Madrid
We hopped aboard our AVE high speed train, which I was happy to note was one of the original AVE trainsets and from outwardly appearances a French TGV high speed train clone. I have yet to ride in a TGV, but from what I've seen in photos the interior appointments in the AVE are quite different. They were rather plush - we were travelling First Class, as we noted that due to a promotion we could get First Class seats for €10 more each. Usually we don't care about that sort of thing, but upon doing our research we found for that €10 we would be provided lunch and drink and get a comfier seat. What the nature of the food and drink might be we didn't know, but we decided to go ahead with it anyway. The seats were wide, leather-clad and comfortable with power sockets built in so we could charge our phones. Shortly after departure, a menu card was provided and we got some small snacks along with a small bottle of Cava/Prosecco/Champagne - the menu was rather extensive, and looked very much like the menu in an upper class restaurant. We started eating the snacks, among which was small crisp-like biscuits which were in tiny little shapes. We were going through and comparing the shapes, and Sasha found one in her packet which was a 4-leaf clover. I didn't have one of those in my packet, so she gave it to me and said that I should have it as I needed all the luck I could get - a reference to losing my camera in Seville. So I ate it, and just after I noticed my phone was ringing with a number I didn't recognise. Who on earth could it be? was it a response to a job I'd applied for? I cautiously answered the phone, and at the other end was a gentleman with a Spanish sounding accent. He said he was from the Spanish Police, and was it correct that I had reported my camera stolen. "Yes, that's correct" I replied - so this was some kind of follow up phonecall. "We have your camera" the Policeman said. "Sorry, can you repeat that?" I said. "Your camera has been found, and we have it - it is all okay and has the photos still on it" the Policeman replied. "I have just emailed you as well, but could you confirm that you will pick it up from us today as we will be closed over the weekend?". Dammit. I explained I was on a train to Madrid, and what followed was a series of questions asking what the rest of my travel plans were and I explained I would be leaving from Barcelona on Wednesday. He was unsure how the camera could be got by his department to Barcelona, and after a while we agreed that it was probably best to arrange with UPS getting the camera sent to Berlin once we were back there, and we finished the phonecall.
My camera. It was found and safe in a Police Station in Seville! I relayed the news to Sasha, still not quite believing it yet. Sasha suggested we hop off at the next station, go back to Seville and collect it - but the cost of new tickets from Seville to Madrid that day was almost worth more than the camera itself, let alone the cost of getting back to Seville or forgoing the amount we'd already spent on our existing train tickets. As nice as it would be to get the camera back already, it was safe and not going anywhere in a hurry. Getting back the camera was a problem for later - lets bask in the news that the camera has been found and enjoy the trip to Madrid. It was about now Sasha pointed out that it happened right after she gave me the biscuit 4-leaf clover and I ate it - you can't make this stuff up!
Our one and only full day in Madrid, so we had to make the most of it. Breakfast was from a place near the station - Spanish breakfast once again, but even cheaper again than we'd found in Seville. We were doing another walking tour, so made our way to the main square where it would begin - the Plaza Mayor. This was yet another stinking hot day just like we'd had in Seville, and while waiting for the tour to begin us and many others stood in the shade in front of various shops. Our tour guide, Ramon quickly proved himself to be a witty and amusing guide, giving us the background of the square and its history as a main trading location in Madrid. There was also a statue in the square of King Felipe III on horseback, which Ramon said had been moved from a forest to the square under the reign of Queen Isabella II, as she was big on statues and wanted them in the public eye. You probably couldn't get more public than Plaza Mayor, but we were also told that for many years the statue had a mysterious rotting smell. It wasn't until the statue was damaged in the early Franco years that they found lots of little bird skeletons inside - a small hole near the mouth had let birds in, but not out. That hole was sealed when the other damage was repaired. Ramon then took us out of the square (he had quite a fast pace) and stood outside a restaurant, telling us that it claimed to be the oldest restaurant still operating in the world. He said there were others which laid claim for the title around the world, but that he knew for a fact it was the oldest. How did he know? he suddenly stood to the side, revealing a Guinness World Record plaque proclaiming the restaurant to be the oldest. I guess you can't get more sure than that!
