A weekend best described in photos (part 1)

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Spain on account of All Saints' Day on Monday. So, with a nice 4-day weekend on our hands, John and I decided to travel to Madrid (only a 4 and 1/2 hour bus ride... annoying, yes, but doable!) to visit Anais and her boyfriend, Enrique. After a quick cup of coffee, we were out the door at 8am Friday morning and made it to the bus station just in time to catch our 9am bus to the capital city. The ride was pretty uneventful and around 2pm we pulled into Estación Sur de Autobuses in Madrid. Eventually we found Anais (a few "Umm, where are you?!" phone calls had to be made... but then again, Estación Sur is the biggest bus station in the city and it's a heck of a lot bigger than the one we've got here in Granada!). The three of us spent all of Friday walking around the city. We spent a lot of time in the Parque del Retiro, a beautiful, giant park that has a large artificial pond in the middle where you can rent paddle boats or enjoy a snack. We walked and shopped along the street Gran Vía and we took a break on a side street off of Plaza Mayor, Madrid's most famous plaza, to enjoy a delicious bocadillo de calamares.

Bocadillo de calamares, anyone? With just a little bit of mayo, this sandwich is delicious!

Later that night, Anais, John and I caught the metro and later a local train to head home to Anais and Enrique's small flat. The two live just outside of the city in Las Rozas but as Madrid's so big, it took us just about 40 minutes to get there. Their apartment is tiny but I loved it! We ate dinner, watched a movie and headed to bed.

On Saturday morning, after a quick breakfast, the four of us piled into Enrique's car and drove about an hour to El Escorial, a historical residence and palace of the kings and queens of Spain built in the 16th century. We took a guided tour of the Monastery and later walked on our own through the various courtyards and the impressive royal library... it contains thousands upon thousands of original books dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries (there are even a few from the 9th century!) in Spanish, Latin and Arabic.

After lunch, we drove to Ávila, a small but beautiful city most famous for its nearly perfect and intact medieval wall. Construction on the wall began in the year 1090 and it was completed sometime in the 14th century. There are paths along the wall that circle the city; strolling along these paths, you would NEVER guess that the medieval wall is in fact 1,000 years old... it's breathtaking and almost perfectly intact as if it had been constructed just last year. We stopped for coffee and a snack of yemas de Santa Teresa, candied egg yolks that the city is famous for. Ávila was definitely my favorite city of all the places that we visited over the long weekend!

Yemas de Santa Teresa... not my favorite dessert, but a must-try when in Ávila!

The next day, Sunday, we had two more trips planned. We waited for Anais' friend Fernando to arrive (he would be spending the day with us) and then we all drove to the city of Segovia. Segovia is famous for two things: its cathedral and its Roman aqueduct. The Cathedral, started in the year 1525 but not completed until over two-hundred years later in 1768, is the last Gothic cathedral constructed in Spain and its located right next to the city's main plaza, Plaza Mayor. It's known as la dama de las catedrales (the lady of the cathedrals). The aqueduct is possibly even more famous than the cathedral and it dates back to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. It's an immensely impressive work of human engineering...one that's survived almost 2,000 years... and it was constructed without any mortar, clamps or other securing devices of any kind!

Our last trip outside of Madrid was to Pedraza, a small and isolated, yet very beautiful, medieval Spanish village. The small town is located on a hill and is almost completely walled in. The village contains a castle, narrow cobbled streets and beautiful old houses where the Spanish nobles lived during medieval times. We spent almost two hours in Pedraza, walking around the streets and plazas, exploring the town's main square, seeing the old castle and, of course, stopping for a coffee at one of the the town's many charming cafes.

Monday morning we all slept in a bit before having a leisurely breakfast. John and I packed up our backpacks and said goodbye to Enrique, who had to work later that day, and left the apartment with Anais. We had about 5 hours before our bus left Madrid for Granada so we spent the better part of the afternoon walking around Madrid some more. This time, we walked along Paseo del Prado passing by the Museo del Prado, the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid and the Biblioteca Nacional de España. We took a quick detour to see the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu where Real Madrid hosts their soccer games before heading to lunch. After eating, Anais took John and I to the bus station. After about an hour delay (because this is Spain and hardly anything ever leaves on schedule...) we said our goodbyes to Anais and boarded the bus to Granada.

What a great weekend! Since this is a long entry, I've broken it into two parts. Look at the next blog entry for photos of all the places we traveled to while visiting Anais and Enrique in Madrid!