Category: Uncategorized

Another night, another successful sleep for both Jordan and Kieran. So hopefully we are well rested for the day. And that’s good, because we had resolved to climb the mountain in our neighbourhood to see the Philopappos Monument and Prison of Socrates. So we fuelled up on Nutella Toast and out Kieran in the Minimeis shoulder carrier and headed out on our way.

Even the approach to the mountain within our neighbourhood was quite steep uphill, but we succeeded in this first trial and got to the very rough hewn stairs and rocky gravel path. This was certainly more stairs than any of us had faced in a long time, but we persevered and made it right to the top. Kieran did not like being on the shoulders in the end, so we freed him at the monument for a while. We took plenty of pictures there, as we had seeping vistas across all of Athens. Jordan lived her best Sudbury-child and jumped around the rocks at the base of the monument.

We swapped Kieran to the other carrier for the trip down, which was a good choice as he was much more settled. The rough paths were pretty tricky with him on my chest blocking the view, but we made it work. On the way down, we visited a nearly 1000 year old Greek Orthodox church. It was quite small but very cute and right down the path from the Prison of Socrates. Jordan like flexing her newfound archaeologist muscles here, examining the cells and noting the holes between them and the fact they opened up into a cave behind. Apparently, this is where the Greeks held treasures of the Acropolis during WWII which they cemented in to these cells.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for Kieran falling asleep on me and getting super sweaty. We stopped at the bakery around the corner from our place and got some nice ham and cheese pastries for lunch. We then enjoyed an easy afternoon at home before it was time to go collect Liam from Syntagama Station.

Unfortunately for us, there was some miscommunication about the exact train he was getting from the airport due to the fact that his eSim he purchased didn’t work properly. Luckily, we did manage to connect and grabbed some coffees to take into the big park to relax a bit before making the final trek to the apartment to drop his bag.

After the Air Canada debacle, we decided a simple dinner at the pedestrian area near our apartment was best. The food here was similar to the Greek food we have been having, but there was *SO* much of it. All very tasty, and the most reasonable alcohol pricing we have seen at any restaurant in Athens thus far. We did call it an early night as Kieran’s hike up the hill had apparently taken a lot out of him.

So we just enjoyed an enjoyable evening on the balcony with a small bottle of scotch and the rest of our terribly cheap rose wine that got turned in into Sangria. Tomorrow, we fly to Crete which is very exciting. We are all very glad that Liam got here with time to spare and acclimate. Hopefully tomorrow’s flight works better than the ones we all took to get to Europe!

Before we can get to the fun day trip to Aegina, we have to resolve the fun from last night. Kieran eventually got to sleep after coming back out to the Ted Lasso watch party… At 11:15pm. But at least Jordan went down to for bed no problem, right? Right?! Wrong. So. Very. Wrong. She emerged at *midnight* asking for a cup of water. So I got that for her and noticed that the iPad she took in to read one chapter of her book was still fully illuminated under her sheet. At midnight. So that was a stern talking to and immediate send to bed. That should make tomorrow fun!

Unsurprisingly, we had to wake Jordan up for our 8am departure from the apartment down to Piraeaus to catch our ferry. We aimed to be there an hour early as per the company’s suggestion, which seemed unusual for a walk-on ticket. Luckily, the metro has a stop down at Piraeaus and we found the boat easily. Good thing we were early, though, as the ferry left 30 minutes early! Crazy!

Turns out it was a good thing the ferry left early, because it meant we connected on to the bus in Aegina with almost precision perfect timing. That bus dropped us at the absolutely gorgeous Holy Church of Saint Nektarios. Unfortunately, they are doing some work on the interior roof, so there was a lot of massive scaffolding in the main church. This is apparently one of the holiest places in the Greek Orthodox, as just up the mountain is the Monastery of Saint Nektarios. We made our way up the switchback path and were treated to the several mini chapels, each with a unique feature. The coolest was the one with dozens upon dozens of lamps (or incense containers? Unclear) hanging from the ceiling.

We made perfect timing up there and back down the hill and got the bus back to town because it was time to find some food. We settled on a place where the guy offered to show me the seafood in the back so that I could choose based on the freshness. And it was very fresh octopus, indeed! Emily got peppers stuffed with herbs and rice, though she felt it was a bit dill-forward (which is mostly a her thing, given how prevalent dill is in Greek food) while Jordan got some spaghetti Bolognese. The octopus was not that much better than any I have had before but it was quite tasty.

The lunch place was was (along with nearly everything else in Aegina)right across the road from the Sardonic Gulf. So we did the only reasonable thing and hopped right in! The water was absolutely gorgeous, both in temperature and view. We all had a great time splashing about, with Kieran probably having the most fun of anyone at the entire beach. The beach itself was nothing special, so we got changed and headed out after our swim.

