Europe 2015

Since our beach day in San Sebastian was rained out, we decided to spend a day at the beach our first day in Barcelona.  After traveling a little farther out of the center of the city we found just what we were looking for: a nice quiet, not-so-crowded, beach where we could rent towels for the day, and enjoy the sunshine with a nice breeze.  The beach and water were beautiful.

As we toured Italy and Spain there is one thing Lindsey wanted to do that we just could not fit into our schedule: take a cooking class.  As we passed several cooking schools, Lindsey just wanted to stay and join the class.  I would not be surprised to see Lindsey return to Europe at some point in the future for some culinary training.

Luis Irizar Cooking School in San Sebastian Spain

San Sebastian, Spain Cooking School

Cooking School in Florence, Italy

We will let you go Lindsey as long as you promise to cook for us when you return!

San Sebastian (Donostia in Basque) is a coastal town in northern Spain with a long, beautiful beach.  Our plan was to have a quiet, relaxing day on the beach.  Unfortunately, light rain filled our day.  We made the most of our visit after a brief search for four small travel umbrellas.

Due to the rain, we cut our visit short, jumped on a bus, and headed back to the Bilbao airport for our evening flight to Barcelona.

Our new umbrellas

Kelsey visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain during her trip as an exchange student in 2013.  Unfortunately, she did not get to see as much of the museum as she would have liked, so we decided to incorporate a visit to the Northern shore of Spain into our trip.  We looked forward to also having some cooler weather.

Inside the Bilbao train station.

After 5 hours on the train, we reached Bilbao and spent the afternoon at the Guggenheim Museum.  The architecture for this building is amazing.  The modern art inside the museum was not really our taste, but it was a neat experience.

From Bilbao we took a bus an hour east to spend the night in San Sebastian, a beautiful coastal city with a wonderful beach and a neat place to celebrate Lindsey’s birthday.

Evening in San Sebastian.

After saying good-bye to our Madrid friends, we spent one more day seeing some more sights in the city.  We explored the Palacio Real de Madrid (the Royal Palace), the Mercado de San Miguel (a historical central market) and the Parque de Madrid (a large, beautiful central park with a pond and rowboats you can rent).  It was a wonderful place to sit in the shade and enjoy a breeze on such a hot day, the hottest of our trip at 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit).

To cap off our last night we took in some flamenco dancing and one last serving of churros con chocolate at Valor Chocolates, serving chocolate since 1881.

One more serving of churros con chocolate

The weather in Madrid continues to be hot and humid, so Teresa and her parents led us on a fun day trip to cooler temperatures.  30 minutes away on a high speed train lies Segovia, a charming little town north of Madrid that still has a Roman aqueduct standing.

In addition to the aqueduct, this small town has an amazing castle (Alcazar de Segovia) and a large cathedral.  The castle looks like it was taken out of a storybook, complete with towers and a moat.  The cathedral has more chapels around the outside of the sanctuary than any other cathedral I have seen.

It was a fun and enjoyable day, especially with a little cooler temperature.

One of our reasons for traveling to Madrid, Spain was to see Teresa, the Spanish exchange student we hosted in CT, and her family, who hosted Kelsey in Madrid.  Kelsey enjoyed getting to see Teresa again and we enjoyed having her parents be our local, Spanish speaking, guides to the sites around Madrid while having an opportunity to get to know them.

Teresa and her parents guide us through Madrid.

During our walking tour of Madrid, we spent some time in the Prado art museum and visited the Plaza Mayor, the Catedral de Santa Maria, and the Royal Palace of Madrid.  It was an enjoyable day that ended with churros con chocolate at one of the oldest establishments that has served it since 1894.

And if that was not enough, we found a bubble tea shop in Madrid!  Kelsey was able to satisfy her bubble tea withdrawal.

On the way to dinner, we came across a procession of a patron saint from a church out to the main square.  A band accompanied the saint, carried on a large, very heavy float like structure.  You can’t see them, but there are people under the float carrying the entire thing on their shoulders.  After our dinner, we saw the same saint procession return to the church.

We are off to Madrid, Spain.

After a morning of shopping at the various street markets in Florence, we left town on a short flight (2 hours) to Madrid, Spain.  Unfortunately, Karen’s suitcase did not want to leave, so it stayed behind.  This created a little worry and the need for some shopping in Madrid, but it did manage to catch up with us the following day.  Our evening in Madrid started with some traditional Spanish food and drink.  We had dinner at the Museo del Jamon (a popular restaurant chain called the museum of ham), Karen and I enjoyed some Sangria, and Kelsey and Lindsey had their first churros con chocolate (a fried dough treat that you dip in a cup of liquid chocolate, and yes, you do eat or drink the chocolate when you are done with your churros.)

Kelsey with her first churros con chocolate of our trip.

Our first week together in Italy was very enjoyable.  As with any family vacation, we all had our moments of being tired, hungry, and little impatient, but overall it was a wonderful time.  One of the things that I always find interesting is that when we spend time together on an extended vacation we start to develop catch phrases that we start to use frequently, bringing back a memory of a specific time or place.  When you see Kelsey or Lindsey you can ask them about our hand signal that we have had “Enough,” “Zechariah,” or our 1-2-3 system of crossing streets without crossing signals.