Absolutely smashed by Barcelona (and the fact Spain has more bars than the US!), and while praying to the patron saint of hangovers, St Ruggling, we jumped on a train and headed to Toledo. We had a short stop along the way in Madrid to change trains, but didn’t have time to achieve much other than the essential act for any European holiday: paying to use the dunny in a train station. As usual, you can only pay with 1s or 2s. #repeatedjokes

We only had a short time in Toledo, but that’s all you really need. We’d heard the Cathedral was one of the best in Europe so thought we’d get Lea her church fix and went for a look. Totally awesome Cathedral, but, thanks to Lea’s research, and no thanks to the staff not telling us, we discovered our hotel had a rooftop bar and Holy Toledo! What a view we had of the setting sun over the former capital of Spain.

Very early on, Madrid was off to a great start (NB: we saw the Prado, Royal palace and Guernica and all that other stuff while in town) our first European pillow!  Madrid was also home to our favourite walking tour for the trip, but still reeling from the effects of the Spanish flu, James was very careful not to be peer pressured by the guide to rub any of the many bronze statues to avoid getting next plague.  Fun fakt: The plague was actually spread by people touching statues for “luck” all over Europe, hence its original name of the plaque, subsequently mispelled over various outbreaks.  Despite these great efforts of will, James very quickly submitted to peer pressue by sharing a glass of wine with some random old guy in a market straight afterwards.

Most of our time in our final city was spent soaking up the amazing tapas culture of Madrid, better than Barcelona and potentially challenging that of our time in Andalucia. Some jamazing jamon was had as well as our first chorizo con sidre, or in Engish: sausage in cider…

Thank you Madrid for an incredible last adventure for PS2017.

PS-we’ll be back….or hasta la vista…Spainy.

…but not straight away. In fact, for a moment we weren’t sure we’d even make it for just a spring.

After a flight from Porto to Barcelona, a couple of metros and a walk through an interesting neighbourhood to our confusing AirBNB, we finally got to head into town to smash some pintxos. We pretty much just needed anyone to not be a total Barce-hole. Being in a town with “bar” in it’s name, we thought this should be easy, but our first few experiences managed to set the…bar, pretty low.

Ok, firstly…we did later have the best dining (and almost best anything) experience of our lives in Barcelona. 31 courses of delight, intrigue and phenomenal-ness, but nobody wants to hear about that, so I’ll just stick with the rant about our first night in BARcelona.

Bar 1, El Doucho: The guy pretty much refused to pour us a glass of wine to go with our factory pumped out snacks, despite remembering everyone elses order…so you can imagine how much we liked him.  If there’s one couple at the bar to remember the wine for!

Bar 2, No Abierto: Next attempt was a bar that came highly recommended…but was closed on Sundays, as of this week, ie. today.

Bar 3, No Dos: A cool looking bar without obviously looking touristy, but we were told we could wait outside for an hour because they didn’t want tables of two at this time.

Bar 4, Vermouth Nazi: Totally awesome looking local bar! Hooray! Everyone was drinking the same aperitivo type thing, so we approached excited, but apprehensive (because Spain). I tried to order the same thing as everyone else as politely as possible, trying to sound as least like someone who stole Cuba from them over 100 years ago, but we were told there was “no space”. When a lovely local tried to make space and pointed it out to the bar-keeper (who looked like he’d been drinking this stuff in the sun for 60 years) we were told “there’s no space, it’s not possible, NO VERMUT FOR YOU!!”, before he started laying into the other guy for being nice. On the plus side, we now knew they were drinking vermouth and we’d stopped singing “Amigos para siempre” in our heads. On the negative, I started singing “American Boy” featuring Kanye West in my head…so, welcome to BARcelona.

Bars 5 & 6, Trapos do Tourismos: We finally found a couple of nice semi-tourist traps, and really loved the pintxo lifestyle, despite getting the feeling some of the locals might have been dropping the occasional toothpick on our plate. Either that, or given we’d been (or tried to be) to 6 bars by now, we may not be the most reliable witnesses to what we’d eaten.