After the beach, it was time for more souvenir shops and gelato. Aegina is known for its abundance of pistachio trees, so we got some classic pistachio gelato to go along with our chocolate and mango scoops, then it was back to shopping. Here, we had the first stirrings of trouble caused from the lack of sleep the night before. Jordan was sad about the lack of souvenir, but we thought it was smoothed over by talking about how much time was left for shopping. We thought it was smoothed over as we stepped back onto the ferry to Athens. We even managed to do the same thing as Toledo and got onto the one hour earlier ferry as we had overestimated the time we would need. However, it was now time for the meltdown as we left port. We did manage to get past it, but it took over 20 minutes to calm down.

The rest of the trip back to Athens was uneventful. A re-cheered Jordan (mollified with a group selfie on the side of the ship, though she pouted about the exact positioning of us all) was a great help keeping Kieran entertained as usual. One weird thing is that while Kieran was sleeping at the metro station, an older lady decided that she was going to touch his foot. So weird, though he did maintain his sleep through it. Sensing the need for an early night, we picked up some cheese for grilled cheese at the apartment. The owner has even gone out, obtained and delivered a high chair after I had inquired about one. 5 star rating incoming!

The original plan was to make Jordan have a shower and go to bed early. But yet another meltdown occured and short circuited right to bed time. Moral of the story, make sure your kid gets the right amount of sleep. Moral of the story number two, don’t send the kid to bed with the iPad and trust that they won’t just go down the rabbit hole. And yes, as I write this at 8:45pm, Kieran is still awake (probably due to his later than usual nap at 5:30 until 6ish).

Who knows what this all means for tomorrow. I think we will have to play it by ear. Because we are doing the Parthenon when we come back from Crete, we have actually done most of the typical Athens activities. You’ll just have to tune in tomorrow to find out what we figure out!

Yeah, I am not going to try to use Greek letters to say hello to Athens. I legitimately have no idea what it would do to the URL of this post. We woke up and had the worst grocery store pre-packaged chocolate croissants ever (but at least they were only €0.29 each) to get fuelled up for the day. We grabbed a bus from right outside our apartment over to Syntagama square.

The goal was to catch the 11am changing if the guards, but we walked into the park thinking it would connect and missed it. Oh well, at least we were in an incredible park. As soon as you stepped in, it was like you have left the city entirely. All we could hear was the cocophony of birds squawking some major feelings, though we could barely see any. There were random statues and fountains all over the place. We wandered the paths which were arranged in what can only be described as a “spaghetti layout” that would make the urban planners in Kitchener-Waterloo blush.

Eventually, we made our way past a playground (that we didn’t stop at! Yet.) and made our way out of the park. The first thing we saw was a little pond with a statue of… Someone (this place has a lot of statues, and we never did find the statue of Alexander the Great)… And there were turtles there! Then we found the Statue of Olympian Zeus. Except that it is “just” some pillars, most of which are covered in scaffolding. We felt that we got a good enough view from the fence that we didn’t feel the need to pay the €20 entry each(!) to go see them. And no, this is not the first time we will have this feeling. Because the same thing happened just down the road at the Kallimamaro, or Olympic Stadium.

By this time, we had been wandering for about an hour, so it was time for the playground! We made our way across the road (Athens crossing signals are *short*) back to the park. This was a pretty solid playground, even though we had been spoiled by Spain. Jordan couldn’t go down the two story tower because it was too hot, sadly. There was also a water tap there for filling up the bottle. Very important for the 35° and sunny day. Like Madrid, Athens is a mostly dry heat, so it didn’t feel so terrible, especially in the shade.

With a new goal to get to the 1pm changing of the guards, we set back out to get to the right place at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Greek Parliament. And we succeeded! Buuuutttt were 30 minutes early. With little shade, we pondered our options when the guards started moving. I guess they do a mini version at the bottom of the hour. Perfect! Greek guards moving is a very special gait. They push their leg out, pull it way back, push it out, wiggle it, point their toe and then slam their shoes (which have tap dance style metal plates on the bottom) to the ground. It is like a cross between the hokey-pokey and Dutch Jump style dance, but way slower. Going to go out on a limb and say that Leonidas and the 300 Spartans didn’t walk like this to fight the Persians (though that would be an amazing outtake for that movie).

