Madrid

We only had one day to spend in Madrid … a Monday.  Everything closes in Europe on Monday.  So we couldn’t go to the museum we really wanted The Museum of the Americas.  We were excited to see the treasure taken from the Americas but it was closed so we made other plans.  We started with churros con chocolate at La Chocolateria San Gines.  Just imagine a pot of dark, rich, delicious chocolate!  Honestly the best thing ever!

We visited the Royal Palace. 

Image found here.

Elizabeth decided that she wanted a mansion too.

Image found here.

Then we visited San Miguel Market for lunch.  I thought it would be more like the Market Boquería and it wasn’t.  I was a little disappointed.  We finished our day at Reina Sofía because I wanted to see Guernic.  I didn’t love the museum and wished that I’d chosen to go to the Prado instead but c’est la vie.

Taragona was Fantastic

We loved Taragona!  Fabulous food and a fabulous town!  Tarraco was a Roman Provincial Capital so there are a lot of Roman ruins to explore.  There are remains of a Roman amphitheater, a circus, a forum, huge walls surrounding part of the old city.

Image found here.

Check out more pictures of Taragona here.

We walked by a statue of people making a human pyramid.  And a lady tried to tell us that it was going to happen that night but we didn’t speak Catalonian and so unfortunately we didn’t figure out what she was trying to tell us until after dinner when we came upon people climbing down.  Darn it!  We missed it by minutes!

Image found here.

We went to Les Voltes for dinner twice because we couldn’t resist having dinner in the vaults under the Roman circus.

And the kids had been dying to go to the beach since we got to Spain so we went.

In the rarely accessed portion of my brain where I stuff  “not needed information that I read about once,” ironically not far from the “Pick Pockets in Paris” section, is a section on Nudity on Beaches in Europe.  I basically forgot that there are topless beaches.  We, naturally, walked down to less crowded section on the beach and once there I got some wide-eyed, slightly distressed looks from my children.

“Sorry!  Try not to look in that direction?”  I said as I tried to drag my own startled eyes away.  Not that everyone was topless but we were definitely the most covered up family there.  I had Jake and Elizabeth in swim shirts and I wore a hat, even in the water.