Spain and Portugal - Wks of July 16 and 23

The week of July 9th was my last working week in Switzerland that culminated with a work golf outing; therefore, it was a relatively easy last week.  The most stressful part was getting home from golf at 5pm, showering in 30 minutes, and then getting to a bar to host a going away party by 6.  

It was a long night out that was then followed by the movers arriving at my apt. to pack all of my household goods to be shipped across the ocean at 8AM.  I had been preparing all week by packing one suitcase for 2 weeks of travel, another suitcase of clothing for the US before my shipping container arrives (up to 2 months), and wine that I would be flying home with as it could not be included in my shipping container.  I was ready for the move, but it was an early wakeup call that left me with no bed to sleep or couch to sit on starting from then.

Once the movers finished packing and moving (3pm), I went to the airport for one of my last trips while living in Europe to Spain/Portugal with the Bellgraphs.  I boarded a flight at 6:40pm and Kyle and Sam arrived the next morning on a red eye flight.

Madrid

After Kyle and Sam safely arrived, I toured the city on foot during a run and we did a walking tour with some light tapas tasting and Sangria tasting; therefore, we kept a lighter day to deal with the jet lag.

Takos Al Pastor

For our 2nd day, we went on a tour of the Real Madrid stadium (San Bernabeu) and then did our own tapas tour throughout the city.  For the uninitiated, tapas in Madrid and Southern Spain are served free with drinks.  Although not supposed to be a meal, we made dinner of the many tapas bars that ended and ended the evening with seeing a flamenco show. 

Jamon

The following day, we rented a car to visit Segovia to see the aqueduct, cathedral, and Alcazar.  Coincidentally, Disneyland California opened 68 years ago on the same day; the castle at the park was modeled after the castle that we were planning to visit that same day.

Alcazar

Following the castle tour, we experienced with the local cuisine before driving to Rioja:

Yes this is a pig leg....when in Rome...

The 4th day of our trip began in Logrono where we travelled to LaGuardia and Haro for some Rioja tastings.  The area was reminiscent of other wine areas that I have visited since living in Europe with the only difference being the mountains and increased elevation.

View from LaGuardia

Within an original limestone vat for smashing grapes at Casa Primicia

We reached San Sebastien in the late afternoon in time for a quick swim in the ocean and happy hour before a visit to my favorite Sidreria.

Pinxtos

Our stay in the city was fast as I had time for a run the following morning followed by a walking tour and a few last Pinxtos bars before boarding a night train to Porto.  The night train experience was similar to Russia although we did have to exchange trains at 4:45AM in the middle of nowhere....

Harbour at San Sebastien

The late night train station (Pampilhosa)

Porto was a quick trip, but we tried to see some highlights with a walking tour when arriving and when sampling the local cuisine.  The 2nd day we did a Douro Wine, Port, and Boat Tour of inland Portugal.  The wine region of Portugal reminded me of Lavaux in Switzerland.

Porto

Portugal Crew

Douro Valley 

Following the boat tour, we took a late night train into Lisbon.  I’ve been to Lisbon before; however, had forgotten the hills so there was going to be no marathon training occurring while in the city.  We did a walking tour, tried Ginjinha, and went to a Fado show on our first day; the Fado was very different compared to the Flamenco of Madrid.  The former being more sad singing whereas Flamenco was full of energy with the singers also dancing and stomping/tapping to create the music.

Ginjinha

The last day in Lisbon, we did a Sintra Tour; I had done this with Alex on a previous trip.  We then tried another local Portuguese food, the Bifano.  Bifanos are basically pork chop sandwiches that are simple, but great; the meal was nice after going out and getting very large dinners for multiple days in a row.

Sintra

Bifano

The following morning, we went to the airport to fly to Barcelona to our last city of the trip.  We stayed in an apt. near the Arc du Triomf and spent the first day relaxing and preparing for the remainder of the trip (getting driver’s licenses translated into Spanish for the follow days Vespa tour) before walking to the Sagrada Familia.  Note for other travelers would be that tickets for guided tours of the church sell out very quickly; the first available tickets were for 2 days later  so it was helpful that we had a few days in Barcelona.

Arc du Triomf 

The following day, we were awoke by a loud protest of taxi drivers that started outside our bedroom windows against Uber.  There were fireworks, people yelling, and it was quite distracting although no risk of danger. During the day, we all went running, I jumped in the ocean, and then we began the Vespa tour.  This was my first Vespa tour and it was a great way to see a larger city.  We drove by the beach, Sagrada Familia, 1992 Olympic Stadiums, top of Mt. Tibidabo, and Casa Batillo.  The protest moved throughout the city so this did cause us to need to change routes slightly, but we were able to see all the planned sights.

