Topic Wiki

Still in progress... 3.5 weeks done, 2.5 to go!

As per a great suggestion from Joe, here are the links to each city's TR:
Israel: Part 1
Israel: Part 2 (very short)
Israel: Part 3 - Eilat
Israel: Part 4 - Ein Gedi/Dead Sea
Madrid
(Pics from Israel and Madrid)
Barcelona
Seville
Gibraltar
Rome
Florence
Pisa
Venice
Switzerland

Trip planning thread: http://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=37776.0
There you can find all the info about how I booked what. May take some searching in there.
« Last edited by @Yehuda on October 29, 2015, 05:06:09 PM »

Author Topic: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report  (Read 144364 times)

Offline Yehoshua

  • Dansdeals Lifetime 10K Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Aug 2011
  • Posts: 10219
  • Total likes: 233
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #120 on: July 27, 2014, 01:38:37 PM »


Barcelona

When we landed, we went to the info desk and found out that it would be 2 trains to get to the hotel, so we opted for a taxi that “should be 30”...

Nice installment! Can't wait for the rest!

Offline sruly101

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 2332
  • Total likes: 3
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 0
    • View Profile
  • Location: NY
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #121 on: July 27, 2014, 01:47:20 PM »
Nice!! waiting for the rest!

Offline SOS

  • Dansdeals Platinum Elite + Lifetime Gold Elite
  • ******
  • Join Date: Apr 2014
  • Posts: 795
  • Total likes: 48
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
    • View Profile
  • Programs: SPG Gold, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, Avis First, Hertz Five Star, National Executive
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #122 on: July 27, 2014, 01:53:51 PM »
Now we wait a week for the next installment of this serial

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #123 on: July 30, 2014, 11:37:46 AM »
Ha, not a week later! Thanks for the feedback guys.

Seville

Even with missing the BCN-MAD flight, we got to MAD with enough time to go to the lounge, which we got quite accustomed to being there 3 times in 7 days. We had some more hamburger buns with Nutella for lunch and then we were off to our gate. MAD-SVQ was again a 3x3 plane with the middle seat blocked off. No KSML.

SVQ seemed really small and instead of looking for an information desk to find out about public transportation, we just went straight for a cab to the hotel. You should be able to guess my next words by now... Even though the hotel had told me over the phone a taxi should be 22€, it was actually 30€. >:(  :) The ride was just 10 minutes, which made it even more frustrating, but what can you do?

We checked in to the AC Hotel Sevilla Torneo for one night at 10K Marriott and then asked the front desk how to get to the Royal Alcazar. There's a bus that leaves from right behind the hotel for about 1.6€ pp. It probably took about 20 minutes to get to town and then we walked for about 10-15 minutes till we got to the palace.
Nice street in Seville - cool overhanging sheets to provide shade:

There's a huge, and I mean just gargantuan, church complex right across from the palace that alone was very impressive to look at. We continued towards the Alcazar and got in line. After about 5 minutes, someone came up to us and told us they were all part of a group and that we should just skip them. We then walked straight inside to the ticket counter and paid just 2€ each as students! Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was too late to get an entrance ticket to the "upstairs" area which I assume has the living quarters. That's one of our favorite parts of these old palaces (and the Ogden Mills mansion we visited in NY) - we love to see the furniture and all the nostalgia. But anyway, we stepped into the courtyard and looked around. They were in the middle of setting up some sort of dinner there and there was a stage set up with a large screen. Maybe all the dignitaries were coming here tonight! (Ya, sure.) There is no 1 specific way to go here (as opposed to the Royal Palace in Madrid), and with my OCD, I made sure we checked each doorway that led out of the courtyard. The first few doorways on the right side lead you into a few rooms inside the palace. Some large tapestries hung on the walls, but the rooms didn't really blow us away. Then we headed into another doorway which led into a series of large (empty) rooms that were all decorated with different Moorish architecture. The rooms were completely covered from ceiling to floor with crazy intricately carved work and mosaic tiles. Some of the rooms led outdoors to mini courtyards decorated in similar fashion.
Mini courtyard:

After checking out these rooms for a while, we find one that led outside to a small garden with some fountains. That led out back to the much larger gardens where we really began to enjoy ourselves. The first garden area was really more of like a large backyard. Most of it was just grass and trees with a few paths running through that led to different statues and some small fountains. In here we found...
Peacocks!

