Interrail in Spain 30.10.-13.11.2016

Hola! We spent the first two weeks of November interrailing in Spain. Our ambitious plan was to tour also Portugal, but the weather (forecasts) changed everything, so instead of traveling to north of Spain and then down south on the Portuguese coast, we headed to Eastern and Southern Spain. The route we took was Barcelona-Montserrat-Logrono-Bilbao-Valencia-Cordoba (Sevilla) - Granada - Malaga - Barcelona.

But first we had to get to Spain. We started our long trip from Grenoble by first changing trains in Valence TGV.

Then we made a stop in the sunny Mediterranean city of Marseille for the lunch break. We enjoyed our sandwiches on the stairs of the railway station.

The square at Marseille's old harbor has a mirror ceiling that creates a nice optical effect.

In general, Marseille is a nice mixture of the old and the new.

Then we had another change of trains in sunny Montpellier. We had a quick stroll to La place de la Comediein where people were playing music and dancing - no photos, sorry, the low Sun made the lighting conditions really difficult for our camera.

After a quick tour in the town we enjoyed charcuterie platter at the railway station before boarding the train to Barcelona.

It is late when we reach Barcelona. This is Casa Batllo, designed by architect Antoni Gaudi, and attracting photographers even at nighttime.

Breakfast at the hostel The Hipstel was modest but inexpensive.

For the first thing we headed to La Sagrada Familia. We don't usually visit the most touristy attractions, but this was an exception.

We walked all the way there. On our way we saw Casa Mila, another architectural wonder by Gaudi.

La Sagrada Familia, the most known Gaudi creation and still under construction after more than hundred years. It is planned to be completed in 2026. We learned that we can only buy tickets online, and there were none available for that day. So, we decided to come back the next time, and continued the city tour, walking all the way.

Arc del Triomf.

This is universal fun among the small ones.

A statue in the Barcelona Cathedral (La Seu).

We had lunch at Palau Moja, The Catalan Heritage House. Not because the menu was impressive, but because it was a quiet and peaceful place. The food turned out ok too.

:)

The museum of contemporary art of Barcelona.

We left the town to take the funicular to Montjuic.

Instead of visiting the castle we enjoyed the views around, to the city and the harbor.

When we headed out for dinner we passed the University of Barcelona campus.

We accidentally bumped into Barcelona Beer Company. We sampled their beers and had very tasty sandwiches for dinner, pork and Beijing duck.

When back at The Hipstel we were met with the Halloween party. They sold ridiculous portions of whisky shots for just three euros.

It was +14C at 8am. when we headed for the morning run. This is Placa de Catalunya.

We ran around Parc de la Ciutadella.

It was time to leave Barcelona, and visit Montserrat mountain and the monastery.

We took the train to Montserrat Aeri cable car station, since we knew that due to the strike the cable car was the only option to access the mountain and the monastery. However, we met a huge line of visitors at the cable car station. Then we found out that there is a hiking trail. The guard at the station said it would take two hours to climb up. We considered our options; the weather was gorgeous, we had a hotel booking awaiting on the mountain, and the sign at the trail head said that it takes 1h25min to walk up.

We settled for a hike. The trail was very steep and mostly loose gravel, at times forming natural stairs --- a completely new experience with the heavy backpacks and without the hiking poles. It also was quite warm, as there was hardly any shade on the slope.

After the 45 minutes we found ourselves on a dirt road, which made the climb so much easier. The last part of the climb consisted of stairs with a few hundred steps, some of them quite high.

We made it up in an hour and 40 minutes. Phew!

All sweaty and hungry, we checked in at our hotel and after a quick shower headed out to find some food, although it was again that awkward time between lunch and dinner.

We found a bar that was still open for a while, and ordered bikinis and pints of Estrella beer. Finally we learned that bikinis, a curiosity of Catalonia area, named after the famous Barcelona night-club, are grilled ham and cheese toasts.

Before heading out for dinner at the hotel restaurant we did some touristy things: visited the monastery and some souvenir shops.

Hotel Abat Cisneros Montserrat. Despite the long lines for the cable car, few tourists decided to stay overnight, so we had a very peaceful dining experience in their restaurant with a beautiful vault ceiling.

Also the next day when we headed out to the crisp morning air at 7am., there was no one else around.

As we made a 3-kilometer walk down to Santa Cova, the sun gradually appeared behind the opposite mountain range, TomTom MySport profile: https://mysports.tomtom.com/app/activity/82928347/

The early morning fog, chilly air, and the rising sun made it a truly mystical walk. It was a bit of exercise too, since the total ascent (and descent) was 460 meters.

The next few photos are of the statues we saw on our way. We did not see a single living person, though.

