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!!!