We're back!

We arrived back in St. Charles at around 2 p.m. today (Sunday). We drove from Madrid to Barcelona on Saturday. The landscape of the Spanish countryside really varies greatly. In many areas there are cactus and the landscape resembles the American west. In other areas there are groves of olive trees and grape vineyards. Everywhere there are castle remains dotting the landscape.

We have seen large fields of wind farms in Spain also. We saw a very large one in southern Spain between Tarifa and our trip to Lisbon. The one below was probably as large. The highway goes right amongst the wind turbines. There are a couple hundred of these turbines in each of the numerous wind farms we passed. We also passed a number of large areas with solar panel power grids.

Also on our trip between Madrid and Barcelona was the Greenwich Meridian. It is well marked with signs and then a huge archway.

Finally, some interesting things we were unaware of before we visited this region-

• Car keys are different, at least the one we had (for our rental) and some other people's that we observed also. Our key was a flat piece of metal with a deeply grooved area in the center. The "head" of the key was the auto-locking and unlocking mechanism. We also saw some keys that were plastic computer chips, not traditional keys, as we know them.

• Drinking is much more accepted in this region of the world than in the U.S. It was typical to see people with port wine or other alcoholic drinks before noon. People also had wine and drinks at lunch, and dinner. Many places, we were the lone diners without alcohol on the table. Drinking age is 16.


• Breakfast is not a full meal, except in Gibraltar. In most areas we visited, people had sweet rolls and "coffee" (espresso) for breakfast.


• The EU has passed new no smoking laws recently, but many of the new laws are just starting to be enforced. Smoking is much more common in the areas we visited.


• In Gibraltar and Morocco meals are eaten at much the same times as we do in the U.S., but in all the other places we visited, breakfast is a small roll at mid-morning, lunch is a baguette (usually cheese or ham) and a glass of wine sometime between 2 and 4 p.m., and dinner is a large meal not earlier than 8 p.m.


• When we spoke with people from different areas, and we told them we were from the U.S., everyone expressed interest and told us that very few people from our country travel to Europe. We were surprised by this assertion, because most people we know have traveled to Europe. We observed no evidence of negativity towards Americans. In fact, people seemed overwhelmingly friendly and interested in talking with us.


• Salad is served with most meals ordered at the evening meal, which means a few leaves of lettuce, a slice or two of tomato, accompanied by vinegar and olive oil.


• Eggs and/or omelettes are eaten in Spain and Portugal (at least in the areas we visited) for the dinner meal, not breakfast.


• Germany's security is TOUGH! Both going into and leaving through Frankfurt airport we were pulled aside, although we had easily passed through security in other areas (O'Hare and Barcelona). Lindsay was pulled aside and had to empty a carry-on bag she was carrying, she had an IPod taken and tested for trace amounts of plastic explosives on our return trip (this happened to me with my computer on the way through Frankfurt to Barcelona).


• We have all heard the stories of people in France being less than friendly, we found no evidence of this whatsoever. We enjoyed France thoroughly and plan on returning.


• Road signs in the cities were terrible. In the countryside, they were quite a bit better. Some regions had English signs, others did not.


• Tolls for the toll roads are unbelievable high! Some tolls were 20+ Euros for a 50 mile stretch of highway. We found not service stations with gas pumps that you could swipe your credit card to pay, you had to go inside the station and pay.


• When you order water, you always get bottled water. If you order coffee, you get espresso-one cup, no free refills.


• Meals are slow and deliberate. Dinner is a minimum of 2 hours, no matter how you try to hurry the servers along, so be patient and enjoy the food.

Well, that's or trip. We had a great time, hope you enjoyed and learned things along with us!!

