Day 1 was all travel, from Dallas, Texas, to Madrid, in a kind of forced march designed to quickly acclimate us to the time change. Now, having slept a whole night in Spain, we were all more or less ready to begin our excursions.
Day 2
We spent the morning in Madrid, initially driving around the town and having things pointed out to us, and then touring the Royal Palace. Well, it was A royal palace, the King of Spain’s Summer home or somesuch. I walked through the place with my mouth agape; the size! The scale! The art! The extravagant luxury! The capricious excess! The millions of people this kind of excessive wealth could be helping!
Granted, their king is a figurehead, and now it’s a museum, and the tour guides don’t shy away from mentioning all of the Muslims who were forced to build castles or be run out of Spain or killed. It’s the span of time that it took to build the place in the first place that boggles my mind. I mean, somewhere around year nine, I’d be tempted to look up from my pile of rocks and go, “Oh, screw this.” Also, the scale. You had to build an impressive castle to show off all of your ill-gotten shit to a bunch of rich assholes who had castles and loot of their own. An invitation to the castle was like a Middle Ages dick pic.
Every guide in every city was quick to point out the bullfighting arenas, or the commemorative statues, or the local matador museum, and most were quick to mention that there’s some controversy surrounding the tradition of bullfighting. We made a stop to admire some sculptures, but my heart wasn’t in it. I am not ethically opposed to eating cow, but I don’t think we have to be dicks around it, either. Bullfighting and the machismo around it feels steeped in the wrong kind of masculine energy. Feel free to kill each other in a pointless duel, just don’t play with my food.
And speaking of duels…we made a quick stop for lunch at the famous El Brilliante, whereupon Janice got to try the nation’s specialty: a fried calamari sandwich. I thought I’d ordered a ham and cheese, but what showed up were fried croquettes of soft cheese with pieces of ham inside. Um, okay. We also experienced, in a span of five minutes, freezing wind, rain, sleet, hail, and then sunshine (take THAT, Texas weather!) as we ate our mystery orders. Afterward, we piled onto the bus for a quick excursion out to Toledo. Where they make the swords.
This was one of the stopsI was really excited about. I’ve been hearing and reading about Toledo steel my whole life, being that I am a swashbuckling junkie, a connoisseur of both print and film. We got to visit one of the forges in town making swords, presumably for tourists, and see a little of their operation. It wasn’t as cool as getting to visit the master weaponsmith that made the swords for Game of Thrones, but it was still very neat.
Toledo itself is an amazing place, on a steep hilltop, surrounded by a river, creating a natural moat, and with several bridges that were easily defensible. As medieval cities go, it’s spectacular. The city’s history is interesting, as a military asset and an early city-state. This is why you should travel. I’ve never lived in a city that was a valued military asset, so they built walls to keep invaders out. But people in Toledo, driving to work, go past those walls every day and don’t give it a thought. If they think anything, it’s probably, “There’s that damn wall again.” That’s nuts.
We peeled off from the group—this is becoming our signature move—and grabbed a table in a nearby café, where we had a refreshing break, with this incredible red wine, café con leche, the best olives I’ve ever eaten, and a muffin that ate like a pound cake. I didn’t want to leave, but we had to hustle back to Madrid for dinner.
A word or two about Tapas. These are small portions of food, designed to be shared, like appetizers, or hors d’oeuvres, or sushi or sashimi, or whatever your culture calls them. Tapas were emphasized at every leg of the trip. “Try some tapas!”
We did that. Dinner was tapas, and with the exception of one or two things, it wasn’t anything you couldn’t get anywhere else off of the “starters” side of the menu. The food was good; fresh tasting, nice portions, etc. But it wasn’t, I don’t know, Spanish enough? I’ve seen sea food dishes from Spain and the barbecued chicken wings they served us weren’t doing it for me. It was my least favorite meal of the entire trip.
Thankfully there was sangria, and that helped me somewhat. All of the booze in Spain was cheap and plentiful. Ah, Europe! This was one of the group meals, and I think when they set these up, they shoot for the middle instead of swinging for the fences, so that you get a taste of the local cuisine, but it’s not so weird as to be off-putting. As it was, there were a few people turning their noses up at the calamari. I am positive those folks went home without having eaten any paella (I had it three different times and ways).
Two days in, and my favorite food was the breakfast tortilla, a dead-simple egg and potato frittata/quiche thingie that was served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I have to admit, even though the European breakfast is weird (compared to what we eat), I came to really like it. First time I’ve ever had ham served nine ways. They are proud of their pigs, boy, I tell you what.
I want to point out that when we were on our own, eating tapas, we had some amazing bites, and I mean really good stuff I’d never had before, and that’s as it should be. I noticed that in every restaurant where they served tapas, there was the “tapas” sized portion and the “full sized” portion. So, then, it’s a small and a large, right? This feels like a word they love that doesn’t quite mean what they think it does. We booked it back to the hotel to pre-pack and hit the sack. Tomorrow, we get back on the bus, and head out into the country.
To be continued on Day 3!