Spain Day 8 Driving to Madrid July 21, 2015

Today's drive would not be incredibly long, but there was a deadline for getting the car to the rental company in Madrid. So, that made the day a bit more stressful.
By 8:15, we were downstairs for the terrific breakfast buffet. There were so many platters of meat!

 There was quite a selection of cheese.

 The fruit platters showed signs of others having already eaten, although all the tables had been cleared and reset. We had seen a tour bus. Perhaps, they'd already come through.

Everything looked so modern and chic. It was interesting that all of the cereals-which we didn't eat-were Kellogg's products.

 The pastries included churros, but no chocolate for dipping.

 I couldn't resist the chance to have peach juice, which was quite tasty. The potato fritata was very tasty. Every time we saw eggs in Spain, the yolks were orange. Curious.

On the way back to the room to pack up, I took a moment to admire the modern fixtures in the bar just outside the breakfast room and in the lobby below. They were so cool!

At 9:59, we checked out and headed down to the garage to load up the car.  It cost us 13 euros to leave the car there overnight, but at least it was safe. I took the first shift and pulled out of the garage to a grey sky and spitting rain. We said goodbye to our town's namesake, thinking it is really much bigger than folks had led us to believe.

We soon found ourselves climbing in elevation and hitting fog, which made me nervous.

We drove through a 1225 meter long tunnel and came out to great views on the other side. Luckily, there was a rest area and with 18474 on the odometer, we stopped about 10:50 for a pit stop and pictures. It was called Caldas de Luna and it was an awesome spot. The temperature was a very pleasant 68.9 degrees.

We were back on the road at 11. We drove past a long mountain lake and along an excellent road. at 11:20 (18498), we had a toll of 12,05 euros, which is a weird amount.
By noon, I was wearing down, so my daughter took over (18579). She did not want to be the one on the final run into Madrid, so this was a good time for her to give me a break.
At 1, we took Exit 115 on the A6 for a pit stop (18697). There was no food available, so we had to move on, keeping a lookout for food. At 1:25, we found a service area with the Don Paco Restaurante near Avila (18725). We soon found that they don't get many foreigners as guests. The bar area was busy and we were lead to the side dining room. I think, the area stayed pretty empty, while we were there. The menus were in Spanish only and no one seemed to speak English. We pulled out the dictionaries and worked hard to figure out the foods, so that there were no unpleasant surprises. I chose the Menu Diario for 9 euros with Ensalada Mixta (mixed salad) and Pollo al ajillo, which turned out to be chicken in oil and garlic. My younger daughter also chose a Menu Diario, but hers had Judias Verdias (green beans) and Albondigas (meatballs). The older daughter got Macarrones con Tomate (pasta with tomato sauce) and Chuleta de Cerdo (pork chops) for 9 euros. My husband went with Tortilla de Gambas (omelet with prawns) for 6 euros. We ordered a Coke lite for me for 1,70 and a liter of agua sin gas for 1,50. The first items of the 2-part meals were brought out first, even the green beans! I was really surprised to find tuna fish in my salad, but it was a good salad.

We waited a while for the rest of the meals to be brought out.

We noted that the omelet was the only thing that didn't have fries with it. Evidently, the chicken joints for my meal is kind of a thing there.The food was good. It did take a while for the waitress to reappear so that we could get the bill.
Since gas was available here, we decided to fill up, thinking that the price would be higher, when we got to Madrid. We could just top off in Madrid. It was a full service station. We got 31,68 liters at 1,149 euros each.
At 2:39, we were back on the road. There were some nice clouds, but a lot of haze. We were beginning to see more in the way of industry mixed with agriculture, as well as a flatter terrain.

Once in a while, we could even see a home. We'd seen so many apartment buildings so far, that an individual home stood out.

At 3:18, we had another toll of 12,35 (18802). Within 10 minutes we came out of a tunnel in the Sierra de Guedarrama and could see the smog of Madrid. Signs of civilization got more numerous, too.

