Topic Wiki

Barcelona
Links to Trip Reports: @Yehuda, Yehoshua, CGR
Kosher Restaurants: http://www.restaurantmaccabi.com/en/
Activities: Jewish Tours in Barcelona, http://www.urbancultours.com
http://www.barcelonadreaming.com/package/barcelona-jewish-tour/
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips: Stay at Hotel Condado it is about a 3 minute walk from the shul (local community), bear in mind there is no eruv, so you will need to either leave the room open or make some arrangement with the hotel, they do not offer keys (or have that option at all)
Public Transport options:
Guidebooks:
Other Tips: Jewish Community of Barcelona (Orthodox): http://www.cibonline.org; Go to the local shul and meet Rabbi Daniel Ashkenazi he is wonderful and quite helpful.

Madrid
Links to Trip Reports: @Yehuda, @Yehuda pics, Yehoshua, @zalc (Mini)., CGR
Kosher Restaurants: http://www.restaurantelaescudilla.com  https://www.pinatimadrid.com/  https://www.pizzeriarimmon.com/(teuda)
Activities: Toledo - a day trip from Madrid to see 2 old Shuls. Can hire a tour guide, Rabbi Hanoka (info@jewishtoledotour.com), which is not cheap, or can take a train on your own. 1 of the Shuls (El Transito) is closed on Mondays. @Yehuda went on a day when that Shul was closed, and the other Shul was really just an empty room and seemed like a Christian organization now runs the center. Without a tour guide, it was hard to get anything Jewish out of our trip (other than an antique store that had some Judaica). But, people who have taken the tour (discussed in the thread) have said it was great! Recommended to go with a tour or not go at all (and ensure to go on a day when both are open!). Report in the thread that the sometimes-closed Shul has audio headsets for use, so that would help. If going alone, you can research the Jewish places at the link HERE
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips: Chabad Site
Public Transport options: Uber works well, as does the subway if you speak Spanish.
Guidebooks:
Other Tips: Jewish Community of Madrid (Orthodox), http://www.cjmadrid.org

Malaga
Links to Trip Reports:
CGR
Kosher Restaurants:
Activities:
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips:
Public Transport options:
Guidebooks:
Other Tips: Comunidad Israelita de Malaga (Orthodox), http://www.cimalaga.es

Seville
Links to Trip Reports: @Yehuda, Yehoshua, CGR
Kosher Restaurants:
Activities: Jewish Tours in Sevilla/Cordoba, http://www.jewishsevilla.com
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips:
Public Transport options:
Guidebooks:
Other Tips: Comunidad Judia de Sevilla, synagoguesevilla@gmail.com

Gibraltar
Links to Trip Reports: Yehoshua
Kosher Restaurants: Amar's Bakery and Coffee shop, http://www.amarsbakery.com/
Activities:
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips:
Public Transport options:
Guidebooks:
Other Tips: Jewish Community of Gibraltar, http://www.jewishgibraltar.com

Mallorca
Links to Trip Reports:
CGR
Kosher Restaurants: Their is not - one restaurant serve felafel it's own by an israeli but no hechsher
Activities:
Hotels:
Shabbos Tips: The Shul its open on Friday night
Public Transport options:
Guidebooks:
Other Tips:
 
4500 IB Avios from anywhere to anywhere in the country
Best way to get around anywhere in this country is by scooter. It is safer driving them there since they outnumber cars by great proportions.
« Last edited by cgr on September 04, 2023, 09:01:01 PM »

Author Topic: Spain Master Thread  (Read 339086 times)

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #220 on: April 24, 2014, 10:03:59 AM »
That's fine. Def makes sense.  But it still doesn't seem to be giving you much time. Especially when you're going on a long adventure. It seems like you'll just be running from one place to the next.  And I am generally a planner as well. Nothing wrong with planning but doesn't mean you have to rush.
Right I understand. I also just realized as I looked over my travel dates that Spain is really the only place I was stingy on time. Spain was not at the top of my list, so when I did decide to include it, I wanted to really just hit the basics. As opposed to other cities like Venice, Rome, Paris and London where I am staying longer than most people suggested. In those cities (my top cities), I'll have time for plenty of strolling/chilling. It's really mostly Spain that will be rushed.

