I decided not to put this "report" in the dailies as I'm not going to post it as one big post. I will split it up in sections. It won't be as discouraging for me.
I'm thinking the sections (posts) will be something like running in each city, but I might change that. I have no definite plan.
Instead of staying in hotels, we were staying in apartments. In many European countries, you can rent apartments by the day, by the week, by the month, and so on. I now know you can do that in North America too, but never knew about it before. We were living among the Spaniards, shopping in the same grocery stores, and eating in the same restaurants. We had no hotel pool, no English speaking hotel staff « isolating » us from the real Spain. We did have air conditioning in each of our apartments, something not all Spaniards have.
Barcelona
We were staying on a very busy street, maybe 100 feet from a subway entrance. The subway line actually ran under our apartment, so every few minutes, the building would shake. Depending on the time I left for my run, I often had to walk to get to my running spot as the sidewalks were too crowded for me to run.
On my first exploratory run, I soon realized I would not make it alive if I tried to run in the streets and sidewalks. I needed a route where I did not need to be careful every single step of the way and stop every 30 seconds. So I lookup around and saw the « Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya- MNAC » on top on « Monjuïc », and decided to go look there as I rememberred my wife telling me that might be a good running spot for me. The MNAC is a beautiful building and the site has many many water fountains. It is the building in the back. I was running behind it. On this picture you see a part of my running route to get behind the MNAC. I lived further away than where this picture was taken.
Again, the MNAC seen from far
Even the trafic circle has a beautiful statue.
Seen from closer
After sundown, there are water-light and music shows at the main water fountain (called the Font Màgica, in Catalan). There are tons of Youtube videos about those shows (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DFHyxlJdn0).This video is not from me, but mine are rather similar.
The first days it was quite special to run by that place every morning. After the climb you end up in a relatively traffic free street with gardens and sports installations on each side. It became my running spot instantly. Even after the climb, the run on top is rather hilly. It is a good workout. There is also a public track, for which the middle part was used by kids with t-shirts all of the same color (some sort of camp) playing soccer. There was a big sign by the track about the 2012 IAAF world junior championships. I guess the track was built for those. The most people I saw on the track was 5. One day I was alone on the track. I do not have pictures of the track. I do have pictures of the view I had on top of the mountain, but I decided to post a few random photos of things that I saw in Barcelona instead in my walking treks with my family. ¡Disfruta! (Spanish for Enjoy!)
I don't remember the name, but this was in the middle of yet another beautiful park.
In park Güell
A building in the city designed by the artist Gaudi
Segrada Familia from the outside
There are probably better pictures of the same buildings all over the Internet, but I tried to follow the rules of this group by posting my own.
Madrid will be next, but after my run.
Madrid
Before leaving Barcelona I read about running in Madrid and the best spot was Parque Del Retiro. Lucky me, I was staying at about a 5-10 minutes walk from the park. It is a park like I had never seen before. Quite big, about 4 km (2.5 miles) perimeter, and with beautiful and diverse trees, flowers, and monuments. The park has a good hill that made the workout interesting. As in Barcelona, it was pretty awesome the first mornings to run in this park. Unlike Barcelona, it is dry in Madrid. So the temperature drops during the night. The mornings were (relatively) fresh. The range in the 6 days I ran there was probably around 65-75 Farenheit in the morning with very little humidity. In Barcelona I did not see many runners, but in Madrid, in parque del Reteiro, running is very popular.
In the middle of Parque del reteiro, there is an artificial lake with a monument by its side
The park if full of different gardens. here is one
Another area of the park
As for Barcelona, Madrid is full of beautiful parks, monuments, buildings, etc. So here are some random pictures of Madrid.
The Royal Palace. I didn't even know Spain was a Monarchy
The bank of Spain
As you may have understood by now, Spaniards do not build solely on functionality, but are very careful about how things look. Here are two bridges crossing a tiny river, at about 1000 feet from each other, with very different styles. On each side we re walking in a park built over a highway. It is very important to be able to cross often
Bridge 1
Bridge 2, more modern
Former Bad Ass
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!
The fact that you had energy to run after all the sightseeing is amazing.
Damaris
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing! The fact that you had energy to run after all the sightseeing is amazing.
The trick was to run before the sightseeing.
But yeah, I'm sure that trip and all the walking made my legs and my lower back stronger. It sucks that I'll lose all that in no time from sitting at an office desk all week starting tomorrow.
Cool! Thanks for sharing.
Most amazing pictures. I love Gaudi and the Segrada Familia looks unreal. What a beautiful trip for your family. Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this. You took me there for a few minutes. It's nice to dream through the accounts of others. And great job with the running, I knew you could pull it off. Welcome home!
