I was telling my wife yesterday that the highest compliment I can give a country is it feels like home. I felt this in Costa Rica, and Spain is the second country I had the same feeling no matter where we went. We landed back in DC last evening, and had the joy of seeing a white man giving the bird to the Uber driver mouthing abuses just as we were leaving the airport. Both wife and I looked at each other and went Ugh. Ugh just about describes everything I feel about this country anymore.
Macro
I am so done with “boutique” hotels. I booked this 4 star boutique hotel in Lisbon thinking why not try something different. Turned out to be worst hotel of this entire trip. I lost a shirt and even the way the front desk handled it here vs the way h10 hotel from Barcelona did over phone was just night and day difference – this place sucks and is going to get a nice little one star review soon.
Getting lost in Alfama trying to find our restaurant last night was probably the best thing to happen to us. We explored a city below the city it felt like and it was beautiful. The restaurant was good, but it was the walk around in Alfama at night that was more fun.
We took a 4 hour tuktuk tour of Lisbon this morning due to shortage of time and plans for Sintra tomorrow which were cancelled coz Sintra is closed because of risk of fires. The tuktuk tour was a fantastic way of seeing all the most important parts of Lisbon without the need of climbing up and down the steep hills, and we probably would have missed doing a few things. That said, except a few view points, Lisbon honestly is such a let down. Nothing about this city makes me want to come back any time soon – and it was another of my bucket list city.
We did quite a few day trips in spain too. Ranking my favorites in order:
- Setenil de las bodegas
- Segovia
- Toledo
- Zahara de La sierra
- Ronda
Spain cities ranked from top to bottom for me:
Granada
Seville
València
Madrid
Barcelona
A bad start to our last stop in our trip before we head home – Lisbon. First, got fleeced by the taxi driver from airport to hotel, and got charged nearly 75$ for a trip that uber said would cost 15$ (I should have checked at airport itself!), and then the hotel did not give us the room we booked. The email said a room with view of square – what we got was a room on first floor facing trash cans on the side of a hilly street with insane noise from the trams inspite of being clear in my email on what we booked and wanted. Very frustrated and disappointed. I miss Spain already and I can’t wait to get done with Lisbon. Fuck them.
I have had a meh or dislike reaction to almost all of “must-do” tourist stuff in Barcelona, but it’s when we step out of that zone the city is just magical. We have explored random neighborhood galore whose names I don’t even know but it’s just walking through them that Barcelona really comes out! What an incredibly well planned and gorgeous city. Just stay out of the crap tourist spots.
We are getting to park Güell at almost 12 today. Just sleep in kind of day for the kid. It’s ok. The old towns don’t excite us anymore. It was a chore to walk down the rambla and gothic quarter last night though the Chinese and Korean food we had was delicious!
I loved using “la Wash” laundry yesterday which was a 3 min walk to hotel. The entire place operated through an app so I had no need to carry my wallet or cash/coins! And for less than 10 euros we had our huge load of laundry cleaned and dried in an hour while we sipped on sangria in a bar next door!