Mollified by the 5 minute mini display of the funny walk, we decided our terrible croissants (so bad that Emily only ate half of hers) were no longer sufficient and set off in search of food. Fortunately, Syntagama square is at the top of a corridor that has tons of shops and restaurants. We stopped at Meat the Greek, and despite the pun based name, we stopped there. The food was all great. We started with a Spicy (more like Spiced) Feta dip with pita, then got beef and pork gyros, fries and a chicken skewer for Jordan. Kieran, of course, liked every single thing on offer, though the slices in the dip got too spicy for him eventually. Even Jordan finished her entire skewer, almost a first for the trip. And the value was great, as all of that food came out just to €24!

Just down from there was our first Greek Orthodox Church of the trip and it didn’t disappoint. Plenty of iconography, beautiful stained glass windows and a top-notch roof. We opted not to go into the crypt for €3, though. Mostly because Kieran in the stroller would have been wildly inconvenient. Even the little mini chapel next to it was similarly beautiful. Not sure what the purpose of the mini chapel next to the real church is, though.

After the church, the next street down was a super long string of independent shops. Most of them sold similar souvenirs including, for some reason, Greek Sex Cards. I’m not sure if they are playing cards that are Greek sex themed or if they are like an adult sex prompter, but needless to say that we didn’t spend the €3 to find out. There were also lots of clothes shops that continually threatened to separate us from our Euros to get adorable children’s clothes for all of the babies, but we managed to keep hold of the money for now.

And no day (except yesterday’s crazy travel day, of course) would be complete without gelato and/or sorbet. It was 3pm and Jordan was not yet done checking out the shops of Athens, so we headed down the street yet again. But we didn’t make it vey far because Kieran was fed up. So back we went to the metro (one stop, then switch and two stops) to get back to the apartment. Kieran then fell asleep about 100m from the Airbnb, but Emily managed to get him back down.

One thing to know about Kieran right now sims that he is in his shrieking phase. 90% happy shrieks, but they are very prevalent. So much so that sitting on the balcony of the 4th floor (European 4th, so 5th to North America) that he confused the heck out of some guys on the ground floor who could hear him but not place the sound. Hilarious. At 6:30, we headed out for dinner. This is quite early for Greece, but luckily the places around us are all open.

This time, Emily got moussaka (so good), I got a Salmon Fillet with seaweed salad (also good) and Jordan got Meatballs (pretty good, though much better when dipped in the Tzatziki sauce). Kieran, of course, loved it all. By the end, he was nearly in a food coma, so instead of waking around the neighbourhood like the original plan, we headed in. It was 8pm, so reasonable bed time anyways, especially since we are waking up early tomorrow to head on a day trip to the island of Aegina. Though I write these final sentences now at just past 9:30 and Kieran still fights actual sleep. Oh well. We will just have to drown our sorrows in the €2.99 1L plastic bottle of terrible rose wine that we have turned into Sangria while we watch the new Ted Lasso.

Aftee our late night of packing, it was time for the dressed repositioning day. Of all the transfers we had to make, we knew this would be one of the toughest ones; at least all the stuff was ready to go. So we left the apartment in Bilbao to go down the hill once more to get the bus to the downtown from old town and then to the airport. We fell victim to our worst time transfer of the trip so far and had to wait in downtown Bilbao for 30 minutes for the airport bus. At least the setting was beautiful and there was a Starbucks there for a caffeine boost.

The Bilbao bus to the airport is… Weird. First, we got to have the cheap fare because of the preloaded transit card we got (literally a sub-€1 fare instead of €5!) which is just great. Second is that the route is not very express. First, it went to this industrial-ish area, then on the highway to some car dealerships, then up a mountain road to be a rural collector. All told, it was a 35 minute ride, and we got to look at great mountain views with cows, horses, sheep and more.

The Bilbao airport is not much to talk about except for the weird setup where the gates are below the main area and you take a ramp down to a second boarding area when it is time to go on, but each gate has its own ramp down. Odd. The flight was also good. Aegean even gave everyone a meal included! Very unusual for 2026.

Athens airport is a wild and crowded space. We had to take a shuttle bus to our arrival gate, which is always a good start to an airport experience. I am glad we didn’t check our bags this time, as it was quite a distance to where the baggage claim was and I don’t trust that things wouldn’t have gone missing along the way. So we take a short pedestrian overpass to the metro stop aaaannndddd…. Trains are every 36 minutes and it seems we just missed one. And there was techincal glitches getting through the fare gate, so we may be charged anywhere between 1 and 3 times for our jaunt from the airport. Who knows?

