I traveled to Spain twice in 2022. Both trips rather short, more city break than extended vacation.  Unlike say my trip to Islay, I never thought of writing a travel post and as such, I did not really take the appropriate pictures, which are at the heart of these kinds of posts. However, I can still write a few disjointed thoughts on the experience and sprinkle in a pic here and there, in case anyone fancies a visit. Unfortunately most of my pictures seem to be of food not places.

I traveled to Madrid, Seville, Granada and Mallorca. Overall, all these places seem worth a visit, some longer, some shorter.

My travels were pleasant enough and there were no incidents to spoil things. Spain is a good country to visit, though I would not necessarily live there. It is generally safe, generally clean and the infrastructure is mostly good – as well it should be, given that they got into generational debt to build it. The food tends to be good, the wine as well. Keep in mind the Spanish are not afraid of medium rare pork, unlike most other Europeans, so make sure of how you ask it cooked. The specialty coffee scene is OK, which is important as we Glibs are not the kind of barbarians to drink mass produced coffee.

To put a finer grain on the victuals, food and wine were good anywhere I went. Coffee was great in Madrid, good in Palma, meh in Seville and bad in Granada. Craft beer is available here and there, but fairly rare. Off course, a large city like Madrid has a lot of everything. Palma comes in second, being very touristy. Seville is also touristy but was a bit more disappointing on the drinks side of things, though there were two decent cocktail bars.

There was a beer bar in Madrid that was proud of the Founders 2019 CBS which they said was produced in low quantity, but I did not try it as it had too high ABV for beer and they only sold it 330 ml in size, not smaller.

There was a Viking bar in Palma which sold mead by the drinking horn. Too sweet.

 

I had good weather, but then again I went in late February and October. In summer, the heat would be unbearable, for me at least. For example, my friend tells me in Mallorca the poor young women have to walk around practically naked in July and August.

I did not drive in either of my trips, but the trains and buses work well. The high speed rail from Madrid to Seville in particular, although none of my cards worked, for some reason, at the train bar and I did not have cash, so I had to endure the 3 hours without cheap watery beer. California could definitely use two or three of these high-speed lines.

While the infrastructure is generally good, it is not the best organized. One thing that really annoyed me is there were no left luggage lockers in the damn train station in Madrid, the biggest one they had. Another was there are few signs in English even at the airport and it took me a while to figure out which of the machines I need to use to get a train ticket to the center. When I went back to the airport, the subway station was very confusing and with few signs, even in Spanish. There was an interruption in the subway line to the airport, and you had to get off the subway, get on a bus then back on the subway. This was only communicated in fast spoken Spanish and I needed the help of a Good Samaritan to figure out what was going on. All I am saying that at least the subway to the airport in a city like Madrid should have some English messages.

The hotels were OK, and you can get a good one for around 100$ per night. Good meals can be had for 20$ to 30$. Even less, depending on what you want. A glass of good wine can take you from $4 to 10$. A cocktail from 8$ to 15$.

One thing, for me, is that I am on a different timeline than the Spanish. I am a morning person; they tend to be night people. Many restaurants did not open for dinner before eight in the evening; I usually have dinner earlier than that. Strangely, huevos rotos were present on most dinner menus, but not on breakfast menus, and that seems a breakfast item to me. I usually had poached eggs on toast with some local cold cut.

I was Madrid for only two days, so I did not visit much, mostly walked around and consumed various items of food and drink. I think that there are many things to do there and I could see myself going again for a longer period.

I found one interestingly decorated restaurant there. Great wine list as well.

Seville is a decent city to walk about and the Royal Alcazar is worth a visit, but 3 4 days should be sufficient to see what is worth seeing, I am not that eager to return. I can recommend Ovejas Negras Tapas.

For Palma, 3 days for the city and a few more days for the rest of Mallorca. I probably might want to go back to Mallorca at some point, though it is not as if I want to go there again next year.

As a Romanian, I understand some bits of Spanish, but communicate mostly in English. Overall, this worked well in the larger cities. Although there may be struggles here and there. I got along fine with cards, mostly, but a bit of cash helps. Outside the ridiculous masks in the bus in Palma, masks were not really a thing. Overall the people were friendly enough, and there seemed to be a decent number of attractive persons of the female persuasion, but that  is not relevant for me as I have zero game. I guess this is about it. For now.