For the past several days in Sevilla, E has been literally begging to go on a train, funicular, gondola or a bus. Of course, the tourist destinations in Sevilla are close enough together that it hasn't made sense for us to try a bus, and there is no subway. To make matters worse, the government is in the process of testing a new light rail service through the central shopping area, but not allowing passengers yet (the grand opening was Oct 28, well after our departure). E was almost in tears each time one of the light rail trains passed by and we explained over and over that only the conductor was allowed on board.
After all that anxiety, you can imagine that he was delighted to hear that we'd be taking a long train trip from Sevilla to Madrid. Back when I last visited Spain, the trip from Sevilla to Madrid was very long and somewhat boring. Today, with the AVE high speed train it takes only 2 1/2 hours, and could even be done as a day trip! The trains themselves are new and really quite nice, with seating in groups of four, tables, trash compartments, and separate dining cars.
Because trains run hourly, we were able to get ourselves to the station on the kids schedule and then purchase tickets rather than rushing the kids to conform to a pre-set schedule. Even better, the fact that all our luggage stayed with us meant that I didn't have to pack a separate carryon or plan ahead for lost luggage. While we waited for our train, we grabbed a snack and the kids checked out a small toy store located in the station.
The soothing motion of the (168 mile per hour) train ride proved too much for D and she drifted off to sleep after exploring our seat area. E, however, could not possibly have been more delighted and spent most of the 2 1/2 hour ride in the dining car with daddy or walking back and forth between the automatic doors that separated the cars. Luckily the other passengers seemed to love him and didn't mind all the walking back and forth. The ride was so much more pleasant for everyone than an airplane ride, with lots of space to move around, different areas to explore, and no takeoff and landing to contend with.
Once we arrived in Madrid, it was an easy subway ride from the train station to our hotel and we were able to get settled in quickly and get out to explore the city!
References
Sevilla Light Rail
Madrid To Sevilla AVE High Speed Train
Train Travel with Babies, Toddlers, and Kids
Madrid Family Travel for Kids, Babies and Toddlers
Seville Family Travel for Kids, Babies and Toddlers
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Posted on November 4, 2007 |
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This morning I asked E where he wants to go on his next vacation.
The options were:
a) Portland
b) Paris
c) Barcelona
d) Grandma's house
… I bet you can guess which one he choose.
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Posted on November 2, 2007 |
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Having cell phones when we're travelling makes coordinating, especially with the kids, tons easier. Of course, we could use our local cell phone plans abroad, and pay over $1 per minute for calls, but on trips that last for more than a few days, it's cheaper and not very difficult to get a local plan.
For our recent trip to Spain, we planned ahead, getting our phones unlocked before we left, and replacing our SIM cards with local SIM cards that we bought at a Vodaphone shop in Barcelona.
Unlocking the phones before we left home was the hard part. T-Mobile customers can have one phone unlocked per-plan per-month if they are travelling abroad (the process can take a day or to, so it's best to plan ahead). Customers of other services may have to pay a fee to have their phones unlocked, or find a third party vendor do do the work.
Rules and regulations governing local simm card purchase vary from country to country as do rates and services. In some countries, you will need a passport and are required to fill out government paperwork to get a simm card while in others only a credit card or cash is required. Typically you purchase a card with some dollar credit on it and have several different calling plan options, which the sales person will explain to you.
References:
Consumerist: How To Find the Cheapest Roaming Solution while Abroad
SlowTrav: Cell Phones in Europe
International Cell Phones
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Posted on November 1, 2007 |
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Over the next few days, I will be catching up on blog posts for the remainder of our trip.
Oct 16 was our last full day in Sevilla. Tomorrow morning we’ll get up, get everyone dressed and fed, and take a train to Madrid. We still hadn’t seen the Cathedral (it was closed on Sunday and too much to fit in on Monday), so we headed over first thing in the morning.
When we arrived there was a huge line wrapping around the building. The kind of line that makes parents and kids alike melt down. I remembered how museum guards would seek us out in Paris and move us to the front of the line, and thought “I’ll ask what the policy is” With both kids in tow (and leaving P behind to hold us a spot) I nudged, poked and prodded until I was at the ticket counter, where I asked if kids were allowed to skip the line. The guard said “ok,” though his tone and manner implied more “no skin off my back” than “yes, that is our official policy and you are encouraged to go directly to the front of the line.” So I paid for our tickets, called P to join us, and moments later, we were in.
