Bordeaux, France

Next stop, wine country!  Although the weather wasn't the best and we were there during the offseason, Bordeaux still offered us plenty of wine to taste!  We arrived in Bordeaux on Friday afternoon and took a bus out to the region of St. Emilion, a medieval town in the Southwest region of France.  St. Emilion was founded in the 8th Century by a monk, Emilion who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock which became the monolithic church.  Other monks followed Emilion and started up the commerical wine business in the area.  We stayed at the Chateau de Mole which is in the Puiseguin-St. Emilion region and run by a lovely woman called, Maryline.  We decided to take a tour of St. Emilion and visited the Monolithic Church, Bell Tower and of course stopped for vino along the way.  The town is small and picture perfect - cobblestone, lamp posts and winding streets.  We ate at Restaurant Le Tertre that evening for dinner and Matt even tried the duck fois gras (which he loved!). 

Our first stop on Saturday was Chateau Beaurang.  This was a small winery that is run by a daughter and her parents.  All 3 of them live on the property.  She showed us how they make wine and that they use mostly merlot and cabernet franc grapes since that's what grows the most in the area.  We did a wine tasting in a room full of barrels.  We were told each barrel holds about 300 bottles of wine...so of course we had to purchase 2 or 3 bottles! 

Next stop was Chateau Fonplegade which was a much bigger operation.  An American couple run and live at the chateau and we had the pleasure of meeting the woman.  Let's just say they've done well in the wine industry - her jewlery was UNBELIEVABLE! A young French woman showed us around the property then took us into the barrel room which was very modern. We did a tasting here as well and really enjoyed their wine!

We loved Chateau de Mole but realized we hadn't tasted their wine so we did the only thing we could - a wine tasting at 10am on Sunday!  Maryline showed us around the small chateau and even joined us for the tasting.  We left quickly after the tasting so we could go check out the city of Bordeaux. We took the afternoon to walk around the city and checked out places like the Place de la Bourse, St. Andre's Cathedral (built in 1096!) and Rue St. Catherine. 

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Madrid, Spain

After seeing some chillier cities in Europe, we decided to take a trip to Espana to warm up a little bit!  Madrid was our next stop at the beginning of Februrary and is a city that only Molly had been to so it was definitely a must-see for Matt.  Add in Alyson Silk and it was another fantastic trip!

We arrived to sunny skies and 65 degrees and hit the ground running with our first stop through Plaza Mayor which is one of the more popular plazas.  We did a lot of people watching and checked out the Casa de la Panadería which sits right in the center of the plaza and houses government offices.  Most people know that Spain is very into their churches so we figured we had to take some time to walk around the San Francisco el Grande Basilica and Almudena Cathedral which are two of the more impressive ones. 

Across from the Cathedral is the Royal Palace which at one point, was home to the royals.  Charles III was the first king to live there but no royals live there anymore.  The building is stunning.  The architecture is unbelievable and the inside was even more impressive - so ornate, and the detail could keep you looking around in there for hours. 

Coming out of the Palace, we passed through Plaze de Oriente, the Senate building, the statue of Don Quioxote (which of course Matt tried to climb on to...but every other person had the exact same idea) and the Gran Via which is one of the main streets through Madrid. 

That night, we met Alyson and Mark at Mark's bar, Barrio Alto. It's a cute little wine bar in La Latina.  Mark makes a mean gin and tonic so after two of those, we were ready to hit up Corral de la Moreria, the home of the oldest Flamenco show in Madrid!  We were lucky enough to have caught the last show of one of the older flamenco dancers who was a dancer for over 40 years there.  Ok, so Molly enjoyed that a little more than Matt - he wanted to see more of the younger women perform!  Overall though, it was a very fun experience.

The next day we headed over to the Prado Museum to take in a little European art.  It's an amazing museum and we really enjoyed it. Afterwards, we took in the city - walking by the plazas and the Mayor's office at the Palacio de Comunicaciones and heading into the Buen Retiro Park.  Our favorite spot was the across from the Alfonso XII monument - the park was just so lively and a great place to do even more people watching. 

That afternoon, we met back up with Alyson and Mark who showed us where the locals eat paella and drink vino and then we did our own little bar crawl around the neighborhood.  We had a great time with them and were so sad when we had to leave for the airport.  Another great trip and thanks to Alyson and Mark we felt just like the locals!

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