Recently in Travel Category

The high-speed AVE train connecting Madrid and Barcelona was finally completed and its first official trip took place on 20 February 2008.

Media outlets all of Spain ran a story about it including multi-page articles on the topic with graphics, photos, interviews, and (at least) two newspapers even made an interesting "stop watch" comparison, step-by-step, of Train Travel to Barcelona versus Airplane Travel to Barcelona. I'll discuss this later.

A 16-year wait has finally come to pass. FINALLY! The first high-speed train run between the two cities arrives ahead of schedule and more than 70,000 tickets have ALREADY been sold for future trips. Wow. That's incredible.

The Nuts-and-Bolts:
There are 17 trains going in each direction per day, from Madrid Atocha train station to Barcelona Sants train station, with a total capacity of 13,498 passengers per day. The best/fastest travel time is 2 hours and 38 minutes but other AVE trains take 3 hours or up to 3.5 hours. Check RENFE.es for schedule and prices (up to 62 days in advance).  Until last Friday, the fastest Barcelona-Madrid train trip took about 4 hours.  Stops from Madrid include Guadalajara, Zaragoza, Lleida, and Barcelona. Top speed is about 300 kmph but average speed is only about 200 kmph. Seating configuration for the upper, "Peferente class", where one can plug-in their electronic device at their seat, is a "thin" 2 x 1 - one seat on one side of the aisle and two seats on the other side, all seats face forward. Tourist class seating configuration remains the typical 2 seats on each side of the aisle and no electronic device plug-ins available. I believe all seats face forward in tourist class too.

PRICES: 119.50 Euros is the general, Tourist Class price for the trip. Yikes! But buying your ticket on the web (which proves to be confusing and difficult to foreigners visiting Spain) costs only 47.80 Euros. Preferente Class prices are much higher. General ticket price is 179.30 Euros one-way. No cheaper, web-purchase tickets are available for this class. Breakfast is included in the morning, Preferente Class tickets. Before the AVE was open for business, I'd made this trip once using Preferente Class service but didn't find the "free breakfast", slightly larger seats, and somewhat more-nicely-dressed attendants to be worth the huge difference in price.

The ESTRELLA Madrid-Barcelona night train still exists, taking about 9.5 hours and costing as little as 38 Euros one-way.

Comparisons of Train travel versus Plane travel from Madrid to Barcelona have been made and both sides both win and lose - depending on the passengers objective.

If price is the deciding factor, AVE train travel wins, costing about 58 Euros less than airplane travel - including presumed taxi costs from/to train-station/airport.

If speed is the deciding factor, airplane travel wins, taking roughly 25 minutes less than AVE train.

If comfort is the deciding factor, MadridMan claims that train travel wins over airplane travel. Why? Train travel involves faster lines in security, less standing/waiting for the actual trip. Plus, on long-distance trains you have a greater range of motion, more space per seat, wider aisles and more abundant, larger restrooms. There's also a selection of recorded music "stations" to which to listen with the free, provided earphones as well as at least one movie. Not sure how they'll show entire movies on the new shorter/faster train routes though. And maybe the best thing about train travel is.... The Bar Car, almost always open, is ready to serve the passenger breakfast, lunch, snacks, sandwiches, beer, or coffee while standing at the bar or along the large windowed walls, providing oftentimes wonderful views of the (in this case) FAST-PASSING countryside. And the "Captain" never saids, "Please return to your seats. We're experiencing turbulence."

The Alternative: Bus Travel from Madrid to Barcelona: The trip takes between 7.5 and 8.0 hours and costs between 27 Euros and 37 Euros. The bus company making this route is ALSA.  Saves 10-20 Euros but takes, ugh, 4-5 hours longer. My lower back tightens just thinking about it.

Watch the sparkly 6-minute RENFE Madrid-Barcelona AVE video at http://www.renfe.es/video.html with nice music and visuals. No language spoken but Spanish textual details are given regarding the trip.

The Down Low: If one can make their purchases via the website (one must first create an account and have prior personal contact with RENFE, verifying your account at the train station), it can really save a lot of time and add to the comfort and pleasure of the trip - including the same at your destination. There's nothing worse than arriving for your "Trip of a Lifetime" all tired, worn-out, and stiff from a long trip - like how you feel after getting off an overseas flight. I can't imagine spending 8-12 hours on an airplane, landing in Madrid or Barcelona, and then taking an 8-hour bus ride or getting on another airplane shortly thereafter.