The kids were somewhat interested in the interior decoration of the building and its massive scale, but the real hit was the outdoor courtyard. Not only was there a fountain and lots of space for running, but there were little canals, originally intended to carry water, that were great for jumping over. If that wasn’t enough, there were gaggles of grandmothers in tour groups just waiting to fawn over the children and delight in their every movement. I cannot tell you how many times I heard “I am really missing my grandchildren on this trip.” Each of the kids had their picture snapped several times and proud mom that I am, I imagine that their images will feature prominently in many vacation albums.
After our run in the courtyard, we made our way up the cathedral tower, “La Giralda.” La Giralda was originally a Moorish minaret and stands 320 feet high. Luckily for us, it was designed for horses to be able to run to (almost) the very top so that the muezzin could recite the call to prayer. I pushed our stroller up a very long ramp while E alternated between walking and being carried up the tower. Both kids loved the view from the top (we think they were looking for playgrounds across the city). We hung out for a little while at the top peeking through various windows, and then headed down. In typical toddler style, E immediately asked to go up again once we’d reached the bottom.
In the evening, we left the kids asleep with the nanny while we went out to a flamenco show at “Casa de la Memoria”. The show was one of the highlights of our trip! It was staged in an intimate covered courtyard in the historic Barrio de Santa Cruz. There were no meals or drinks to buy, just music and dance. It seemed to be geared towards preserving traditional music and dance rather than capturing tourist dollars. The dancing was intense, and with only three rows of seating (in a semi-circle around the stage) we didn’t miss a beat. I wish that the kids were old enough to sit still in this type of environment as I know that they would have been absolutely enthralled, and we did see one little boy, about five years old, at the show. He was completely engrossed in the performance.
Related Links
Seville Family Travel for Kids, Babies and Toddlers
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Posted on October 31, 2007 |
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Since we returned home, E has chattered endlessly about our airplane ride, the trains in Spain, and our hotels and apartments. That all seemed within the normal range to me.
Last night, when I was sitting at the computer, he asked to "see suitcases" and then "to play the suitcase game." I thought that he was referring to some sort of computer game he had played with his dad, and said "I don't have that game on my computer" and got him interested in something else.
This morning he climbed up on my lap and tried again "I want to see pictures of suitcases," he said. I offered him pictures of mommy and daddy, pictures of sister D, but no "I want to see suitcases." Finally I opened up ebags.com and started clicking on suitcases. He was delighted for about 20 minutes, naming each one, "that's a suitcase, that's a backpack, that's a bag."
I'm not sure exactly what this means. I’m sure it’s not good. Our obsession with travel (and with just the right gear) has scarred E for life. It might be early enough to save little D if we’re careful, but we probably won’t be.
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Posted on October 28, 2007 |
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Whenever we come back from a long trip, we walk the kids around to each room in the house and say "hello" to all our favorite things. We started doing this when E was a baby to help him understand that we were back, and the ritual has stuck. As the kids have gotten older, they've started to really delight in it, and seem to have their own ideas about what we need to do to extend the ritual.
After we did the rounds this time, the kids went into the living room to play with toys a bit before bed. Within minutes it seemed like every toy in the house was strewn across the floor as the kids revisited them all. We ordered some pizza, gave everyone a bite to eat, and all went to bed early. The kids were so exhausted that they slept really well, though two days later we're still getting some night waking and baby D still wants to eat all night.
Thursday morning when E woke up (early), he insisted on going for a drive "to see Seattle." P took him in the car and drove him all around. When he was finally satisfied, he said "I want to eat my Seattle Pancakes." P & I were surprised, given how tired of eating in restaurants both kids were by the end of the trip, but D and I drove down to meet them at Coastal Kitchen and we all had a great meal. What a nice way to return to life as usual.
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Posted on October 26, 2007 |
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After nearly 24 hours of travel, including a 6 hour layover at Heathrow, we're back home. I have lots to write about Madrid, and once I get some rest I'll post more.
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Posted on October 24, 2007 |
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We started the day with a guided walking tour of the old part of Sevilla. The tour began in the commercial district, and ended up in the Barrio de Santa Cruz (the former Jewish ghetto and now a well preserved and exclusive historic neighborhood). We weren’t sure how we’d do on a tour with a baby and toddler in tow (or how the other participants would feel about the potentially noisy intrusion), but we figured that we could always duck out in the middle if things got out of hand.