No rest for the wicked, and for us we had an early start in order to catch our 7.35am train from the Atocha station to Barcelona. Luckily the station was not far away from where we were staying, but our short walk saw us walk through an early morning Gypsy market where they seemed to be more interested in trading items among themselves rather than selling things or even to the public. This stuff wasn't new either, it looked decidedly old or 2nd hand. While we were walking through, a police car arrived and everyone hurriedly packed up and scarpered. When we arrived, our train was ready to board so we went straight on - much the same as in Seville, we showed our tickets at the top of the escalator before going down to the platform, except this time there was less fuss with the metal detector and we didn't have to show the tickets to anyone else. Our train was a clone of the German ICE3 type, otherwise known as a Velaro-E and looked identical except the ICE-style stripe was a purple colour instead of red. We were travelling second class this time - simply because the train was more expensive than the previous time, and while a second class seat wasn't cheap first class tickets were a lot more than €10 extra on this train (flying, surprising wasn't much different than travelling 2nd class). I have ridden ICE's in Germany, and the interior was definitely different - the seats were black leather and of a slightly different style, while the German ICE trains use patterned blue fabric. We quickly found out that our seats were at the very end of a carriage, and were one of the few which were facing backwards for the direction of travel. This was not good for Sasha as she doesn't travel well facing backwards, so it dictated that I would be in the window - but otherwise there wasn't anything we could do. Not long after setting off, I went to the buffet car and got us some breakfast (being the first person at the buffet counter for the day). By the time our breakfast toasties and coffee's were ready to pick up the buffet car had quite a queue, and we'd already zipped quickly out of Madrid's suburbs into large flat plains.
The first full day in Barcelona - and it was a busy one. First up was going to Park Guell, the "Gaudi" Park. It looked interesting and so we thought we'd head there first. Nat, our friend had mentioned it but said she didn't go in and just walked around the outside instead and saw most of it that way. However it wasn't expensive to go in, so we decided to do that. We arrived there not too long after it opened in the morning, meaning it was generally nice and cooler walking around and there wasn't that many people. Park Guell was the brainchild of a guy who was not Gaudi - he wanted to create a kind of exclusive residential suburb where you could buy property, build houses (subject to certain building conditions, at the time a bit extreme but often common now) and partake in the suburb's gardens and areas. A number of the "viaduct" walks were built by someone else again, but the main marketplace and centre park area was done by Gaudi who was brought in for the project after the Park's owner had seen Gaudi's work and was impressed by it. The residential suburb was a failure - only two houses were built in it, one a show home that Gaudi eventually moved into and another which had been built by a lawyer. Later the whole complex was gifted to the council, and now the core of the communal area which was designed and decorated by Gaudi is the tourist attraction. This means structures of unusual shapes and designs, and generally covered in shards of broken pottery or tiles in Gaudi's spastic tiling style. It was unusual but also kind of nice in its own way. The park area actually extends some way beyond the tourist area however, and once we'd completely seen everything in the Park Guell we wandered around some of the viaducts and walkways further up into the hills where anyone can go for free.
