The louvre
Kyle and the Mona Lisa
Winged Victory in the backround
Musee d'Orsay
Mushroom soup with the most delicious piece of foie gras on top. FFT
My risotto with langostino (cross between lobster and a shrimp). FFT
Kyle's cassoulet with white beans, duck and sausage.FFT. Hannah my dear sweet wonderful cook friend, please continue as planned with trying to recreate this.
There it is!
Short post because it is 1030pm and we have been awake for 35 hours! Spent a somewhat zombie-like day at the Louvre and Orsay museums. Went straight to dinner at the same restaurant as last year next to our hotel, la Fontaine de Mars. Ordered the same things, and it was even more FFT than I remembered:)
I was falling asleep during dessert, but then remembered that the ET was right around the corner, so we took an after dinner stroll. Nothing says valentines day like spending some time under the ET.
Urg, having a hard time uploading pics. As you can see below, we're working diligently to solve the problem. Your patience is appreciated. Hopefully will have some more tomorrow. Check back!
Well dear readers, we are back in the hotel for the night. And so concludes our last and final day in Madrid, and of the trip. How is it that Paris feels like ages ago??? It certainly has been a full, and fulfilling 2 weeks.
I'm glad we were able to hit as many cities as we did, (6!). Paris....well it's Paris. Always has been and will be my #1. I'm lucky that Kyle agreed to go there again even though it was his 3rd and my 4th time. It was the smallest room we had on the trip, and the most expensive, but man, that Eiffel tower view is worth it!
Florence packed a punch for the one night we stayed there. Our 1st of 5 nights in Italy, it was both our 2nd time there, and we loved it just as much as the 1st.
Montepulciano...everyone should make this a stop if ever in Italy! Such a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of a big city, this quaint and charming town with its equally lovely neighbors had the best food for us-- how could it not when the owners themselves were your servers and grandma was cooking in the kitchen? We felt like we were staying at some distant Italian relatives house with the gorgeous b&b we stayed in. And the views of those rolling Tuscan hills just never got old.
Rome, the city that we went to simply because we had to fly out of it to go to Spain. Poor thing never stood a chance of being one of our favorites of the trip. We'd each been once before. But it was fine all the same. I guess it was just hard going from the countryside of Tuscany which felt like we had it all to ourselves, to the millions of people all over Rome.
This Spain visit was my first time, and Kyle's 1st time since he lived there for 6 months. Me and Spain had been in a little tiff because, well, she took my boyfriend for 6 months. I actually was indifferent about the Spain leg of the trip. But between visiting Oli and falling in love with the wonderful town of Caceres, to loving Madrid as well, I heart Spain-- A LOT.
Here are some pictures from our last day in Madrid. We went to a Chagall exhibit ( no pics allowed, but very cool paintings-google it!) , the Reina Sophia museum (no pics allowed) holds a very well known Picasso painting, Guernica (anyone remember that from Humanities class?) , and we walked through what felt like the "central park" of Madrid, which was gorgeous. Oh, and we ate a lot ;)
Thanks so much for following along and looking forward to seeing you soon !
I sneaked this pic, and got scolded for it!
Lunch outside , it was 70 deg!
Iberico ham sandwich. This ham is fan freaking tastic. They feed the pigs acorns, which apparently makes for good ham!
Buen Retiro park
Our favorite tapas and ice cream street
Ice cream break. Me : hazelnut(of course!) and choc chip. Kyle: chocolate with cookies and apple cinnamon ( watch out hazelnut, cause this flavor was pretty awesome) .
Kyle cheese tasting at an outdoor market
People watching at the always bustling Plaza Mayor.
Dinner at a paella place
The streets get packed at night!
Another great day in Spain. We started off with some cafe con leche and breakfast pastries(we've pretty much been having croissants filled with chocolate everyday for breakfast). Then it was off to the Prado. Wow, that's a big museum! We spent a few hours there, and could have spent several more. But it was lunch time! We headed out for some tapas. A few small sandwiches, some olives, pickles (yum) along with some unexpected anchovies (whoops), and something we ordered completely blind... And it was a miss. Still not sure what it was.
We worked up an appetite with the stroll (not really, just looking for a justification for what's next) so we went to a famous Madrid churros shop. There being two of us, we ordered two churros con chocolate. The chocolate was great-nice and thick and delicious. The churros were quite tasty as well... Only since we had two orders, we received 12 of them! The table next to us, also a two-some, were a bit smarter, and had two cups of chocolate and split a single order of six churros. Next time.
Exhausted, we headed back to the hotel for a late afternoon siesta prior to dinner. Dinner was a mini- tapas crawl (of course!) followed by an awesome flamenco show.
A popular tapa--fried peppers
Patatas bravas
Shrimp, mushrooms, and scrambled eggs. Sounds gross but it was great.
Flamenco
Sadly we only have one day left. Stay tuned for some more Madrid tomorrow, faithful readers!
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