So the train, 30 minutes after arrival to the platform, finally arrives. And then the security guard comes and tells us it is out of order and to take the suburban train instead. Which isn’t going to the same place. Fortunately, a kind Greek worker from the airport on his way home told everyone in our train car that we should go 4 stops and then we would connect to the Metro Line 3 as originally intended. But it has been 30 minutes of collecting people at the platform and this train is packed. And we kept getting more people which made this the most crowded train I have ever been on. Not helped that Kieran kicked off and didn’t want to be in his stroller, so Emily carried him and I resurrected the Beverly Hillbillies mobile.

The transfer was nearly as chaotic as everything else so far, given the crush of people going to the same place. Which of course led to a very busy metro platform. Then the train pulled up. Huzzah! Except no, the lights were off. Weird. Then the lights turned on. Yay! Then they turned off again. Boo. Then the train REVERSED AWAY BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM. Major boo and also a hearty what the fuck. But a train showed up again. Yay! But it looks like it arrived straight from the 1980s. And it really sounded like it, with all of the squeaks and cocophony of the 80s. Epic boo. It was so loud that Emily covered Kieran’s ears for the worst of it.

One last transfer and two stops later, we got to our final station. We then found the Airbnb easily and got in. The elevator is very small, so the Beverly Hillbillies mobile had to be dismantled and folded up. The apartment itself is very spacious and there’s even a space on the couch for me to lie on my front. That should be highlighted on the listing, because it is amazing. I ventured out to an off two part grocery store (I literally had to go out the door with my unpaid merchandise to get to the section that has pasta and soft drinks) and got us some provisions. We are close to a nice little pedestrian area with cafes and restaurants, but after our big travel day, we opted to eat in at the apartment.

We will have to see what tomorrow brings. We don’t have tickets to the Parthenon until we boomerang back to Athens after Crete, so we will have to find something else to do. But that’s a tomorrow problem, so time to recover from the repositioning and do some laundry.

Our last full day in Bilbao called for something we had not yet done in the trip, going to the beach. There are several beaches in Bilbao that are accessible just a short walk away from the metro. But before we could do that, we had to pick up some beach supplies. So we walked down the big hill once again and went to the best cheap equipment store, decathlon. Towels obtained, we moseyed over to the metro and went to Negurzi.

The beach was about a 5 minute walk from the station which we completed easily. The beach area was quite nice with some restaurants and, for some reason, a temporary fair that was not open. This beach was almost 900m long and there were many people despite it being a Monday. Enough to feel some beach vibes, but not enough to be crowded.

The views were pretty good, though most of the horizon was occupied by the docks. There were some nice cliffs to our right and you could see mountains as well in the distance to the left. Conveniently, we were able to get the stroller pretty deep into the beach because of one of those paths laid out. We weren’t the only ones taking advantage of this, as there was a group of seniors being wheeled around in off road wheelchairs right to the water’s edge.

We all went for a swim, which Kieran enjoyed. He seemed to like getting a bit of salt water into his mouth. Jordan was not quite as enthused and complained about it hurting her nose. After about an hour and a half, Kieran was fed up with the beach and we rinsed off in the beach showers. Neither Kieran nor Jordan wanted to do this and we got a double meltdown of epic proportions.

Once both of those got settled (Kieran by falling asleep and Jordan apologizing), we checked out the restaurants for lunch. The restaurants there were pretty expensive, so we walked a few minutes down the road to the next cluster of restaurants that seemed cheaper. It was, once again, Pintxos time, and we got a few great dishes. Goats cheese and duck liver, grilled octopus (that one was just for me), anchovies, smoked salmon on avocado (which Jordan demolished), cheese croquettes and a delicious crab “crepe” that was basically a crab wonton. And local wine, of course.

Emily and Jordan ventured down to the rocky beach in this area to explore the low tide. They found many crabs who Jordan said were dancing, though Emily denies this. They also found a blue thing that they could not identify. On research, Emily thinks this may have been a Portuguese Man of War, a highly venomous jellyfish whose appearance would shut the beach.


From there, it was up yet another big hill to get to the station. But before that, it was time for, you guessed it, another playground! This one had a cool spider thing to look like the one at the Guggenheim and a very colorful sun shade. It was right next to the station, so it was easy enough to convince Jordan to leave by telling her we had to catch our train back to town and head back to the apartment before dinner.

For our final evening, we wanted to go out for a real Basque meal. So it was back down our big hill to the old town. We first tried the Athletic Bilbao fan restaurant, but when we went to order, their kitchen was closed. So we just got yet more Pintxos and wine before searching for a more comprehensive meal. We found it on the old square. It was very busy, so we ended up with seats at the bar and got some calamari, chorizo cooked in cider, a cheeseboard and some potato wedges (that were certainly not the Potatoes Bravas indicated on the menu).

