Below, you’ll find some pictures from my time in Spain – a wonderful two weeks of relaxation, sun, brilliant food, and beautiful cities. When needed, I’ve included some commentary and/or explanation of the shots. So, enjoy …
(editors note: you may notice my clothing changes infrequently throughout these photos – for three weeks, i lived out of a day pack sized backpack -luckily, many of the hostels we found had laundry facilities!)
brian, myself, and cat – drinking tinto de verano
Brian standing outside the Sevilla Cathedral. Sevilla’s Cathedral is the third largest in the world and the construction of it began sometime around 1400. It was fascinating. This one blew me away. The organ has 6700 pipes.
views from the top
Looking up at the cathedral through the orange trees – the trees seemingly lined every street of the city. Unfortunately, a forbidden fruit for the oranges were apparently quite sour.
The cathedral at night.
The Plaza de Espana. A half circle of buildings surrounded by a moat. We didn’t go in, but from what I understand, the buildings are used mainly for government functions. What I do know, is the Plaza was lined with very comfortable looking benches that would be ideal for an afternoon siesta.
Okay, maybe we kind of went inside … a view looking out.
The inside of a Sevilla bar. Hanging from the ceiling, you see the legs of pigs – jamon. Nearly every bar in Sevilla had jamon hanging from the ceiling – hooves and all. Jamon is served very thinly sliced either by itself or on bread. Good, but extremely expensive – a small tapa (four slices
Guadalquivir river running through Sevilla
The Torre del Oro (Gold Tower) in Sevilla. Situated on the banks of the river, it provided protection from enemy ships trying to head upstream … constructed sometime in the 12th century.
Brian and I on our Sevici bikes – we were flying, I’m not sure how Cat was able to get a shot of us (sarcasm, notice the kickstands).
brian, myself, cat, and cat’s friend nancy drinking mediocre beers
Our last evening with Cat – we were on our way to catch the 1am bus to Madrid.
We arrived in Madrid shortly after 7am. We were tired, frustrated, and delirious. After mindlessly studying a map of the city for some time, we decided to leave the bus station (note: we weren’t entirely sure what bus station we were at). We really had no clue where we were going. After ten minutes of walking through the cold, dark, area surrounding the bus station, we promptly turned around. Plan B was getting on the Madrid Metro. After boarding a couple wrong trains, we eventually made our way to our destination, Sol.
Straight from Sevilla to the very center of Spain. This stone block is found in the city center Puerta del Sol in Madrid – it marks the radial center of all the Spainish roads – Kilometer Zero.
brian, lost at Kilometer Zero one Madrid morning
Billboard on the top of one of the buildings surrounding the Puerta del Sol – something like the first billboard ever constructed in Madrid …
Yes! The Iowa Restaurant. In Madrid?!
The Royal Palace of Madrid – the largest palace in Europe with over 2800 rooms. It was nice, but probably not worth my five Euros – equally impressive from the outside where the view was free.
The Madrid Cathedral. Neoclassical design – construction didn’t begin until the end of the nineteenth century, stopped completely during the Spanish Civil War, and wasn’t completed until 1993.
Plaza Mayor in Madrid
Below I have some pictures of the rarer types of tapas I ate while in Madrid. I think I enjoyed Madrid more than Sevilla – the deciding factor was the tapas. In Madrid, you’d go to a bar, order a beer, and get a plate of tapas – free of charge. Brilliant.
braided lamb intestines
kidneys (from some animal)
Oreja a la Plancha – delicious. Okay, well interesting. If you were a ‘food texture’ person, you probably wouldn’t be able to eat them – they chew exactly as you’d expect oreja a la plancha to chew. Oh, oreja a la plancha are diced pigs ears.
Brian, myself, and our two friends from La Sobebria (Lincoln and Julio). In the week that we spent in Madrid, La Soberia was our nightly watering hole. We became the locals … from Iowa. Each night, we’d sit in from of Lincoln who was the tapas chef. We’d spend the night drinking Cruzcampo, eating plates of tapas, and having the craic. I told you most bars would serve you a small plate of tapas with a beer – by the weeks end, Lincoln was shoving plates of food to us throughout the entire evening.
Backpacking Matt 
Great photos!!! Based on what the tapas were in Madrid I can understand why they were free:)
I am quite saddened you liked Madrid more than Sevilla. You had a local and an almost local at your disposal! Secondly, yikes gotta get to the gym before bathing suit season starts in two weeks. And well done finding Cafeteria Iowa. Not that it’s far from Pta del Sol…
It looks like you had a great trip! I understand living out of a backpack, I have only been backpacking for a week at a time.
Tipical uncultured foreigners; enjoying more the food than the culture of the oldest country in Europe. The sentence about the 5 euros entrance for the Royal Palace is epic …
I reckon food is one of the most important aspects of any culture, and even more so in Spain than many places.
It’s actually “Typical,” by the way.