Bar 7, Catalano para siempre: Another, very local recommendation was open until late in the night, so with a bit of Spanish courage (I doubt that’s actually a thing), we gave it a go. Rough start again…tried saying, in Spanish, “sorry, we don’t speak Spanish, I know nothing, I come from Australia”, to which the bartender replied, in some Iberian dialect, “neither do I, I’m Catalonian…”. We know that’s what he said because a lovely man, who gave us his place at the bar (making him new favourite Spaniard…sorry, Catalonian), told us…as well as telling us the guy speaks English!! Aye carumba!!! How did anyone from this town ever think they could get a job at a BnB on the English Riviera?

Anyway…despite the various difficulties and ensuing rant that took up most of a post, we loved Barcelona, and got on so well that it felt as though I’ve known it forever, so well that the lifestyle broke us over the three days. On the day we had the 31 course meal, we also went to the markets and then got force fed house cava and tapas at Bar 2, now abierto (open). Of course, even though our AirBNB place had plenty of towels, that were grate, and doubled as exfoliators, we only had 2 rolls of TP and these happened to run out on the same day as our foodathon. I knew it wouldn’t have been a fun experience anyway, so was happy to wait for the next town…sort of like, delaying mortification.

We did much more than just visit bars in Barcelona, we also took in the sights and did our own min-Gaudi tour. Park Guell and his buildings were beautiful, but the still unfinished Sagrada Familia was spectacular. Even despite Lea taking us on a wrong turn up one of the towers, causing us to climb part of it twice! In this case I didn’t mind at all, because I got to say, “this seems a little…familia…” #2gaudy4gaudi

Thanks Barcelona, something happened when we were together, but there has come the time when, darling, we must say goodbye.

Fact: Port “wine” gained its name from the Portuguese tradition of only drinking with their left hands. British sailors ferrying the stuff to the motherland witnessed these “port drinkers” and the name stuck. Ok, so that’s totally not true, however, they did first invent the wine in order to have something else to use all their cork for. As if cork shoes, cork hats, cork raincoats, cork postcards, cork sanitary products, cork prophylactics and cork cocktails weren’t enough already! Ok, so that’s obvioulsy not true either, but it’s to address such rumours as these that we headed to the home of Port, the stunning Douro Valley and the town of Porto.

After some truly, horrific driving (the roads were horrific, not the skills of the fingernail-less driver) into the Douro Valley, we stopped off at the first Quinta we could find for a tour. No expense is spared in these old Quintas who’ve made their fortune from selling a perfectly marketed product, despite there being very little reason for its existence. Whenever I asked, “why do you choose to ruin what could have ended up a perfectly good wine, by adding alcohol to make it almost intolerably strong but also sickeningly sweet?”, the answer would be , “it’s not a choice…it’s the terroir…”. “Oh ok then…thanks for the explanation, but what makes the wine in this region so perfect to be kept sweet and alcoholic?”….”….terroir…”. I should have seen that one coming. 

After the tour we savoured a number of their wines while looking over the postcard valley of the Douro. Well worth the visit, even if the wine’s not to your taste. At that point, as in Jerez, James handed the keys to Lea for the final drive to our Quinta, as we figured the best way to learn to drive on the other side of the road in a manual car is a narrow, 2-way, windy, mountain road, after a couple of port tastings where a small mistake would mean certain death.

We made it to Quinta Nova! Slightly damp through panic sweats, but we made it and we’d never felt so alert! The pictures don’t quite capture how incredible this location is, but we tried so take a look anyway. The Douro is vying for top spot in the list of most beautiful wine regions we’ve visited…and we’ve been to a couple. We even lucked out with our choice of Quinta as this one only made 10% Port (not the Port strength, but the volume of grapes destined to be fortified) and some wonderful table wines, having obviously hired a wine maker that had taken on the roads to actually get out of the valley and work somewhere else for a season or two.

Our final night in Portugal was in Porto. After visiting four of the famed Porto cellars for tours and/or tastings, and really boosting our…portfolio, we jumped straight on a boat to tour the river, passing all of the 6 bridges connecting either side of town. 6 bridges in about 2kms! Come on Portugal.  One (built by Eiffel) was no longer in action, so at least they finally realised that was a bridge too far.