We had a tough time finding a place to change drivers, as the city was suddenly all around us. At 3:47, with the odometer at 18850, we stopped for gas one last time and for me to take over. As we suspected, it was more expensive here-1,169 per liter- but we only needed 8.6 liters. We were on the road at 3:55. The city traffic got heavy fast. We found it very frustrating, that there were no overhead signs with street names. In fact, we found, that they were usually on small plaques on buildings on the corner. We were totally dependent on our GPS. Unfortunately, when Sarah announced we'd reached our destination, there was no sign of the hotel. I lost track of how many times I drove around the block. I became more and more upset as I tried to deal with the traffic, while we searched. We found out, that my husband had not actually put in the address of the hotel. He'd simply chosen the name, when it appeared as a choice. He did not have the address, but rather it was in the trunk.  As my blood pressure rose, I found a side street to momentarily pull into. My older daughter turned on data on her phone and found the address. They programmed the GPS and we soon found that the block I'd been driving around encircled a small park in the interior of the buildings with streets around the park and the  hotel in a building on the interior. I finally pulled up in front of the Gran Hotel Conde Duque at 4:28 (18866).

What added to my stress was that the car was due to be delivered by 5. The family moved all the luggage to the lobby and my older daughter stayed with it, while we set off for the Sixt office. Sarah got us there easily and we found that it was just a store front with no parking. Luckily, across the street, I saw a garage with a sign for another rental company and one for Sixt. At 4:45, I pulled into the first spot we found, which turned out to be pretty much the last spot. The odometer read 18870 and we quickly took pictures of the car. We hurried across the street and found out they were actually open until 7. That would have been helpful to know, when we booked the car. We did a walk-around of the car with the representative, before heading off to find a taxi back to the hotel.
The taxi ride took only 5 minutes and cost 6 euros. At 5:05, we were at the hotel and checking in. We were assigned room 403, which was in the front of the hotel and had a small balcony, which was not really accessible due to my husband's bed being in front of the door. (Yes, we had two beds, neither of which was big enough to be a double, but was too big for a twin.) Our daughters had the room directly above us, 503.

The hotel was obviously older, but the halls had a nice Victorian decor. It seemed to be well-maintained. Unfortunately, the air never got the room truly cool the entire time we were there and the heat in Madrid was quite bad. The bathroom had a bidet right in front of the door, which doesn't show up in the picture. That tub was a bit of a climb and the door really swung out into the room.

The view of the park was nice, but we later found out that just to the right was a dog park and people were out there with dogs until almost midnight.
At 7:50, we set out to explore and find dinner. We wound up at a McDonald's at 8:30, where there were major issues with the order. They were having a deal on a Big Mac with chicken rather than hamburger and we tried to take advantage of the deal and get other stuff, but the guy didn't understand English as well as he implied. We wound up with a ton of food. It did nothing to help my headache.
We were back at the hotel at 9:47, where my husband got a bucket of ice from the bar to cool down  the drinks we'd bought back in Andorra, but hadn't drunk yet. The mini fridge in the room had not had enough time to cool them down.
Both my daughter and I were glad that we wouldn't be trying to drive the car around Madrid. From now on, it was our feet and public transportation.

Spain Day 7 Bilbao to Oviedo July 20, 2015

Considering the day we had ahead of us, we probably should have gotten moving a bit earlier. But, this is vacation, so there you go. We bought juice, coffee and muffins up at the bar area again. Juice was 3,95 euros, which is really not cheap. The muffins were 2 euros each.
At 9:50, we checked out and took all the luggage down the elevator to the garage. There was no way to bring the car up to the front of the hotel, so this was the best method. They took care of arranging the luggage again, while I got set up to drive. At 10, with the odometer reading 18102, we headed out.
We hit the first toll 25 minutes later after just 14 kilometers, but it was a rather low 1,15 euros. As we drove, we had some wonderful dramatic views of the Atlantic. The area was still mountainous, which is not what we have on our side of the Atlantic.

