Madrid

A couple of months ago, Kyle and I finally made it to Madrid, a city that has been on our list since we arrived in Europe almost three years ago.  Madrid not only lived up to our high expectations, but exceeded them.  It's a beautiful and vibrant city that has so much to offer from wonderful art collections, to fabulous parks, grand boulevards and a great foodie scene.  It's just flat out a fun place to be!

Our trip started out a bit rough.  Our flight to Madrid was on Air Berlin via Dusseldorf.  Our flight out of Stuttgart ended up being delayed, so they put us on a flight with a layover in Berlin rather than Dusseldorf, which would put us arriving in Madrid only 45 minutes later than what we had planned...except the flight to Berlin was delayed which put us running through the Berlin airport to catch our flight.  That is never fun! Kyle and I made it to Madrid, but my luggage didn't!  Not a wonderful start to the trip!  Our first evening in Madrid was spent picking up essentials like toothbrushes, shampoo (hotel shampoo makes my hair feel like straw), etc. and a shirt for me to wear the next day.  It still was a pleasant evening, and we went to the top floor of the mega department floor El Corte Inglés for great views of the city.

We started our first full day in Madrid with a free walking tour.  Kyle and I aren't always into guided tours, but in a big city like Madrid where there's so much to see and learn in a short amount of time, a guided tour is a great way to see the highlights and learn the history.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and we had a great time!

The symbol of Madrid: The Bear and the Strawberry Tree

Beautiful Plaza Mayor

Almudena Cathedral

The buildings of Plaza de la Villa show Madrid's layered history with building examples from the 15th-17th centuries.

Part of the Royal Palace

One of our stops on the walking tour was Restaurante Botin, the earliest established restaurant in the world, founded in 1725.  The artist El Goya worked there as a bus boy, and it was a favorite hang out of Ernest Hemmingway.  Kyle and I got reservations to have dinner there that night!

I like a nicely aged red wine, but I don't know if I would drink this stuff...

The restaurants specialty is suckling pig...I don't like my bacon to look at me like it does here!

After our walking tour, we took a nice walk through the grand city streets and plazas to visit the Prado, which houses one of the world's best collections of art.  No photos were allowed inside of the museum, but some highlights for me were the pieces by El Goya, Las Meninas by Velazquez and the weird and wacky Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.

Enjoying dinner at Botin later that evening

The next day was our fun foodie day!  We started off by leisurely walking around and enjoying more of the city.  We walked through the impressive Plaza de España on our way to see the Tiemplo de Debod, and ancient temple taken from Egypt and reconstructed in Madrid.  The original part of the temple was built in the 2nd century BC!

We stopped in a little bar to eat what is supposed to be one of Madrid's best tortillas.  It was so simple, yet so delicious!  A Spanish tortilla is more like what we would call a frittata or omelette with potato, onion and eggs.  We then headed over to check out the beautiful food in the Mercado de San Miguel, which is a delight for all of the senses!

We wandered around the city a bit more, enjoying the sunshine before stopping in for world famous churros and chocolate at Chocolatería San Ginés.  So delicious!

From there we went to stroll through the lovely Retiro Park.

In a glass pavilion in the park, there was a crazy art exhibit set up in an old fashioned camper.  There were all sorts of weird little vignettes set up in the camper, as well as a disturbingly realistic looking sleeping/dead lady.

It looks so realistic...and creepy!

That evening we did an awesome tapas tour!  Kyle and I were the only ones on the tour, and our guide was young and so much fun!  It was just like having a foodie friend that knows exactly where to take us out for a fun night of tapas!  We went to five different tapas bars and had a couple of tapas and drinks in each.  Every single thing we ate was so delicious! After our tour was over we went with our guide/friend to a local bar for sangria.  It was a really cool place!  (Our tour guide has a blog that you should check out called In Seat Number 3).  

Here are some pics of just a few of the tapas we had on our tour.  We were too excited and ate them before Kyle got decent pics, so the pics aren't wonderful, but you get the idea!

Boquerones en Vinagre, ceviche style anchovies from Bodegas Ricla

Albóndigas de Ternera, beef meatballs from Bodegas Ricla

Tinto de verano , a local sangria from Mesón del Champiñon

Gambas al ajillo, shrimps from Huelva in guindilla, garlic, parsley, salt and olive oil from Casa del Abuelo

Padrón, fried peppers from Casa Toni

Chorizo and Lacon from Casa Toni

On our final day in Madrid, we ventured out of the city to the quaint and picturesque town of Toledo. It was an easy half-hour train ride from Madrid, but it seems worlds away from the huge, sprawling city.  Toledo is a medieval town perched up on a hill overlooking a river valley.  The area has been inhabited since the Bronze age and has an incredible history.  It was also part of one of the epic (and fictional :-) routes of Don Quijote through La Mancha.  We visited the 13th century Primate Cathedral of Saint Mary of Toledo, which was an impressive example of Spanish Gothic architecture. It houses countless pieces of art, and was a really beautiful place to see.

We also visited Monasterio de San Juan de los Reyes, a peaceful 15th century monastery.

We had some flight issues on our way back to Stuttgart as well.  As we found out while we were trying to check in online for our flight the night before we left, our reservation was nowhere to be found.  Our tickets on the way home were on Iberia Airlines (as booked through Opodo, a reputable travel website).  When Kyle called and talked to their customer service, they told him that since we were on a different flight to Madrid than we had originally booked (since we were switched to a different flight because of delays), we showed up in the system as "no-shows" and our return flight was automatically cancelled. To ensure seats on the flight to get home on time, we had to book super expensive last minute tickets.  Two months later, we are still dealing with the two airlines and the travel website trying to figure out how, and by whom, our money should be refunded.  Of course they want to refund us for our original cheap flight, not the super expensive last minute one...grrrr....but I'm not finished with them yet!

