May 2013 – Page 7 – JC's iPhone Blog

Santillana del Mar

Today started a little rough, as I spent probably 45 minutes of frustration trying to figure out why I couldn’t add photos to last night’s post. I finally found that making them much smaller worked, but it doesn’t make sense, because the larger images worked just fine the day before! Grrrr…

[My image upload frustrations from last night and this morning are resolved! I tested another app tonight and discovered the issue existed there as well. That led to the conclusion that it was a server issue, so I emailed my hosting provider, asking if he’d done anything. Amazingly, given the time difference, he emailed back within a half hour (about a half hour ago, and he fixed it! Turns out there’s been a lot of buzz about WP security lately, so he’d ratcheted things down quite a bit. He readjusted the tweaks for me, and now tonight’s post is complete! I’d love to know if any of you saw both the before and after!]

Anyway, the rest of today has been fabulous. Jorge & Meredith rented a car to drive us from Logroño to Santillana del Mar (where we’ll start riding tomorrow), and we enjoyed some nice sightseeing along the way. The highlight was definitely getting our first taste of Gaudi architecture, El Capricho in Comillas. Built between 1883 & 1885, for a wealthy bachelor who died before it was finished (!), it’s now open to the public, and can even be rented for weddings and other events. Known mainly for its whimsical sunflower-themed tile work and fanciful minaret, it is a stunning building:

My favorite aspect of the interior, not surprisingly, was the unique stained glass panels, featuring a bee playing the guitar and a sparrow playing the piano:

Comillas is on the northern coast of Spain, and since it had turned into such a beautiful day, we decided to head to the beach. I couldn’t resist this cool red seaweed:

And here’s a nice one of the rocks and sea:

We had to meet the guy from Iron Donkey at 6 at our hotel in Santillana, and when we got there we found we were staying at an incredible place, seemingly hundreds of years old, yet in pristine condition. Jorge and Meredith are staying the night as well, so after we gathered our bikes, panniers and other gear, and went over the bike trip itinerary and maps with Ignacio, we headed off for another evening of tapas and other Spanish specialties.

Santillana is also known for its sidra (hard cider), dispensed from these crazy rube goldberg contraptions that have pumps and hoses and squirt the sidra into your glass from about two feet off the table! Check it out:

So here I am, at 12:30 am, madly trying to finish this post so I can get some sleep before we start the ride in the morning. Fortunately, breakfast isn’t even served until 9 am (nothing happens early in Spain), and tomorrow’s ride is a relatively easy 20 miler. It does look like we’ll be doing a lot of climbing (and zooming down the other side) over the next six days. We’re both a little nervous, but overall very excited.

Talk to you from Cabuérniga tomorrow night!

Logroño

[I couldn’t get this posted last night, because the WordPress app stopped letting me upload photos out of the blue. The only way I could finally get it to work is to use much smaller versions. ;-( Sorry!]

We awoke to a crystal clear day in Madrid. We checked out of our hotel and headed out to get a couple things done before catching the bus to Logroño, where our Ridgway neighbors Jorge & Meredith have been living for seven months. First, breakfast, which was something one can only rationalize on vacation: hot chocolate & churos at Chocolateria San Gines (again, a recommendation from Mary & Fred). Unfortunately, it was early and I was entranced by the liquid-chocolate bar nature of the hot chocolate, so I neglected to get a photo. Sorry Lou, we’re planning to hit them again at the end of the trip, and I promise not to mess up next time.

Then we decided to walk toward the bus station, looking to finally find an open dept. store knowledgable in iPhone SIM cards, so I could get my iDevice working on the Spanish cell network. Along the way, we saw more examples of Madrid’s eclectic architecture:

After a bit of drama caused by the amount of time it took to find the store, then find someone to help me that actually knew what she was doing and spoke some English, we grabbed a taxi to the train station, and actually got there with ten minutes to spare!

The four-hour bus ride to Logroño covered a wonderfully diverse landscape. Initially crossing red-tinted farmland under mostly sunny skies, we eventually found ourselves in mountainous country not unlike Colorado (including snow):

There were even cliff formations that looked just like the San Juan tuff back home!

When we reached Logroño, Meredith was there to meet us, and she took us to our hotel to check in and shed our bags. From there, we went to their apartment for a cup of tea and a tour. When Jorge returned, we went for a nice long walk. Along the way I grabbed this fun HDR image of the local cathedral.

On the way back to their apartment for do dinner, we stopped for a beer at a local street side cafe, where we sampled a variety of locally-produced ales:

What incredible fun we’re having, and it’s only the second day!

Tomorrow we head to Santillana del Mar, where we’ll pick up our bikes and maps, and prepare to begin the biking portion of our adventures on Saturday morning. Jorge & Meredith have rented a car to drive us there and will join us for the night at our hotel. We’ll do a bit of sight seeing along the way, getting our first taste of Gaudi architecture in the town of Santander, not far from Santillana.

Madrid

We arrived in Spain about 8:30 am local time, caught a taxi to our hotel downtown, and stashed our bags so we could explore the area until our room was ready.

Alas, what did we discover as soon we began our reconnaissance? Does anyone remember what day today is? Anyone?? May 1st, right? And in Europe that means…

…Labour Day! So almost everything is closed! So all our plans for the Prado, the Reina Sofía, galleries, etc., all closed. Well, not to be discouraged, we did our best to make lemonade on this rather brisk, cold day.

First, we discovered that the holiday meant people were marching in the streets, protesting all manner of things:

The main causes seemed to be anti-austerity, but there were also folks carrying flags that we couldn’t identify (though I wanted to get one; they’re my colors!):

When we realized our primary destination for the day, the Prado Museum, was closed (one of only three days all year that it is), we were pretty discouraged, but we immediately found a gorgeous botanical garden right next door, so made do temporarily with that.

Check out this camellia:

As we wandered back to the hotel to check into our room for a little rest, we were struck by all the lovely old streets, and how nicely decorated they are:

Then we stumbled onto a spot Mary & Fred had recommended, called the Mercado del San Miguel, and it did not disappoint:

How about some colorful cocktails (we did not give in to temptation, yet):

The only problem was how crowded it was:

Having gotten our catnaps (quite long ones, actually), we headed back out for some serious food. Man, are there a lot of great options in this town! Again, M&F had recommended the neighborhood of Calle Cava Alta and Calle Baja, and as we headed that way, we stumbled onto the Palacio Royal. All locked up for the holiday, but still picturesque…

It wasn’t hard to know we’d found the right spot when we hit Calle Cava Alta, as the crowds were out in force. We had a beer at a street side cafe, then wandered in search of a real tapas (or pintxos) bar. We found just that in Takolina:

Delicious! Jamon, smoked salmon, baby eel, homemade sausages wrapped in tiny tortillas and topped with a quail egg, an exotic rellano (I don’t know what it was filled with); man oh man was it all good. Sigh…

Now it’s after midnight, Mallory is fast asleep beside me, and I need to head that way too. Tomorrow will allow a bit more sightseeing in the morning before catching the bus to Logroño at noon. I’ll leave you all with a nice sunset shot I got on our walk back to the hotel: