Aussie in Sweden (and other places)

Last time we had just arrived in Toledo which was an interesting little town perched on the top of a hill. It was also the coldest place we’ve experienced so far as you can see in this photo of our car as we attempted to leave at about 8:30am on Thursday. The thermometer in the car (although very unreliable) said -1°, which is the first negative temperature that we know of so far.

We tried to find a train station outside of the city of Madrid but that didn’t turn out to be as easy as you would expect so we drove into the centre of the city to find some parking. Our hostel was in a good position and they were very helpful in providing us with information on what to see. The room was tiny and the shower cold but it was ok. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets and walked the perimeter of the palace and its gardens. The gates were shut for some reason so here’s a photo from the gate.

The streets were just like any other city but the pedestrian crossing noise (for blind people) annoyed Sophie to no end (it sounded like a cheeping chicken). The support for Real Madrid was almost non-existent compared to that of Barcelona, a sports store owner didn’t even know that there was an official store about 100 metres away.
That night Sophie headed to Flamenco dancing while the other three went to a terribly overpriced dinner that was a waste of money.

The Flamenco dancing was at the back of a restaurant just a few streets from the hostel. I fought my way through the many diners and people waiting for the show to get my ticket, which I was lucky to get as I didn’t have a booking. The show was incredible, it consisted of a male and a female dancer, drummer, 2 guitarists and 3 singers/clappers. As you would expect it was very intense and well worth the 11pm start. It was all in Spanish so I couldn’t understand what they were saying but the gentleman next to me continually translated throughout. Sorry, but there are no photos of this as Sam had the camera at the time but you weren’t allowed to take photos anyway. At the conclusion of the show I went to the bar across the road with the people I was sitting with. It all made for a great night - Soph.

The next morning we had churros: chocolate coated and caramel/custard filled and then we headed out of Madrid to Pamplona. The only thing to see in this city is the running of the bulls which we were 5 months late for so we had to look at the outside of the bull arena and we walked some of the streets they run down. Here’s a photo of the main stretch from the most dangerous corner.

The next day we drove back across the border into France to Bordeaux via San Sebastian which was our last (short) stop in Spain. We wish we had time to stop in San Sebastian for a night as it actually had beaches with real waves and looked like a really nice place. Some very silly people were actually surfing. The car’s thermometer read 7°.

We arrived in Bordeaux to a busy city centre due to the Christmas markets. After finding a place to stay and park we headed into the centre on the tram and had a look through markets and shops until they shut at 7:30pm. For dinner we found an ‘Australian bar’ in the markets which was very misleading. There was no English anywhere, and the only Australian things on the menu was Kangaroo something (we couldn’t read it) and Foster’s which I’ve never seen in an Australian bar.

This morning the four of us headed out to Lynch-Bages Chà teaux which is about 50km north of Bordeaux. There we were given a tour of the winery which was really informative and of course tasted some of their wines. This was a pretty big Chà teaux that produces (and bottles) over 300,000 bottles of mainly red wine per year. This is a photo of their small ageing room.

Not being too fussed with the wine (sorry Mum, Dad, Martin and Di) we weren’t all that interested in buying any so Sophie bought some really nice chocolate instead, which is a mix of dark chocolate and red wine. As we were leaving the winery we were greeted by the very enthusiastic cafe staff who gave us some roasted chestnuts and hot red wine - FOR FREE, because it was Christmas. We spent the rest of the day back in the centre of Bordeaux.

We have just had dinner at a Chinese restaurant (with a menu in French) which was nice and the people were lovely even though we couldn’t understand them. The phrasebook we bought the day before has already come in handy many times.

We have been trying to find presents to bring home but it’s quite hard to find things that aren’t useless, breakable, big or expensive. We will keep looking, but that’s our excuse

Hope everything at home is good and not too hot. Talk to you all soon.
Sam and Soph

This entry was posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 6:31 am and is filed under Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.