Finally, you’ll notice we didn’t talk of ice cream, because for the second time this trip, we switched up and got something else. Last time it was cheesecake but this time it was churros that we then ate in a different (yet equally busy) square. They were pretty good, but Emily bemoaned the lack of chocolate sauce with them, which was a very fair criticism. Following that, it was time for the final walk up our big hill to pack up for our flight to Athens.

Sunday is truly the day if rest in Bilbao. Almost everything, including the supermarket across the street from our apartment, is closed. Very traditional. So that meant a morning in for us. Luckily, the other supermarket around the corner was open and I grabbed us some croissants. It was just after noon that we headed out in search of a transit card.

With that in hand, we took the bus to the bottom of the funicular. The line here was truly bonkers, and it took us about 5 funiculars to actually get on. The transit card is crucial here. Instead of a €6 round trip, we only paid €0.88! Our way up was in a middle step of the car and we could barely see anything and Emily hurt her hip holding Kieran. Luckily, there was a beautiful park at the top where we could sit and enjoy the view. You could really see the whole of Bilbao and even all the way to the sea. Even better, we got the front area of the funicular on the way back down.

We found an open grocery store and got provisions to make sandwiches in the park. Of course, we managed to find yet another playground for Jordan to run around at in the view of a famous pedestrian bridge. This one had some cool little hills with a tunnel through. The sandwiches were great and Kieran ate almost an entire tub of guacamole. Unrelated to that guacamole (probably), he then had a massive poop that we had to clean up on the bench. Very gross.

So we headed across the bridge towards the Guggenheim. The ramp did set off Emily’s hip, so I took the now-napping Kieran on a walk to the museum while Emily and Jordan grabbed the tram. This meant that I came across the giant spider first! And yes, this is the same spider as the one in Ottawa. I’m pretty sure these are the only two in existence? Maybe I should look that up. I reunited with Emily and Jordan at… You guessed it… A playground! This one was themed on the spider and had webbing all over the place, even to the slides. Very cool.

The highlight for Jordan is the giant puppy in front of the Guggenheim made out of flowers. That was our last stop before heading into the museum proper. The building itself is absolutely magnificent. The art inside is… Modern art. We went around all of the galleries in about an hour and nearly everything was like “seriously?” Though some of it was very beautiful like the wire art gallery. But one of the sculpture areas had this quote on the wall.

Richard Serra revolutionized sculpture as one of the first artists to free it from the pedestal and from its condition as a self-contained object bearing meaning.

Like wtf? How ridiculous. Emily asked me afterwards “what percentage of people actually see modern art and like it? 5 percent seems too high.” And it is hard to disagree. So we gave it up and we went to find gelato instead which was fortunately right across the street. After that delicious stop, we grabbed the bus back to our apartment to call an early night.

Fortunately, the rest of the train ride was uneventful. The long break at Miranda de Ebro was, in fact, just a smoke break or a schedule catch up. Sadly, despite that being just 84km from Bilbao, we still had 2 hours of the journey left. Kieran was slightly kicking off, so we moved away from our Russian friends to a 4-seat area with a table and played some cards until we arrived.

Bilbao itself gave a… Not so great first impression. As we left the train station, it was pretty dimly lit and mildly creepy as we walked to our VRBO. There were a lot of 20-something guys just hanging out on the streets basically the whole way, a far cry from the families and mixed groups that we saw in Madrid nights. Despite the gruelling hill with all of our gear, we made it to our apartment without difficulty.

The apartment itself is smaller than our one in Madrid, but has the bebefit of two bedrooms. This puts an end to the late-night carrying of Jordan from one bed to the other. The fridge is also pretty small, but enough for the water we have been refilling! It was very late though, so straight to sleep for everyone.

Morning Bilbao is much nicer than 11pm Bilbao. We took a wander through the old town, making the obligatory stop at the Cathedral of Bilbao and the sister church that had entry included. The cathedral was much understated compared to the ones in Madrid and Toledo but was of course still beautiful. And it had lemon trees in the cloister!

Tge second church was even more spartan in it’s adornment, so we didn’t t end up spending a lot of time there. Next door, however, is the Ribera Mercado, the (allegedly) largest food market in Europe. We saw all sorts of fish, cheeses and meats for sale. We. Made our way to the pintxos area and got all sorts of great goodies. One black ink squid croquette died my teeth black (and somehow neither Jordan nor Emily partook in that one). But there were great little bites of shrimp with guacamole, battered cod and the star of the show, scallop in garlic. Washed down with Sangria, of course. Even Jordan tried her first sip of sangraia, which she enjoyed immensely.

