Europe for the summer

 

a narrow street of Caceres. 

When we arrived in Lisbon we had few plans but a place to stay for several days. We mainly just walked around near our place and ate some good food, including the bathed in garlic sauce steak topped with an egg at Portugalia. From there we took a bus to Elvas which is a perfect small little walled town in Portugal, just near the border with Spain. It was mostly quiet, a few tourists but not too many, and easy to walk the whole town in a day, but we split it up over several. One night I heard live music wafting to our open windows from what seemed to be the town plaza. So out we went to investigate. 

It turned out to be an international festival where we caught stage performances of dance and music from a couple countries before the mayor gave a lengthy speech. We arrived at 10 and it went until midnight. People here like to eat dinner very late, often 9 or 10 pm, so this wasn't as late as it seemed to me. Also despite being mid August, it was a strangely chilly night and I shivered in  my seat through the show. It was the coldest it would be for our entire trip. Despite the temps, I enjoy just this sort of spontaneous magic. 

From Elvas we took advantage of our very compact way of traveling to walk to the nearby train station for a 2 Euro ride over into Spain. This took us over to Badajoz, where we spent just one night and had a nice riverside dinner, before catching the train north to Caceres for a week. This is another walled city, this one quite a lot larger and grander than Elvas. and filled with many more tourists as well, especially by day. They even have a little Tuk Tuk tour called Tuk y Go that goes around town. At first I laughed at it, but by the end of the week I myself took a little ride. I would say it is really only worth it for those who would have trouble getting around. It's better to walk to things if you want to go inside. 

This whole week was amazingly hot, and the stone reflected the 95 plus degrees back at you during the day. But we got out often enough in the morning or evening and at night. It's a beautiful city. 

From here we took another train, this time to Madrid. Madrid is a very large city. Probably the largest the two of us have spent any amount of time in. And the place we found to stay was really lovely, right down on a street that is effectively New York's Broadway, and we had a rooftop balcony where I loved to stare down at the busy street at night. 

We visited the extensive Prado art museum, spent time wandering the gardens in the area, and walked the town at night. We took the time to eat some churros with chocolate sauce, the traditional way in Spain, at the traditional spot, San Gines. It's a restaurant over 100 years old that claims to have served nearly a billion of the sweet treat. Much like donuts it's considered a staple breakfast food, but it's an anytime treat. 

As we plotted our next move, we decided we'd take two weeks for more of a traditional vacation. Up until then, we had been more "living" in Europe. spending time in the apartments we found, reading, relaxing, and doing simpler things around town, mainly walking about. With a few of the big must see items scattered in. But this trip wasn't just a wind down from hiking the Appalachian Trail for five months, it was also our 25th anniversary. the "real one" from when we first started dating in high school. So we opted for a cheap flight to Crete Greece. We had been thinking of using trains to get to France and then eventually Barcelona, but this plan we scrapped as Greece was much cheaper, and we'd be able to rent a car and explore a new to us part of the country. A part we had long wished to visit for it's older than Greek civilization, the Minoans. 

So we booked tickets and took ourselves on a very long walk to the airport. We walked through the city some distance, had a lovely lunch at a restaurant which turned out to serve burgers, not the Pizza! that was advertised on the tables, but were good anyway. I love Europe most for it's outdoor dining along streets and courtyards. From there we took the metro to the closest stop to Parque Juan Carlos. This is a vast park, filled with large open spaces, sparsely planted trees along the many wide carriage lanes, and lots of small hidden surprises tucked inside. It was almost completely empty, feeling like the apocalypse on an odd weekday. Thankfully the heat had abated this day, and it was a bit overcast which really made a perfect day for us to take advantage of our distance hiking skills and still have plenty of time to take breaks and enjoy the park. Finally exiting through another quaint neighborhood, one we'd visit on our return. We managed to navigate the no man's land that was the outlying parking lots, and found ourselves at the terminal and ready for our adventure within an adventure.  

More on that next time!