Exactly two months before COVID-19 caused the SF Bay Area (and the world, in general) to issue a shelter in place on March 16, 2020, Allison and I had returned from our epic 72-day trip to Europe and South America.

We started in the south of Spain, cut over to Portugal, and back across to Barcelona. From there we hopped on a trans-Atlantic cruise through the Panama Canal and down to Chile. We continued to explore Chile, Peru (including Machu Picchu), and Ecuador (along with the Galapagos Islands).

Now that we’ve settled back into our “new normal” world of no traveling, we thought it would be fun to relive our experience. This will be a multi-part blog post chronicling our trek. It’s mostly from Allison’s perspective, since she documented the journey on her Facebook page. Hopefully this travelogue will inspire you to stay on your FIRE journey so that you can live the life you want! We know it’s so tough to be cooped up in one place, but we’re all trying to #FlattenTheCurve and minimize the impact to all the dedicated and amazing #FrontlineWorkers. #StaySafe

Part One covered Southern Spain and Portugal. This is Part Two: our excursions in Madrid and Barcelona...

Madrid & Toledo

11/16: Madrid: It seemed like all 3 million Madrileños were out on the street tonight, paseo’ing about. It was super fun trying to wheel our luggage around all those people...

We were a bit tired of Spanish and Portuguese food, so we debated between the Tony Roma’s that is literally across the street from our Airbnb (no, seriously, we did no such thing) or pizza. Needless to say, the pizza topped with jamon won out... and yes, it was delicious! It’s a super popular place, because it was like a mosh pit in the joint (a clear fire hazard, but when you’re hungry, you learn to ignore such things...).

11/17: Toledo, Spain: European train stations are so cool, especially the one in Madrid. There’s an actual botanical garden in here! Took the train to Toledo for the day...

So many people recommended that we check out Toledo, so we felt compelled to spend a cold, rainy day there, checking out the cathedral/ churches/synagogue and eating marzipan (or mazapan, as they spell it). Yes, it’s a hard life…

We stood in line for (what felt like hours) 15 minutes at an outpost in the town center to get mazapan baked by nuns (as it turns out, my fear that they would run out at the original location proved to be unfounded as that place was empty and filled to the brim with all kinds of confections...). By then, we were !!starving!!, so we found a hole in the wall bar recommended by Rick Steves (Bar Restaurante Ludeña), and it was a winner (we were so hungry, we didn’t even take pictures of the food - total blasphemy!). The bartender was so excited that Dylin spoke to him in Spanish, he high-fived him on the way out…

Bellies full of good and hearty food, we pilgrimaged to the famous cathedral. It was beautiful, as all cathedrals are, but they’re all starting to look alike at this point. I will say, the giant St. Christopher on the wall was quite unique though.

Onward to see El Greco’s most famous painting. In between hordes of Asian tourists (half of Asia must be in Toledo right now!), I managed to take a surreptitious snap of the painting. Shhh!

Back in Madrid, we decided that we needed non-Spanish food for dinner, so we chose... Mexican food! Takos (as this restaurant called them) were dirt cheap, so why not? There were tons of young kids in line, so clearly this is the place to be (we must have brought the average age up to 30)!

All in all, we didn’t find Toledo to be worth the time, effort, or cost to visit. YMMV depending on how much you love religious edifices, but we’re not big believers, so it was kind of wasted on us. I would rather have spent an extra day in Madrid, soaking in an art museum (which is on tomorrow’s agenda).

Also, it is cold AF here. The high today didn’t get above 50 (tomorrow’s forecast is a tropical 53!). We are freezing here, but we’re eventually headed to warmer climates, so we’re gritting our (chattering) teeth and layering all our clothes on... We did manage to walk over 7 miles today, so that’s keeping us warm too (and burning off all those mazapan calories, so win-win)!

11/18: Madrid, Spain: Wow, the temps broke 50 degrees and we were practically sweltering (at least until tonight, when the temps fell below freezing!).

