The dates: Wednesday April 29th to Saturday May 9th, arriving on the 30th to Madrid, Barajas airport (MAD) and departing on the the 9th.
The goal is for everybody to show up sometime between 7 AM and 11 AM in Madrid Barajas Airport.
The proposed itinerary is as follows:
Thursday -
Arrive to Madrid airport and we will caravan all together to Berdejo from Madrid.
o Notes: If anybody would like to see Madrid you can fly a day or two earlier and explore Madrid on your own, and you can meet us at the airport.
o Berdejo is going to be our home base. This is the little town where my parents have their country home and it is the main attraction of the trip (in my opinion and the opinion of anybody else I have brought to Spain in the last 12 years). http://www.berdejo.es/
o Berdejo is in the province of Zaragoza, the closer midsize town is Calatayud
o We will be tired and I propose to take it easy the rest of the day, it is a 3 hour drive from Madrid to Berdejo.
Friday -
Nearby towns of Bijuesca, Torrijo, Moros, lunch at the ermita. Baby lamb chop dinner by my father.
o We will explore the nearby region, very much off the beaten path.
Saturday -
Drive to the nearby town of Soria, shopping for dinner with the Spaniards
o I will do my best to get a group of my parent's friends to have dinner with us at their Peña El Almendro (clubhouse), we will be using this facility for the duration of the trip for meals.
· Sunday
- route of the Moncayo, Dinner with the locals
o Moncayo is the tallest mountain of the Central Mountain Range
Monday -
Trip to Sos del Rey Catolico, Uncastillo. Sleep in Anso.
o This will be a 3 day, 2 nights trip to some really amazing areas of Spain that very few people know about.
o Sos del Rey Catolico is the birth place of the King Fernando (the King who sent Christopher Columbus to America). It has been restored as it was 500 years ago.
o We will drive to the heart of the Pirineos to spend the night at the town of Anso
Tuesday -
Pirineos Mountains
o We will explore small towns in the Pirineos, visit a National Park if weather permit or drive to France and have some bread and cheese.
Wednesday -
Loarre (very well restored medieval castle), back to Berdejo
o Loarre is the best preserve Romanic Castle in the world, I will try to get a guided tour of the castle
Zaragoza
o Zaragoza is about 1 hour and 30 minutes drive from Berdejo, it is the 4th largest city in Spain and has its origin from the Roman Empire.
o We will visit the cathedral of El Pilar, La Seo and we will have the opportunity to visit the roman ruins and the buildings from the 2008 World Fare.
o Drive back to Berdejo
Thursday -
Optional tour to a nearby Monastery from Berdejo
Friday -
Open day in Berdejo
o Cooking lessons with my mother
o Farewell dinner
Saturday - drive back to Madrid to depart home
This gives you an idea of the first draft of the trip to Spain. This is basically what I have done for many many friends and family for 12 years and for all of them it was a memorable experience. I think you guys will also love it.
There are a few things we need to talk about:
- The group: I am offering to organize and manage the trip only for the group of people from the November 2007 Costa Rica trip. We have a couple who will be joining us and assisting me with the organization and management of the trip only if there is space.
- Transportation: We will need groups of 4 to share rental cars. I wish I could drive everybody but unfortunately it is not possible. I will need volunteers for driving, especially anybody who has driven non automatic cars in Europe (unless you are willing to buck up and rent an automatic luxury car). Once I get an idea of who is in and who is not, I can start helping to arrange groups. I will coordinate directions and we will have plenty of ways to communicate and make sure nobody gets lost. We will not be doing a lot of driving. The longest drives will be during our trip to the Pirineos and it will not be more than 3 hours per day.
- Accommodations: We will be staying in my parent's house, my friend Steve's House which is a B&B that my parents run and we have other houses of friends that we can use. These are not hotels, they are regular homes so we will have to share bathrooms. The two days we spend in the Pirineos we will stay at small hotels or B&Bs.
- Food: Oh my God!!! Of course the Spanish cooking is the pride of the Spanish culture. I will try to introduce you to most of the typical dishes. My Dad will cook his famous paella, my Mom will cook... everything that there is to be cooked. We usually have one night where we share recipes where we will cook some typical American dishes and the locals will bring their specialties. Of course there will be all kinds of wine tasting every night and my Dad will make the real Sangria with local homemade wine.
- $$$$$: Each traveler gets their own flights. Each car group deals with their car rental cost and gas. Accommodations, food, restaurants, coffee stops and drinks we can pull them all together and I will manage the cost. I will try to get an idea of the estimated cost right away so you can plan around it. I can put all the expenses on my credit card and then do a spreadsheet with explanation of all cost so everybody knows and there are no questions. My parents run the B&B so I will have to discuss a price. The flight from the U.S. will be between $700 and $1000, no way to know how much gas and flying will change in a year. The rental car will be between $500 and $800.
What I need from you:
- I need to start getting an idea of who is in who is not, for now. From 1 to 10, how likely do you think you will be joining us, "1" being remote chance you will join us, "10" heck yeah!!! I would not miss it for anything!!!
- If you are in, will you be willing to drive in Europe?
- Will these dates work for you?