The village of El Escorial is an easy daytrip from Madrid. It can be done by bus or by car. The 16th century royal palace and monastery there, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, was built by King Philip II and is one of true jewels of La Comunidad de Madrid. It's also where past - and future - Spanish royals are buried.

Yesterday, 4 Guys from 4 Nations visited the nearby (to Madrid) village of El Escorial by car. We were 1 person from Spain, 1 person from Denmark, 1 person from England, and 1 person from the United States. Talk about your international representation - all ambassadors for our countries in El Escorial. We tried to behave ourselves.

We'd arrived at about 12:30pm at the gate to enter the "park" of Valle de los Caídos. There was a short line, not moving. We asked what was happening and the guard told us they were removing ice from the access road and putting down salt and that we should go into El Escorial and come back later. Okay. Fine. No problem.

It was a cold day, very cloudy, and rained lightly at the beginning of our visit to the large village. 2 of our group went into San Lorenzo de El Escorial and gave themselves a self-guided tour while 2 of us went walking into the village. I was a walker and not a tourer of the El Escorial Palace because I'd seen it just last summer as had my buddy Steve. Steve and I took to the streets and visited the numerous belénes or nativities throughout the town, finally stopping at a back-street bar for a coffee. While chatting and sipping our drinks, a waiter passed us with a large ceramic bowl of sopa de marisco or shellfish soup and had to ask for a small bowl to hold us until lunch. Very good. Tasty. And HOT.

Back to the streets, up and down, back and forth, looking over the nativities, some rather comical, others more traditional. We finally got the call from the other half of our party to meet them at the exit gate of San Lorenzo de El Escorial so we made our way there and did some "shopping" at the monastery gift shop while waiting. They arrived a few minutes later, satisfied with their tour, and we four headed back through the city to see more nativities and to find someplace for lunch as it was already about 2:30pm.

We found a bar with a small dining room which had a good Menu del Día and sat down, ordered, and at our lunches along with a large, shared order of Patatas Bravas. Mmmm.. So good. We ate briskly as we needed to get back to the Valley of the Fallen before the last funicular went up to the foot of the cross at about 4:30pm (at this time of year). We paid, drove to the entry, waited in line with our car, and the guard at the gate remembered us and waved us through without paying. Wow. He was nice! It's typically 5 Euros per person for NON-European citizens so I was ready to pay. But apparently since two of us were European citizens, one was a Spanish resident, and one didn't have any documentation whatsoever - but was wearing a LONDON sweatshirt - he just waved us through.

We buzzed up the winding hillside access road, about 5 minutes or so, and parked at the funicular parking lot and apparently made the last or the second to last car going UP to the foot of the cross. It was 2.5 Euros per person.

The area around the tall granite cross, apparently the tallest cross in Europe, was impressive and the views from up there were even more impressive. We walked around somewhat quickly because the last funicular going down was in 25 minutes. The clouds parted for us as soon as we arrived, giving us some blue sky overhead as the sun set just behind the hills on the other side of the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Cruz and monastery.

We took the funicular down after snapping a few photos and went walked quickly to church, the tomb of General Francisco Franco and José Antonio Primo de Rivera - the founder of the falange. NO PHOTOS ALLOWED. Inside the tomb, which is built into the mountain (see photo above), is an impressive structure for its architecture. The tombs themselves are nothing to see, flat slabs on the floor surrounded by red velvet ropes. Above is a beautiful mosaic dome, probably the nicest part of the entire "Church". Apart from that and the fact that it's built into the mountain, I felt surprisingly nothing while inside. Knowing what I know about the Franco dictatorship I didn't feel the religion surrounding the tombs of the people responsible for tens of thousands of murders. The counterintuitive hypocrisy of this religious monument seems to remove any sensation of God. Often I walk through cathedrals in Spain and I feel something important. Here, I felt nothing - except anger.

The monument was built BY and FOR General Francisco Franco - a monument to himself and to all those who died on the fascist, winning side of the Spanish Civil War. I understand the current government will take steps change its use, making it more of a monument to ALL those who died in the Spanish Civil War, representing BOTH sides.