Lea made the mistake of forcing James to pick a place to go for a drink, so of course, we ended up and the dingiest, dankest, but closest pub. James had Port (surprise) and Lea had a vinho branco (white wine), which she didn’t even finish!! #firsts  In fairness, I did try it, and it really did put the ranco back into Branco. Luckily, Lea chose everywhere else so we ended our time in Portugal on a high! And a glass of Port…it’s not that bad…

After a brilliant 3 nights in Seville, our next adventure began with us locking ourselves in our building, getting held up in a bakery (which is usually factored into James’ timing estimates), going to the wrong place to get our car, having a first dayer do our hire paperwork, get stuck in traffic in the outskirts of town, and arrive 20 minutes late for our first Sherry bodega tour in Jerez!! Luckily it’s Spain…they were nowhere near ready to get going. In fact they insisted we go and move our car, and remove an signs of life from it. They were not the last in Jerez to frown at us when we said we’d parked our car…didn’t matter where. This pretty much sums up the town of Jerez, but the Sherry was really cheap so everyone’s a winer (sic)!!! We stayed in a hotel, which was nice and had a toilet that was far easier to use, however, the shower was almost impossible. So difficult, that I had to wonder if I’ve ever been taught to shower properly, or was the skill lost when our forefathers migrated to Australia?

We thoroughly enjoyed the bodega tours in Jerez, but struggled to find anywhere decent to eat. How much did Hames hate his hamon in Herez?? Heaps. (All H’s in previous line, were intended to be pronounced “hhhhhkkkkkhhhhhh,,,”, but 3 are actually spelled with a J instead of H…can you guess wjicj ones??)

The drinks still flowed the same, because by the time we actually found a half decent tapas bar, Lea came out with some pearlers. Firstly, upon arrival of some beef dish, “I wasn’t expecting this much meat…”, if I had a Euro for every time… And secondly, upon receiving a quite nice chicken dish…apart from being pink in the middle, Lea explained: “they didn’t ask me how I wanted the chicken cooked…”. Thus opening herself up to a lifetime / marriage time (whichever comes first, odds have probably changed after this) of “how would you like your chicken cooked tonight dear?”

At one Bodega, where our booking had been lost, we ended up with a private tour…followed closely by 200 Germans…and also a tasting of 9 glasses of Sherry and brandy for James and 4 for Lea James.  With Lea the only one having completed her RSA training, this shone through as she stared me down, eyes saying “this is what we’re in this crappy town for for, step up!” and voice saying, “NO WINE LEFT BEHIND!” Lea, did try some of the wines, and ended up liking the Cream Sherry the best…surprise.  Next we’ll be adding rennet, a starter culture and making Sherry Camambert (patent pending!)

We got stuck with Aussies at 2 of the 4 bodegas we visited (do we all sound like that??), who all used the same excuse as us for not buying too much of anything anywhere: “oh…you see we have these, um, strict import regulations in Straylia…”  One of the bodegas was great as there was a shed with all their old horse drawn carts, presumably used for transporting their product around town.  I guess one for the dry and one for the sweet…one dry chariot, one…sweet chariot??

Not long after arriving in Seville, we realised there was almost no market for barbers as so many people seemed to wear full length robes with pointy hats, thus avoiding the need for dedicated hair stylists and validating James’ decision for the $23 pre-trip-trim.

Being Semana Santa, the time where everyone dresses like they’re in the KKK and men carry floats of Mary and Jesus on their shoulders to make up for a year of misigony and adultery, Seville was extremely busy, but we did manage to score an AirBNB close to the centre of the old town. Good enough apartment, with the toilet the only draw back. First time we’ve stayed somewhere where the toilet is located slightly under the vanity top. Easy to get used to I guess, kind of like riding a horse…side-saddle. The larger you are, the tougher it was to use, but it beckons the question that if you’re small enough to fit under the bench, then surely the ability to swim is your main concern when stepping up to the seat…literally. So to use it you need to be small, but if you can use it you run the risk of being flushed…kind of like a catch 20-loo…….Anyway, we still don’t know how to use one, but the need for an optimally placed bidet must vary proportionally with the difficulty of in using the main event, as our bidet had full 180 degree swing room. So I guess the design made sense…

Sorry, that’s way too much potty talk. Let’s move on to floaters.  With so many processions around town, it became diffcult to avoid them and actually get a drink. People running all directions to see their favourite float and thus being annointed the name “floaters”…by Lea. Giving rise to the new business opportunity of an app to find out where these zealots were so you could get to your tapas bar, something like “pass the floaters” or “floater tracker” or “iFloater”.