Biker Gang

1992 Olympic Stadium

On our final day, we had planned to see Parc Guell; however, there were no taxis or Ubers due to the protests so we rented bikes to ride the 2.5 miles from our apartment.  So....Barcelona is hilly and very hot during July!  We did reach the Parc and walked around, but did not stay long as we were eager to cool off outside of the sun and relax before going to Sagrada Familia.

Taking the city by bike

I’ve been to the Sagrada Familia on a previous trip to Europe while working in Slovakia before living here, but never been inside.  The inside of the church was gorgeous with very colorful stained glass and we were lucky enough to arrive when the sun was setting so it was well lit.  

The following morning we had flights home at 7am so we awoke at 4 to get an airport transfer at 4:30 AM so we were quite tired.  Not having taxis or Uber’s created some additional complexities as well as we had to find an independent transfer company that we knew we could count on working given the strike.

We covered many locations during the 2 weeks and tried many types of different food throughout the regions.  Even travelling within the Iberian peninsula, there was quite an array of diversity and we could have easily stayed much longer to see more locations; although, I'm not sure my body could handle trying to train for marathons while living in this climate!

Amalfi - Wk. of July 2

After landing from Russia at 8pm, I had time to quickly add some additional clothing to my bag, go to work for a few hours the following morning, and then board a flight at 4pm to Rome to start my next trip.  My initial flight was delayed 5 Hours, but I still managed to get a run in in Rome and start my laundry as I had recently sold my washing machine in Switzerland; it was a long, late night!  Fun fact in retrospect while editing this from this US is all flight delays/cancellations within the EU are regulated by laws so there tend to be less delays and you're compensated!

Views of Rome at night while on a midnight run

The following day, Melissa and Terry arrived from Minneapolis and I led the group on a self-guided walking tour of Rome to show them the Pantheon, Castle of the Angel, and the Vatican.  The last time that I was in Rome was in 2010 on my first trip to Europe so I tried my best to cover some of the major sites of the city with the limited time that we had; however, the city is so impressive and it's never possible to cover everything as there is a historic landmark everywhere you look!  The following day, we went on walking tour of historic Rome (Roman Forum and Colosseum); we also had the added unplanned bonus that all museums in the city and the forum were free as it was the final Sunday of the month.  

Are you not impressed!

Following our sightseeing, we rushed to the train station to get to Naples to use as our home base for the next few days while sightseeing the Amalfi coast area.  The city is the birthplace of pizza, has great seafood, and access to some gorgeous locations (Capri and Amalfi); however, I will warn others that arriving at night can be difficult when trying to navigate.  

Naples Piazza del Plebiscito

The following day (Monday), we had planned a day trip to Pompeii and Vesuvius.  The size of Pompeii and the level of preservation from the ash/lava was very impressive; there was much more to the site than I had originally anticipated and after hearing of the volcanic blast within history class.  In addition to the city, we hiked to the top of Vesuvius for views into the caldera and to reach a great vantage point over the Bay of Naples:

Main street of Pompeii

Vesuvius Caldera

Bay of Naples

On Tuesday, we took ferry day trip to the island of Ischia where we hiked to the top of the island to Mt. Epomeo, which was 789m.  This took a few hours and it was quite hot!  To celebrate the days accomplishments, we went to Sorbillo pizza once returning to Naples.  Supposedly, this is the best pizza in the city of Naples so we had to try it while in the birthplace of the food, but this is widely contested.

Top of Mt. Epomeo

Castello Aragonese d'Ischia

Pizza!

On Wednesday, we packed up to ferry to Capri; we had some minor 'excitement' in the morning where the housekeeper came to collect the keys of our apt. 1 hour early and spoke no English so this was a bit of a rude awakening, but humorous in retrospect.  We reached Capri later that morning and the first impressions were the island is a mountain protruding directly from the sea with very little flat terrain.  We took a taxi to the other side of the island to Anacapris where our hotel was located and were dropped off at the bus stop.  This was slightly confusing at first as we were dropped off only to then wait for our hotel driver.....Our hotel then picked us up in a jeep as it was located midway up a very steep hill that taxis are unable to reach; the actual hotel was great while the journey took some time.

Sunset from the hotel

Birthday cake in Capri

After getting settled, we went to the Grotto Azurri and also hiked to Monte Solaro, which was 589m.  Note to other travelers that this can also be accessed relatively easy by chairlift.

Traffic jam to get into the Grotto Azurri

View from Monte Solaro

View from Monte Solaro of the Grotto Verde

The following morning (Thursday), we took the ferry to Positano and bused to Praiano where we were staying for the evening.  We spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach after moving relatively quickly the prior few days.  