Aftwr lunch at the market, we wandered around the souvenir shops and found, of course, a playground for Jordan to burn off some energy at. This was a great playground overlooking the river and a building that was maybe City Hall, with the train station across the street. Lots of kids were out and about. From there, it was more shops on the way back up the hill to our apartment. The most peculiar shop is one purporting to sell good luck charms consisting of famous people taking poops. And yes, the figurines did in fact include the outcome of these poops. Notably, the Donald Trump ones were sold out. Weird. Casting the crazy pooping statues aside, we made it back to the apartment (up the hill again!) to partake in the gray Spanish tradition of the Siesta.

Except Jordan didn’t want to, which was lots of fun to navigate. Saturday night in Bilbao is apparently the best night, so we wanted to be all prepared for it in our fanciest outfits that we brought. So we headed out agai n into the old town in search of a place to get food. And we fiunda restaurant themat was right next to a playground whichever ended up being perfect. Emily and I had our glasses of wine and sangria while Jordan ran around like a lunatic. We did get some food there (Kieran went gaga for the guacamole) which allowed Jordan to come in for some pitstops to charge up. Honestly, the vibes here were perfect, and we were definitely not the only parents doing this.

From there, it was time to find the national dessert of the Basque region, Basque Cheesecake. We succeed in this, though I think regular cheesecake, especially those made by Grandad are better than the Basque variety (but don’t let them know I said that). We continued wandering and hit up yet more souvenir shops, some of which had really banging playlists, allowing us to continue the vibes. The streets and alleys of Bilbao have really come alive by now, around 9pm.

We stopped at one more place to get Jordan some nuggets (and Emily and I more wine and Sangria)to finish out the evening. Then we made it back up the hill for the late Spanish bedtime of 10pm. All goes to show that Bilbao makes a much better impression than the train station arrival!

I have to start with a slight addition to yesterday’s post that drove some the quest language. Toledo is the home of Miguel de Cervantes, the writer of Don Quixote. The city was dotted with statues of the characters from his book and filled the souvenir shops alongside the swords, knives and other Crusades-adjacent paraphernalia.

With that out of the way, I can talk about our most chill day of the trip so far (despite the still scorching temperatures). It actually started at 3:30am when Kieran woke up in time with us getting a text that our bagge was finally available at the airport for pickup! So once the actual morning came, I got a transit day pass and took the train to the airport. Finally, our bags were in fact there, so I lugged them back to Plaza Mayor with one on my front and one on my back. Still more convenient over the cobblestones than a rolling bag would have been!

The timing of my return was such that we actually had checked out already. But don’t worry, Emily , Jordan and Kieran got a head start on the day and I found them at the Crepes place in our little plaza (next door to the place we got paella the other day). I’m told that they saved me a half-crepe, but I think I might have been slightly shortchanged. No hard feelings as I mostly wanted the iced coffee and I hear Kieran was probably the one to blame as he loved the lemon crepe.

From there, we had one last sight in Madrid that popped up for us to go visit. So it was a short metro ride over to Plaza de Espana where Jordan once again flexed her photography muscles by getting a picture of Emily, Kieran and I in front of the fountain there. We passed an amazing looking playground, but Jordan was so excited by our destination that she didn’t even flinch towards it (though she definitely noted it for coming back to!). Signs pointed us to our destination, which was noted only as a 5 minute walk away.

That is good because Emily and I now we’re carrying our 45L backpacks and the stroller was loaded not just with Kieran, but our entire assortment of other bags including the diaper bag, Emily’s purse, our two baby carriers we brought, the Primark bag with our replacement clothes and a grocery bag filled with water and the remains of the soft drinks I picked up that first day. This full Beverly Hillbillies look was cemented when Kieran went into the carrier on Emily and we put the two backpacks in his seat.

But that move to the carrier meant that we had arrived at our destination, the Temple of Debod. This is an Egyptian temple in the heart of Madrid that was gifted the the Egyptian government back in the 60s. It was certainly out of place, but it is definitely very cool and Jordan loved seeing it. There is free entry available, but it was sadly full for the day.

So we continued waking around the gorgeous park. This is set a little down the cliffs from the palace and cathedral we had visited a few days ago and had an incredible view up towards them and outwards to the other major park in the west. Notably, the horizon was much further away and we could properly see the hills in the distance, There was a trumpet player doing some covers of Queen, The Beatles and others, so we grabbed a spot near the lookout point and enjoyed the amazing breeze.

Fortunately, other than our train to Bilbao at 5:40pm (fortunately not cancelled as part of the Renfe strikes!) and the desire to go to the epic playground, we were in no hurry. Many others in the park were also enjoying the combination of trumpet, shade, breeze and view, so we just hung out for a while. We did have to hit the playground though, so we eventually had to pack up the hillbilly mobile (Kieran was freed for the hangout and then went back in the carrier after he tried to eat the dirt) and walked back to the playground.