MANY MANY Spaniards refuse to visit this monument as it represents something which hails fascism, murder, and the division of a country. I can't say I blame them. I think many tourists choose to visit it because it represents a part of Spain's history. And it does. But I also believe few tourists understand that it only represents one side and not the other. The stone cross and the tomb is worth visiting. But be informed before going. Realize that many Spanish prisoners, political prisoners whom were incarcerated long after the end of the Civil War, died during its construction.

Just returned from 3 nights near Geneva, Switzerland over the Thanksgiving holiday with a few American family members, some Brits, and one Spaniard.

3 of us (the one Spaniard, a Brit, and I) flew easyJet from Madrid to Geneva Switzerland last Thursday morning from Madrid Barajas Airport and had a nice, smooth, 25% full flight. The price was the same as my previous easyJet flight to Geneva - 64 Euros! CHEAP!

At the Geneva Airport we passed through customs in minutes and received our checked luggage within 2 more minutes. How fast! Someone was waiting for us on the other side and we immediately took our money from the ATM.

After arriving home and saying our hellos we sat down to a light lunch in anticipation to a HUGE Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately it was raining nearly all Thursday and Friday but was merely cloudy on Saturday. Finally, of course, on Sunday morning - our last day there - the sun came out a bit and we could FINALLY see the Swiss Alps and other beautiful Swiss mountains rather clearly.

The Thursday, 7pm Thanksgiving dinner was a site to behold and a spectacularly set table with. In total we were 7 persons and just fit around the table. The turkey, perfectly cooks and MOIST, had to be ordered several days before because, apparently, in Switzerland you can't simply walk into the supermarket and select one. My visiting cousin has a background in professional cooking and her know-how made the meal even better than it already was.

No turkey-basting took place. Instead, the turkey itself was covered in bacon strips and the entire pan was topped with an aluminum foil umbrella. The turkey came out moist and tasty!


Along with the delicious turkey we had a mountain of mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, a huge pan of hand-made stuffing, cranberry sauce "imported" from the USA, and for dessert we had 2 home-made pumpkin pies and zucchini cake.

WOW! What a meal! And everything was VERY "American" with the exception of the French red wine. We all enjoyed it, including our lone Spaniard and collection of Brits and slept very well that night.


The rest of the visit consisted of visits to the nearby Chateau for wine tasting from the grapes grown in the adjacent vineyard, walks in the country between the sugar beet fields, trips to the huge grocery stores, visits to Swiss Rolex Watch stores to dream, a visit to a downtown Geneva Swiss chocolate shop called LADERACH: Chocolatier Suisse  where they make the chocolate there (I bought three boxes of chocolates for gifts), and a walk around old downtown Geneva.

We stopped in a village outside of Geneva which was so beautifully picturesque (I don't recall the name of the town now) where we took some photos and walked up to the choppy water of Lake Geneva.



The easyJet flight home was MUCH fuller - probably 80% - but we still managed to have our aisle and window seats towards the back of the plane where there was more space. The flight our of Geneva and over Switzerland was just beautiful. The clouds parted from time to time to reveal BEAUTIFUL snow covered mountains. We had much more turbulence on this flight and were asked to remain seated much of the 1 hour 45 minute flight.

We arrived to Madrid Barajas, got our checked bag quickly, and two of us took the metro home without problem. The other took a taxi.

In all it was a nice, easyJet trip with family and friends, good food and wine, picturesque Swiss villages, expensive Swiss mansions gawking, some brisk walks in the country, and lots of playing dominoes to pass the extra time. It's so great easyJet provides inexpensive flights to so many interesting destinations.

easyJet really is easy. And CHEAP too!

I just got back from a few days visiting family in Geneva, Switzerland and flew easyJet for the first time. I was a little uneasy not knowing "how to do it" but learned quickly enough.

My reservations were booked a month in advance online - of course. The total price, after taxes, etcetera, was nearly 64 Euros. Oh, that's ROUND TRIP travel total! Incredible, isn't it! easyJet charges extra for everything over the base price. They allow one carry-on bag. More bags cost 6 Euros extra per bag, I believe. They charge extra for checked luggage too. They charge for drinks, snacks, and goods on the plane as well. There's no movie but they do provide their in-flight magazine which I found entertaining.