The Doeblers

Touring Madrid, Spain

Madrid is a very large, and busy city. Traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular, dominates the historical center of the city. We have found Madrid to be less modern (architecturally) than Barcelona. The language, while Spanish, is different than in Barcelona. They speak Catalan Spanish in Barcelona, which we found to be easier to understand. That may also be because the people seem to speak more quickly here. We have still been able to get where we were going, but the challenge has been greater here. When we have needed directions, or help, we have had to speak slowly and ask others to also slow down their speech. We visited a number of the big sites today, including the Madrid Museum of Archeology. I found that I am able to read/translate written Spanish much better than I can speak Spanish. This is an important difference you don't think of until you are in a foreign country in which many people do not speak your native language. As far as the city itself is concerned the fountains, public gardens, and squares are exceptionally beautiful. Below are some pictures from today...

So tomorrow we pack up and leave to return to Barcelona. We will catch a flight back home to Frankfurt, and then to Chicago. We will not have the opportunity to update the blog until we return home on Sunday afternoon. We'll wrap things up then and let family and friends know we arrived safely.

Some final information that maybe helpful to anyone interested in making a trip to any of the places we have visited on this trip-

• Driving in this part of Europe is not as difficult as we had thought it might be, but you need to understand what you are getting into and keep a really positive attitude about driving, if you decide to do it. Manual transmission vehicles are 1/2 the price of an automatic when renting here in Europe. If you can drive a manual, save yourself a lot of money, and get the manual transmission. We got all the insurance. We were concerned about theft and vandalism. Unfounded concerns, it turns out. The car was in secure parking facilities at each hotel. But, with traffic and unfamiliar driving conditions, one day in Lisbon (and every moment we drove in Barcelona) made us very glad we got the insurance. We came VERY close to having an accident at one of the circles in Lisbon, totally our fault, so the insurance gave us some lease on peace of mind. Driving, if you enjoy doing so, is a great way to see the countryside in Spain, France, and Portugal. Winding through the one lane narrow streets in Gibraltar was a lot of fun too.
• Pick hotels carefully, but be prepared to accept what you get anyway. We researched the cities and hotels extensively and chose them based on location and price. We paid what we considered quite high prices for all our hotels (especially since the fall of the value of the dollar), some were very nice, some were okay, one was not a place we would recommend to any family or friend. It was the one that we saw featured on a travel show! We specifically chose hotels that had parking at the hotel listed. Only in Barcelona did we have to pay extra for the parking. We had a difficult time also choosing hotels because in Europe a hotel room that will accommodate 3 people is not common. Each hotel we picked stated they had triple rooms. In actuality, what this meant was that there was a cot like bed or a pull out couch in the room.
• We obtained all our currency by using ATMs at banks in the country we were visiting. When we found we were running low on cash, we just located a bank and withdrew Euros. In Morocco we exchanged Euros for their currency on the ferry. We had read to do this from a travel book. Once there, everyone wanted to be paid in Euros, so we almost got stuck with their currency, but we visited a rug merchant and negotiated a deal based on some dhirra and the remainder of payment for a rug by visa.
• We have gone on a number of vacations in which we have shipped items home. One place we did this was China. It was no problem. When we arrived in Portugal, we asked at the hotel desk regarding this issue and they directed us to the local post office. The postal facility could not (read-would not) help us, so we visited the "Ask Me Lisbon" information booth. They directed us to a shipper across town, so we grabbed a taxi and headed across town, only to find they were a business shipping facility over by the airport. Back to the hotel and we begged the hotel staff to find some place we could use for shipping. We had tried the phonebook in our room, but because we can not read Portuguese, we had a problem, obviously. Finally they directed us to a small shop a few blocks away. We visited this merchant, who was unbelievably patient and helpful, but costly. Moral to the story, send, take a lot of pictures and fore go the souvenirs and don't buy a rug in Morocco (no matter how good the deal seems), unless they will ship it for the price you negotiate.
• If driving, get a GPS,and a good map. You will need both. You will also need to stop and ask directions. Just when we thought we'd gotten down the driving, we came to Madrid, here they threw not only the traffic circles at us, but lights at the traffic circles, in the middle of the traffic circles!!! Smile, it makes everyone feel a lot better.
• Language barriers are really not an issue. Only once did we order meals and get something completely unexpected. Every person we met was friendly and willing to help us out, even if they had no idea what we were asking, they were at the very least pleasant and gracious.
• Carry your Passport with you at all times, but keep it handy. Any time we checked into a hotel, they copied information from our passports, and all merchants in Spain and France asked to see our passports whenever we used a charge card.