The centrepiece of this playground was a two story slide coming down from a tree house. Needless to say, Jordan really enjoyed that. The slides were unfortunately made out of metal, so some of them were quite hot to the touch, which is why I think it was technically closed, but everyone ignored those signs. She also made herself dizzy by going on the spinning discs, which seems to be a popular fixture in Spanish parks. Kieran made friends with the Mexican lady sitting next to us who spoke English and whose 4 year old son has been obsessed with Canada since they visited Vancouver. He kept bringing over maple leafs and saying “Canada leaf! Like Air Canada!” And then flouncing away to find another. I think he may be Air Canada’s number one most satisfied customer ever.

Emily found a great little lunch place right around the corner from the playground. It purported to be a Mexican-Lebanese fusion taco shop, which was a bit of an oversell given that none of the tacos on the menu had any middle eastern flair and it seemed to extend as far as having falafel croquettes available as an appetizer. But the tacos they did have were great, and even better, they were only €1 and €1,50! They were small, so Emily and I got 6 each in the end and the €5 margaritas ended up being the big ticket item (and Jordan’s sparkling water was €3. Unsurprisingly, Kieran liked the beef leftover from Jordan’s one taco that she only ate most of. A total steal at just €29.50 for the whole meal.

After a short trip back to the playground because it was so close, we donned the backpacks again (Kieran now back in his stroller-chariot) to get through the Metro system to the Chamartin train station. This was remarkably early for a train arrival, but we wanted to avoid any chaos from the strike and hit up a well reviewed super market to get meals, snacks and water away from the train station markup. All told, we went through security (still so weird) with an hour to spare.

The station was incredibly chaotic. Maybe it is always like this, or maybe it is the strike, but it was like watching swarms of insects moving about as they announced platforms with just minutes before departure. Ours was no different, though additionally confusing, as they had combined the service of one of the other reasons into ours AND there was a delayed train going to the same place as the one they combined into ours that left that the same time. Very confusing, even for the locals who overwhelmed the staff to clarify the details.

After our turn to be swarming insects, we got into the train successfully. Except that there was a Russian guy in my seat. He had graciously left the aisle seat opened, which worked well enough. He moved to a different open seat after the train departed and I reclaimed my window seat. I think there’s a metaphor in here somewhere about Russians taking space that doesn’t belong to them, but I will leave that to you to fill in the rest.

I am super glad I got that window seat back though, as the whole train ride has been going through incredible terrain. First, it was rolling hills, some of which had solar panels or wind turbines. Then, it was open fields where villages would pop up and disappear as we travelles at 250km/h (just shy of the Japanese Shinkansen’s 300km/h, but still extremely fast). One random giant church was in the middle of the field surrounded by nothing.

After one of the stops, we went very slowly (10km/h!) through a weird building and heard some thunks and grinds from below us, after which we never got back up to our previous speeds. I then remembered a fun fact about the Renfe Avant trains. They are unique in that they can use both high speed rails and conventional rails. So that building we went through was changing our gauge to match the conventional rail system for the rest of our journey. Very cool, and we still hit many periods of 150km/h, which Via Rail can only reach on its very best days.

And we definitely didn’t mind, as the fields started getting full of thousands of sunflowers. Those gave way to incredible mountains with steep cliffs and we passed through right between two of them. Insanely beautiful views that our cameras couldn’t capture nicely because of the glare from the lights inside the train. As Michael Downie likes to say, you just don’t get views like this from a plane.

This has all combined for a pleasant enough train ride. Our grocery store pickups were pretty good, and Kieran particularly enjoyed his pasta Bolognese. Though as of the time if publishing, there are still two hours to go followed by an 11pm, 900m walk to our apartment in Bilbao. So I’ll update you in tomorrow’s post if there was any further difficulty, but hopefully not (that said, we have been sitting at Miranda de Ebro station longer than any of the others so far… It’s probably just time for a smoke break, right? Right?!)

Another day in Spain, another day without our bags. Fortunately, we did choose places that have washing machines, so we are not stinky messes (at least beyond the regular amount from walking in the 38 degree weather). That means that it is full steam ahead with our regularly scheduled programming, which is a day trip to Toledo just south of Madrid.

We hopped a short metro ride to the Atocha station in Madrid. This is really four train stations in a trenchcoat. The ticket machine wouldn’t give us tickets so we had to go to the crazy ticket counter. Once we figured out the correct slip to take, we made it with time to spare, but it was definitely dicey for a hot minute.