I arrived at Madrid Barajas Airport about an hour early for my 9am flight. There was a lonnnnnng line inside for some check-in counter but it wasn't for easyJet - NOT that it mattered to me because I was traveling super-light. Having ONLY my one carry-on bag and having already printed out my boarding pass a couple days earlier, I was able to go STRAIGHT to the security checkpoint. To my wonderful surprise there was only about 4 people in line. Woo Hoo! They stamped my passport and I walked through easily having only to take off my belt and not my shoes this time.

I have an hour to kill so I go to the duty free shop in Madrid Barajas to get some Spanish gifts for family members. I buy tins of Chupa Chups suckers/lollipops for the kids, polverones and Spanish dark chocolates for the adults. I'd hoped to buy some Spanish nuts (that is, Nuts from SPAIN - not "Spanish Nuts" as we have them in the United States) but all I could find were nuts bagged and marketed by EAGLE NUTS - an American brand, so I passed on those. The Chupa Chups were founded in Barcelona but now are an Italian-owned company.

So with my gifts bought and in their Duty Free bag, I head to the mens restroom. Hmmmm.. It's closed for cleaning with the yellow cleaning-crew cart parked in its entrance. Hmph. Fine. I'll go to the other one. So I walk to the other mens restroom at the other end of the terminal - and &^%!* it's closed for cleaning TOO?!?!!?!? SonsOfB******!! You'd think they'd clean one restroom at a time, right? Or at least clean ONE SEX restroom and then the other. Okay. I walk BACK to the first restroom and they're finished. Finally. And what is it about Madrid Barajas restrooms? They're always so hot! What is this, a Turkish Bathhouse? I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT!! I'm ONLY HERE TO DO ONE THING - and it's NOT THAT!

Boarding for the easyJet airplane begins shortly, about 25 minutes before takeoff. Since I'd printed out my boarding pass beforehand I have the paper in my hand. They call for those who've paid about 4 Euros for advanced boarding and about 6 people went through. Now they call "GROUP A" - which is me. I hand my sheet to the attendant and she gives me an actual boarding pass tear-off. There are no assigned seats on easyJet planes so I choose an aisle seat (my preferred seat) just past the wings on the righthand side. After stuffing my carry-on bag in the overhead compartment I take a seat. Hmmm.. This is pretty nice! I watch the remaining passengers, including those who were in "GROUP B" (presumably those whom did not print out their boarding pass?? or is it a random designation? No idea), boarding the plane. At the end the plane is about 1/3 full, all passengers sitting in their window or aisle seats and nearly no one in the middle seats. It's a 3-by-3 configuration on this easyJet airbus airplane.

I look around me as we taxi for takeoff and get our instructions from the flight crew. Passengers on this plane are mixed. There are Spaniards, Swiss (or maybe French - speaking French), and some English too. In about 15 minutes we take off. Smooth. I have no one sitting next to me in my 3-seat configuration so I crane my still-slightly-sore-neck out the window, trying to see Madrid as we takeoff.

Since this is my first time on easyJet I wonder about the details of the flight and the service. Once we level off and the captain turns off the seatbelt light and people make their dash to the restrooms (clean and "normal", by the way), the flight attendants bring the coffee-and-snacks cart down the aisle. I watch carefully to see how its done. To no surprise, I watch them ask one, then another, then another passenger if they'd like coffee. Most say no but some say no. Then they pour the coffee and hand it to the passenger. It's at this point that the flight attendant says, "That'll be 2 Euros," and the expression on the face of the passenger is often the same, "What? I have to pay for this?" Yup. You pay for everything on easyJet flights. THAT'S how they keep their prices low. It's a No-Frills airline. I passed on the coffee since it's only a 1 hour and 45 minute flight to Geneva Airport.

The flight is easy, typical, and fast. I read the magazine and carefully look over the flight destinations from Madrid. Wow! They go to Paris, Majorca, Ibiza, Edinburgh, and the Canary Islands! They DON'T flight, however, directly to Barcelona.

WHAT INCREDIBLE VIEWS of Switzerland as we were flying over the country. The snow-capped mountains, the greenery, the scattered clusters of villages. It was mostly clear skies until got near the airport. Then the airplane turned left towards the clouds and towards a "V" in the mountains. I was a bit nervous as we flew through the thick clouds.