That's it for now. We'll let everyone know when we arrive back in Chicago!!!

Lisbon to Madrid

And so we leave Lisbon. Our visit here has been a great experience. Lisbon is easily navigated, and the people are quite friendly. Many citizens do not speak English, but with effort on our part to pick up some Portuguese phrases we were able to see and do anything we set out to accomplish. Being big fans of Vasco da Gama made this city so much more memorable, but it would appeal to anyone interested in Decorative Arts, Public Monuments, Maritime History, or European Architecture.So you don't think Lisbon was all history, there is plenty of wonderful modern engineering marvels to behold also, like this more modern bridge...

As we set out for Madrid, we decided to stop in a city named Merida, in Spain. It is about 150 miles west of Madrid. We had read about Roman ruins that were in this city, and we decided we would stop and take in the history (and have an espresso). This is one of the best decisions ever made by a Doebler! The espresso was good, but the Roman ruins were AWESOME. It was amazing to stand within these historical sites. There are remains of a Roman Amphitheater, and a Roman Coliseum, in addition to a circus, and other lesser ruins. It was incredible to touch a marble column and sit in the amphitheater and look down on the stage. Pictures can't convey the experience, but I have included a few...





And so we arrived in Madrid. It was dark when we arrived, and we had a little trouble navigating to our hotel, because we are again in the center of the historic district. That means few streets signs visible to a driver and a lot of one way streets. It went better than Barcelona though, so maybe we're getting the hang of this??? One block from our hotel was a delicious restaurant, where we had dinner, and another block further we found a beautiful park with some lovely fountains! So tomorrow, we will start a whole new city exploration...

Another castle, another day...

Canon looking out over greater Lisbon and the bay.

Chuck and Lindsay, relaxing with the Roman ruins.

At one of the lookouts, the city below is clearly visible.

Lisbon has a walled castle at it's old city center at the top of one of the 7 hills in the city. The castle is located at a strategic point to overlook the bay out to the Atlantic Ocean. There is also a city inside the walls of the medieval section of the city. The castle is known as Sao Jorge (St. George) Castle. There are also some Roman remains within the castle walls. The castle itself is very well preserved. This site is very similar to Carcassonne (earlier in our travels), but the surrounding city is much larger than Carcassonne.

A word about Futbol... the Celtic team was playing the Lisbon futbol team tonight (Lisbon won). two days ago the Celtic team fans descended on the city. They took over one of the main town squares, put up an Irish flag there on one of the monuments, placed banners of every sort at other locations around the square (the squares here are huge). The fans wearing green and white stripes literally were everywhere in the city, but the square was a sea of green and white. They took over a number of local drinking establishments in the vicinity of the square. They got louder and more boisterous as today (game day) wore on. We saw no show of the Lisbon team fans. The city around this large square became like a tailgate party for the Celtic fans. About 2 hours before game time, they all started to head towards the Futbol Stadium. How these young men (for the most part) can afford to do this during the week is a mystery to us. The huge numbers, and the basic acceptance of the locals gave us the idea that this is pretty common when a team comes to town. Neither team was playing a championship game or a playoff. It was a typical season game, we were told. Hopefully no games will be scheduled in Madrid while we are there. This was an eye opening experience. We saw no trouble, no problems, but it was a bit unnerving to be in crowds with these super fans because they were quite loud and energetic.

The last few days...