Anyways, at least we made it home safely after having a wonderful time in a fabulous city!  Madrid is full of beautiful sites, awesome art and architecture, great food and fun people!  Of course we didn't have enough time to see everything, so we would love to return in the future!  I think Madrid is a city that we would never get tired of visiting!

Igloos in Austria

Not long after I returned to Germany from visiting the States, Kyle and I headed to Kühtai, Austria, which is Austria's highest winter sports village.  I had found a deal on Groupon to stay in an igloo for a night, and we figured, why not?  It was just about a four hour drive from home.  We couldn't bring Gizmo since dogs aren't allowed to stay in the igloo village.  (Very understandable...white snow is much prettier than yellow snow!)  We stayed in the igloo for one night, then headed to a different part of Austria to stay for two more nights.  

We arrived to the snowy white winter landscape and changed into our snow gear.  We were greeted in the igloo bar with a cup of warm glühwein.  We chatted with the bartender for a while, and then went through a short briefing once the other igloo guests arrived.  That was followed by a delicious dinner of cheese and chocolate fondue.  I don't know why, but fondue is perfect in the cold weather!

After  dinner, the group of us (six people total) headed out for some nighttime snow shoeing and tobogganing.  We were guided by the very nice girl that was pretty much in charge of the igloo village.  We had never been snow shoeing, and we thoroughly enjoyed it!  It's so peaceful walking through the snow at night.  After hiking for about an hour, we ended up at a hotel further up the mountain.  We went in for some drinks before making a much quicker trip down on toboggans.  I'm definitely glad that the toboggan path was well lit!  Once we got back down, we had a bit more glühwein before heading to our igloo for the night.

The igloo was very pretty, complete with edelweiss carved into the wall and colorful changing lights. There was a waterproof mattress to sleep on, topped with animal skin and their heavy duty arctic sleeping bags.  The girl recommended sleeping in just one layer of clothing, which I should have listened to!  I wore sleep pants, a very thick pair of fleecy socks over thin socks, a t-shirt, a sweat shirt, and my hat and gloves.  I woke up sweating and had to take off some of my layers!  Those sleeping bags are no joke!  I also slept with my clothes for the next day in my sleeping bag, so that I wouldn't have to change into ice-cold clothes in the morning.

In the morning, we reluctantly crawled out of our warm cocoons and made our way to breakfast at the hotel that runs the igloo village.  We were very grateful to eat indoors in the warmth!  From there, we headed to the Lech valley, which was about two hours west of our location.  (It really wasn't that far the way the bird flies, but we had some alps in the way that we had to drive around!)

Kühtai in the morning

Our igloo 

On our way to the Lech valley, we stopped at the Ehrenberg castle ruins near Reutte to check them out, as well as the new, VERY high pedestrian suspension bridge.  We had driven by the impressive castle ruins a number of times in our travels, and decided it was finally time to stop and see them.  It was just about a twenty minute hike up to the castle ruins, which date back to as early as the 1200s.  We wandered around the ruins for a bit before heading across the world's longest pedestrian suspension bridge, which just opened in November of 2014, making it into the Guinness book of world records.  It was pretty cool and had wonderful views, but it is not at all recommended if you're scared of heights!  The bridge bounced quite a bit as you walk across, which made you really hope that they used a trustworthy construction crew!

The view of the bridge from the parking lot below

Pretty hike to the top

We arrived to the town of Holzgau where we were staying in time for a late lunch and a little snooze at the hotel.  (I guess we didn't sleep too soundly in the igloo the night before!)  There was a beautiful sunset that evening.  Shortly after sunset, we drove a couple of towns north to go on a sleigh ride!  It was pretty dark during the sleigh ride, so Kyle didn't get any pictures, but it was so peaceful!  The horses wore bells, so "Jingle Bells" definitely got stuck in my head for a while!  After the sleigh ride, they had some schnapps waiting for us that warmed us from the inside.  It was a very fun evening!

View of sunset from our hotel

The next day we checked out more of the Warth-Schröcken and Lech area.  It is definitely a place for skiers, which we are not!  We were hoping to go from the town of Warth to the town of Lech via lifts, but as it turns out, that could only be done by skiing.  After being slightly disappointed by that, we stared at the ski school in town for a few minutes, contemplating ski lessons.  We decided that the school looked like it was just for kids, and spared ourselves the embarrassment.  (We are very torn about learning to ski.  We love the snow and winter travel, but are not necessarily excited about the idea of learning to ski.  Everyone says we have to while we're here, and we kind of feel like we should...but we don't really want to!  It's very expensive, we'll never ski enough to get really good, and it's dangerous!  Every single person that skis has an injury story!  I think we're just as happy tobogganing and saving ourselves some pain and money!)

We drove to the town of Lech instead, and enjoyed the scenic drive through the Alps.  Once we got to Lech, we took a cable car up to have a delicious lunch on a terrace with beautiful views.  In our typical style, we tobogganed back down to town.  (Very fun and low stress!)

Rösti (shredded, fried potato), topped with bacon and egg

Crepe stuffed with ham and cheese in a cream sauce

The town of Lech

We headed back to Germany the next day.  When we woke up, it was snowing beautiful, huge fluffy flakes.  We couldn't even see the mountains because it was snowing so hard!  Of course it was hard for Kyle to leave knowing that it was going to snow there all day, but I wanted to get out in time before it was too late!

Austria is such a beautiful place in every season.  We always love visiting.  Staying in an igloo was a very fun "glamping" experience, and we're really glad to have had that chance!  Perhaps there might be an ice hotel in our future?