The very food we were learning to avoid was the very first food we ended up trying: Anchovies. This awful food, elsewhere in the world, was made amazing by the fact the Spanish consider the terms Essential Oils and Essential Salts to be food groups used to enhance the flavour of anchovies, rather than ways to stop your house from smelling of…anchovies.

We loved Sevilla, with it’s Tapas bars and party atmosphere. We didn’t have many must sees, but wanted to see the Jesus float on Good Friday, which we totally nailed….

One tapas bar, which we obviously frequented too often, began to serve us shots of home made caramel vodka, then something that tasted like Throaties and then limoncello. I don’t know how he presumed to know us so well, but he’s now our favourite person in the world.

We saw the sights: the amazing Alcazar, the Cathedral, the Plaza de Espagna, Triana, the mushroom building thing, other stuff, and the Golden Tower. Not a typo, and not touching that one. However, sadly (??), we didn’t make it to the bull fight.

We went past the bull ring several times looking to buy tickets, when finally they were open, we hesitatingly went in only to be told, “SOLD OUT”. I’m totally serious. No bull. Given the ticket booth was open and there were 4 people working, I think they may have meant: “Sold out of tickets you mono-lingual peasants can afford”. Note to self: remember to next time pack a shirt with obscenely large horse, faun pants, sepia sunnies and proudly display gut rather than hide it. Because the best I could do was put on a red t-shirt and start walking the streets looking for our own bull.

Thank you, Sevilla, and your wax covered streets. You’ve set a standard that the rest of the trip will struggle to live up to! If any town surpasses you, just remember, revenge is a dish best served cold…just like your tapas.

We made it! Two flights, three trains and four pairs of undies later we’re almost in Seville. We managed to talk our way into the Qantas lounge in Perth, despite flying with Etihad, based purely on confidence!!*

*If “confidence” means months of meticulous planning, changing credit cards to Virgin, consolidating points as a family (2 is still a family) and purposely booking Etihad flights from the Virgin Aus website to give ourselves the best chance to get in and then almost fail to even go in out of embarassment…then confidence it was!

The flight to UAE was uneventful, but the next leg over the Arabian peninsula was something else. While most slept, James (a terrible flyer since his late teens when he joined Uni and realised any idiot could study engineering) spent the first 2 hours cold-sweating from pores he never knew he had as the plane bounced above the desert, changed course every 4 panic attacks (each one coming with the usual bargaining with a deity, however, despite the occasion being the wee hours of Good Friday, given the location and TV screen pointing out Mecca, most was done with Allah rather than Jesus or his Dad), which eventually allowed us to fly over Cairo at night, where we got to see the city lit up, the outline of the Nile delta and tried in vain to see the pyramids and the Sphinx at 2am. NB: I don’t think it was ironic, but it certainly is a strange conversation in your head when you’ve been working one muscle in your body so hard, that you start thinking if it’s a coincidence it’s name is so closely related to noseless, stone cat.

We finally settled into a more comfortable routine on the train to Seville, with Lea sleeping next to her kindle while James drank beers and wrote a crappy blog entry. While trying, unsuccessfuly to take a nice photo the 100s of kms of olives flying by.

Anyway, we’re here in Spain, in a train on the plain (I hope it doesn’t rain while we’re here otherwise I’ve wasted the first blog title of the trip) as we head to Seville to watch parades and floats of Jesus and some chick called Mary (if she’s the Mary that designed Lea’s special breakfast tomato juice, then I can’t wait to join in the praise!) and I’m sure we’ll make this Good Friday a Great one!!**

**Not intended to cause offence (#perpetualdisclaimer), the forementioned sphincter-shpinx relationship got us thinking of why Good Friday is called GOOD Friday (yes, we SHOULD know, but I should have also known what a sibilant was and laughed when Lea suggested a good blog title for Seville would be “there’s one Sibilant in Seville” referencing the ‘v’ in Spanish being similar to a ‘b’, but I didn’t…until I googled “sibilant”,  when I still didn’t laugh, but you’ll just have to wait to find out if I use it!!…wait’s over, totally not using it), when the Sunday should at the very least be called Better Sunday when he woke up. And more importantly does Jamon count as meat??? And if we accidentally had some, how many bloody Mary’s and how’s-your-father’s do we need to make up for it?