My alarm went off reasonably early, and I managed to get up, shower, grab my stuff and head out the door. Sasha wasn't coming with me - I was taking a day trip all by myself. Back in Madrid on the only full day we had, during some spare time I'd started looking up the costs of getting my camera sent to Berlin via UPS, and lets just say the quote figure I got back was rather eye watering. Probably cheaper to buy a new camera, in fact. I then looked up the prices to get it sent to Barcelona, which was far, far cheaper - the problem was the logistics of getting it either sent to the Hostel, who might not take delivery, or getting it sent to a UPS shipping point, plus the fact while UPS could supply the packing box, it didn't seem like they would pack it themselves and would expect to pick it up already packed and addressed. Then there was the problem of could it be delivered to Barcelona in time, and if not - what then? It all seemed too risky and uncertain. But I couldn't catch a bus back to Seville and collect it, nor a train - but I could a plane. It wouldn't be cheap, but it wasn't bad and was still far cheaper than getting it sent to Berlin and I would have the certainty of retrieving it myself and it not getting lost in transit. After discussing with Sasha all the options after our arrival in Barcelona, I booked the return flights for myself on the Tuesday, our 2nd full day in Barcelona. It meant I missed most of a day in Barcelona, but by paying a little bit more I could spend a minimum amount of time in Seville and be back in Barcelona for dinner - the alternative flights which were a little cheaper would have had me leaving Barcelona first thing and arriving back last thing at night, and stuffed if I know what I'd do in Seville for a whole day by myself since I'd done virtually everything already.
Getting to the airport was supposed to be straightforward. I would take the Metro to the Sants Station, change to the Airport train (and try out the "hack" of using our 10-trip ticket for the Airport train), then catch my flight. Needless to say, it wasn't straightforward - turns out I read the train times from Sants to the Airport in the wrong direction, which I didn't realise until I'd been at Sants for 20 minutes and by then it was too late to take alternative transport as it would get me there the same time as the next train, which was already going to leave things tight. When I realised that the train was saying it was late, and I made sense of a sign that said that there was a shuttle bus between the two airport terminals which took 10 minutes (and worked out my plane took off from the "other" terminal so I needed to take that bus) things started to look a bit shaky. I was already checked in to the flight via my cellphone, so no need to get a boarding pass or anything once at the airport but I would need to rush to the gate.
Our last day didn't have much to it really - we left the Hostel just before 10am, got ourselves breakfast from a nearby cafe (the Spanish breakfast for one last time!), then made our way to the Metro station to get to the Sants train station. We had a 10-trip ticket which we thought had 3 trips left on it - of which we only needed 2. However once Sasha had gone through, I tried and the ticket kept being rejected. Turns out it only had 1 trip left on it not 3, so I had to buy a separate ticket. We were flying Eurowings, the "budget" arm of Lufthansa - which has been previously known as Germanwings before they embarked on a rebranding exercise (which started before the Germanwings plane was flown into the mountain side in France, but seems to have been accelerated a bit since then). We'd also had the option of flying with Ryanair - Ryanair's airfares had been slightly cheaper, but we needed to check a bag and doing so with Ryanair brought the overall cost to more than if we booked & checked a bag with Eurowings (it pays to do your research sometimes!). Eurowings flew out of Terminal 2, so upon arrival at the airport we didn't need the connecting bus and were able to go to the counter, check in and drop our bag, then proceed through security and emerge into the large terminal building. We had a good look around all the shops, got lunch, and just when we were about to head to the nearby gate we saw the flight was delayed by about 30mins. This was neither here nor there really, and so a little later than originally planned we boarded our plane (still Germanwings branded). The seat spacing on the plane was more generous than Vueling had been, and although it was much like any other "no frills" airline the plane was rather nicely appointed. The flight was fairly standard, and we landed at Tegel Airport - the other of the two Berlin Airports, and the one we hadn't been to yet. Schoenefeld is a mess, but Tegel isn't much better - its got hexagon or octagon-shaped terminal buildings which don't give you a lot of room inside. We commuted our way back to the Hostel we'd been staying at prior to the trip by bus and train, checked into our new room in the hostel and we were done - quite worn out after all that travel!