After leaving Elche, Spain we drove south about 4 hours. The South eastern portion of Spain resembles the high desert plains of the American west. It is stark and beautiful. We arrived in Gibraltar and settled in to the Bristol Hotel on one of the old city streets of Gibraltar. We found we did not have Internet access!! Who expected that, of all the places we'd visited! We had dinner of Fish and Chips at a traditional English pub. We thought we'd find hordes following the Rugby World Cup championship match, since England was playing South Africa. No one seemed all that interested. Gibraltar is, after all, independent, we were told. We found that Gibraltar is English, but not. The rock is visible from over 30 miles away and looms in the distance. Passing through border security is fairly easy, traffic is tough. The streets are unbelievably narrow. In fact, you quickly learn to pull in your side mirrors to avoid losing them while driving the streets. There is a lighthouse at the southern tip of the peninsula, called Europa Point Lighthouse. There are a few beaches, we found the public ones to be pretty dirty. The Strait of Gibraltar sees 58,000 ships pass through it's waters every year! After seeing the boat traffic, I believe that figure. The rock itself has an old Moorish fort remains upon it, and moneys. Who knew? All in all, a pretty interesting place to visit!

We took a high speed ferry from Tarifa, Spain to Tangier, Morocco. The ferry takes 35 minutes. It was a very nice ferry, stewards similar to air stewards on planes,and nice, roomy seats. In addition, snack bars on each level. There was even a car deck, although we did not take our rental car. While we were traveling on the ferry, we waited to clear customs through to Morocco. Things are handled quite efficiently. As soon as you disembark from the ferry, you know you have arrived someplace different. Dry dusty conditions and the customary dress of men and woman stand out in stark contrast to Spain. The city itself was much as we expected, beautify, colorful, and very bustling in the market areas. There were some times of concern. You are so obviously not a local, there are many young men, standing and giving unhappy/unfriendly looks. It makes you anxious, but you try not to act it. Our guide was very protective and helpful. We were all glad we went, it was a great opportunity to see a culture quite different from our own.

A street market in Tangier (above)

Spice store in Tangier (above)

Tangier upon arrival by ferry (above)

Colorful doorways are the norm in Tangier (above)

And so we have arrived in Lisbon...

I have always wanted to visit Lisbon, and I must say, this city does not disappoint! I can not describe how stunning this city is, yet very different from Barcelona. Barcelona was beautiful architecturally, while Lisbon's attractiveness lies in the decorative on the buildings. Many buildings are covered in wonderful tiles unique to the city of Lisbon. We are told that they are used to cover the buildings as an insulator against the hot sunny climate conditions. Lisbon also has a beautiful walled castle within it's historical district. The walled castle sits upon one of the 7 hills surrounding the older sections of Lisbon. There are "elevators" (trolleys that ride a track up and down the various hills of the city), there are beautifully restored trolley cars (similar to those in San Francisco) that are used by local citizens for transportation, and there are buses and trams and trolleys. Getting around the city is easy, parking isn't even that difficult due to the numerous public parking garages. There are police on foot everywhere, good thing too, because we took a wrong turn upon arriving and had to stop and ask directions. We had no trouble finding a police officer, who was quite helpful. Portuguese is a language that has some similarities to Spanish, but sounds very different. We have managed quite nicely, picking up words and phrases as we did in Spain, and France (but not Morocco).

Driving in Lisbon was not difficult. The drive from Tarifa, Spain to Lisbon was about 6 to 6 1/2 hours, almost all highways. Tolls are very high, so far I think we have paid easily 100 Euros ($146) in tolls. Gas has run from about $5 to $6.50/gal. The drive from Tarifa was interesting also, because we came upon many orchards of cork trees. I had never seen a cork tree, let alone an orchard of them. Again there were many olive groves also, but then we also came upon a region with cotton fields. These were in the vacinity of Seville, Spain. Many fields still had cotton on the plants, ready to pick. Almost immediately upon entering Portugal, signs of civilization vanished. We drove about 2 hours with hardly any signs of a town, a village, or any homes at all. The Portuguese countryside is lovely, what we saw from the highway. We will spend a few more days in Lisbon and then we leave for Madrid!

