Tours by Stephen Drake-Jones are recommended in the most recent Rick Steves’ books. Has anyone experienced them? (We are thinking about his Hemingway tour.) They sound interesting and unique. And eccentric! Thoughts, posters?
Posted by
Brooklyn, NY
3843 posts
Those are certainly a few of the words we would use to describe his tours.
We took a 4 hour private tour with him (4 adults) October 2022. He is very eccentric but knows his facts and history. We actually enjoyed the tour and his company. Would we take a tour with him again, yes.
Posted by
3245 posts
Here's a link to their website. I had looked at his/their tours before our 2017 trip to Madrid, but ended up "going in a different direction". With more time in Madrid, I would have given them a shot.
Posted by
1 posts
Scheduled to be in Madrid for only three nights we decided to take a Sunday Stroll through the city with Stephen Drake-Jones based on comments in Rick Steve’s Forum. Turns out to be huge benefit in having a knowledgeable historian as a guide: not only for the history of the places, buildings and statues but also the history of the tapas bars one stops at. The sad fact of being a tourist in Madrid is one can be less than a hundred feet from the best tapas in a salubrious bar or two hours from the best time to visit a place and miss out purely by navigating by reviews. The Stroll was so successful that we signed up for Drake-Jones Discovering Spanish Regional Wines the following evening: this turned out to be a series of regional wine tastings with appropriate tapas pairings mixed with some history and a visit to a quite unique wine store. Somehow as if by magic we always seemed to get a table in the bars - some of which were packed with customers, service was instantaneous, dishes of shared tapas were always the right size for the group: all the challenges of navigating Madrid bars for a non Spanish speaking tourist evaporated.
Prior to the trip I had bought a copy of Drake-Jones recently published guide to Madrid which is a well edited, information dense book of some 200 pages organized by Madrid geography so one gets a plaza’s history including buildings, statues notable events and of course tapas bars. Unfortunately the book is not available in electronic form.
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Used to be Steilacoom, now it’s Las Vegas
2186 posts
You don’t say when you are going, but we’ve booked the Hemingway tour for May5th with him. In the email he sent, he mentioned he had already booked most of May. We had wanted to do the “Death in the Afternoon” tour but he said too many sites would be closed because they were getting ready for bullfighting season. Depending on when you’re planning to go, I can share our experience.
Posted by
OP
New York
119 posts
Hi. I’m the OP. We did take the Hemingway tour with Mr. Drake-Jones. We enjoyed our day with Stephen. His knowledge of Madrid, its history and its culture is impressive. Plus we really enjoyed the restaurants/bars we visited with him. Great wine and tapas … and Stephen’s recommendations for dinner and music made our trip special.