Archive for June, 2006

Barcelona – La Sagrada Familia

June 29th, 2006 by alephnaught

Barcelona – La Sagrada Familia

We got a bit of a late start but that was planned – this is our last full day in Spain and we plan to see the Sagrada Familia, and the English language tour is at 11A. So, we took a cab, bought tickets, had to ask two different people where to get the tour, […]

Barcelona

June 28th, 2006 by alephnaught

Barcelona

We woke up early, learned that France beat Spain in the World Cup quarters from BBC World, ate, showered and got a cab to Placa de Sant Jaume in the Barri Gotic area. We started with a little shopping at a couple of ceramics shops and then walked to the Sinagoga Medieval de Barcelona, the […]

Barcelona

June 27th, 2006 by alephnaught

Barcelona

The usual morning stuff, then it was off in a cab for National Museum of Catalan Art (MNAC). Its a large museum on a hill overlooking Barcelona. Its on the same hill as the Olympic venues. The collection is unique in that it has a whole wing dedicated to Romanesque art (art of the early […]

Barcelona

June 26th, 2006 by alephnaught

Barcelona

We woke up early and got cleaned up, ate breakfast, checked out of the hotel and caught a cab to the airport. On the highway about 10 minutes from the airport, a car in front of us stopped to keep from hitting some road debris (looked like part of a truck bumper), and our cab […]

Seville

June 25th, 2006 by alephnaught

Seville

We got up, ate, cleaned up and checked out – this hotel was very nice. We walked by Iglesia San Marcos (it wasn’t open). We walked over to Convento Santa Paula. We walked back to the hotel to use the washroom and then walked on to San Lorenzo y Jesus del Gran Poder (on the […]

Seville

June 24th, 2006 by alephnaught

Seville

We got up, cleaned up, ate and caught a cab to Estacion Atoche. We took an AVE train to Seville – in two and a half hours we arrived, around 1:30P. I finished the book A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain on the ride south. A short cab trip to our hotel, Best Western Hotel […]

Madrid

June 23rd, 2006 by alephnaught

Madrid

After cleaning up and breakfast we got a cab to go out to Glorieta of San Antonio de la Florida, which is decorated inside wiht frescoes by Goya celebrating the miracles of St. Anthony. The place is uninteresting on the outside, but the frescoes are amazing! The main scene in the rotunda ceiling portrays the […]

Toledo

June 22nd, 2006 by alephnaught

Toledo

We got up early, showered, ate breakfast, and then looked for a taxi. And looked. And looked some more. We had to try three places for over a half hour to get a cab down to the train station Estacion Atoche – there’s a large tropical garden with standing water and lillies; its very humid […]

Madrid

June 21st, 2006 by alephnaught

Madrid

We got up a little late and slow, grabbed breakfast in the hotel, cleaned up and skipped out to a local travel agent to get tickets for the AVE (high speed) train to Toledo tomorrow (30 minutes – can’t beat that); of course, it took almost an hour to get the tickets because friends of […]

Arrival in Madrid

June 20th, 2006 by alephnaught

Arrival in Madrid

We flew in with a connection at Schiphol in Amsterdam; our flight to Madrid was a little late. We took a cab from the airport and got to the hotel around 1:30P. We’re staying at the Best Western Premier Hotel Santo Domingo. The room is small but inexpensive – they claim they have wireless internet […]