When we were back at the hotel, the tourists had taken over the monastery.

After a wholesome hotel breakfast buffet (for 2 euros each!) we took the track railway back down, and then the train to Barcelona. From there we continued to Logrono.

The train arrived 30 minutes late in Logrono. We were a bit lost since it had been 15 years from the last visit to the town, and we were not sure if the new railway station was in the same place as the old one. Anyway, we needed a GPS to find our hotel. After the obligatory shower and a load of laundry we were ready for dinner. Being already quite late, it was difficult to find a place that served proper meals, not just wine and tapas. But we wanted a warm meal! Even pizza could do!

After a long walk in the chilly night, we saw La Tagliatella. Finally warm food! The salad with grilled eggplant, tomatoes, and mozzarella was very delicious, and so was focaccia. Their pizza was good but the pizza oil was not hot. But we were happy.

Next morning's breakfast at Cafe Picasso: a tortilla and bocadillo, with coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice.

Last night we studied the future weather forecasts and decided to head to Bilbao next, and then South to Valencia. We visited the railway station to get the tickets, and spent the rest of the morning walking by the river.

The river Ebro with the House of Sciences.

A sun dial. It really has been 13 years since the last time we were here.

A park by the river Ebro.

The traffic signs serve regular pedestrians and pilgrims alike. Last night we met a young Finnish guy, who had walked from Paris and was going to Santiago di Compostela. He did not have many friendly words about the customer service representatives who he had met on his way, claiming that they were too inflexible --- a strange comment from a Finn. I guess he was very bored of walking, too.

Concatedral de Santa Maria de La Redonda.

The waiting area of the new railway station --- honestly we do not even remember how the old station looked like, or if it was at the same location.

Just before noon we took a train to Bilbao.

Vines in all Fall colors.

The Stained Glass Mural in Bilbao Abando Railway Station.

Bilbao had very questionable architectural choices. However, we visited the town almost exclusively for the Guggenheim museum.

After checking in at our residence at Residencia Universitaria Blas de Otero, we booked the tickets to the museum for the next day, and made a quick tour in the town before returning to the hostel to do laundry.

For dinner we headed to the old town. We found most of the places having almost equivalent menus. We chose La Cuina de Jardines because it looked trendy still cosy. We had veal carpaccio for a starter and then two fish dishes.

The next day (Friday) was dedicated to the Guggenheim museum.

We were expecting long lines and big crowds, but there were practically no one --- it was a very nice day for a visit since the weather outside did not encourage for much outdoor activities.

Photographing in the museum was not allowed, but I guess we both agreed that the interior architecture was much more impressive than the collections.

After an hour and a half of strolling around we have lunch at the museum cafeteria: two sets of three pintxos (pinchos in Spanish) with glasses of white wine.

Jeff Koons' Puppy looked a bit beaten by the weather.

And the weather did not improve, but it started raining. Perhaps because of this, we did not get a very good impression of Bilbao.

Taxidermy at La Fugitiva Pintxos & Beer.

Regional Library of Bizkaia in the evening.

Tonight we decided to skip the sit-in dinner and chose to have wine and pintxos at various bars despite the rainy weather, which made the traveling from place to place somewhat disagreeable. We started at Casa de Jesus with 4 pintxos and 2 glasses of red wine (not pictured). From there we wandered to Plaza Nueva where we found a suspiciously quiet place, and ordered 4 pintxos and 2 glasses of red wine (pictured).

We repeated the same 4+2 pattern at a crowded and noisy place on the same square. And then we went home. All the wines and pintxos had been really good.

Next morning it was time to leave the rainy Northern Spain and head South. We spent the whole day in the train to Valencia, via Madrid, where we changed trains. At the very last moment we realized that we should have probably checked if the next train left from the same station where we arrived, and it did not. With some complicated instructions and help of friendly conductors, we found a train that took us to the right station. Phew!

In Valencia we took a taxi to the hotel, to avoid the stress of navigating in a foreign town. The check-in process took forever, since the receptionist wanted to introduce as every single place and service in the hotel.

Then we went out to get some groceries. We did not buy any ham or seafood but juice, bread, cheese, and tomatoes for breakfast.

It was quite late already when we finally headed out for dinner.

After a little walk we found ourselves in the university quarters.

For the dinner place we chose Restaurante El Pony Pisador --- or rather, they chose us --- and ordered oxtail stuffed peppers for the starter and Paella Valenciana for the main. Food was ok, not spectacular.

On Sunday morning we woke up early without an alarm, and went for a run, together with hundreds of other runners. Some of them had bibs, so apparently there was a race somewhere.

Jardines del Turia (Turia Gardens), a 9-kilometer park built on the old riverbed of Turia, offers a lot of paths with different surfaces for running.