The landing at Geneva Airport is easy as is the check-through customs. I swear, I've never seen such blatant DISREGARD for my passport before! I'm walking towards the guy in the passport control booth, still about a 2-feet away, he glances at it from that 2-foot distance and simply waves me through. No computer check. No passport stamp. Nuttin'! It was the same going back through passport control when I return to Madrid via the Geneva Airport. EXACTLY the same. A quick glance from a distance and then the wave-through.

Visiting the family is always nice. We entertained ourselves with at-home meals, late night movies and French wine, playing with the kids, and catching up on what's happened since the last visit. We went to a large grocery store and marveled at the kinds of foods they sell (and HOW they package it), went bowling with the kids (VERY popular there!), went to the local café for locally produced white and red wines, and took walks in the village where they live, about 20 minutes from the city of Geneva, Switzerland.

Something I noticed while there was that all the people in the service industry WERE SWISS!! How UNLIKE Spain. I was told that a law was passed years ago that required businesses to pay their service-industry employees a much higher salary and to OUTLAW TIPS! Wow! WHAT A GREAT IDEA! I'd vote for that! But for this reason, at least in part, everything in Switzerland is so much more expensive.

The return easyJet flight experience was equally as easy. Having my boarding pass in hand, got waved through the passport security checkpoint, and walked to the stand-alone easyJet terminal which had about 5-gates. One flight went to Madrid, another to Barcelona, and the others were in-waiting. They had ONE restroom for each sex.

LOTS of Spaniards going to (or back to) Spain on this flight. I was, again, in Group A and the instructions at the gate were given in English and in French - BUT NOT IN SPANISH, so all the waiting Spaniards were a bit confused. I asked a few in a huge group queuing to board if they had tickets in "GRUPO A" and they said no and backed up a bit while I passed through. The flight back was a bit faster and I sat just a bit further back, the flight more full than before. Again, I took an aisle seat and to my luck no one sat in the window seat so I was able to switch seats as we neared Madrid to get a GREAT view of the landscape.

Then landing in Madrid Airport. Ahhh.. What a wonderful feeling that always is to me. The flight took just 1 hour and 27 minutes. Fast! We all grabbed our backs once the airplane came to a complete stop and the seatbelt sign was turned off. Then we wait. Upon getting off the airplane I started my watch's stopwatch function as I wanted to see how long it would take to get home. Luckily, there was almost no line at passport control and waited about 3 minutes or less. Here, they carefully checked my passport and gave me the passport stamp. Since I had no luggage to pickup I walked directly out of the baggage claim area, through the "Nada de Declarar"/"Nothing to Declare" doors as the Guardia Civil guard eyeballed me and everyone. Now to the metro.

Here's where the effort takes place. I've got my one roller bag suitcase and my coat tied around the handle. I walk and walk and walk towards the sign for the metro. Took me a good 20 minutes to get to the metro where I passed my metroBus ticket into the machine. Hmmm.. It didn't work. Tried another machine. ERROR, it said. So I went to the metro window and told them it didn't work. To that, that attendant told me I had to pay a supplement of 1 Euro (per person - just me) for the metro from the airport. Hmmm.. I thought that was ONLY for the new Terminal 4. Nope. I now remember. It's now for all terminals. Hmph. I've done this so many times in the past few years without having to pay the supplement. Fine. I pull back and dig out my wallet from my rollerbag and get back in line to pay the supplement. She takes my 1 Euro coin and ticket, runs the ticket through her machine, and gives it back to me. Then it magically passes through the metro pass-through machine and I pull my bag through behind me.

I get onto the metro with few others but still have to stand with my bag in the middle of the metro car. At every stop more people board the metro train car. I change at the metro line's end-line, Nuevos Ministerios, and get on the next line, line 10, with A LOT of other people. I change once more to take me to the OPERA station where I leave the metro station and then wait for my bus which takes me to my building. I lug my suitcase to the 4th floor (or 5th floor in USA terms) and check my watch. Ha! The whole airplane-to-home trip takes the same amount of time as the flight from Geneva to Madrid! 1 hour 27 minutes.

I'M HOME! And happy to be here. I turn on gas and the water too and go to wash my hands after so much public transportation (a habit of mine). Lo and behold THERE'S NO WATER!!! I ask the neighbors and no one has water! They've asked at the bar downstairs and no one in the area has water. I wash my hands with some bottled water from the refrigerator. That night, last night, I don't wash up for bed and don't brush my teeth because the water's still off. So Welcome F'in Home to ME!

