Day 2 / Day trip to Toledo

On a colleague's urging, I took a day trip to the walled medieval city of Toledo, literally built up on a hill. I had looked up the transportation options on the Internet, much to the surprise of a Spanish colleague of mine. You can go by superfast RENFE trains from Atocha station to Toledo station, then take a bus, but I opted for the cheaper (and no less fast) option of long-distance bus.

At Callao metro station I bought a Metro ticket for Zone T (one day Abono Turistico), which gives you unlimited bus and metro rides not only inside central madrid but inside the whole region -- which extends (amazingly) to Toledo. 7,90EUR compared to 2 x 4,40 EUR just for a single round trip ticket from Madrid to Toledo.

I used the ticket to get to Mendez Alvaro, a station on the loop line in the Madrid metro network, and connected to the long-distance bus terminal there. It's a huge terminal with a lot of bus companies there and a long, long set of concessions there selling bus tickets, cakes, supplies, and phone cards .. just like the bus terminals in many countries. (FYI: just outside of the terminal is a humongous El Corte Ingles department store and Hypercor supermarket where you can load up on supplies like water and sandwiches for your day trip.)

I presented the ticket at the Continental Auto-bus counter and they gave me a voucher allowing me to ride the bus. Right across the way is a staircase leading down to the buses and the second or third bus after the exit was the one that I wanted. Very comfortable bus, air conditioned and perfect to sleep in. I closed my eyes and one hour later I was in Toledo!

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Toledo is a castle town built on a hill. The streets are narrow so it's easy to get lost, as I found several times during my visit.

However the two main sights of interest for me were not the touristic shops selling all kinds of knives and armor, or the marzipan desserts (shown here in the photo), nor the local products on sale in the small shops (see other photo), but were the paintings of the Greek painter nicknamed "El Greco" by the Spanish patrons who "adopted" him and commissioned him to do portraits of themselves and religious-based paintings.

In one corner of Toledo there is a fantastic museum that used to serve as the home for a well-known sculptor which now serves as the showroom for the El Greco paintings that had been on display in the El Greco museum. The whole complex is fantastic: quiet, and overlooking the riverbed and stone bridge below.

There is also one El Greco masterpiece in a small church not too far from where these other paintings were on display. Measuring several meters in length, it's magnificent spiraling painting similar to his works on display in Madrid. Narrow-faced people lit up by a strange holy luminescence, spiralling up the masterpiece.

For lunch, my first choice of restaurant was completely full. I had gone there at 12h30, only to find that lunch hour began at 13h30. I went back at 14h00 thinking that I could get a table but ha! it was fully booked. I spent another good half-an-hour deciding on a place to eat, and finally ended up at a bar which had a lunch snack special of cold gazpacho andalusia (wonderful stuff: cold tomato soup with garlic and bits of crisp cucumber), a potato omelette served with salsa, and a dessert of very sweet melon. With this, a half-bottle of wine, which nearly killed me later on as I rode home. Having been grossly dehydrated by the day's walk in the hot weather, only after I drank 1/2 a bottle of water did my body recalibrate itself: until then, I felt terribly sluggish.

After my ride back on my day ticket, I journeyed up to Bernabeu stadium, home of Real Madrid and former stomping ground of the LA Galaxy superstar David Beckham. Beyond that, I was just too beat to walk around and called it a day. For dinner: a very simple ham sandwich with fruit and beer (1,90 EUR from Museo del Jamon, a chain of shops specializing in Dad's favorite, raw ham ...)

Madrid: First Impressions / Day 1 (Arrival)

Even though this was the first time in 13 years that I had been back to Madrid, compared to Lyon, I found it extremely clean: clean streets, relatively little graffiti (tolerable level), and well-maintained gardens. I noticed that the Spanish parks and gardens I visited were well taken care of: perhaps pure coincidence, but nevertheless a welcome introduction to the Madrid landscape.

Just the night before coming to Madrid, I had been up late to a concert for Arcade Fire, a Montreal-based rock band that had played in the Roman ampitheatre up on the hills of Fourviere. The concert finished at about 00h30 and by the time I was back in my place and packed up for the next day, it was already 3am. Nevertheless, I slept as much as I could and got myself to the airport in time for takeoff.

The first day (as is always the case when you arrive in a new city) I just walked around the area near the hotel. There was Metro Sol, the so-called Ground Zero of Madrid, from which all the highways count their distances. There was also the Royal Palace of Madrid, which one can only view from the outside. And there was also a modern cathedral adjacent to it which one could visit and marvel at the modern graphics on the ceiling and a magnificent (though almost sacreligiously elegant) altar to the Virign Mary.