We went hog-wild at museums today - The Thyssen, the Reina Sofia, the Royal Palace (technically, not a museum, but given how many relics and art pieces there are from the past there, it might a as well be one), and the Museo de Jamon (there were works of art in there too!)

We had a nutritious lunch of dry calamari sandwiches (and a beer for Dylin), followed by a mid-afternoon hot chocolate and churro snack (from the world famous San Gines Chocolateria). I have to be honest, they weren’t all that great, the churros were bland and the chocolate wasn’t very chocolate-y. I guess we’ll have to try again tomorrow… #Sacrifices

The Royal Palace was everything you would expect a royal palace built on new wealth to be - gaudy, glitzy, and golden. We were not allowed to take photos inside the rooms of the Palace; I saw one guard leap over a velvet rope and practically tackle someone who took a photo (even I’m not that bold; oh wait, yes I am).

The Reina Sofia is filled with all kinds of cubist, surrealistic, and modern art. Again, no photos allowed, but only in certain rooms. It was very confusing as not all rooms were labeled, so I had to accept the challenge. 

After a long day museum hopping, we chowed down on some tapas at the Cervecerias Los Gatos (because, of course, cats...). Our dogs were barking when we got home, we broke our record by walking either 8.8 (my phone) or 9.7 (Dylin’s phone, I assume the discrepancy is due to his longer stride). One last day in Madrid before we hit her supermodel sister, Barcelona (we heard Madrid described as the girl next door on a podcast differentiating the two cities). Olé!

11/20: Day 3 in Madrid, and it barely broke 50 degrees - brrr!!

We stopped in a convent to buy some cookies, a local treat. It’s like buying Girl Scout cookies, but you don’t ever see the nuns; they are hidden behind a lazy Susan. We bought a half-kilo, which was way too much, but we are (hopefully) supporting the local convent with our purchase (although, given how many tourists trekked through the door, the nuns probably outsource their baking overseas and vacation in Ibiza...)

We walked around the neighborhood where we are staying, and were happy to discover that it’s the Castro of Madrid, complete with sex and skimpy underwear shops; I couldn’t interest Dylin in a pair of European briefs... yet...

There‘s a good market nearby, so we decided to go there for lunch rather than the touristy Mercado de San Miguel. We scored some foie gras risotto, potato chorizo omelette, and more codfish - all for only 8 euros!

Since San Gines was a disappointment, we _had_ to try another chocolate and churro experience, so we went to the second best place, Valor. The churros were more like Chinese donuts (complete with the requisite grease) and tasted just as plain as the SG ones. The hot chocolate was slightly more chocolate-y, and you can order it with more dark chocolate. But the grease factor made the whole experience less satisfactory than the SG one (which seemed to be greaseless - yeah, I know that’s not possible).

I was majorly disappointed not getting to buy tickets to the Prado online, however they have free hours every night, so we walked over there, hoping to get in line and see what little we could in those precious two hours. Imagine our delight to find out that today is International Museum Day, and the Prado was open for free all day long (of course, by the time we found out, we only got three hours in there, but that’s still better than nothing)!

We got to see statues from ancient Roman times, art from the 15th or so century to the mid-20th century. It was an exhausting three hours, and we were so glad that we had bought an audio guide package from the App Store for all the Madrid museums, the Alhambra, and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (even though we won’t go there on this trip). Worth the $6 cost!

And the night wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory tapas crawl (or sit, as we did not ever leave). The Spanish and Portuguese seem to like breakfast for dinner, as we somehow ended up with fried eggs again. However, the eggs are so much more fresh, as the yolks are practically orange.

We walked over 9 miles yesterday, another record for us. I am looking forward to our real vacation on the cruise ship, where the furthest I’ll have to walk is to the buffet…

Barcelona

11/20: Barcelona, Spain: Final stop in Europe - Barcelona! We took the high speed rail to Barcelona, so we have completed the Planes, Trains, and Automobiles portion of this continental journey.

[Fun Note: We did a Zoom call with our book publisher today to go over the plan for writing our book. We’ll be writing the first of five chapters during our Trans-Atlantic cruise!]