Boy were those things beautiful! As we moved towards the back of the garden (which btw is enclosed by a castle wall - pretty cool) we started seeing some more fancier-looking garden pieces. There's a maze of tall bushes, but it unfortunately had a complete wall around it of bushes, so you can't try to make it through the maze. :( After that, we chose to turn towards what looked to be the real fancy garden and left the backyard area. This are was much larger and was full of long pools of water, incredible landscaping, rows of hedges shaped beautifully, etc. All the things you expect from a palace garden!
Random nice structure (I think it's just a wall) infront of one of the pools:


We had a really nice time at the Alcazar and probably spent about 1.5-2 hours there. We headed out and decided to walk around the city a bit instead of just calling it a night. We ended up finding our way to the river, passed on taking a cruise, and just enjoyed the views. Seville was definitely one of the most beautiful cities on our trip. We loved walking through the streets. When we had enough, we walked back through the city to the bus stop and took the bus (again, like 1.5€) back to the hotel. At the hotel, we ate the dinner from Maccabi in Barcelona that we ordered to go as we were eating there. We both got spaghetti with garlic and even being a day old and not warm, it was incredible! (Both pastas together were 19.8€.) We really liked Maccabi in case you can't tell. ;)

Friday morning, we took a taxi to Hertz at the Santa Justa Railway Station to get our car to drive to Gibraltar . It cost about 8€ and of course, he dropped us off in the lot for 4 other car rental companies, but Hertz turned out not to be there. We walked through the station and out to the lots on the other side and found it. Things went quickly in there except that they wouldn't honor the USAA underage fee waived deal. Instead of it costing about $145, they wanted $234 and that's what they got. :( At the counter, they said they never heard of USAA and later on I called Hertz and they made me email them my original reservation with the lower price. 2 weeks later, they got back to me and said USAA only works in America and even if the reservation went through online, the international pick-up location didn't have to honor it. Now that I'm home, I'm going to try and fight it a bit more as this happened on my Italy rental as well. The car was nice (a Mercedez!) and automatic :) and we were off! Driving in a foreign country was not the most fun but with Waze, we were able to get onto the highway and once there, I was much more comfortable. RT tolls from Seville to Gibraltar were 14.5€ and gas came out to about $32 on my cc bill although I could have sworn I paid close to 38 euro at the pump. When we got off the highway near the border, driving became more difficult. The road to Gibraltar had a ton of roundabouts and getting and out of them was a bit stressful. But more on that next!
« Last Edit: July 30, 2014, 01:09:16 PM by @Yehuda »

Offline Yehoshua

  • Dansdeals Lifetime 10K Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Aug 2011
  • Posts: 10219
  • Total likes: 233
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #124 on: July 30, 2014, 12:09:04 PM »
Sounds like Seville is really worth visiting. I've never seen anything like those sheets over the street before, cool!  Nice pictures, too.

Offline Joe4007

  • Dansdeals Presidential Platinum Elite
  • ********
  • Join Date: Feb 2013
  • Posts: 4112
  • Total likes: 167
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 11
    • View Profile
  • Location: NY
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #125 on: July 30, 2014, 12:20:20 PM »
Excellent report!

I think it would be a good idea to link all the report posts in the wiki.

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #126 on: July 30, 2014, 12:30:40 PM »
Excellent report!

I think it would be a good idea to link all the report posts in the wiki.
Excellent idea! Also, once I'm done. I hope to bring each city to it's proper Master Thread. (I hope to reword them a bit before doing so as a lot of them reference the previous city and without context I think it can be confusing.)

Sounds like Seville is really worth visiting. I've never seen anything like those sheets over the street before, cool!  Nice pictures, too.
Yeah, if you make it to Spain, I think it's a nice place to stop in its own right + its proximity to GIB (which is a MUST for Shabbos). Too bad there's no Kosher food.

Offline Yehoshua

  • Dansdeals Lifetime 10K Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Aug 2011
  • Posts: 10219
  • Total likes: 233
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #127 on: July 30, 2014, 12:43:02 PM »
Excellent idea! Also, once I'm done. I hope to bring each city to it's proper Master Thread. (I hope to reword them a bit before doing so as a lot of them reference the previous city and without context I think it can be confusing.)
Yeah, if you make it to Spain, I think it's a nice place to stop in its own right + its proximity to GIB (which is a MUST for Shabbos). Too bad there's no Kosher food.
That sounds like a great idea!

We do plan on making it to Spain, maybe next summer, but that's a little too far away to plan just yet. We did fine with our food we brought from home, so I think we'd be fine for a few days without kosher food there.

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #128 on: July 30, 2014, 12:45:09 PM »
That sounds like a great idea!

