We leave tomorrow a.m. We'll be in Barcelona for the QF, Madrid for the SF and Granada for the final. I'm really hoping Spain gets to the final.

Nice...enjoy the trip!

Speaking of Jamon Iberico. I found a place here in Atlanta that sells it. $109 per lb!

In the words of Waylon Jennings: "Git us one"

yeah, they need their spirits lifted, again...

So it appears the 2 legged Supercopa de Espana will be between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona in August. The first match will be in Barcelona on August 22nd.

I'll be in Barcelona during this. Cheapest seats I've found so far have been $130 American.

I sorta have to go to this right?

YES

it'll also make you realize how lame the Sanford Stadium crowds are in comparison

Without a doubt. I was hoping to find a game while I was here but had to settle for watching Spain win the Euros with the locals.

I'm in Sevilla and just returned from watching my first bullfight. That was rough---especially for my youngest daughter but I must admit not easy for me either. It was culturally and historically interesting but I don't have any desire to see another. My guess for tomorrow's meals---strictly vegan.

Overall this trip has been awesome. You're going to love it Derris. I'll send you many details when I return next week.

Well, that was a great trip. I'm jealous that you still get to go and that I'm home. A few tips we found beneficial:

If you hadn't already planned on it, get a Chip & PIN card from Travelex. A lot of guide books recommend against this because of the exchange rate but it's really not bad right now and those cards can be invaluable in Europe. It literally saved us hours of waiting in line for tickets (transportation and tourist sites) by being able to use the automated venders which do not accept US credit cards. Most restaurants and shops accept them as well.

Don't worry about the Renfe train tickets. We were able to get our tickets for both trains and buses while there without a problem, often on the day of travel.

As for the specific cities:

Barcelona was by far the most touristy feeling of the 4 major cities we visited (excluding Nerja, the beach town). The warnings about pick-pockets and scam artists are not overblown as I had at least 1 failed attempt to grab my wallet and we were constantly warding off scammers. You definitely chose the right neighborhood to stay in--as harry suggested, the Barri Gotic is by far the most charming part of town. Also like he suggested, the "Gaudi tour" was our highlight in Barca. I believe we saw all his major works: Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo, Park Guell and Palau Guell. If you're a fan of his architecture, I think seeing them all is worth it. If not, I'd hit the SF and Batllo. The Picasso Museum was another highlight. Montjuic was a bit disappointing. Your buddy's restaurant recs were good, especially Cal Pep. I would disagree with him about eating at the bar vs. the back room---definitely get the dining room reservation. We called 2 hours before and were seated. It was one of our best meals the entire trip. La Boqueria is a must as well but the tapas bar he recommended, while good, was nothing special vs. others we sampled.

Madrid was all about the art for us. We spent 6 hours at the Prado. We're not as big into modern art but Guernica is worth the price of admission alone at the Reina Sofia. We actually enjoyed the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum more than the Reina Sofia. Retiro park was nice and the Royal Palace is worth a couple hours. Unlike Barcelona, you don't need to buy a metro card in Madrid. Most the sites are fairly close together and cabs are as cheap and more convenient.

Sevilla is fantastic. You made the right call by going here rather than the Costa del Sol--it's a no-brainer. Just wandering the streets here (and Granada) were some of our best moments. The Cathedral is stunning. Don't skip the smaller Iglesia del Salvador which is nearby and included with your ticket to the main cathedral. While much smaller it was equally gorgeous (sounding a little like Rick Steves now). The Alcazar is worthwhile as well. Speaking of Mr. Steves, we took a walking tour he recommends led by Concepcion Delgado---well worth the money. She was so charming, funny and knowledgeable. She recommended the Archivos del Indios museum. It's just 1 block west of the Alcazar. It has rotating exhibits and the current one is showing the original maps/documents of the early explorers. It's all in Spanish but even if you don't know the language, seeing the documents was fascinating. Like I mentioned above, we saw a bullfight here (just the teen novices, the pro's are in their off-season). I don't think they'll still be going when you're there but if so, it was pretty interesting to see. El Museo de Finas Artes is Sevilla's art museum set in a beautful building with some impressive works. It was surprisingly nearly empty while we were there but we all enjoyed it. The best tapas we had the entire trip was in Sevilla. It's called Ovejas Negras, about a block north of the Cathedral. It's the only restaurant we went to more than once. Highly recommended.

I know you have your itineray set and it's rapidly approaching but I want to put in a plug for Granada if you can somehow work it in. It was unanimously our favorite city we visited. We wished we had cut Barcelona and/or Madrid by a day and spent 3-4 nights in Granada. The Alhambra and Albaicin district are both unbelievably beautiful.

Hope some of this is helpful. Let me know if decide to see Granada and I'll give you a few more recs. You guys are going to love it.

Awesome Marco. Cannot freaking wait. Did you just get your Travelex card at the airport? Sounds like it'd be worth it to at least put a few hundred on one of those. FYI, we ended up just getting train tix through Rail Europe. It's only a 2.5 hour trip so we ended up just going coach. The Preferente tickets were something insane, like, 5 times as much. Just couldn't justify that.

As for the cities, thanks for the insight. Here's what we're roughly planning:

Barcelona - Gaudi, Food, Montserrat, and hopefully, FC Barcelona match. Been having issues finding tickets to the match that I feel like will be delivered properly. I just don't know these websites. The last thing I want is to pay $250 for 2 tickets and have them arrive at my house while I'm in Spain. Other than Gaudi, we're really focusing on the food here and having as little planned as possible and just enjoying the city as it'll be our last stop.

