Three weeks in Europe, part one: Madrid to Seville

Last year, my first trip to Europe was one week in Prague. This year I decided to make a little more of it. I am spending three weeks in Europe, starting in Madrid before heading to Seville for the annual Discourse company meetup.

I have been away from home for one week now. This is part one.

Portland to Madrid

I left Portland on September 20th and flew to Madrid through Dallas. I had only slept a few hours the night before because I thought being exhausted would help me sleep on the plane. That did not work nearly as well as I hoped.

We were already an hour late when we landed in Madrid, then it took another two hours to get off the plane and through customs. I had planned to take the train from the airport, but by then I was mostly trying to get to the hotel.

I did manage to get a Madrid Metro card. I learned later that I could have just tapped to pay.

I stayed at Hotel Artrip for three nights. The first day I got there, honestly, I slept through most of it.

Madrid might be the city that never sleeps

On my second day, I went to the center around Puerta del Sol and checked out the official Metro de Madrid store. It is a whole store for Madrid transit merchandise, which is exactly the sort of thing I will seek out while visiting a new city.

Madrid is a unique city. It might be the real city that never sleeps. It was busier at 3:30 in the morning outside my hotel than it was at 10 in the morning. I am not sure I could ever get used to the flow there.

For a person who likes documenting trips, I took exactly two pictures in Madrid. This was one of them:

On my last night, I met up with a coworker for pizza and gelato around Gran Vía, then took the Metro back to the hotel. I could not sleep and stayed up far too late even though I had a 9 a.m. train the next morning.

A much better way to travel

The other picture I took was at Madrid-Puerta de Atocha while waiting for the train to Seville.

The trip was scheduled for two hours and fifty minutes, but we arrived about ten minutes early. No one bought the seat next to me, which was a nice surprise. It was comfortable, easy, and made me wish the U.S. had a better rail system.

The long way to Triana

I went straight to Only YOU Hotel Sevilla and took a little siesta. After I got up, I walked around a bit and got a smoothie from Oakberry. Then I decided to walk around a little more to find coffee.

That turned into an hour-long walk to Muy Río, where I learned they had run out of filter coffee 45 minutes before closing. I gave up on coffee, but the walk ended up taking me right past Casa de Pilatos. I did not go inside because I was still on a coffee mission that had not officially failed yet.

Afterward, I crossed the Puente de Triana and walked around Triana looking at ceramics. Centro Cerámica Triana was closing soon, so I did not waste my money trying to rush through it. I hoped I would have time to come back.

I ate dinner at the hotel that night, and it was one of the top five meals of my life. I still need to get the names of the dishes. Somehow I found enough energy to go back out one more time for ice cream at Sibaris.

Transit cards and cake

I stayed up way too late again, slept until noon, and missed the hotel breakfast buffet.

My first task for the meetup was to get transit cards for the team. I rode the bus to Prado de San Sebastián and went to PAC Prado. After working through a little communication barrier, we did it. I left with the cards and decided to walk back to the hotel.

Later, I went to Cafetería Tartería Chanticream for queso con fresa and Muerte por Chocolate cakes with an espresso, then walked to the Setas de Sevilla. I got there around sunset and stayed long enough to watch the whole structure change as its lights came on.

On the walk home I took a picture of a random European street at night. That was apparently the theme of my photography for the day: giant wooden landmark, giant wooden landmark, giant wooden landmark, street.

Back to Triana

The next day I took the tram instead of walking or taking the bus. I finally got a decent filter coffee at Jester Coffee, then went back to Triana. This time I made it to Centro Cerámica Triana with enough time to visit the museum. I also bought a couple of tiles, because carrying fragile ceramics around Europe for another two weeks seemed like a good idea.

A lot of what caught my attention inside was ceramic being used as graphic design: advertisements, lettering, and public signs made out of tile.

Plaza de España

The next day I walked from the hotel to NYC Icy and got lotus and chocolate ice cream, then kept going to Plaza de España. It is a pretty sweet building and plaza. The whole place is full of ceramic and stone details that are easy to miss while looking at the scale of it.

The stonework was just as good. Someone cut a bow-tie-shaped joint directly into this railing, and I probably spent longer looking at it than any normal person would.

The downside was that all the carriage rides made the plaza smell like horse shit, especially with the temperature in the high 30s C.

That makes one week away from home. I have made it to Seville, figured out the transit, found the coffee, and bought breakable souvenirs far too early in the trip. The meetup is next.

Gracias por leer.