Offline Ergel

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #221 on: April 24, 2014, 01:16:06 PM »
I can tell we're different lol. I'm kinda an OCD guy and need a plan. I would be afraid that if I just showed up in BCN for 2 days, we would slouch at the hotel till noon and then walk outside and perhaps not get to see any of the "touristy" things. People may not always be fans of touristy things, but that's kinda what I want to see. Sure I can walk around and watch the culture, but if I was visiting NYC for the first and probably only time, I think I would want to ensure seeing the Empire State Building and Lady Liberty. I'll catch the crazy atmosphere just travelling to my stops.
Not really. My itinerary in the UK was
London (thursday night to saturday night)
Lake district (sunday)
Isle of Skye (Monday)
Highlands (tuesday-wednesday)
Edinburgh (wednesday night (the fringe) and thursday)

Here's the map https://goo.gl/maps/ArrsK

Just that I traveled at night and had whole days at each place. Traveling on a friday means it's a travel day and nothing else. Taking a flight at 6 PM means you have to start heading to the airport at 3:30/4 and have to start heading back to your hotel earlier than that.
It's about managing your travel and desire to see different things with not being constantly traveling
« Last Edit: April 24, 2014, 01:19:24 PM by Ergel »
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #222 on: April 24, 2014, 01:20:08 PM »
Not really. My itinerary in the UK was
London (thursday night to saturday night)
Lake district (sunday)
Isle of Skye (Monday)
Highlands (tuesday-wednesday)
Edinburgh (wednesday night (the fringe) and thursday)

Just that I traveled at night and had whole days at each place. Traveling on a friday means it's a travel day and nothing else. Taking a flight at 6 PM means you have to start heading to the airport at 3:30/4 and have to start heading back to your hotel earlier than that.
It's about managing your travel and desire to see different things with not being constantly traveling
Not sure what exactly you're responding to...? (even though you quoted me)
European Fridays in the summer are so long that I think I can travel in the morning + do something at the destination. And yes, for the early evening flights, I counted those days as only 1/2 a day. I understand and again, for some locations, the goal was not to relax but to see what there is to see and move on. For the more exciting locations, the plan is to chill a bit more.

Offline Ergel

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #223 on: April 24, 2014, 01:31:16 PM »
Not sure what exactly you're responding to...? (even though you quoted me)
European Fridays in the summer are so long that I think I can travel in the morning + do something at the destination. And yes, for the early evening flights, I counted those days as only 1/2 a day. I understand and again, for some locations, the goal was not to relax but to see what there is to see and move on. For the more exciting locations, the plan is to chill a bit more.
My bad. I thought the quote I quoted was a response to me.
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #224 on: April 24, 2014, 01:33:30 PM »
My bad. I thought the quote I quoted was a response to me.
Oh well I guess it was aimed at both of you. You both suggested I was rushing things, which I guess it does seem like that. Although as I explained here
I also just realized as I looked over my travel dates that Spain is really the only place I was stingy on time. Spain was not at the top of my list, so when I did decide to include it, I wanted to really just hit the basics. As opposed to other cities like Venice, Rome, Paris and London where I am staying longer than most people suggested. In those cities (my top cities), I'll have time for plenty of strolling/chilling. It's really mostly Spain that will be rushed.
I think it's okay to be "rushing" Spain. Additionally, doing 2-3 things a day doesn't seem to be too rushing to me.

