We can now say that we have seen the three largest Cathedrals in the world: St. Peter’s Basilica (Vatican City), St Paul’s Cathedral (London), and Catedral de Santa María de la Sede (Seville).  I’ve lost track of how many bell towers I’ve climbed, but it seems we never pass up the opportunity, and this was no exception.  However, one of the most unique things about this particular Cathedral is that it houses the tomb of Christopher Columbus (known as Cristóbal Colón, in Spanish).

While we were waiting in line to enter the Cathedral, I couldn’t help but overhear an American who apparently lives in Seville, and was temporarily reducing himself to this level of tourism only for the sake of his friend who was visiting.  When someone came through the line passing out flyers for a flamenco show, he began to ramble, “Oh look, you can pay to see flamenco.  Why would anyone do that? I would never pay to watch flamenco, blah, blah, blah.…”

We were aware that you can easily find free Flamenco shows in bars and restaurants, which is really fun, and usually pretty good.  However, it’s also possible to find free live music in the streets, restaurants or subway tunnels around the world… but that is not the same as going to a professional concert.  All options can be great, but the paid show is just in another league.

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As much as I’m a city girl, I’ve found that the biggest cities (or capitol cities) are not always my favorite, just because there is more of everything… more to do, more commercialism, more traffic, more slums, more expenses, etc.  I am glad to report that this was not the case in Madrid.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the city. It had some beautiful architecture (although I must say that Barcelona still takes the cake on that), lots of interesting sites, and really friendly people.

One thing I really loved about Madrid, is that people let me try to speak Spanish to them.  Even if they could tell that I’m American, and they know how to speak English, they still humored me and allowed me to butcher their language.  One guy at a café even tried to help me by correcting my pronunciation, which I think is way cool, except that to my ears it all sounded the same.  Jamón.  Jamón.  Yeah, that’s what I said.

A few of my favorite sites/activities in Madrid were:

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My friend Melody studied abroad in Ireland when we were in college.  There she met Allan, who introduced her to Niall, who introduced her to Neil.  Niall & Neil spent the summer after college in the U.S., so we were part of the crew responsible for showing the Irish boys a good time in California.  That was a great summer.

Over the last several years, we’ve all done some back-and-forth and met more of each other’s friends.  In 2003, Niall, Jay & Dave made the trip from Ireland for our wedding, and now, it was our turn to go celebrate the marriage of Niall and his beautiful bride, Karen.  Of course, Melody (along with her mother) also made the trip from California for the big day.  Even though I only lived a few hours from Melody in California, I hadn’t seen her in years, so this was going to be a great reunion all around.

Unfortunately, the Spanish postal service is not known for its efficiency, so our invitation never arrived.  I finally got the “are you coming?” email from Niall a couple weeks before the wedding.  “Of course we are!  I already have a flight & hotel booked!  So where exactly is the wedding?”  The directions I got in response were something like “leave Dublin, turn left at the split, and go around the pub.”

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Just a quick update about some of the things we’ve been up to in and around Barcelona…

Bon Jovi: The Lost Road Leads to Spain
C’mon, you know your jealous.   I’ve been a Bon Jovi fan for the last couple of decades (more last decade than this decade), so when we found out they were coming to Barcelona we couldn’t resist.  I convinced myself that the 56€ tickets were an early birthday present.

The concert was at the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic, and I was surprised to see how full it was.  I tried making friends with people around me, none of whom spoke English, but all of whom knew every word to the songs, so we all sang together.

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After I got our Croatia itinerary mostly ironed out, it occurred to me that a day trip to Montenegro was within reach.  I asked Scott what he thought about the idea and he said, “I’ve aaalways wanted to go to Montenegro!!!”  What???  When I asked him why he’s never mentioned this lifelong dream, he jumped up and dug out a magazine that he purchased in the airport as we were leaving the U.S. in September (I think “always” meant “for the last 8 months”).

The magazine was called “Budget Travel”, and on the front was a picture of Montenegro.  That settles it. We’re going.  We decided to rent a car versus taking the bus, so we could seek out the location of the photograph on the cover of the magazine. (Also, with 4 of us, renting a car was about the same price as bus tickets.)

I had read a comment in an online forum that said going into Montenegro makes Croatia feel like the west.  I suppose by “the west” the writer was referring to development of the land, economy, tourism, etc.  By that definition, I thought that Croatia felt very “western” even before our visit to Montenegro, but I still get the writer’s point.
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If you see a sign that says “Cold Drinks” with an arrow that appears to point nowhere, follow it.  We ordered some cold drinks and a can of Pringles just so we could sit there and enjoy the view.  The old town of Dubrovnik is a walled city set right on the sea.  You can actually walk all the way around the city atop the walls, which we had intended to do in the evening when the city was all lit up… but this was before we realized that you can only do that in the summer, and “summer” would begin 2 days after we left.

Since we had already spent a little time in Dubrovnik before heading up the coast, we decided to venture out to some nearby islands on a small day cruise.  After Mary’s failed attempts to rent one of these, we finally settled on this one.  We really wanted to take this trip, despite the Sales Prevention Force at the ticket counter, who delivered the following marketing schpeal with a smile:

“First you’ll stop at this island, but only for 45 minutes, because there’s nothing to do there. Most people just get coffee then get back on the boat.  Next you’ll go here for an hour.  This island used to be a summer vacation spot for the wealthy. There is a really beautiful home there that is now a museum, but it’s closed so you can’t see it.  It’s too bad it’s closed because it’s really nice.  Next, you’ll be going to this island for 2 ½ hours. You’ll spend the most amount of time here because it has a sandy beach with real sand.  Then you come back.”

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Korcula is the birthplace of the world’s first known travel writer, Marco Polo.  Although there is a chance he was actually born in Venice but set sail on his famous journey from here.  Or, that his true birthplace remains “unknown”, but we for sure know that he lived in this house right here for at least a while.  Ok, well the original house is long gone, but it was definitely on this island, around this area, and probably looked something like this.

Either way, this house was one of the main attractions in the town of Korcula.  We didn’t have a lot of time on this island, as we were having so much fun in Hvar we sacrificed some time on this island to stay there longer.  It worked out well, as the town of Korcula is actually very small, and you could easily see the whole thing in a day.  Of course there are plenty of things to see and do on the rest of the island, but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

Our time in Korcula was spent finding good food, walking around three sides of the city to take pictures of the Adriatic from every angle, and of course, touring the infamous house museum (which takes 10 minutes, if you read all the signs and climb stairs slowly).

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