Segovia and Toledo May 2018

Segovia and Toledo trip

Toledo city view

My last weekend in Spain and i wanted to see the aquaduct in Segovia.
Cristina told me Toledo is very pretty and I found a trip that combined both !
So I made my way to Madrid and book a tour that does both.
I'm pretty tired by now, after travelling multiple weekends consecutively. So i only did a day trip and spent the rest of Sunday in my hotel =)

I got upgraded in the Madrid hotel near the airport that is fabulous, inclusive of lounge access.

Bedroom

The living room in my hotel suite

Bathroom

My welcome gift from Marriott : chocolate covered strawberries with a drink

Segovia
The bus for the tour leave from the bull ring in Madrid. There are so many tours that it's very confusing who is going where. I had to be patient waiting for the right bus to show up at the right time..

Madrid Bull ring

Big tour buses with lots of confusion in the AM for what bus goes where 

The bus trip is uneventful till this shows up in the bus windows! The segovia aquaduct is very well preserved and absolutely beautiful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia
The town is small, with only the cathedral and the palace being the main attraction but it certainly is impressive.

The famous Segovia aquaduct

 As you keep walking towards the cathedral and the palace, there are signs on the floor indicating the flow of the water from the aquaduct.

Aquaduct sign on the floor indicating the pipes are below this ground

Cathedral of Segovia

palace of Segovia

View of the surrounding from the palace walls

Toledo 
The tour bus first brought us to a view point that shows the entire city of Toledo. It is impressive, as it's an old city with lots of old ancient buildings. I was very surprised.

City view of Toledo

Cathedral of Toledo

Cathedral of Toledo

City of Toledo

Milan May 2018

Milan

Duomo at night

I stopped in Milan main train station on my way to Venice 12 years ago without visiting the city.

Railway station in Milan

 It's great that Li Li and her baby gave me a reason to visit the city again this trip =)

Lunch with Li Li and her baby

Lunch at a traditional Creperia with her

My first impression of this city is utter chaos as landing at  airport at 11pm , having to figure out ItaliaRail, credit card not accepted at the ticket machine, 50 euros notes not being accepted, without a map to the city or anyone to ask for instructions to just know where i'm going is .. not fun.

But thankfully there's a really nice Italian girl who was going the same way as me, helped me find the train to Milan downtown, waited for me after getting out of the train to connect the subway and showed me exactly where to go etc. I am forever thankful to her even though I didn't get a name. But it shows good and helpful people do exist and I am truly grateful for her help in my time of need.

Milan is famous for shopping, the Duomo and The last Supper =)

We end up booking Duomo terraces tickets and it's certainly beautiful seeing all the terraces close by.

View of the Terrace

Madonna in the Duomo

Inside the Duomo

The Duomo square from the Terrace

We had to booked The Last Supper tickets via a tour as official tickets are sold out for months. The most interesting aspect of this is how Da Vinci captured the light and luminescence in the whole painting and how he managed to keep the light away from Judas which give the impression that Judas has a dark face and white neck.
This painting has suffered significant damage, and restoration was very well done. But the result of this was manic control in allowing visits (rude security, rude reception, evacuation of groups after 15 mins, how dare you even breathe in this room!) Certainly not the most pleasant experience.

The last supper

Tickets and restorations done on Last Supper

Also, the most famous shopping center in the world, Galleria Vittorio Emanule
Again, good place to find Prada, LV etc all in one place.

Galleria Vittorio E on the outside

On the inside

But as i can't afford those, we bought Savini ice cream there instead =) and it's yum!

Savini Ice cream with the best pistachio flavour! from Sicily pistachio

We also realized Milan has a canal area and had our aperitivo experience there.

Naviglio Grande area

As far as i can tell, it's to eat a snack with a drink before dinner.

Apertivo moment

The recommendation is cocktail with Campari coupled with homemade snacks.

Aperitivo moment

One interesting site was the Milan main cemetery. It has a lot of interesting sculptures and tomb stones. I enjoyed hunting them down with Cristina on Sunday morning =)

Main cemetery building

Inside the main building

Collection

Collection

The last supper! 

Other sights in Milan and one thing to note is not a lot of food in this trip as the hotel provided breakfast and dinner =) next time!

Milan castle wall

Vertical forest

Colorful everything.. from pasta to candies!

La Rioja May 2018

La Rioja
The wine region in Spain.

La Rioja view from one of the towns

I was surprised by the volume and miles and miles of vineyards but on 2nd thoughts, maybe i shouldn't be =)

Logrono
This is the capital of La Rioja region and we choose to stay there as it has more options for accommodations and restaurants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logro%C3%B1o
Logrono doesn't have a lot of interesting sites but has lots of great tapas restaurants ^_^. They are famous for this 4 square blocks that contains more than 50 tapas restaurants, with a lot of them specializing in one particular tapa.

Calle Laurel with the tapas restaurants

The first night that we are there, there's a pincho specials where you can get 1 tapa and a glass of wine for $1.50. After 7 tapas, i'm ready for bed =) (And no, i didn't finish 7 glasses of wine ^_^)

The first night of tapas in Pincho porto

Wine ice cream in Logrono

Briones
There are small villages/towns around Logrono that we visited just to highlight some of the castles and churches and the views.
The first city that we visited is Briones with a nice church and a medieval city

The church in Brion

View of the vineyards and the famous wine museum in Briones

Haro
This is where we choose our winery Muga. It's a very traditional winery that still age wine only in oak barrels.

 Interestingly they produce their own barrels (the huge tanks and smaller barrels) themselves as they have one of the few barrel-making master in Spain. The maestro will go to France every 5 years to bid on the oak tree that they want for making the barrels

Barrel producing area in the winery

After they made the barrel, they will toast the barrel to produce the different flavours.
One thing that's interesting about La Rioja wine is the aging is what determines the quality and the price of the wine. The grape varietals seems to be an afterthought and frequently not even labelled on the bottle.

After the wine visit, we made our way to more tapas bar hopping in Haro, with Bar Benigno and Meson de Berones

Lunch at Haro

Bastida, San Vicente & La Guardia
After lunch, we made our way for more sightseeing.

View from La Bastida church

View of the Ebro from San Vicente

La guardia medieval town

La Portico de Santa Maria del Reyes in La Guardia

Mini Gugeinheim hotel in Elciego

For dinner, we made our way back to Calle Laurel in Logrono and had more fun tapas bar hopping

Bar soriano for grilled mushroom, Bar CID for grilled setas, a bar for patatas bravas that's crazy crowded, Tio Lorenzo for grilled lamb, pulpo tapas and torrecilla for grilled foie

Tarazona
On Sunday, we stop at this town on our way back to Barcelona and saw a very impressive cathedral.

The streets of Tarazona, with the red bricks

The cathedral in Tarazona

It is a mix of Gothic, Renaissance and Muderja architecture which is quite wild.
Beautifully restored as well.

Altar of the cathedral

side chapel

Bull ring in the city re-purposed as housing