No internet access

Hey everyone! We are fine and doing well. We have had no Internet access in Gibraltar and Morocco. As soon as we get to Lisbon tomorrow evening, we will update you on all the fantastic things we have done!! We had to come to an Internet cafe' in Morocco to post this and are paying by the minute, so we can not even download pictures for you...so long until tomorrow in Lisbon!!!

The Doeblers

Elche, October 19th

We made it about 1/2 way to Gibraltar, driving down along the eastern coast of Spain. Spain is beautiful, tall high cliffs dropping of down to the Mediterranean Sea. We left behind the vineyards and found many olive and orange groves (Valencia oranges). We did see some flooding that we had heard about earlier in the week. It was in the Valencia region. Some orange groves remain flooded, but that was the extent of what we have seen. Many hillsides with castle ruins dot the the countryside here. Blow are some pictures of our drive...

Spanish countryside in Valencia Province

Castles ruins were on many hilltops as we drove along the eastern coast of Spain.

Olive tree orchards are everywhere along the coastal region.

Orange tree orchards were being picked, since it was high season for oranges right now. Workers were picking oranges everywhere in the Valencia region.

We're off to Gibraltar first thing tomorrow. It should be exciting to be in Gibraltar this weekend, the World Rugby Championships are Saturday, and England will play South Africa. All we here about is this upcoming match. Apparently Rugby is almost as popular as soccer in this area.

Day 3, Barcelona

Today is our last full day here. There are so many things we want to do, but will have to wait for another trip. The Picasso Museum, the Old City History Museum, the Olympic History Museum, the tramway from the hill top overlooking the city diagonally down over the city and across the ports, a visit to the beaches, the Museum of Modern Art (there are actually 2), a trip up to the top of the Columbus Monument, all these things will have to go on our list of things to do on a future trip to Barcelona. Yes, we will return to this beautiful and fun city.

The one thing that has made this visit so successful has been that the city is so well prepared for large numbers of tourists, and there are MANY. You would think it was summer in Disney World. There are that many visitors! We have met people from Vermont and Milwaukee in the U.S., but also many people from Germany, France, and Great Britain. Every tour bus is filled for tours throughout the city. There are long lines to visit many sites, but very short waits, and well trained people handle all aspects of tourism issues. Everyone is patient and helpful. The only problem we encountered was the driving. To do this again, we would park our rental car at the airport and take a taxi in to town. Tomorrow we leave, and already I'm steeling my nerves for the event of driving through Barcelona!

Barcelona does run on different times than what we are use to. Breakfast seems to be espresso or capechinno and a sweet baked item. Lunch is a baguette with cheese or ham. Dinner is a full, long meal (2 hour easily), eaten quite late, starting around 8p.m. and ending at 11 p.m. The restaurants and cafes close to food service (although you can still order espresso and drinks) after lunch until dinner service starts. Stores open at 11 a.m. and many close for lunch from around 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., then reopen and finally close for the day at 9 p.m.

Below are our pictures for the day. Lindsay and I went to Guell Park and Sagrada Familia. Sagrada Familia is known as the unfinished Cathedral. It was designed and started by Gaudi as his offering to God. He died before it was finished and funds are always being collected to continue construction on this magnificent structure. It is wonderful. The pictures can not capture the scope in size or beauty.

Guell Park is also a creation of Gaudi's. It is a city park now and the only way to describe this place is astounding. The "world's longest bench" is here and offers visitors a view from the hillside on which it is situated to the valley below, where most of Barcelona is laid out before you, and beyond the city, the beautify azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. This is one heck of a city park!!!
Tomorrow we start out for Gibraltar. We will drive through Valencia, which 2 days ago suffered severe flooding from sudden torrential rains. We will stay the nigh in Elche, and finish our travel to Gibraltar on Saturday. We may not have the opportunity until we arrive in Gibraltar to post to the blog. Until then, wish us safe driving!