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010
Sevilla
We were warned (too late, the reservations were made) that July and August were not good months to go to Sevilla. The temperatures are around 100, as in Madrid, but with humidity. We were very lucky. This year was cool in their standards. The hottest day was like 95, and many of them were in the high 80’s. Sevilla is not a very clean city. In the touristic areas it’s neat, but in other areas, there’s broken glass, empty bottles and dog shit everywhere. In fact, by the end of my week there, the filth grossed me out. And I thought Montreal was dirty. Although not « clean », there’s a nice wide pathway besides the river. Lots of fishermen there in the morning, walkers and runners. It’s nice and flat so it was easier to do intervals. At some point at the end of the pathway, you can just cross the street to enter Parque Maria Luisa. It is supposed to be "the spot" to run.
A tree (there are many of the like) of Parque Maria Luisa
The first morning I was awestruck in the park when I saw plaza de la España, a beautiful building that was supposed to be the university but turned out to be too small. So now it’s mostly unused, except for few government offices. After all the beautiful building I had seen in Barcelona and Madrid, this was my favorite. Not because of its « grandeur », I’ve seen more majestic buildings in Spain, but because of the looks of it. It just pleased my eye.
Plaza de la España, in Parque Maria Luisa
Another shot of Plaza de la España
Even though beautiful, the park is rather small though, and after two days of running there I decided to forget the park, and stay on the pathway by the river.
At the end of the pathway, by the river, I came upon this weird "monument". It doesn't show on the picture, but it is about 20 feet high. It's very different than everything else I saw in Spain, and have no idea what it represents
As usual, some random pictures of stuff I've seen in Sevilla
The Alcázar is an Arab palace. Different than the gothic cathedral I had seen before.
Here is a picture of the inside. It is very big and has multiple rooms, all different, so this is just one shot out of many.
A shot of one of the ceilings in the Alcazar
In Sevilla there is also the third biggest cathedral in the world, behind St-Peter of Rome and London. The pictures I have are not representative of the riches found in there, so I'm not posting any.
Even the touristic information is in a nice building
But even with the magnificent buildings and spots found in Sevilla, because of the filth, it was the only city I visited in my trip I would not return to if I had a choice.
For the rest of the trip it was 2 days at a time in a couple of cities before ending up in Barcelona again. I figured I could run every other day but it turned out in Barcelona we were staying in a much too crowded part of the city.
Granada
Granada is a very clean city (or town?). Especially after Sevilla, it was appreciated by my family and I. It has a large Arabic community with their houses built on the steep mountain side.
I did not find anywhere to run, so I just ran back and forth on the « Gran Via de Colon », the main street. I later found a better path to run on, but we were leaving the next day.
Valencia
My favorite city in Spain. It is rather clean, has a metro (subway) and a tramway to bring you directly on the beach (the water was as warm as I remember of St-Martin in the Carribbean). It is smaller than Barcelona and Madrid, and has a real cool 5 mile long park full of runners, and bikers, and walkers right in the middle of the city with enjoyments for kids, and fountains, etc.
Guess where I ran? I ran my single Valencian run in that park. It is humid as it is by the sea, but hey, you want the beautiful beach, you get the humidity.
Food
I said before on this forum that we did not eat « that good » in Spain. It was ok, but after a while, ham and cheese lose some of their charm. The problem is that we didn’t know how to choose our places and how to order. People told us « you’ve got to try tapas ». So we kept ordering tapas in bars and restaurants instead of meals. After a while we understood what tapas were for, and when to order them. You usually eat tapas if you’re having a few beers with friends (Spaniards drink a lot of cervesas!). It’s a little something to eat (or a lot) but not a meal per se. Tapas come in different form and quantities and are hard to define, but the idea is not to define what a tapa is, but what a tapa is for. When we realized that, we started to look for « Menús del día» which ususally consist of a a choice for a first plate (primeros), another choice of a second plate (segundos) and a choice of desert of coffee (pastres). Sometimes a beer or soft
drink in included. That’s when we started eating good. So if you’re traveling to Spain and want to eat good, forget the tapas (although they can be real good too!) and look for « Menús del día». There are restaurants everywhere in Spain, finding one isn’t the problem. Sometimes choosing one can be though because until you’ve tried the food, you don’t really know if it’s good!
Varia
Although it was not an issue for me as I don’t speak Spanish, people in Barcelona speak Catalan. For people speaking French like my family and I, Catalan is actually easier than Spanish. I later learned, while in Madrid and for the rest of my trip from hearing people actually speaking Spanish, that the « c » is pronounced like an English « th », so Barcelona sounds like « Barthelona » when said by the Spaniards, and my daughter’s name is pronounced « Alithia ».