The cathedral, incidentally, was built only 14 years ago, and in fact, if you look at older photos of Madrid you find an empty lot adjacent to the Royal Palace.

From the cliff on which these two structures are built you have an incredible view of the sunset and the city below ...

Near Sol were numerous tapas shops selling tapas for 1,20 EUR a piece (tapas meaning small finger foods, single servings), as well as an incredible chain restaurant called Museo del Jamon (Museum of Ham), which specializes in all grades and price levels of Spanish ham and cured meats. Dad would just love this place ...

The page below is in Spanish, but you should be able to figure out the type of place it is from the Carta (menu) ...

http://www.museodeljamon.es/mj.html




Final photo is a night view of Madrid buildings near Sol. Beautiful and bustling even at 11pm at night ... Shops do close at 10 pm, after all.

MADRID 2007 -- by easyjet (low-cost European airline)

This trip to Madrid was the first time I was there since 1993, when I visited there for less than one-day (en route to Lisbon from Paris, a group of travellers and I stopped in Madrid to visit the museums). Since fourteen years had passed, I clearly expected things to have changed (for the better, of course!) and I will touch more on these things in future blog entries.

But for now, I will talk about easyjet.

Since the deregulation of the airline industry in Europe, a number of low-cost carriers have sprung up with the aim of taking on the national legacy carriers (Alitalia, Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa, and so forth) and providing air travel far at the price of a long-distance bus ticket.

My trip from Lyon to Madrid cost me, round trip, about 75 EUR, or about $100. Round-trip. That's as much as a ticket between the islands might cost you (if I'm not mistaken). This included all airport taxes and fuel surcharges, just to give you an idea of how cheap the fare was.

But cheap doesn't have to imply low-quality. Quite the contray, I found easyjet's relatively new aircraft a refreshing alternative to some of the other carriers' older planes (one US airline I often used until recently used DC-10s on its Japan-Hawaii routes, believe it or not!). And the service was cheerful, friendly, and also safety-oriented. I found the flight attendants even more strict than the ones on the legacy carriers: they asked passengers to buckle in and to put their bags completely under the seat in front of them.

easyjet, from what I understand, is especially a stickler on maintenance and safety, because a failure to ensure either would severely reduce its share of customers.

Oddly enough, on both flights that I flew neither was full, and I imagine that the load factor for the return trip was no higher than 60%. I wonder if they can still make money on such low ridership.

One warning: they are strict also in the sense that they require you to check-in no less than 40 minutes before takeoff. In my case, my flight was 7:50 am and I arrived at the airport at 7 am. Running to the check-in desk I arrived from the metro at the counter at 7:05. That gave me enoguh time to catch my breath before checking in ... but if it were any time after that ....

Tout le monde dehors! + Everyone outside during summertime!


Lyon has a fantastic campaign that it's sponsoring, with more than 200 outdoor events planned in the different arrondissements. Of course, there were the fireworks from yesterday's Bastille Day celebrations, but there's a whole lot more.


Tonight there's an outdoor screening and a movie company brought an inflatable stage for people to watch the movie on. Watching it being pumped full of air was really exciting. There will be screenings here and then they will rotate throughout the various arrondissements. I'd never realized that watching movie outdoors (just like in the drive-ins) was such a fixture of the French summer leisure activities but I kind of like it. It gets people out of their houses and gets them mixing with their neighbors and others in their community.

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LINK:

A complete listing of the events during this period of "soifs d'ete" (thirsty for summer) is available at the following home page:

http://www.tlmd.lyon.fr/tlmd/sections/fr

(tlmd = tout le monde dehors -> everyone outside!)

Free Ice Cream Samples in Place Bellecour

These photos actually date back about a week ago, when I was walking down around Place Bellecour, the main plaza (open space) in the middle of Lyon. Apparently one of the ice cream makers was putting out a new light ice cream product flavored with frozen berries and they had a big publicity campaign, with Segway gyroscope two-whellers and free samples galore.

People were lining up just to get a full serving. I mean, who in his right mind would turn such a thing down? Even I didn't.

It taste pretty good. The ice cream was airy and light, and the berries topping was just the right sweetness and sourness. Then again, on a hot summer day, anything cool tastes good!

Bastille Day - 14 July 2007 / Fireworks from the Fourviere Hillside

For a Saturday, most of Lyon was rather quiet. As today marked the official beginning of the long summer vacation, there were few buses running in the street and I spent a lazy day indoors.

At 22h30 I ventured out hoping to catch the fireworks being held up on Fourviere Hills which look out over the Saone river and Lyon, but as I stepped outside I noticed people waiting to watch the fireworks from higher ground. And so I decided to watch the whole thing from the comfort of my sixth floor apartment, which looks out upon Fourviere and the cathedral near where the fireworks where to take place.