Mestalla Stadium,the home stadium of Valencia FC, was right in front of hour hotel.

After the breakfast, we were back in Jardines del Turia on our way to the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences)

All these signs did not really make much sense to us.

City of Art and Sciences is a complex of ultra-modern buildings, bridges, pools, and gardens. This is El Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, an opera house and performing arts center.

We did not visit any of the buildings but walked around area enjoying the absolutely gorgeous November day with temperatures in low to mid teens.

L'Hemisferic --- an IMAX theater and planetarium.

The Walk of the Sculptures.

L'Umbracle, an open greenhouse hosting plants indigenous to Valencia.

The Walk of the Sculptures.

El Pont de l'Assut de l'Or crosses the now dry riverbead of Turia. El Museu de les Ciencies Principe Felipe (The Museum of Sciences) in the background.

Another view of this magnificent bridge.

After three ours of touring The City, we continued to the old town. It was lunch time already. On our way we chose a small and nice looking Los Madriles Nueva Taberna, and their lunch special: croquettes with oxtail stuffing for a starter, and meat and vegetables for the main.

We don't speak Spanish, so the server suggested French --- he was from Toulouse. So we did all ordering in French.

Mestalla Stadium at sunset.

Because of the substantial and late lunch, we skipped the dinner, and went to buy train tickets to Cordoba for the next morning, and had Irish beers afterwards while trying to get into wifi to book accommodation. After a long struggle, we still did not succeed.

Mestalla Stadium at sunrise.

The experience from Valencia to Cordoba was perhaps the worst: we ordered bocadillos at the restaurant car about 40 minutes before arrival, and got them just 7 minutes before --- all that time the person working at the cafeteria was not doing anything substantial but pouring drinks and taking new orders. We stuffed the sandwiches in our mouths, and met some real difficulties getting back to our car to fetch the backpacks, since all the isles were crowded with passengers with their luggage waiting to get out. The train stops in Spain are surprisingly short, but we managed to rush out with just a couple of spare seconds.

We had no difficulties in finding the hotel, but they had no record of our reservation we made last night. Luckily for us, they had availability.

After settling in, we quickly resumed our tourist activities and left for a town tour; first the most famous destination in Cordoba, Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba (Mezcuita-Catedral de Cordoba). This was the courtyard.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption.

An old mill by the Guadalquivir river.

Puenta Romano over the Guadalquivir river.

Then it was lunch time. We chose the first place we found, Taberna El Potro. We had their lunch menus No. 2 and 3. Tomi's salmorejo soup was an interesting experience. It was like eating tomato flavored mayo with a soup spoon --- pretty heavy but not very tasty.

Tei's salad.

For the mains we had fried stuff, again heavy and not too tasty. The menus also included desserts, arroz con leche and flan. After finishing everything we were still not ready to leave, since together with the bill we were served a small bottle of sweet wine, which seemed to be customary in many Spanish restaurants, not only in Andalucia.

Plaza del Potro.

Plaza de la Corredera.

Roman temple of Cordoba, or actually the remains thereof found in 1950 during the construction of the town hall.

Cordoba also had a craft beer pub.

At Bodegas Mezquita for dinner we had a Russian salad, deep fried eggplants, fish-orange salad, and ...

... meatballs in a curry sauce. And then the obligatory sweet wine to finish up the meal. Very predictable food but the service and the atmosphere were great.

We finished the night at Casa El Pimpo with glasses of red wine.

Next morning we were up and running at 8am. in barely above zero temperatures. We followed the river on both banks, and eventually find ourselves on some abandoned land.

There we were met by a troupe of felines who had sent their most ferocious member to encounter us.

The rest of the troupe were also a bit curious, but acted cool.

The plan for the day was to visit Seville. On our way to the railway station we found these lovely felines playing in the sun. They paid no attention to the number of humans photographing them.

We also visited the market hall.

Jardines de la Victoria.

Beautiful buildings in Cordoba.

The train to Seville reached there ahead of the schedule. The first task in Seville was to buy train tickets to Granada for the next day, and then from Barcelona to Grenoble on Sunday (this was Tuesday). The latter was quite complicated, but we managed.

Then we took a taxi to Plaza Nueva and started strolling around looking for a lunch place. Eventually we chose Las Moradas.

Again we ordered a lot of food, since we really did not have any idea of portion sizes. First house salad.

Then 4 x tapas (spinach and chickpeas with smoked paprika, oxtail, tomato beef, and pork cheek stews)

From the old town we walked to Plaza de Espana, enjoying the warm afternoon sun.

Jardines de Murillo.

Bicycle path sign.