Somehow, the more difficult part was actually finding the right gate to get into our train. After trying the long distance (wrong!), the medium distance (wrong!) and knowing that the we weren’t on a commuter train, we finally found the right place. All the faffing about at the ticket place and with the wrong gates meant we actually cut it pretty close, but we did make it through security (a weird feature of Spanish trains) before they had announced the platform, so no harm ultimately.

The train ride itself was smooth and peasant and we slid into Toledo station at 11am. The station itself is pretty removed from the Old Town, and most tourist blogs say that it is an easy 20 minute walk. We opted to pay €1.40 each (and free for Jordan and Kieran) to take the city bus right to the Alcazar. This may be the best €2.80 I have spent in my entire marriage, as the walk was fully uphill in the blazing sun would have been brutal for the prospects of the rest of the day.

Having been dropped off right in the heart of town, we… Went to the library! It turns out the part of the Alcazar (the fortress where Spanish rule eminated from for centuries) into a public library. The views here looked over the whole city, which was breathtaking. We identified our next location, which was naturally the Cathedral and made our way there (with a pitstop to look at the view of the beautiful valley).

The signage of where to buy tickets was very unclear and we ended up plaza surfing and ending up right back where we saw the first sign. Oh well, at least there was a violinist doing a Pirates of the Caribbean medley which was great. The cathedral itself was as excellent as expected. The altar especially was crazy beautiful, made out of gold and stretching most of the way to the very high ceiling. Definitely worth the price of admission. Kieran liked looking around.

We were pretty hungry, so started our quest for food, but stumbled first upon the Cuevas de Hercules. It was a free mini-museum of the old Roman well system dating from about 1AD. Jordan reveled in the ancientness of it. Kieran also enjoyed it from the carrier, which was necessary for the extremely narrow spiral staircase.

After finishing that quickly, our quest for sustinence was sidetracked again, this time by some Italian children in the alleys of Toledo. They were lost and pointed to a number on their necklace for us to call. Unfortunately, the teacher on the other end who picked up only spike Italian and Spanish. Emily managed to communicate our location and the kids were collected successfully.

The final step of our quest was to find a place that wouldn’t be a massive tourist trap. We ended up back at the main square, which was not conducive to that objective, so we headed down a random alley and found a tapas place that looked good. And it was! We got some venison croquettes (which were fine, but Kieran went bananas for them!), fried eggplant in a peach and honey sauce (an amazing combination) and some great calamari. Even Emily partook in the calamari, which is usually a food outside of her repertoire. Jordan finished one of her two pork skewers and we washed it all down with a delicious lemon slush. And the price was only €35 total! Amazing value, considering €12 of that was the slush drinks.

After lunch, it was time to hit the souvenir shops and another free museum. That one was a weird mix of ancient ruins from the Roman and Moorish periods and then modern art. Like a pile of five skulls with clown nose level modern art. And two big ducks next to a life size gummy bear. I think the number one statement of people leaving that museum was “at least it was free!”

When we took the bus up to the old town, we had resolved to walk back down. It was quite the trek and our decision to take the bus up was vindicated both by the exhaustion from Jordan and the distraught looks of the climbers making their way up the hill. The view from the old stone bridge over the river made the walk down worth it, though! We also managed to scam our way on to the earlier train back to Madrid with seconds to spare which was very good as Jordan was melting down both figuratively and literally.

Being back in our Airbnb meant it was time for the next round of the world’s worst game – “What will Iberia say this time when we call?” Shockingly, they were once again inconclusive of when we would have our bags and that they should be in Madrid now, but that the airport has to security screen it before passing it off to Iberia for delivery. This prompted another trip out for Emily to try to find a new bra, which was ultimately (and shockingly!) successful. Seeing the price tag, hopefully Iberia compensation and TD lost baggage insurance comes through!

That happy occasion called for some dinner. We opted for a “Tortilla” place, which served what were effectively egg pies in potato pastry. It does sound better in theory than in practice. Maybe of the eggs were cooked more than “fully runny,” then it would have tasted a bit better. Kieran loved the egg and onion filling, though and couldn’t get enough of it. I was definitely let down by the roasted red pepper, goats cheese and spicy chorizo version that sounded like it should be amazing.

We made our way back for the final time and played yet another roubd of the world’s worst game. Somehow, 12 hours after the bags landed in Madrid, Iberia still haven’t been given control of them. Emily went what could only be described as “full Laura Wilkinson” on them, attempting to impart the knowledge that we are leaving Madrid tomorrow and they need to sort their shit out. In happier news, our train to Bilbao is on the list of trains NOT being cancelled due to the strike. So we shall drown out sorrows in the shockingly tasty €2 bottle of wine.