In terms of winter weather, the temperature was about 50 degrees each day in Barcelona and Madrid, and about 60 degrees in Sevilla. We had a lot of rain, but we were told this was quite unusual.
The Metro systems in Barcelona and Madrid were affordable, easy to navigate, and quite convenient, especially with simple 10-ride cards. We had a three-day Spain pass for the AVE trains, but this turned out to be wasteful, since it was cheaper for us to buy the ticket and reservation for Toledo than to use the pass and buy a reservation, so we left Spain with one travel day remaining on our pass, which we obviously won’t be able to use. ):
Having only traveled to Italy previously—and now having spent just a single week in Spain—I would offer these thoughts, albeit cautiously:
-While I love tortilla and Spanish chorizo and churros con chocolate—and yes, jamon y queso—one should not visit Spain for the food. In my opinion, the food is largely mediocre, with little emphasis on quality. Of course, there are always exceptions, and we did find a few of them, i.e. La Crema Canela in Barcelona. Wow!
-Spain is much less expensive than Italy, especially in terms of food and drink, and to some extent, in terms of lodging. We came home with about four hundred Euros—what a pleasant surprise!—and in our travels to Italy, we’ve come home out of Euros and with some charge bills, to boot.
Continued in next post...