Arrival in Positano

On Friday, we hiked the 'Path of the Gods.'  The trail head to start the hike is not the easiest....From the Amalfi coast area (Positano, Praiano, Amalfi, etc.), one must take a bus to the trail head and this is a very windy road into the mountains so it was nice to have a flatter hike after several days already and no one was feeling great after the long, windy trip.  The scenery was quite pretty even when cloudy; it was very nice to have some shade from the sun.

Once completing the hike, we bused to our hotel and took a taxi to Saltano to then take a train to Rome as Melissa and Terry were to fly home the following day while I would go to Florence.  The day was a bit of a whirlwind given the cities of the Amalfi coast are connected by small, mountain roads that are serviced by buses on hourly routes; however, when the buses are full they will not pick up additional riders so give yourself extra time!  I was getting quite nervous when not seeing a bus, having one then drive by, then finally getting home!

Within Florence, I visited the Uffizi and Galleria dell'Accademia as they were closed during my first visit to Rome in 2010:

David

View from Galleria

Although this was a short trip, we covered many sites with lots of hiking and meals of pizza!  I had a lot of fun, but after a string out-of-town trips the prior few weeks, I was ready to go back to Geneva to relax a few days while working.

World Cup - Russia

The morning after landing form Copenhagen, I boarded a flight to Saint Petersburg for sightseeing and to see the World Cup.

I had purchased 4 tickets during November before teams were known and based only on the venues as I knew that I wanted to visit both St. Petersburg (SPB) and Moscow (MSC).  When the teams were drawn many months later, we were very lucky as the matchups that were randomly drawn for our tickets were Brazil vs. Costa Rica and France vs. Denmark.  We also later found out that there was a 2nd set of Americans that we knew working at PwC CH that had the same games as us so had a large travel group.  We had planned to be in SPB from June 19 to June 23, then take an overnight train and be in MSC from June 24 to June 28.

Arriving in Russia was much easier than anticipated!  As part of the ticket application process, ticket holders would apply with their passport for a Fan ID that then allowed free entry into the country rather than going through the lengthy, expensive passport process.  The trip immediately started with adventure as I landed at the airport and boarded a bus into the city.  Within the first 10 minutes of the ride, the bus rear ended a car and we were forced to de-board into a downpour to try to figure out where to go next. I then boarded a random bus heading the correct direction that then terminated at the metro station (much too early).  I then tried to take the metro, but was unable to purchase a ticket without smaller bills without waiting in a long line.  I then defaulted to Gett, which is Russia’s Uber with success.

St. Petersburg

While visiting St. Petersburg, we went on a free tour, Hermitage tour, Canal tour, went to the fan zone, went to the soccer game, and I covered some ground on my own while running throughout the city.  Everyone in the city was very welcoming and we even met a PwC colleague from SPB for dinner that I had worked with in Istanbul during the prior year.

Church of the Savior on Blood

Hermitage

Excellent weather for the canal cruise

Biggest shock of the city was adjusting to the White Nights as the sun would ‘set’ at midnight and then ‘rise‘ around 3am; however, generally there was almost constant daylight I felt.  This shifted our dinners to around midnight after the last WC game of the day and bed time to 3am....

St. Petersburg Stadium

Costa Rica vs. Brazil

Moscow

We arrived in Moscow after an 8 hour overnight train on Saturday night to arrive at 6am on Sunday morning; the train ride was not too bad, but we still arrived on little sleep and much too early before sights and restaurants were open.

Similar to SPB, I went on the free walking tour, Kremlin tour, and toured the city on foot while on runs.  Moscow was further south so we experienced normal day lengths and it was very hot!

Red Square

St. Basil's Cathedral

Inside the Kremlin

France vs. Denmark

The city is about twice the size of SPB and feels more of the business center of the country than the cultural focus of our first stop.  The red square, Kremlin, and Basil’s cathedral were extremely impressive along with the ‘Seven sisters’ and other architecture of the city.  Kevin and I also did a day trip to Sergiev Posad to get a taste of the golden ring cities, which was also a fun excursion as we had only experienced large Russian cities before then.

Sergiev Posad

Vareniki (Russian Pierogi)

The atmosphere of both cities was very fun, exciting and different than what I had expected.  Granted we were travelling during the World Cup, which I would equate to March Madness in the US.  In every city, everyone is watching every game at every bar with fans dressed in the jerseys of their favorite teams.

The country was more similar to the US than most other Western European countries that I have visited; for example:

1) The people speak primarily one language.

2) Both are almost entirely self-sufficient on their own and would not need to rely on the products of others

3) Atmosphere of restaurants is similar where there are sports bars with people going to support their favorite teams.

4) Conveniences - Stores are open 24/7 and the metro comes every 2 minutes.  
5) Gett is the equivalent of Uber and is everywhere; similar to the US, this an opportunity for amateur drivers to practice their racing skills...

5) Technology - For at least the cities we were in, everything felt very modern.

6) Both landmasses are large.

Definitely would recommend people to visit!