Next morning, this morning, the water's back on and all's normal - for now. It's so great to be back in Madrid, Spain.

The thing about living in Europe is that everything, everything in Europe that is, is so close.

Every American kid remembers long, 20-hour drives to Florida in the back of your station wagon on summer vacation. This pales in comparison to the meager 6 hours driven to Porto, Portugal from Madrid, Spain. That is to say, 6-hours estimated time on a normal day.

We left on Thursday afternoon, the beginning of the Puente del Pilar - a national 3-day weekend when everyone in the country is on the move. El Pilar is officially on Friday, the 12th of October in Spain. We did meet with some traffic from Madrid until the other side of Segovia but that was it. We were shocked. Returning on Sunday afternoon was the same. It was smooth sailing until we reached Segovia and then we had stopped traffic. But the gods were smiling on us as the traffic lightened shortly thereafter and were only delayed maybe 30 minutes.

So we arrived in Porto, Portugal at about 2am after being on the road for 8-hours. This included a 1-hour dinner stop just at the Spain-Portugal border at about 11pm. We checked into the only 5-star hotel in Old Porto, Portugal, the Hotel Infante Sagres, in Old Town Porto. Porto, by the way, is called Oporto in Spanish. The outside of the hotel is really plain and the construction around the front of the hotel didn't help our spirits much after being on the road all evening either.

We walked parked the car immediately in front of the hotel, the doorman directed us to the desk, and we checked in. The hotel itself, inside, is probably the most elegant hotel I've been in  - including 2005's 4-star Hotel Alhambra Palace. This Porto hotel was elegant, historical, and something out of the 1930s. The staircase was incredible with it's stained glass work from top to bottom. The old elevator with the cushioned seat on one side was a surprise to us. The lounge rooms, old bar, and seating areas throughout the ground floor really showed this was someplace really special in its heyday.

The room itself was pretty simple but ours, on the 4th floor, was one of the few with a balcony facing the front of the hotel. It had a nice view of the construction mess below and, to the right, the main city square. The room was of average size but the bathroom was something special, large, tiled, and with all the 5-star extras you expect. The bed was a queen size and comfortable. We left the balcony window doors open most nights although it was cool. There were lots of TV stations in English, Spanish, and Portuguese but mostly news and economic stations. The one Spanish station we watched was TVE. The one English station we watched was CNN.

Breakfast was included with the room and it was given in an elegant dining room, chandeliers, formal waiters, buffet breakfast with eggs, hams, bacons, cheeses, breads, a dozen fruits, and good coffee.

Thursday night was straight-to-bed. Friday morning we slept late and just made it to breakfast before the 10:30am cutoff. We got out to the streets of Porto by noon, perfect, pretty well-rested and ready to see the city. It was a beautiful day, perfectly sunny and about 68ºF - a perfect day for MadridMan.

We decided to go directly to the City Sight Seeeing Hop On Hop Off Bus and take the red circuit first, then the blue circuit. This was a wonderful way to see the city in about 3 hours total. We took one circuit, didn't get off until the end, then got on the shorter blue circuit route which crossed the Ponte de Don Luis I (bridge) over the Rio Douro in Porto - which is the same Ría de Duero in Spain - in the village of Gaia to see the Port bodegas, mostly empty now. What a great trip on the top deck of the double decker bus and multiple languages to give you explanation.

We got off the bus and walked along the picturesque and chose one of the many terraces for lunch where we had cod - very typical in Portugal. We were under an umbrella on the terrace of Restaurante Simbiose on Rua Infante D. Henrique, Nr. 133. Good food, good prices, and we resisted the urge to order and entire bottle of Vinho Verde - which is a kind of carbonated white wine and the most typical Portuguese wine. It would have been very refreshing on this warming day but we feared the resulting sleepiness would hamper our sight seeing energies. So fine. One glass only.

After lunch we took a long walk along the river, walking towards the Atlantic Ocean. We didn't walk that far but only to the edge of Porto's old town. I was so impressed with the city, very enchanting, very "Old World", very little renovation or modernization going on here. It appeared to be unchanged in 40 years. Streetcars continue to operate throughout the old city of Porto and I was surprised they were filled with tourists - ONLY locals going to/from work or getting around the city. I was also surprised to see so little immigration here. There was almost no evidence of other cultures apart from Portuguese except in some of the restaurants where some Brazilians worked as servers.