The tour itself was great, and we’re glad we signed up. It moved quickly enough that the kids enjoyed exploring. Each of us had to duck out several times to attend to one or another of the kids, but we still felt that we saw and learned things that we wouldn’t have on our own.
In the evening (after naps) we took the kids out for a horse drawn carriage ride around the city. This is the sort of thing that I would have mocked in my pre-child life, and P has never been comfortable with making animals work for our leisure. It was pricy, not necessarily Sevillan, and …. absolutely wonderful. After a hot sticky day, a cool ride in an open carriage was just what the doctor ordered. The ride gave us an opportunity to see everything at its most beautiful, just as the sun was setting. We would have never managed a peaceful sunset walk with the kids in tow. We rode past the Cathedral and Alcazar, the Plaza de Espana, and to the Maria Luisa Park and back. The kids were delighted, especially when the horse stopped to take a long drink from a fountain, and didn’t get fidgety until the end of the 45 minute ride (though baby D had to play with mom's sunglasses, purse, and everything else in sight on the ride). Afterwards, we picked up a few dinner items from the restaurant downstairs from our vacation rental and fed the kids before putting them to bed.
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Posted on October 20, 2007 |
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We were a little intimidated about braving Alcazar (the royal palace) with the kids. The site is huge and it’s the first really serious tourist attraction we’ve taken them to. It turns out that we shouldn’t have worried. The building had so much beautiful detail, that the kids were absolutely engrossed. The palace is built around beautiful outdoor patios (all with some sort of water feature), meaning that our visit transitioned between indoors and outdoors. We ended our visit with a run through the beautiful (and cool) gardens. E loved all the fountains, stopping to sing “twinkle, twinkle little star” each time he found a star shaped fountain.
We’ve never really encouraged the kids to feed ducks and birds before, but the birds inside the Alcazar seemed so far removed from the wild (and so well fed) that we decided to share some of the crackers we’d brought along for the kids. What a treat! Just as the kids started to tire of watching the ducks race for the crackers, ornamental fish, hidden until then by the murky water, began to jump and snap at the food. We’ll have a hard time breaking the kids of this habit when we return home, and the video we shot of the duck feeding has become E’s most requested video.
For lunch we stopped in a typical outdoor restaurant. Feeling especially picky, E rejected everything, even things he normally enjoys. By dinner we were feeling desperate for him to eat. In a move that I would have never believed a few weeks ago, we took E for his first Happy Meal thinking that he would wolf down chicken nuggets and ketchup. We were sadly mistaken, he ate some fries but nothing else, and we missed an opportunity to have a meal that the rest of us could have enjoyed. I’ve redoubled my resolve not to try the Mc Donalds route again and stick with local choices.
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Posted on October 19, 2007 |
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We flew from Barcelona to Sevilla (Seville) today. We flew on ClickAir, Iberia’s low cost carrier, and tickets were just $29 each! The flight was uneventful, but it struck me (again) just how inconvenient air travel has become. Though our flight was less than 1 ½ hours (compared to 8 by train), we left our apartment in Barcelona at 11am and didn’t reach the apartment in Sevilla until 5pm, a full six hours later.
All that extra time was gobbled up by transit to and from the airport, checking and reclaiming bags, airport security, and… waiting. I’m starting to lean towards trains more and more for travel within Europe. The stations tend to be closer in, you don’t have to check your baggage, and there’s more space for the kids to roam.
That said kids loved every bit of the journey (though neither of them got enough nap time or a proper meal)
The apartment in Sevilla is nice, and completely spotless, though in my effort to find any place at all with enough space for all of us, I booked something without internet access. E is exploring the space, and is enthralled by the balcony doors, which look out over a small square and neighborhood restaurant. D seems a little bit thrown off by being in a new space after finally having figured out the old one, but I’m sure she’ll adjust quickly.
We’ll have a simple dinner tonight, and then get everyone off to bed. Tomorrow morning we’ll take the kids to the Alcazar (The Royal Castle, dating back to Moorish times with some modern portions still in use) and explore the city a bit.
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Posted on October 19, 2007 |
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