Followed was a magnificent, twenty-minute show, with flying-saucer like fireworks, colorful flower patterns, that went on-and-on for 20 minutes. I took video of it and I'm hoping to figure out how to upload the material from YouTube.


P.S. Figured out how to do it. Just click on the video screen below, once, then once again to replay the video. Enjoy!

Biking around Lyon - Summer 2007

One of the biggest changes for me, with the end of classes, is not renewing my bus pass which allowed me unlimited access to the metro, tram, and bus in Lyon. Having the unlimited service, I was able to jump on and off of buses, even for short trips, and shopping was so much more convenient then.

Now, I limit myself to individual tickets and that means I have to plot out each trip in advance to see if each ride justifies the use of a ticket. Since often these short trips don't merit a ticket I end up walking ... or taking the VeloV rent-a-cycles. While I used to take these bikes only for short distances, now I take them for long distances, from right by my house all the way to Part Dieu shopping center, about 4km away. (Still not very far in absolute terms ....)

In case you're worried about me navigating city traffic, rest a little easy: my colleagues at school showed me a dedicated bike path that leads from the center of town all the way down to the shopping center where I usually shop. And it was there that I went shopping yesterday, dropping off the bike right outside the shopping center.

(True, I also came here to check out the bargains, but left empty-handed in that department. There just isn't a whole lot that I need here, and the prices -- as I've maintained before -- are astronomical compared to Japan or the US.)

But I did splurge on wine and pork chops. Funny that aside from the lamb chops that I've bought, this is actually the first time I've bought real meat (not procesed meat like hamburger or bacon) all year. And it was really good.

I bought a cut of pork which they call "echine sans os" which translates to "chine" (?) or probably the meat on the back of the pig. Sans os = without bones, so it's really easy to cook and it's nicely marbled. I sprinkled on some salt-pepper from Japan and added some shakes of Lawry's garlic salt ... and panfried it in olive oil. Funny how something so simple can taste so good. At 5 pieces for 4,50 EUR it's certainly not cheap meat ($1.20 a slice), but were I to eat the same piece of meat in a restaurant, I'm sure they'd charge upwards of 8,50 EUR for the plate alone (maybe decorated with some salad and potatoes).

The other photos are of a French style thin-crust tart made with fresh (not canned!) pears. I've cut it in 4 pieces so as not to gobble it down in one go. At 4,50 EUR for the whole thing, it's not inexpensive, but again, much cheaper than choosing to eat the same thing out in the cafes that have set up all over Lyon. (That's another issue: I'm sure some of these businesses make up for their lean winters with 80% of their business during the spring and summer months!)

Finally, there is a bottle of Bordeaux wine that was Carrefour's recommendation in their weekly grocery catalog. At 3,50 EUR it's not one of the more expensive vintages, but for a ready-to-drink wine, it's excellent. And of course with the meat, it goes well. Mind you, I've only drunk part of it and will take several days to finish it off!

Nuits Fourvieres -- Patti Smith

About one week ago, I went to one of the outdoor concerts held in the theatres romains, the ruins of the roman theatres up on the Fourviere hillside overlooking Lyon.

There in a sold-out performance, I was lucky to see Patti Smith perform with her band in front of a crowd of (I would guess) 4000 spectators. In front of the stage is a standing room area which allows you a good view of the stage and the singers. Behind the standing area are hard stone seats, free seating.

At 61, Patti Smith still packs a lot of energy and passion into her performances. I was able to take a few videos of her performance and have uploaded them here:

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=My2af0afdVg

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=eg-EMUPqd9E

Sorry, I'm still getting hang of uploading videos onto YouTube, but I can see how useful it can be in disseminating stuff that you take either during your travels or when you're away from home.

As Smith has been performing since the '70s, the crowd was mostly made up of people older than me (whew!), who were nevertheless enthused to see an old master perform (and give the Rolling Stones a run for their money!). At 32 EUR ($45) this was a bargain compared to the 100 EUR ($130) prices that the Stones were charging in a stadiudm venue.

Another month past ...

As always, I apologize for the gaps in the blog. The month of June was a topsy-turvy month as I took a side-trip over to Germany in the middle of the month and spent the latter part of the June and the beginning of July finishing up my classes here at EM Lyon.

As of today, I have no more classes -- just a final report! Of course that means that there remains a lot of work to be done, but it's amazing to think that classes started roughly one year ago and finished so quickly. One of my last courses was stretched over mornings and dealt with human resource management; my final course, which just ended two days ago, dealt with crisis management, involved intense discussions over case studies and also simulations of mini-crises. Do we act? hold off? Who's involved? Who decides? It was a satisfying way to end the number of courses we had.