Plaza de Espana had some monumental architecture, but more impressive were the numerous ceramic tile works in floors, stairs, bridges, ceilings, and walls, featured in the next photos.

The architect behind the building, Anibal Gonzalez Alvarez-Ossorio.

Torre del Oro.

Flamenco shoes.

When back in Cordoba, we stopped for beers at Califa craft beer pub we saw yesterday.

Recycled kegs and taps.

This was the next day and we were in Granada, walking up narrow and very steep streets to our Airbnb accommodation.

The housekeeping work was still going on, so we left our backpacks behind and went to tour the city.

The view from Albayzin to the city center.

We took the stairs down, since they felt more comfortable than the slippery cobble stone streets.

And they were prettier, too.

Puerta de Elvira.

Cathedral of Granada.

Plaza Bib-Rambla.

We had lunch at Restaurante Arabe Teteria Meknes Rahma, interior of which was very colorful, with plenty of bling-bling.

Before returning to the accommodation we continuew the city tour, and ...

.. climbed up to the Alhmabra y Generalife, a medieval palace and fortress.

We did not buy tickets to visit the palace, but wandered around the areas with free access.

Even the cats at Alhambra were perfectly color coordinated.

A group photo of school kids.

You may be surprised if I tell you that the left end of the bench is lower than the right end.

We picked up some pizza slices for the dinner, since we did not feel like walking back to the town for dinner.

The next day was an outdoor day, and we got plenty of sun. We walked from Beas de Granada to Granada. It was a relatively easy 16-kilometer hike with 385m of ascent and 749m descent.

The trail was also very walkable.

For most of our hike, we enjoyed a magnificent view to the Sierra Nevada range.

These daredevil animals took the vertical route down.

And then continued casually along the contour.

A couple of bicyclists passed us but other than them we did not see a single other human.

The hike ends at an exercise park.

When back in the town, we booked a table at the restaurant Jardines de Zoraya for dinner and a flamenco show.

Following the flamenco show this close was quite an impressive experience.

There were two dancers, male and female, and the band of three members, the drummer, the guitarist, and the vocalist.

We chose the 25-euro menus with strawberry gazpacho and tuna salad for starters, and bacalao and pork for mains. Very delish.

On our way back to the accommodation we saw a lot of delicious looking food awaiting late night diners. Unfortunately, we were not hungry any more.

Next morning started with another colorful food display of candied fruit at the Granada bus station. Our adventure was nearing the end but we still wanted to visit the Mediterranean town of Malaga.

In hindsight we don't really understand why we chose Malaga. Perhaps we just wanted more sun and the sea. We could have spent the last day in much more interesting place.

We took a quick promenade at Palmeral De Las Sorpresas (Malaga's new port).

And then headed to the old town looking for a lunch place that serves something else than pasta and pizza. That proved harder than we thought.

Teatro Romano.

Finally we were attracted to Casual Garvm restaurant because of their tuna fish tasting menu, which proved excellent. This was their interpretation of Russian salad.

Tomato salad.

And the tuna degustation set.

Asian tourists crowding to the Foundation of Picasso Museum, hosted at his birthplace.

We toured some more in the touristy center before retreating in our hotel for the night.

Next morning it was time to leave Malaga and head back to Barcelona.

Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga.

After a five-hour train trip from Malaga we spent out last night in Barelona. We first visited Darsena National Marina in hope of finding a place to eat, but all we could find were fast food places.

We returned to Born and paid quick visits to a couple of tapas bars for bocadillos and Italian and Barcelona craft beers.

We ended the night having an excellent dinner at the Basque restaurant Sagardi. Unfortunately no photos.

On our final day of the Interrail we visited Sagrada Familia. We had booked the earliest time slot, which was a very good decision; not too many people were there that early (9am.), but the time we ended our tour the place was quite crowded.

The guards quite meticulously searched the visitors' bags, particularly these, who had come there with their luggage.

The visit to the towers is not included in the entry pass, and has to be purchased separately. Still, one can only visit one of the towers, Nativity or Passion, per visit. We had chosen Nativity, with no particular reason.

The elevator up to the Nativity tower was small and only took few people up at a time. Still we met a crowd, but we intentionally stayed behind.

In the end we walked the spiral stairway down.

After spending an hour and a half at Sagrada Familia, including shopping, we walked back to our hotel, packed our bags, and went to Barcelona Sants. Before taking the train to Valence and Grenoble, we enjoyed last bits of railway station lunches, paella and seafood pasta.

To wrap up, we were really happy with the train traveling in Spain; the trains were clean and, with one exception, always on time. The seats had enough legroom, and often came with an opportunity to charge mobile devices, no wifi though. In addition to having a restaurant car some trains also had beverage and food/snack carts servicing the cars. Adios!