Southern Spain - August 2025
Spain August 2025
Aug 4th
Arrived at 11:30 AM on the redeye (delta) , nobody slept very well and we are all a bit blurry.
We grab a taxi from the airport to our hotel in the old town, the Arai Aparthotel. Our room is not ready, so we wander around for a little while taking in the old town streets, it is a very sleepy and quiet. Lots of graffiti, lots of small shops, but not everything is open, and there are not a lot of tourists on the streets.
We hang out for a little bit at the hotel, the rooftop pool is small, but welcoming, on hot Barcelona days. Finn crashes out for a while and we go and wander around, do some grocery shopping and then come back to the hotel for some downtime. We are grappling with our body clocks and fatigue. We go out for a late dinner at Rossini pizzeria and Ristorante - completely passable food on the Placa Royal.
We walk off our dinner touring around the town and make it back to the hotel around 9:30 PM just as the sun has gone down. We all pile into bed and have a fitful but much needed horizontal night of sleep.
Aug 5
We managed to roll out by about 9 AM, everyone still feeling the effects of Jetlag, but better rested. Scrumptious breakfast at Benedict, a place in the old town that specializes in English and American breakfast. Bonus points for real maple syrup, though everything is a little sweeter than we might have liked.
Back to the hotel for a quick cleanup and then out into the city. We did a reconnaissance walk down the beachfront passed all the “chinguitas” aka beach bars. Lots of places to lay out or swim in the Mediterranean, rent a chair under an umbrella. We head up to La Sagrado Familia, and wait in the heat for our tour to start. Outside the sagrada is a mishmash of Sandcastle and Gothic cathedral. Wildly ornate, and busy.
After a bit of drama, getting into the cathedral with our tour group, something to do with too many people and not enough tickets, we branch off on our own and self guide. The interior is pretty great, beautiful stained glass and stunning architecture. The east side stained glass represents the new day and birth and life while the west side represents sunset and death.
After the sagrada, we make our way back to the hotel for a quick refresh. Finn and dad go looking for a notorious thrift market, to no avail. It is only open on the weekends. We buy tickets for the Park Guell and make the long journey, and very steep climb up to the park for more Gaudi. The views are great though the park is a little bit underwhelming. Lots of walking today meant blister care for Finn (and some expert blister advice from the retired dancer)
We make our way back from Guell to town and forgo a hotel stop in favor of enjoying the old town by night. Dinner is a fail at a local tourist spot near the hotel - slow, mediocre service and food. But we walk down to Plaza Royal and find a bar on the square where we teach the kids to play spades and have a drink - keeping the fun going until midnight when we head back and crash out at home.
Aug 6
We roll out of bed at a decent hour and pack up for the beach. We grab croissants and donuts at a small bakery on Orwell Square. We you take the subway down to Lacuna to the beach at a chinguita called Vai Monana - it’s a couple km down from Barceloneta and a little quieter. Still busy with touts and tourists. It is wonderfully hot, and we make several dips in the Mediterranean, then come and dry out by laying in the sun. We rent beach chairs and an umbrella which is unnecessarily expensive, but also worth it.
After a few hours of tanning and swimming we head home and regroup. Dad and Finn go thrift store hunting and find a couple of places, but they are all a bit overpriced and understocked. We find new parts of the old town to explore.
We returned to the hotel and pick up the rest of the crew and then explore some more of the old town eventually landing back at Rossini - reliable Italian food and drinks. We play cards and hang in the square a bit but call it an early night so we are ready for our train to Valencia.
Aug 7
We are up and out early to the subway and then to Barcelona Sants to catch our train to Valencia.
The train is efficient, but not fancy and the view is not amazing but it’s quick and we get to Valencia in about 3 hours.
Valencia has a totally different vibe than Barcelona, wider streets and more squares full of fountains and buskers.
Our hotel (Valentia apartments Mercado central) is perfectly located right in the heart of the action. We were right in front of the huge market and in the winding streets of old town. Our rooms isn’t ready until 3:30p so we drop our bags at the bike shop next-door to the apartment and go find a meal and a drink. Then we walk down to Primark, which is becoming a travel tradition. Along the way we find loads of cool streets and shops.
After we get into the apartment, the kids opt for some downtime while Karen and I go do laundry and track down the grocery store while we stock up for dinner in.
After dinner, we venture back out to our favorite square, the city is busy and fun at night. We enjoy the evening, play some cards, grab a drink, listen to some music and get home around midnight.