This is the first city that we didn’t plan within an inch of our lives, which is probably a good thing. I woke up with a scratchy throat, which I hope doesn’t turn into something worse. Time to down the vitamin C with a vengeance!

We decided to head up to Park Guëll, which was going to be Gaudi’s planned community before that pesky World War I interrupted construction... Sadly, only two houses were ever completed, both were utilitarian houses for the groundskeepers. 

I am so glad we came in the off-season, because I cannot even imagine how crowded this place must be in Peak season! There were bad tourists everywhere, hogging prime selfie spots for glamour shot after glamour shot. I finally started walking in front of people, and when they started protesting, I told them to stop being so selfish. #FUIWantACoolPhotoToo

We got stopped by three different sets of student groups: 1. A pre-teen group who handed me a dropped map in Korean (the boy didn’t seem to understand that I might not read an Asian language); 2) A group of elementary-aged kids who were doing a survey of why people were visiting the park (when Dylin said we were from the US, they visibly deflated and walked off; I know the feeling, kids...); 3) An older British teenager was shocked that I spoke to him in English (again with the stereotyping; he did a visible double take and asked, “Where are you from?!”)

We rambled down Las Ramblas, checking out part of the old town where Picasso spent his formative years before heading to Paris. So far, it’s been a much more low-key day than the rest of our trip; we only walked 6.8 miles today...

11/21: We bagged on going to Monserrat today because my throat was still feeling scratchy, and I wanted to make sure to rest up before going into the germ bucket known as a cruise ship. Lots of OJ (and coffee, which, as it turns out is a bad thing...) and catching up on emails today!

When we finally ventured out into the Barri Gòtic this afternoon, I was feeling much better; maybe it was all the OJ, maybe it was the three cups of strong coffee I made and drank using our host’s Italian stovetop coffee maker.

Anyhoo, we got a chance to explore old (like, really, really old - Roman times old), new(ish) (1992 Olympic stadium, which like most Olympic venues, sadly isn’t used for anything much these days), and old reborn (a former Bullfighting ring turned into a shopping mall/movie theater/restaurant venue). We rode the underground funicular (which really is just a fancy train, amiright?) up to Montjuïc, one of the highest points in the city. 

Unfortunately, we got there after dark, so we couldn’t see anything out of the bus we rode around on. BTW, that’s when the *fourth* cup of coffee/espresso I had ingested kicked in, and I started getting the shakes and feeling light headed. Not fun times! We had to get off the bus and walk the rest of the way because I was afraid my head would fall off!

We were lucky enough to find our way to the Magic Mountain - I mean, Magic Fountain - show, which only takes place in the winter Thursday - Saturday. It paled in comparison to the one we saw last year in Xi’an China, so we bailed after 10 minutes. Better to get a jump on the crowd leaving and hopefully get a seat at a tapas bar we heard of from someone on our cruise.

Ciutat Comtal did not disappoint. The place was packed at 20:40 on a Thursday (which, by Iberian peninsula standards, is practically BLS (Blue Light Special) time). The wait for a table was over an hour! We unobtrusively watched the bar, looking for someone paying their bill, and then we pounced on their open stools. Dylin tried to be nice and offer the seats to two other women, who he said were there before we were (I was like, you snooze, you lose). Luckily, one woman said there were three people in her party, the other woman said she was waiting for someone, so we plopped our hungry butts into the empty seats and grabbed a menu #SCORE!

We have fallen in love with a Spanish speciality, fried eggplant and honey (it sounds really weird, but trust me, it is delicious!), and this was the best rendition that we’ve had so far. The patatas bravas also did not disappoint (although they were so fresh out of the fryer, I burned the roof of my mouth from snarfing them down too quickly).

Finally, back to the apartment to pack up for the long, slow slog on the cruise ship. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and we’ve been lucky enough to avoid all but two days of rain. Hopefully that doesn’t mean that a late hurricane will develop in the Atlantic as we sail towards the Colonies (post-trip note: as it turned out, this is called foreshadowing).

Read the next part of our journey: the Transatlantic Cruise...