Offline Ergel

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #225 on: April 24, 2014, 01:46:24 PM »
Oh well I guess it was aimed at both of you. You both suggested I was rushing things, which I guess it does seem like that. Although as I explained hereI think it's okay to be "rushing" Spain. Additionally, doing 2-3 things a day doesn't seem to be too rushing to me.
Things take longer than you plan. It just seems to me you may be halfway through the week and realize you haven't done much other than travel from place to place
Life isn't about checking the boxes. Nobody cares.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #226 on: April 24, 2014, 01:49:02 PM »
Things take longer than you plan. It just seems to me you may be halfway through the week and realize you haven't done much other than travel from place to place
Well, I knew the whole time that Spain was going to have a lot of travelling in it. It'll be a rough/busy week, but think should settle down a bit after.

Offline gubevo18

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #227 on: April 24, 2014, 03:23:10 PM »
I took an overnight bus(about 6 hrs) from Madrid to la linea( adjacent to gibraltar ) for about 25-30 euro. The company was called daibus. It was very nice bus with outlets and all no bathroom but they stopped at some rest stops along the way. Was very cheap and definitely worth it. Although we were a couple of guys. Can't see anyone with children hacking it.

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #228 on: April 24, 2014, 07:21:28 PM »
Any ideas for a private beach/pool in Barcelona?

Offline gubevo18

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #229 on: April 27, 2014, 04:06:00 PM »
Anybody have an idea how much time I should give myself to go I Toledo and back from Madrid? I have a short stop in madrid and I have already been there for a couple of days but I didn't do Toledo.
Also anybody have any updated info on restaurants in Madrid? Kashrus?

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #230 on: April 27, 2014, 04:11:07 PM »
Anybody have an idea how much time I should give myself to go I Toledo and back from Madrid? I have a short stop in madrid and I have already been there for a couple of days but I didn't do Toledo.
Also anybody have any updated info on restaurants in Madrid? Kashrus?
From my research, MAD-Atocha (the train station) is 15 minutes, and the train to Toledo is 33 minutes. The Jewish area is a few minutes cab ride from the train station. So, I would give 2 hours for the travelling. I would imagine to see the 2 Shuls and the (1?) museum (which is closed on Mondays, btw) would probably take 2-3 hours, for a total of a 4-5 hour trip.

Offline SamKey

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #231 on: May 07, 2014, 03:02:04 PM »
Thanks! Did you have a tour guide? Or just walked through it yourself?
Walked through ourselves

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #232 on: May 08, 2014, 04:25:19 PM »
Just booked train tickets RT Madrid-Toledo.
I found a report on TA how to book tickets directly from Spain's train company, Renfe.com. This report (which was a bit too verbose), as well as others I Googled, warned that booking tickets from Renfe.com is very hard, often gets declined on the payment page, but will come without the booking fee that other sites, like RailEurope, charge. (RailEurope had a 16 eur fee.)
It took me about 5 attempts to finally book. My main takeaways from this purchasing experience:
1) Spanish version of the site - the report said to stick with the Spanish site. When I tried English, it switched back to Spanish after the booking page anyway. Follow the steps of this report or others in Google to help navigate the Spanish forms. I used Google Translate to see what specific lines meant. You will need to enter your passport number, but I would imagine you could make it up. (I wasn't going to play any games with it, though.)
2) Internet Explorer  - the report said IE is the best for this site. Everything seemed to work just fine in Chrome, but the payment wouldn't go through. (Was that Chrome's fault, Renfe's fault, or the CC's fault? Who knows?)
3) MasterCard - the report said AMEX is known not to work, but I tried my Visa 3 times and a different Visa once without success - just got a Spanish error message. I called Chase to confirm that there was no charge even attempted. Finally, I was about to try a different computer, but then just figured I might as well use an MC... and it worked!!

I booked 2 RT tickets for 20.30 eur each, for a total of 40.60 eur = $56.
I think that's a good reference point in regards to countering this comment from upthread:
The major advantage is that he picks you up in a private car in Madrid and drops you back in Madrid. Depending on how many people you are, the train can cost you 100-200 euro.