It’s amazing how thoroughly this late schedule defines the trip. The entire world seems to shut down between about 2 PM and 6 PM but the nights are lively and late with the sun out until at least nine or 930 every night.
Aug 8
We are keeping late nights and sleeping in ! We roll out around 10 AM and grab an incredibly overpriced, but amazingly delicious breakfast at Cappuccino on the Plaça de la Reina - the menus are as big as the bill.
A taxi pulls up 20 feet from our table and we head out to the City of Arts and Sciences to check out the Oceanographica(the largest aquarium in Europe) - it’s a fantastic aquarium and we all have an awesome time.
Equally impressive is the futuristic architecture of the CoA&S. Portions of Andor and Guardians of the Galaxy were shot here and it’s fun to recognize scenes and spots. The entire area is beautiful and - despite the tough heat - great to walk around.
By late afternoon we head back to old town and luck upon LA PIZZA, a terrific place with good (yeah obviously) pizza and salad. We also get sage advice from our waitress to avoid Malvarosa beach and instead visit the chiller more local Patacona beach. Enzo and dad head home and crash from the heat for a bit. Mom and Finn go hunting for a mask and snorkel which they find. Then we mount up and head back out for cards and drinks. After around of spades, we wander a bit having in-din-cision = the in ability to pick a place to eat. We settle for a burger for Z and empanadas for the ladies and head home around 10p to wind down for the night.
Aug 9
Up a little earlier and packed up for our second beach day. We hit the “cards square” for breakfast (crepes and waffles) and we take the waitresses advice and grab a taxi to Patacona. It’s scorchingly hot but the beach is lovely and the water is warm. It’s a crowded beach but the locals seems to know how to give each tower space and the lack of loud music and harassing touts make it lovely.
We aren’t able to rent sun chairs and umbrellas but the beach front tourist office gives (yes GIVES) us an umbrella and we make do with shawls and towels to create our own little beach flop spot. The water is warm and we all splash around, then layout and bake, then cool off in the water again. 3 hours of sun worshipping and we pack up and catch a taxi back to the old town.
We find an amazing grocery store (why do we always find these on the last day?) and self cater cheese salami and fresh bread sandwiches. Mom and dad leave the kids to cool off and bed rot for an hour while they dip out to the laundry mat to give everyone enough clothes to get through the trip. Much love to the Mediterranean Lavanderia for the big industrial machines that clean 25 pounds of sweaty backpacker clothes in 30 mins for $10.
Clean clothes in hand we head back to the apartment and repack a bit then out for an 8pm dinner at Santa Rita - an Italian place with great focaccia and slightly over sauces pasta. We stroll off some of the calories and then settle in at a cocktail bars outside tables for an Agua de Valencia, Negroni and a few hands of spades. We wrap up and head home to properly pack for our morning departure, heading to bed around midnight.
Aug 10
We are up at 7:45a and doing the last bits of repacking before walking through the quiet Sunday morning streets toward the train station.
Turns out there are 2 stations so we have a small scare about navigating to the wrong one for our train to Granada (via a change in Cordoba). But we find the correct train with enough time to grab a bunch of croissants and some juice before climbing aboard the long leg to cordoba.
We thought the “long” leg to Cordoba would be the long part of the day but the travel gods had others plans. Our train arrives in Cordoba for a 20 min layover that turns into a 5 hour series of delays and false starts. We nearly rent a car, or book a bus, or buy new tickets on a new train, but all of the solutions have their own problems and finally after losing most of our day, a new train comes into service and we mad Rush into seats and finally get to Granada around 8:30 PM. In time to see sunset on the roof and take a quick dip in the pool.
Exhausted, Karen and I go pickup 5 Guys comfort food (and they sell IPA in Spain) for the family and end our very long travel day in the room at the Serctol (after chatGPT helps us figure out how to use the air conditioning, we are set for the night.)
Aug 11
Up early (9:30am tickets to Alhambra) and we make the walk up up up hill to Alhambra. The morning is cool (low 70s) and quiet and the all is lots of uphill but not terrible. We walk around the grounds of the Charles V Palace and take photos before entering the Nassrid Palace (the main part of the Alhambra).
ChatGPT turns out to be a fairly capable tour guide - we feed it photos and it tells us what we are looking at. The interior of the Nassrid is amazing. We spend a few hours walking the main palace then the Generalife Gardens before backtracking to see the Alcazaba - the 13th century fortress.