Madrid - looking at a similar experience as you. We will technically only be here for about 48 hours so we're focusing on Prado, Reina Sofia, Royal Palace, a bus top tour, the market, and maybe one really good restaurant. Also looking to hit a specific bar that I've read serves Westvleteren beer.

Seville - good to hear about choosing this city. Will def check out that tapas joint. I've been told the Triana neighborhood across the river is pretty great with tapas places and bars. Def planning an evening there. Not going to hit a bullfight but may tour the stadium. I just have no desire.

As much as I'd love to hit Granada I feel like trying to cram it in would be too difficult. I feel like we wouldn't get to soak in Seville OR Granada by trying to do both. If we weren't flying from Seville to Barcelona it might've been more manageable.

Utlimately we're trying to walk that fine line of having some things planned but not TOO much planned so we can have room for exploration.

Pics or it didn't happen

Just check online for your nearest Travelex office. I think the ATL airport does have one but it might be easier to do it ahead of time so you're not rushed. We budgeted all of our cash for the trip and put it on the cards. Using the card you can withdraw cash from ATMs in Spain without fees. They also send you a replacement card if one is lost or stolen.

The 2nd class seats on the AVE were plenty nice--no need to spend extra money for preferente.

The bullfighting arena/museum tour wasn't very good. If you're not going to see a bullfight I'd recommend skipping it.

As for the Sevilla airport--definitely be there at least 2 hours before your flight. We almost missed our flight to Madrid to head home because we were told we only needed to be there 1-1.5 hours ahead of time. Maybe it was atypical, but it was 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning and it was a clusterfuck.

I think your travel philosophy is right on for Spain. Just soak it up. Be ready for 11 p.m. dinners, not much open until at least 10-11 a.m., and closed again between 3-6 p.m. for siesta. The Spanish know how to relax.

i usually spent from like 3 to 5 at the hotel sleeping, 5 to 9 drinking local beers or wine, 9 to 11 eating, then 11 to whenever just wandering around the streets or people watching half lost and/or totally drunk.

My last trip to Espana was many years ago. I think I stayed up for 3-4 days at a time.

Another plug for rounded and dusty Cordoba, and the dark and light mosque.

We got back Thursday night from our 12 day vacation in Spain, and we loved it.

- Madrid (3 nights) - We got in Sunday morning and rested up before watching the Euro final outside of the Bernabeu with maybe 40-50k folks. It was a lot of fun, but for the second half we decided to head to a bar so we could have a drink and get away from the tweens that happened to be right beside us. Madrid was crazy that night, obviously.
The next day we rented bikes for the day and went on a biking tour of Madrid, which was a good way to see the city (Royal Palace, cathedral, etc) and is something we enjoy doing when we get a chance on various travels. The last day we toured the bullfighting stadium (which is like the MSG of bullfighting stadiums) before also touring the Bernabeu on a self-guided tour and hitting the Prado for a few hours to check out the Goya paintings. On two different nights we did tapas crawls through the Santa Ana and La Latina barrios - highly recommended.


- Seville (3 nights) - We stayed in the Triana neighborhood and were actually at the same bullfight as Marco.

I ended up getting food poisoning for two days in Seville, but we did a tapas crawl in Triana alng the river, toured the cathedral and saw Christopher Columbus's tomb and also the Alcazar, which was cool. We walked around/biked in the Barrio Santa Cruz. Liked Sevilla a lot but the food poisoning effed my shit up a bit.

- Granada (2 nights) - Toured the Alhambra obviously, although I was still feeling bad and didn't get to tour the palace at night. The Albaicin neighborhood was cool to walk through, and we did Muslim baths as well as eating dinner with a nice view of the Alhambra.


- Stopped over in Nerja for a few hours on our way to Malaga and stayed at the beach for a few hours, eating paella by the sea and swimming in the Mediterranean.


- Malaga (3 nights) - Took a day trip to Gibraltar (1.5 hour drive, but going through customs was more of a hassle than we expected). Was nice to be around english speakers for a few hours.

In Malaga, we rented bikes and toured the city that way but didn't do much in terms of museums or anything (thought about going to Picasso's birthplace museum, but wife wasn't feeling it).

Damn, man. Awesome. How were the rental bikes?

In Madrid, 20 euro for a 24 hour rental (bike with locks). In Seville, 18 euro for a week (bike that you have to "check in" at stations every 30 minutes, the exact same thing we used in Minneapolis/St. Paul last month). In Malaga, 5 euro for 4 hours (bike with locks).

So Seville had a bike share? I've never heard of the 30 min check in, though, that's odd. Still, 20 euros a day isn't awful I guess. San Fran was nuts, we fucking got it down to like 4 hours and even that was over $20 each.

Yea, bike share - I guess that's the proper name of it. Love the idea, but I (or rather my wife and then me) inevitably panic about 15 minutes into each "trip" in order to make sure we find the next station within 30 minutes. If you go longer than that between check-in's, it's something like a euro extra per "trip." Was actually the same way in MSP.

Boston and Montreal (2 systems I've used) just have you register and get a card, which can be done at a kiosk on the fly. Then you check one out at a station, and you're off. Whenever you check it back in, it charges for how long it was gone. No panic, no clock watching.

When we went to Montreal, it was 3 people on share bikes and me on my real bike (car'd it up there so we'd have a kid seat for squirrglette). Everytime we went somewhere, they'd hop on, we'd get where we were going, and they'd check them back in and walk around. I had to either lock (and come back for it) or roll mine around as they walked. Their setup was better than mine... it's nicer to be able to just walk away and get one wherever you wind up later.

Derris...pixplsthx

First things first:

Update?

What a difference a month makes
http://m.guardiannews.com/ms/p/gnm/us/s ... nm-gallery