Summing Up
Pretty, but oh so very hot - and an unexpected gem really. Loved a lot of the old city and the architecture of a lot of buildings, sure it sucked really bad that I lost my camera there but I got it back so that was fine. It really surprised me how the hottest part of the day wasn't early to mid-afternoon, but more late afternoon to early evening - you should be able to expect to start cooling off after 5pm, not encounter the most hot part of the day. Quite how Seville isn't on most people's visiting radar I don't know, it certainly should be if you want to visit Spain. Food, drink and accommodation all seemed to be reasonably cheap too. I feel like we saw all of what we wanted to see during our time there - two or three days there would be enough to do everything. Would I go back? it would be nice to. Do I see myself going back? not anytime soon - mind you I thought that about the city upon leaving, yet I was back the following week to collect my camera. So you never know.
Madrid to me was better than expected - I feel like we saw a good amount there, even though our time in the city was limited to effectively a day and a half. I don't feel like we missed out on doing anything there that we might have wanted to do, but certainly a bit more time to relax in what is actually quite a nice city would have been nice. I know I went into visiting Madrid not expecting much going by what everyone else had told us - but I wonder if they saw the same city because I was certainly impressed. Its a city I think you could easily spend 2-3 days in, and it would be the ideal city from which to base yourself if you were to do a day trip to Toledo. Madrid also seemed cheaper than Seville, which was nice considering Seville already seemed cheap and the fact Madrid's the capital city. Would I go back? I'd happily visit Madrid again. Will I though? perhaps unlikely anytime soon, although it might make sense to use Madrid as a gateway into Portugal depending on what form the future Portugal trip will take - we might try and squeeze in that side trip to Toledo on the way as that's supposed to be a really nice town/city to visit.
Pretty much anyone, and everyone, that we talked to basically said Barcelona was the place to visit in Spain. It wasn't hard to get the impression that it would be that kind of place either. We were also berated by many before going for not allowing enough days there, so it had a lot of hype to live up to. Barcelona is a very interesting city, a nice one too - I liked it, but I'm probably being somewhat controversial here when I say that I didn't love it. In fact I probably rate Seville and Madrid over Barcelona. For a city that's smaller than Madrid, it had a very tired, over-populated feel - walking through some sections of the city outside the CBD had me feeling like I was possibly in some large city in South America rather than Spain - it didn't have the same feel or vibe anywhere else in Spain I've been to did. Madrid, the biggest city in Spain, did not feel like that in the suburban areas outside the CBD - it felt more polished, better kept and had an overall nicer vibe in my opinion. I know we did cram in a lot into a small space of time in order so that I could spend a day flying to Seville, but had I not flown to Seville I doubt very much we would have done any more overall in Barcelona than we did - because I feel like when all is said and done, there isn't a huge amount of things to do and see in Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia was of course a must, and I really enjoyed going up on the hill with the Gondolas, the Palaces and the Olympic Park complex, Park Guell was very good but I don't think an absolute must-do. We did look at all manner of things to see what else there was to do to fill in our time, had we had more of it and it very much seemed not a lot if you want to stay in Barcelona - a lot of what we saw were promoting trips out of the city into the wine valleys or up into the nearby mountains. Had we had the time a trip into the mountains to a monastery could have been interesting, but it hardly seemed essential. I don't regret taking nearly a whole day out of Barcelona to retrieve my camera - while I feel like it cost me time in the various places we visited (i.e. we were a bit more rushed than we would otherwise have been), I don't feel I missed out on seeing any of the sights because of it - I saw them, just perhaps didn't spend as long as I could have. This actually annoys me because I've long been tempted for a weekend trip to Barcelona, and there have been a number of occasions where flights were cheap and well timed to allow it - but I always passed it up because I had always been told a weekend wouldn't be enough. Turns out, it would have been really. Having said that, I would go back - I will go back. Not likely anytime soon, but the Sagrada Familia will be finished in 10 years time and I would like to see the finished product. Who knows, it might be the capital of the independent country of Catalonia by then too - I doubt it, but then I feel like a lot has been happening in the world lately that wouldn't likely happen and yet it is. Brexit for instance, or Donald Trump actually standing a very good chance of becoming America's next president.