Even after all this it’s only noon, so we descend back into the city and get a surprisingly good breakfast at D’sano, a yummy local spot with crepes and pancakes.
We hide out in the hotel and at the rooftop pool during the hottest part of the day. Enzo and dad go to the grocery store and discover siesta is truly in effect - the town feel abandoned and 90% of everything is closed.
As the sun sets, we pack up and make the climb into the Alabacin heading for the Mirador de San Nicolas. It’s a challenging 20 mins UP but worth the trek. The change from old town Granada to whitewashed Moorish influence is fast and definitive. When we get to the Lookout, it’s crowded full of vendors and music and tourist, looking for the ideal shot of the Alhambra. We grab a drink and play some cards at a café with the flawless view. As it gets dark around 9:30 PM, we take our pictures and enjoy the buskers and crowds.
Then we make the walk back down into town, stopping to browse at an amazing shopping street.
By the time we finished dinner at La Nona Carmela (meh) it is nearly 11pm and we are ready to head back home for the night. We decided to extend our stay here in Granada by one day instead of trying to cram in a single day of Toledo or Cordoba.
Aug 12
We sleep in a little and head to breakfast around 10:30 AM at Momento Mori (meh in the extreme) and walk around town a little and head over to the cathedral of Granada.
Finn decides to take a pass on the church and history and goes back to the hotel and Enzo gets his geek on with the deep history of the church and region. A lot of interesting history here, including the tombs of Ferdinand and Isabella.
After a couple of hours of church and history, we had back to the hotel and meet up at the pool, it’s siesta time and we’re hot, but loving having the rooftop to take a dip and cool off.
After an extended bit of downtime we venture back to for some last shopping. Granada is probably the best shopping experience of all the cities we’ve seen. We revisit the Calle de la Calenderia Nueva. Enzo and Dad grab a coke and sit while mom and Finn browse and bargain but don’t find anything they love.
We find another very cool market called Alcaiceria near the cathedral. This one feels like a twisty Moroccan bazaar.
Finn finds what she’s looking for and we map it to highly reviewed pizza at a place called D-Italy. A great salad and pizza cap off a good long day.
Aug 13
We are up at 8:30 did the final packing and get out of the hotel in time to grab breakfast at a cute little place called Stories.
At some point in the previous evening the earrings that Finn bought went missing so we are heading back to the market this morning at 10 AM and then off to the train station for our train to Madrid.
The Granada to Madrid train is quick and not crowded at all. We make sandwiches from the remaining baguette and salami / ham and sip on Coke Zero yet again.
We grab a taxi from the train station to our two bedroom apartment on the plaza de Santa Ana. The taxis here have been reliable and comfortable and totally affordable. The U Sense Madrid Santa Ana feels like corporate apartment, but this one is quite nice, spacious, plenty of space for everybody and a washer dryer.
We have a very little on our to do list here in Madrid, but we bust a move over to the Museo de la Reina Sophia to see the one work of art that dad has decided he must see on this trip.
And a relatively well known Dali:
Everyone is feeling travel, fatigue, and hungry, we make a walk over to a vintage store called Humana, but it is underwhelming. We grab a taxi back to the Plaza de Santa Ana, and hit a grocery store to grab essentials to get us through the afternoon. Mom and Finn make homemade guacamole or I guess travel made guacamole, and we settle in to rest up for one last night out in Spain.
After a good long break, we had to explore the city and head over to the Plaza Mayor and wander the streets in and around the area.
The city is sprawling and busy and lots of fun to explore. We wind our way up and down the streets near the plaza and the up to the Grand Via amid string quartets playing everything from Sinatra to Cold Play.
Things we remember from our speed tour of Madrid:
Taco Bell
The museum of ham
A tarot card super store
And at least 5 Starbucks
Boyberry
We land at Burnout burger for a (at first raw but then properly cooked) solid burger and then walk back down to plaza Santa Ana for a last game of spades, cocktails and an accidentally magnificent focaccia.
We get home around 11:30 PM and head to bed, early wake up airport and back to New York tomorrow.
Aug 14
Up and out on time. We find a taxi to the airport right in the Plaza and arrive with loads of time to spare. The flight is uneventful and we are happy to be home.
TRIP THROUGHLINES
Great butter and baguette
Coke and Coke Zero
Ale-Hop stores everywhere
Tracking the UV for tanning
Finding the shade.
Graffiti
Playing spades
Late dinners and nights out
Siesta time is a thing
Running backward down the escalator