cars, which will try and push pedestrians out of the way. Ugh. Finally, I was a little disapointed by the Alcazar. It looks impressive from afar, but up close it becomes obvious that it is very new. Turns out it was completely destroyed by Franco´s forces during the Civil War of the 1930´s and required complete restoration afterwards. Apparently there was quite a battle there. You can still see bullet/artillery damage on the Museum de Santa Cruz.
Jenn already typed about the train mixup, but the other funny thing was trying to ride the commuter train on our general Europe Rail Pass. Turns out there is a special gate for people like us, but when we got back to Madrid (the first time) we got stuck at some turnstyles that only people with commuter tickets can get through. We just stood in front of them looking foolish for about 5 minutes before I caught the attention of a security guy who rattled off a whole bunch of Spanish, looked at our tickets very confused, then rattled off a bunch more Spanish, then gave us the little ´metro-like´ tickets that can get you through the turnstyles. After that, we went back to the information desk and got the Spanish-plus-finger-pointing explanation on how to use their system with our kind of ticket. After that, it was no problem. Oh, and the train station in Toledo was disconnected from the track system so that they can upgrade it for AVE (high-speed train) so we had to take a bus from a nearby station to the Toledo station. More confusion...
But, Toledo was well worth the trip!
Today we road the high-speed AVE train in First Class. Nice. But, I think the French TGV goes faster. We thought we could see Toledo from the train, have to check that. Also, we saw another AMAZING castle soon after that. It was just by itself on this hilltop. Have to figure out what that was.
Sevilla looks great. But, I´d like to take a minute to bash Microsoft´s map service (who´s name escapes me right now). I carefully printed out a map from them that clearly showed both the train station and our hotel. But, turns out the map was oriented 90 degrees from what I expected (East up rather than North), so we´re trying to walk south, but also follow some of the street names, but it´s not working out, we´re getting lost, I´m getting frustrated, Jenn getting tired, ughhh. Finally we stopped for help at an information booth in a mall and turns out we were only a block from our hotel, but with the map we never would have found it. More reasons to be made at Microsoft right now...
So, now we are off to see the sights. Sevilla looks pretty cool. The guide book says it was THE major port for trade with the Americas until the river silted up and a coastal port was used instead. Sevilla then declined until just recently when it hosted a world´s fair about 10 years ago. It has been on the incline since. But, it is clearly not as wealthy as Madrid. While walking around near the hotel we saw what looked like abandoned apartment buildings. Looked like they could be very nice if they were restored.
We are here for two days and then it is an over-night train to Barcelona, or as the people in Madrid said BARTHalona. :-) I love the TH lisp thing they do. GRATHious!
Yesterday, as Jenn said, we went to Toledo. Absolutely great place. Really amazing old twisting streets and great old buildings. We each took about 100 pictures. I think for me the highlight is the old city gates. We entered through the east one (took many pictures) and existed through the north one (took many more pictures). The cathedral is also simply amazing! But, we didn´t go inside since they didn´t allow picture taking (pretty common for the major cathedrals).
However, I wouldn´t be Greg if I didn´t have my complaints... :-) First, the Lonely Planet map in the guide book was somewhere between useless and misleading. Ugh. Once we bought a map locally we finally could get around. Second, although the streets are only about 6-7ft wide, they allow cars, which will try and push pedestrians out of the way. Ugh. Finally, I was a little disapointed by the Alcazar. It looks impressive from afar, but up close it becomes obvious that it is very new. Turns out it was completely destroyed by Franco´s forces during the Civil War of the 1930´s and required complete restoration afterwards. Apparently there was quite a battle there. You can still see bullet/artillery damage on the Museum de Santa Cruz.
Jenn already typed about the train mixup, but the other funny thing was trying to ride the commuter train on our general Europe Rail Pass. Turns out there is a special gate for people like us, but when we got back to Madrid (the first time) we got stuck at some turnstyles that only people with commuter tickets can get through. We just stood in front of them looking foolish for about 5 minutes before I caught the attention of a security guy who rattled off a whole bunch of Spanish, looked at our tickets very confused, then rattled off a bunch more Spanish, then gave us the little ´metro-like´ tickets that can get you through the turnstyles. After that, we went back to the information desk and got the Spanish-plus-finger-pointing explanation on how to use their system with our kind of ticket. After that, it was no problem. Oh, and the train station in Toledo was disconnected from the track system so that they can upgrade it for AVE (high-speed train) so we had to take a bus from a nearby station to the Toledo station. More confusion...
But, Toledo was well worth the trip!
Today we road the high-speed AVE train in First Class. Nice. But, I think the French TGV goes faster. We thought we could see Toledo from the train, have to check that. Also, we saw another AMAZING castle soon after that. It was just by itself on this hilltop. Have to figure out what that was.
Sevilla looks great. But, I´d like to take a minute to bash Microsoft´s map service (who´s name escapes me right now). I carefully printed out a map from them that clearly showed both the train station and our hotel. But, turns out the map was oriented 90 degrees from what I expected (East up rather than North), so we´re trying to walk south, but also follow some of the street names, but it´s not working out, we´re getting lost, I´m getting frustrated, Jenn getting tired, ughhh. Finally we stopped for help at an information booth in a mall and turns out we were only a block from our hotel, but with the map we never would have found it. More reasons to be made at Microsoft right now...
So, now we are off to see the sights. Sevilla looks pretty cool. The guide book says it was THE major port for trade with the Americas until the river silted up and a coastal port was used instead. Sevilla then declined until just recently when it hosted a world´s fair about 10 years ago. It has been on the incline since. But, it is clearly not as wealthy as Madrid. While walking around near the hotel we saw what looked like abandoned apartment buildings. Looked like they could be very nice if they were restored.
We are here for two days and then it is an over-night train to Barcelona, or as the people in Madrid said BARTHalona. :-) I love the TH lisp thing they do. GRATHious!
posted by Greg | 7:33 AM
2 Comments:
Hmmm, I pictured the techno clutered Americans with a PocketPC/GPS combo with maps of everything to see. :) I guess not. Prob would've helped though.
I hope you guys brought something to store all your pictures on. It sounds like you're running out of space. I now travel with a 20GB image tank/mp3 player in my photo backpack. And the laptop always comes on vacation. The 1GB card fills up quickly even on just day long shoots.
Well, you guys are making me wish I chose Europe for summer vacation. I love the blog idea too.
Keep having fun.
Justin
Yeah, all I´ve got are 2 1GB cards and the first one is nearly full. Looks like I´ll run out of memory in another week. Gona start looking for another card here. Very expensive, probably...
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