 

At 11:28, we found a Shell gas station at exit 191. The odometer now read 18217 and we got 36.09 liters @1,136 euros each. I bought two postcards in the shop, thinking they were a seaside town we'd be stopping at, but it turned out we'd already passed them.
It turned out to be an 18 minute rest stop, which was needed. After about an hour, we decided to visit the town of Llanes in order to visit this side of the Atlantic. It took a bit of work to figure out how to reach Playa El Sablon, but at 12:50 (odometer reading 18297), we paid 2 euros to park in the grassy lot for the beach.

We grabbed the towel from home and set out to explore. First, we climbed the stairs to the top of the hill near the parking lot. This took us up behind some homes to a park that extended along the hilltop. Here, we could turn to look inland at the town, the mountains behind it and the medieval ruins of a fort.

There was a nice breeze, because on the other side of the hill were the cliffs above the Atlantic. We were pretty high above it, but we could still see fish down below.

The water was a spectacular blue and there were hardly any waves to speak of. There was not the sound of waves crashing that we are so used to. It was beautiful up there and we walked a good deal of it and took loads of pictures.

I did feel it necessary to take one artsy photo:

I rather like it.
We then headed for the beach, reaching it about 1:30, as other folks were heading home for lunch, we supposed. The beach was actually an inlet that was protected in large part by the hillside.

We walked down a ramp and onto a small boardwalk, where we removed our sandals. The sand was hot, but the water was cool and clear.

There were no waves, just wavelets, and no shells.

People had to go fairly far out to swim, which might be why the lifeguard stand was so high. We gathered my sand and a couple of stones up where it was drier. It was very pleasant and there were changing rooms and rest rooms on the cliff opposite the ocean-side hill. A sign informed us, that the beach met EU standards, which is reassuring to tourists.
It was almost 2 and we didn't want to search for a restaurant, so we opted for the Restaurant Sablon, which was above the bathhouses. We knew it wouldn't be cheap in that location, but it would have a nice view. We were told to sit out on the terrace, by the one person who understood some English. We used our dictionaries to decipher the menu, until they brought us English ones. My younger daughter and I picked out two different entrees, as usual, but the waiter informed her that her choice was not very good, so we wound up with the same thing, which was Veal Escalopes cooked in Cabrales Cheese. It was very rich, but delicious and only 12 euros.

My older daughter ordered Breaded Veal Escalopes, which was 11 euros. It was really a Spanish Wiener Schnitzel.

 My husband enjoyed his Hake Fillet with Clams, but the rest of us tried not to look at it. It was 18 euros.

 We had the usual Coke normal and 3 Coke Light, which totaled 8,80. They charged us 1,10 each for bread, which was irritant, because we didn't know about it ahead of time. Some places charge and some do not.
We headed back to the car and at 3:05, we were heading out with rain clouds coming over the inland mountains. By 4:10, it was very cloudy and only 82 degrees.
The trip to Oviedo was not long. We had a little trouble following the GPS and I kept trying to get good sign pictures. After all, this is the city our town was named after.

We were surprised at how much of a city it was. So much traffic! And all we saw were apartment buildings, no houses. We reached our hotel, the Ayre Hotel Oviedo at 4:25. The hotel was recommended to us by a colleague of my husband and it is really something else. I never could find an angle to get the whole thing into a photo.