Anyway, Jewish Toledo Tours wanted 360 euro = $500 and from the comments, it doesn't seem like I'll be missing much by going to the 2 Shuls myself (the museum is closed on Mondays, when I'll be going), so I think this is a much better alternative. :)

Offline LAXtraveler

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #233 on: May 08, 2014, 04:55:00 PM »
Just booked train tickets RT Madrid-Toledo.
I found a report on TA how to book tickets directly from Spain's train company, Renfe.com. This report (which was a bit too verbose), as well as others I Googled, warned that booking tickets from Renfe.com is very hard, often gets declined on the payment page, but will come without the booking fee that other sites, like RailEurope, charge. (RailEurope had a 16 eur fee.)
It took me about 5 attempts to finally book. My main takeaways from this purchasing experience:
1) Spanish version of the site - the report said to stick with the Spanish site. When I tried English, it switched back to Spanish after the booking page anyway. Follow the steps of this report or others in Google to help navigate the Spanish forms. I used Google Translate to see what specific lines meant. You will need to enter your passport number, but I would imagine you could make it up. (I wasn't going to play any games with it, though.)
2) Internet Explorer  - the report said IE is the best for this site. Everything seemed to work just fine in Chrome, but the payment wouldn't go through. (Was that Chrome's fault, Renfe's fault, or the CC's fault? Who knows?)

From what I remember we just bought the train tickets the morning we wanted to go at the train station. It was a non-issue and seems to relieve alot of the hassle you just went through on the Renfe site.
3) MasterCard - the report said AMEX is known not to work, but I tried my Visa 3 times and a different Visa once without success - just got a Spanish error message. I called Chase to confirm that there was no charge even attempted. Finally, I was about to try a different computer, but then just figured I might as well use an MC... and it worked!!

I booked 2 RT tickets for 20.30 eur each, for a total of 40.60 eur = $56.
I think that's a good reference point in regards to countering this comment from upthread:
Anyway, Jewish Toledo Tours wanted 360 euro = $500 and from the comments, it doesn't seem like I'll be missing much by going to the 2 Shuls myself (the museum is closed on Mondays, when I'll be going), so I think this is a much better alternative. :)

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #234 on: May 08, 2014, 05:13:13 PM »
From what I remember we just bought the train tickets the morning we wanted to go at the train station. It was a non-issue and seems to relieve alot of the hassle you just went through on the Renfe site.
Correct, but from the TA reviews of MAD-TOL train travel, I saw enough people posting that they got to the station to find the train sold out. I didn't want to take that chance, I'm also super OCD, and I didn't want to pay extra fees. So, I went through the hassle. :)

Offline moish

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #235 on: May 09, 2014, 06:50:13 AM »
going to the 2 Shuls myself (the museum is closed on Mondays, when I'll be going), so I think this is a much better alternative. :)
when i was there in 2009. the Transito synagogue was closed on mondays, the museum is in the synagogue i believe

 

Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #236 on: May 09, 2014, 06:53:06 AM »
when i was there in 2009. the Transito synagogue was closed on mondays, the museum is in the synagogue i believe
Thanks, do you remember what else there was to do? Is it just 1 other Shul?

Offline moish

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #237 on: May 09, 2014, 07:14:37 AM »
Thanks, do you remember what else there was to do? Is it just 1 other Shul?
theres the other one (Santa Marķa la Blanca) and theres a spot for great views

i didnt realize it was going to be closed on monday, so i went back tuesday morning (which caused me skip the palace in madrid)


Offline @Yehuda

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #238 on: May 09, 2014, 07:22:47 AM »
theres the other one (Santa Marķa la Blanca) and theres a spot for great views

i didnt realize it was going to be closed on monday, so i went back tuesday morning (which caused me skip the palace in madrid)
Right, I land late Sunday night and leave Monday night, so that's not an option. Still think it's worth going for the 1 Shul/views?

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Re: Spain And Gibraltar Master Thread
« Reply #239 on: May 11, 2014, 02:24:05 PM »
Still think it's worth going for the 1 Shul/views?
youre asking the guy who spent a day in Girona