What do you think is the reason for Sevilla's filthy state? Is it economically weak compared to other cities? Interesting about the letter c being pronounced like an English th sound. What about the v sound, do they say it like a b? Like Balencia, instead of Valencia? I'm always confused with that one, it seems to be a regional thing, or something.
Did you find Spaniards friendly in general? Those I've met in Mexico had an air about them. Much like the British and the French. Sort of the colonizer's attitude when in the presence of Mexicans. They have great style in general, though, don't they?
It took me forever to understand that tapas are like snacks. I kept seeing those tapa bars in Montreal and was like "WTH is a tapa bar?" I felt so untrendy. Still haven't tried them. Did you have paella? mmm.... Oh, yeah... you're allergic to seafood. Poor you. Are your kids sad to be back? When I travel, I never want to come home...
What do you think is the reason for Sevilla's filthy state? Is it economically weak compared to other cities? Interesting about the letter c being pronounced like an English th sound. What about the v sound, do they say it like a b? Like Balencia, instead of Valencia? I'm always confused with that one, it seems to be a regional thing, or something. Did you find Spaniards friendly in general? Those I've met in Mexico had an air about them. Much like the British and the French. Sort of the colonizer's attitude when in the presence of Mexicans. They have great style in general, though, don't they? It took me forever to understand that tapas are like snacks. I kept seeing those tapa bars in Montreal and was like "WTH is a tapa bar?" I felt so untrendy. Still haven't tried them. Did you have paella? mmm.... Oh, yeah... you're allergic to seafood. Poor you. Are your kids sad to be back? When I travel, I never want to come home...
Spaniards have a tendency to throw their things on the ground a lot. Not that I've really seen them do it, but I see the results in the early morning when I go out for my run, before the city employees have time to pick it all up. They love dogs, almost everybody has a dog, and dogs poop. If you're the kind of person to throw your garbage on the ground, and leave your empty bottles lying all over the place, you're probably not the kind to pick dog poop up. It's just that in Sevilla, maybe the citizens are a little worse than in other cities, and the municipality doesn't spend enough on employees picking the filth to compensate. So there's a residual filth in some areas, and we happened to live in one of those areas.
The V-B pronounciation thing might be more accentuated in America. Or not .But it didn't strike me.
When you are actually talking to a Spaniard, they are similar to us in friendliness. But they are less cordial in society. I mean, they don't nod at each other when walking on the streets, don't smile much, runners don't make signs to each other. At the grocery store if you have only one item, you have way more chances here (America) that someone will let you pass in front of them than if you are in Spain.
No paella for me. My wife (I keep saying my wife as I don't know how to explain our situation to non-Quebecers. We live like we're married, but are not. It's just simpler to say my wife) did have it a couple of times. She said it was good, but not extraordinary. But we were eating in 10-12 Euros per meal places. Maybe in "good" (read expensive) restaurants the paellas would have been impressive.
My kids would have been happy if the vacation had continued. They liked our way of life while in Spain. But they like being back too.
Thank you for taking the time to collect the pictures and your thoughts about running in Spain. It looks absolutely gorgeous there! I have ever been to Europe, but hopefully some day I will have the chance.
Lily, the v and b aren't thought of as separate phonemes in Spanish, so to our ears, since we do hear the difference, we can hear the speakers switch between the two different pronunciations, but they usually can't. I think in most places, it's more of a "b" at the start of a word, and a softer "v" in the middle, mostly because all consonants are softer in the middle of a word.
There has actually been a bit of discussion about the Spanish accent here in Costa Rica, because my co-chaperone has spent a lot more time in Spain than she has here, so she sort of swallows her consonants like they do in Barcelona. And two separate times, a Costa Rican has made the joke that it's just so hot in Barcelona that they get too tired to say all of their consonants there.
It's interesting to compare your experience running while away with mine, since I'm in a similar situation, but have been staying in the same place most of the time, so I only had to find one set of places to run. I agree about the sidewalks- that's something that both places apparently have in common! But here, the parks are much smaller. There are parks all over the place, but little ones.
It is hard to find new routes when you're only going to be somewhere for a few days. I have had no luck getting runs in when I'm away from my "home base". I think you did a great job, all things considered!
And you did a fine job sir!
Beautiful! It's such a treat to run in another country. I don't know if I'd have the courage to navigate through that traffic though.
Great pictures. Glad your family had a great time. This is on my bucket list.
Mmmmm...beer
Looks like you had a great trip, thanks for sharing!
-Dave
My running blog
Goals | sub-18 5k | sub-3 marathon 2:56:46!!