It is incredibly modern, with fun furniture in the lobby. It housed a conference center and was built over an underground mall. The garage was also underground. We had a bit of trouble figuring out how to get in the hotel from down there, but, luckily, someone came along and pressed the buzzer that rang us in.
Our room was a revelation. When we walked in, this is what we saw:

We discovered, that we could change the color of the lights around the bed and make them move, too. The window covering was operated by a switch that raised it, so that we could see all the apartment building surrounding the complex. The bath had a large sink area with a tub that had a shower, but in the little toilet room, there was another shower!
At 5:45, we headed out to walk to the old town area. It was a nice stroll through small and large parks and past the headquarters of the regional government. At home, there are chickens downtown and a bumper sticker that a lot of folks have. We'd gotten one to use in photos. We knew we'd never see a chicken in this city, so my daughter chose this photo op in one of the parks:

 At 6:30, we found the City Hall, which was our destination, because we had gifts from our mayor and city hall. The place was closed, but we found security guards and explained our quest. They said, the mayor was still working and accepted the materials to give to him. That saved us from going back in the morning, which was important, because we had a time deadline to deliver the car in Madrid.

We found a tourist office across the square, where I got a pin for Asturias, the region for which Oviedo is the capital. The city has about 280,000 people, we were told, which makes it a good 9 times bigger than our town. No one at home called Oviedo, Spain anything other than a "town". We knew we had to set them straight, when we got home.
We found a souvenir shop on the square and loaded up on things that said Oviedo: keychains, pins, postcards, a doll from Asturias, etc. My daughter even texted her best friends and wound up buying Oviedo shirts for them. The store was very hot, but it had a  lot of stuff to check out.
I'd researched the Catedral de San Salvador de Oviedo on the internet before leaving home. Their website showed they were open until 8 pm. That was our next destination and we arrived at 7:10. I was appalled and infuriated to find a sign that said the last visit was at 7. We were not the only people trying to get in to no avail. This is ridiculous! How can you have a last visit 1 hour before closing? We didn't want a tour, we just wanted to look. We'd have even paid their darn entrance fee.

We did find another bumper sticker photo op on the square:

It was unfortunate, that they were closed and we couldn't eat there.
It was getting to be time to eat, so we started walking to  Gascona, the area with a lot of restaurants.
We saw some neat sculptures in town, besides the lady near the cathedral.

We also saw packages to make the local specialty, Fabada, which was very reminiscent of the Great Day in the Country Soup mix sold by the women's club at home, but without the meat:

It's really too bad you can't take meat products back to the states.
We found a restaurant that turned out to be absolutely perfect for discovering the cuisine of the region: Terra Astur.

It was right at the head of Gascona street. We were seated in the lower level at a table with brown paper on it and a floor covered in wood shavings. We soon found out why, when we decided to try the local cidras, which is cider and quite tasty-we went through 2 bottles. (@ 5 euros) The waiter poured it in the traditional manner by holding it high above the glasses and there was definitely some splashing. He only poured a small at a time, and told us it needed to be drunk immediately, as it wouldn't taste as good, if it sat. (Our older daughter drank Coke, of course.)

The menu had pictures of all the foods, which was a definite help. We decided to order several different items to really get a feel for the area foods. We had Ensalada verde, in order to be sure to have vegetables. (5,90 euros)

We had De Huevos Rotos y Chorizo Sabaidiego, not just to use the bumper sticker, although that didn't hurt. (9,80 euros)

Of course, we had the Fabada Asturiana. (13,90 euros)

We also had Tortinos con Revuelto de Picadillo de Jabali. ( 11,80 euros) It's a kind of meat hash on the puffy tortillas.

The delicious bread was 3, 64 euros. I really should have taken a picture. For dessert, we chose the Asturian Dessert Selection for 15 euros.

The cake on the right had green spots and the waiter got us a different kind, as he felt the rest of the cake would be suspect. The meal was wonderful! We'd chosen very well.
At 9:45, we left to explore a bit on our way back to the hotel. We found the opera, with more sculptures. One was an abstract ballerina, but I really liked the one of a girl reading a book.

We saw the shopping area, which is nothing like home, of course.

We got back to the room at 10:32, having taken a photo of my husband and daughters with a sign in the park with the date and Oviedo on it. We tried to relax, by checking email and found we are really spoiled by the speed of our home internet.
We certainly liked the food and souvenirs of our town's namesake. We wouldn't have time tomorrow for any more visiting, because we didn't want to worry about reaching Madrid on time.