Avila

Catching up with blogging from 39K feet as I deadhead from Dallas to JFK.  We get 50% off the inflight internet rate, so I thought I would give it a try.... Gotta say, it's pretty cool (even if we are bankrupt).

Last month I had a two day layover in Madrid.  During the low season, the flight only operates five days a week so two trips per week have a longer layover.  I was fortunate to get to fly the trip with several of my friends.

After a little power napping upon our arrival, we all met up for tapas and dinner.  We made our way down to a tapas bar I had been too the week before called La Discubierta.  It sits right across the street from a brothel.  We call the entrance the "Hooker Door".

They have calamari that is incredible as well as "papas con dos salsas", potatoes with two sauces.  One sauce is a creamy garlic aoili and the other is a spicey tomato sauce.

Our food journey continued at the Mercado San Miguel, an old converted wharehouse off the Plaza Mayor that now houses different food and drink stalls.  I had some delightful sangria!

The eating continued at Casa Mingo, an Asturian restaurant I have visited many times.  We enjoyed a lovely meal of pollo asado, tortilla, sidra, and a regional dessert called Tarta de Santiago.

The next morning it was up at the crack of down to catch the train to Avila.  We left out of the Charmartin train station.

It was pretty early in the morning and some of us fell back asleep.

We arrived into Avila in the late morning.  I decided to wake up with a chocolate covered churro.

It's a sleeply little town known for it's medieval castle walls that surround the old city.  Work on the walls began in 1090.  The city rose to the height of prominence under the Catholic monarchs in the 16th century, but had entered an era of decline starting in the 18th century.  Today about half of the walls have been restored and reinfoced so as to allow visitors a chance to walk around the perimeter.

Santa Teresa of Avila is the patron saint of the town.  She was a Carmelite nun who also was a reformer of the church and a dabbler in mysticism. 

The total distance of the wall is 2,516 meters and covers 31 hectares of land.  The wall is 3 meters thick.  There are 88 semi-circular towers along the wall and 2,500 merlons, or little parapets that stick out of the top of the wall.

It was a rather chilly day but at least it was sunny and the weather cooperated.  We enjoyed a lunch at a restaurant called Barbacana.  We originally went upstairs but realized we were in the expensive section so we went downstairs and ate at the bar like the lowly commoners that we were.

By the time we got back to Madrid the wind had pretty much gone out of our sails.  We had all planned to go to dinner together, but by the time we got back to the hotel, I could barely manage to walk into the room before collapsing.  Too tired!

But all in all a fun trip and a nice change of scenery with good friends.