We are going to start by saying that this blog post, even though it is a double post, will not do our trip to Spain justice. It would take weeks of posts to talk about everything we saw, the culture we experienced, and the people we met. Feel free to ask us about our trip to Spain and we will happily fill in the gaps for you.
The trip there was uneventful. Our plan was to get to sleep as quickly as possible on the plane. A good idea in theory, but a miserable failure in practice. None of us slept more than an hour and it was not quality sleep. We arrived in Madrid excited, but running on nothing but adrenaline.
Madrid in 36 hours
We met Juan and Ángela in the airport around noon local time and dropped our luggage at their house in Alcobendas, a suburb of Madrid. After some shuffling of cars we headed to the city center. We walked through incredible parks, saw an amazing art museum and walked about four miles in total. Remember that sleep we didn’t get on the plane? Yeah, we were really missing that right about then.
One thing Juan taught us early in the trip is the concept of aperitivo. This is a small meal and drink before lunch and between lunch and dinner. The Spanish eat breakfast around 10, lunch at around 2:30 and dinner around 10pm in the summer. In between those meals are these “snacks.” Aperitivos consist of a beverage (wine, beer, water, juice, etc.) and a small plate of food (a few small plates if you’re sharing).
Our second day in Madrid was more of the same. Walking, eating here and there, lunch at an amazing rooftop cafe, and sightseeing. We saw the Royal Palace and the Plaza Mayor. We ended the day with a Flamenco show that was AMAZING! We really crammed a lot into the 36ish hours we had there and loved every second of it.
Segovia, not to be confused with Genovia, or Sokovia
Our next stop was Segovia for a day trip on the way to Juan’s village. Segovia is charming and everything you think a European town should look like. Cobblestone streets barely wide enough for a car, lined with buildings with more history than we Americans can really understand. On one side of the town is an aqueduct built by the Romans, and on the other side is a medieval castle with an honest-to-god moat.
The main event of the day was lunch at a place known for serving whole suckling pigs. The restaurant is right next to the aqueduct, so we got to eat al fresco with the aqueduct as our view. Words cannot describe how cool that was. The food was amazing and the presentation was worth the visit on its own.
The surprise delight of Segovia was the cathedral. It is a gorgeous Roman Catholic cathedral from the 1500s that still holds mass weekly. It was designed in the Gothic-style and little has changed inside. The kid really liked this stop. Their choir loft was massive, and the ornate, gilded organ was even bigger. As a choir kid and budding composer, she really wanted to hear how a choir would sound in those marble walls and vaulted ceilings.
We ended the day at the castle, Alcázar, which was closed to the public. Rumor has it that Walt Disney used it as inspiration for the castle in the Disney logo. It was built around the 12th century and is one of the most visited landmarks in Spain (according to Wikipedia). It sits on a bluff of high ground overlooking the countryside of Castile y Leon.
Villán – saving the best for last
It was fitting that we ended our trip to Segovia at Alcázar, looking out over the countryside, because we drove through that countryside to get to our final stop, the village of Villán. This is a small village of about 125 people that sits in the middle of farmland. There are about 40 houses, a church, and a bar.
Juan and Belén’s families have lived here for several generations, and they spend most of the summer and a good portion of their weekends here. The rest of the town’s inhabitants also have a long family history in the village. Everyone knows everyone else and has for as long as they can remember. Juan and Belén met in this village as teenagers.
The village is incredibly charming. There is nothing commercial here, except a bar, because you have to have a place to gather and have aperitivo after church, right? Belén’s family has a massive garden, raises pigs, chickens and SNAILS, and are as self-sufficient as you can be in the 21st century. Cell service is spotty, and Wi-Fi is nonexistent without a hot spot.
The real commodity in Villán is the people. They welcomed us into their world like family. Every meal was a celebration with so much food, tons of people, wine, beer, rum, and lots of laughter. Even with a language barrier (thank you, Google Translate), we got to know many of them well.
Our first full day here, Juan and Belén’s friends and family got together to cook us a paella for lunch. They let the kid help, which was an awesome experience. We ate dinner at our new friend Pedro’s house at 11:00 that night. You would think we would all say goodnight and turn in at midnight, right? Wrong. We all got in our cars and went to a party at a nearby village.
Each village holds several parties a year. These parties have a DJ and dancing in the village’s main square and there are clubs, called penãs, where groups from the village (and their guests, which we were) can go to rest from dancing and have a drink. We stayed until 2:30 a.m. and the kid stayed with the group of young people until 4 a.m.
The next day (after not nearly enough sleep from the night before), Juan and Belén arranged a winery tour for us. It was a beautiful day spent among acres of grape vines drinking wine we cannot get in the United States. Three bottles are carefully wrapped in our luggage for the trip home. After the winery we made a short stop in Valladolid, the city where Juan grew up. It is 15 minutes from the village but might as well have been a world away. Beautiful buildings, restaurants, shopping – everything you could want is there.
The rest of our trip was spent visiting with our new friends, swimming, eating, drinking wine, and just generally soaking in the culture and the environment. These people spoke little English. We spoke little to no Spanish. In spite of that, we left with shared memories, inside jokes, and a feeling that we all had made new lifelong friends. We will miss them dearly and can’t wait for the next trip – either them to the United States or us back to Spain.
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