We do plan on making it to Spain, maybe next summer, but that's a little too far away to plan just yet. We did fine with our food we brought from home, so I think we'd be fine for a few days without kosher food there.
Of course. We did it, too. Just would be nice :)

Offline Yehoshua

  • Dansdeals Lifetime 10K Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Aug 2011
  • Posts: 10219
  • Total likes: 233
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #129 on: July 30, 2014, 12:46:16 PM »
Of course. We did it, too. Just would be nice :)
I know. It's also too bad that there's no real authentic Spanish kosher restaurant in Spain (at least from what you've mentioned in this TR).

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #130 on: July 30, 2014, 12:56:12 PM »
I know. It's also too bad that there's no real authentic Spanish kosher restaurant in Spain (at least from what you've mentioned in this TR).
We didn't come across any, although we didn't go to La Escudilla in MAD or Delicias in BCN. I imagine those are prob not authentic "Spanish" anyway. Could be in other cities like Torremolinos, which supposedly has a few Kosher options.

Offline Yehoshua

  • Dansdeals Lifetime 10K Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Aug 2011
  • Posts: 10219
  • Total likes: 233
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Location: Los Angeles, CA
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #131 on: July 30, 2014, 01:06:24 PM »
Could be in other cities like Torremolinos, which supposedly has a few Kosher options.
Interesting. I've never heard of Torremolinos, although if we go to Malaga it looks like it's near by.

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #132 on: July 30, 2014, 01:11:21 PM »
Interesting. I've never heard of Torremolinos, although if we go to Malaga it looks like it's near by.
It's been mentioned in the Spain thread. Yeah, it's near Malaga.

OK! Just updated the wiki! Thanks Joe.

Also, updated Seville to include the hotel we stayed at and for how many points - forgot to include that.

Offline sruly101

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 2332
  • Total likes: 3
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 0
    • View Profile
  • Location: NY
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #133 on: July 30, 2014, 01:16:51 PM »
Wow nice! cant wait to see the GIB report, planning on doing it, Now u got me thinking of doing SVQ with it

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #134 on: July 30, 2014, 01:35:04 PM »
Wow nice! cant wait to see the GIB report, planning on doing it, Now u got me thinking of doing SVQ with it
Thanks! That's the point of writing these things :)

Offline joey123

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Mar 2013
  • Posts: 1784
  • Total likes: 0
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
    • View Profile
  • Location: Modern Mashgiach at Chovevei (YCT) #ResidentMashgiach
  • Programs: Daven for the Chayalim #IStandWithIsrael
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #135 on: August 03, 2014, 02:38:57 PM »
Need to make some time for going through this thread. Just by skimming it--looks awesome. never too early to start planning a honeymoon ;)
To the nOObs out there, feel free to PM with q's. #AlwaysTakesTheHighRoad #LovesHashTags

Offline SOS

  • Dansdeals Platinum Elite + Lifetime Gold Elite
  • ******
  • Join Date: Apr 2014
  • Posts: 795
  • Total likes: 48
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
    • View Profile
  • Programs: SPG Gold, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, Avis First, Hertz Five Star, National Executive
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #136 on: August 07, 2014, 11:49:27 AM »
Did your td bank atm card work without any fees?
Did you find atm's in Rome, Venice or Amsterdam that didn't charge any fees?

Offline @Yehuda

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Presidential Platinum Elite
  • *********
  • Join Date: Oct 2013
  • Posts: 9701
  • Total likes: 192
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 5
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #137 on: August 07, 2014, 12:27:01 PM »
Did your td bank atm card work without any fees?
Did you find atm's in Rome, Venice or Amsterdam that didn't charge any fees?
Just got my statement and there was no indication of any credits to my account for fees. Will have to call up to find out about that. Noticed random ATMs claiming no fee, but don't remember what cities they were in.

Offline SOS

  • Dansdeals Platinum Elite + Lifetime Gold Elite
  • ******
  • Join Date: Apr 2014
  • Posts: 795
  • Total likes: 48
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 1
    • View Profile
  • Programs: SPG Gold, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, Avis First, Hertz Five Star, National Executive
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #138 on: August 10, 2014, 02:33:31 AM »
@yehuda Where did you daven in Rome and in Amsterdam?

Offline sruly101

  • Dansdeals Lifetime Platinum Elite
  • *******
  • Join Date: Mar 2012
  • Posts: 2332
  • Total likes: 3
  • DansDeals.com Hat Tips 0
    • View Profile
  • Location: NY
Re: @Yehuda's Israel/Eurotrip Honeymoon Trip Report
« Reply #139 on: August 10, 2014, 02:59:08 AM »
We are waiting for the upcoming reports!