We went back to the hotel at about 7pm to relax until dinnertime, take a nap, watch some TV, and just unwind. Not wanting to leave the room by 10pm, we decided to simply order room service. And after the huge lunch we had we only ordered sandwiches and white wine.

We did a little better the next morning, Saturday, waking at about 9am and made it to our elegant breakfast downstairs with no hurry. This day we drove 45 minutes to the nearby village of Guimarães. Wow. What a town. So beautiful, clean, in very very good condition, no graffiti, and much of the old town is from the 15th century. It's a very small Old Town so we walked it all in about 2 hours and had a simple lunch in a terraza. This town is a must-see easy daytrip from Porto. Very impressive, clean, nice, OLD, and tourists of Spanish and Portuguese nationalities mainly.

After lunch and another short walk, we left Guimarães for the nearby city of Braga. The name, Braga, always made me laugh because "Bragas", in Spanish, means "underwear". We liked Braga but not as much as Guimarães but was worth the 2 hours we spent walking the Old Town, entering the Cathedral and countless other churches, and visiting the Santa Barbara Gardens. It was near the gardens where we stopped for merienda at about 6pm for a coffee and pastry in an old, small pastry/coffee shop. Good visit, Braga. Now back to Porto.

We get back to the hotel, shower and change, and leave for our 9pm dinner reservation at the historic Café Guarany, just around the corner from our hotel, on Avenida dos Aliados, 89/85. There, we had our dinner with a FADO performance - just what we were looking forward to for this trip. FADO is a Portuguese-specific form of singing, usually done in a dark setting, and songs are typically sad or melancholy. The Fado singer, Joana Costa, is very talented, young, and obvious enjoys her work. Our table was two tables from the performance and we enjoyed ourselves as the singer involved the full dining room - full of international tourists. The Fado show was free for those with dinner reservations.

After the good dinner and good fado entertainment, we left wanting more, some more authentic Fado - if it existed. Knowing how flamenco is in Madrid I somewhat doubted having an "authentic" Fado experience. We went back to the hotel to ask at the desk. The suit-wearing reception attendant suggested a place called O FADO, about a 10 minutes walk in Old Town Porto. We arrived at about 11:30pm and walked in to a full, very rustic dining room. The performance was just finishing and no table was available. We were told to wait a few minutes, and were seated at a table for two in the center of the room, right in front of the performance area. The next performance was at midnight and we ordered a required minimum consumption so we ordered a bottle of Vinho Verde. We enjoyed the 2-hour show, ending at 2am, mostly in the very dark room with melancholy songs, a good view, and good conversation - in English - with the traveling Brazilian couple next to us. We were surprised we weren't charged for entry to the show, only 13 Euros for the bottle of wine. A good deal! Many others around us had ordered dinner. Our walk back through Old Town at 2am was wonderful, quiet, safe, and we admired more old, run-down yet architecturally beautiful buildings on our way to the hotel. What a nice Saturday night, our last night in Porto, Portugal.

Sunday morning we woke at 9am, had our last wonderful breakfast in the hotel, sat in the lounge awhile to enjoy the surroundings, and then packed up and left the hotel at about 10:30am, paying the 23 Euro room service tab fo the sandwiches and wine. Putting our bags in the car, we walked through Old Town Porto one last time, visited the cathedral and poked our heads in the few open shops, and slowly made our way back to the car and left Porto.

We weren't looking forward to the likely 7 or 8 hour drive but it went surprisingly well with absolutely no traffic. SHOCKING! The weather was perfect. We finally reached our only traffic jam near Segovia and took a quick pit-stop in an "Area de Servicio" for a bathroom break before entering the long wait in traffic. It was about 7pm. Wow. That place was PACKED with cars, trucks, and people!! Everyone stopping for the same reason we were. Men were seen coming out of the bushes after urinating and the lines at the bathrooms - for women - was outside the building and around the corner. Yikes. So I, being a man, walked past about 40 women and directly into the empty men's restroom and thought, "My goodness. This should be a crime." I felt so guilty passing all those waiting and anxious women. Got back on the road entering the traffic jam. But 20 minutes later we were flying freely at the maximum+ speed limit on our way to Madrid. No problem.

What a great trip. We loved Porto, Portugal and hope to return with more time - and to ride a streetcar.