- I need you to understand that this is not an OAT trip, this is a group of friends traveling together and by no means will I profit in any way from this trip. If anything, I am giving up a week of my valuable precious vacation to enjoy another trip with you guys and share my beloved country with you.
- I will try my best to follow the OAT trip style with defined itineraries and schedules for all in the group to follow. I will send information about each place we are going to visit and I will have recommendations on what to bring, etc, but I know I am dealing with some real travel pros, so you can probably give me more advice that I can give you.
- For the Costa Rican's, you are required to bring large amounts of Lizano sauce and Tiger bom, and I promise I will not make anybody stay up late at night looking for pretty frogs to photograph. I really hope you guys come.
Carlos and Sue
8 comments:
Guys, feel free to post any comments here.
Looking forward to seeing everyone.
Sue-
Put us down as a "10". The dates you picked are perfect. Barring any unforseen circumstances we will be coming. Also Gail
and I can drive although its been a while since we used a stick shift.
Do you have any special airlines you use or just the usual suspects.
Looking forward to hearing as the plans unfold.
Don and Gail
You have a 10 from us! I am here to help organize with anything just ask!
Judy Phelan
Carlos – Katalina and Ken are somewhere between an 8 and a 9 on your rating scale. We are VERY interested in the trip!! The itinerary you propose sounds very good and the dates work for us. We’re going to block them on our calendars now. Also, Ken can drive a manual transmission car. We’ve spoken to Don and Mary Lee – who we just visited with in Florida – and with Vickie and we’re all very interested. We actually will be seeing Felcia, Ricardo, Mary Lee, and Don in Minnesota in a few weeks when we are there for a conference and quick visit with Ken’s sister.
One thought we had was that we might want to do some additional traveling once we’ve made the long flight to Europe. Some ideas we’ve kicked around are either a few day trips before or after your itinerary to either Barcelona or to Bilbao. Another thought we had was to visit Portugal – which obviously would take more time. We’re open to suggestions if you think there are other places we should research.
We hope to use frequent flyer miles for the trip – so we’ll probably want to book in mid May before the frequent flyer seats are all gone.
Thanks for your willingness to organize this and for your family’s hospitality. If there’s some aspect of the trip you think we can help out with please just ask. We look forward to communicating with you more about this. We cc’d our work addresses since we check those whenever possible even when we’re out of town.
Give our best to Sue, Judy, and Roberto.
Ken y Katalina PS – Pura Vida!!!
Awesome!!! We are so happy to hear you guys are in.
My advice to you would be to do the north coast of Spain, the Vasque Country (Bilbao) is in my opinion the most beautiful part of Spain. I can tell you a lot of place you can visit and you will love. It is only 2 hours drive from Berdejo to Bilbao. In fact many groups I have taken in the past we have made a short 3 day trip to the wine country Rioja and Bilbao. I have a couple of wineries you can visit that they are incredible, on the way to Bilbao.
Barcelona is an awesome city, from the Vasque Country it will be about 5 hours drive (all toll highway, European style, very fast, great condition). The Mediterranean coast north of Barcelona is very nice too, the home town of Dali is beautiful.
You could do both in a week, Of course you are more than welcome to stay longer in my parents B&B. Usually it is what people want to do once they learn the peace and tranquility of Berdejo.
My older brother lives in Logroño, very close to the Vasque Country and I am sure he would spend some time showing you some of that area. He speaks excellent English.
I will help you planning an itinerary and you will always be able to get a hold of somebody who speaks English in case of any problems (my brothers and friends who live in the Vasque Country)
I will post these emails in the website www.spain2009.blogspot.com, so go in and check it. I will start posting links to cool areas in the Vasque country and the Barcelona Region.
Carlos and Sue
Carlos, what a terrific sounding trip!! We are definitely interested - 8 or 9 - and it would be a 10 except we have a couple of scheduling difficulties to deal with that are in conflict with the dates of May 6th - 16th. We are working on our conflicts to see if we can't free up the time somehow but we wonder if there are alternative ten day windows earlier or later than the one you chose that could work. If there aren't, we could possibly join the group for the first week and then return to the USA on the 13th to meet our other commitments if we can't work around them.
Thanks a million Carlos for all you are doing to put this trip together for our Costa Rica bunch. It would be so great to see everyone again especially when we can share the excitement of exploring your private part of Spain together so we are proceeding on the assumption that one way or the other Mary Lee and I will be there to join Spain Trip Spring 2009 with our castanets in hand!
Pura Vida everybody!
Don & Mary Lee
Carlos and Sue,
It was great to hear from you. The trip you are proposing sounds wonderful and either set of dates would work for me. I would love to travel with all of you again so I would say that I am at least an 8.
My only hesitation is the added expense of traveling as a single. The trip to Costa Rica was my first doing a single supplement but I did it because it was extremely reasonable with OAT. I know you want to limit the trip to the Costa Rica travelers but I am wondering if you would consider my bringing a friend who would share room and car expenses. That would not require any additional rooms or car as I'm sure we would be sharing the car with Kathy and Ken. Of course, I would be certain that the person would be compatible with the group.
Let me know what you think.
Vickie
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