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New Years in Spain

New Years in Spain
via Swiss First Class
January 2013

Hospes Palacio de los Patos
Granada

Every now and then you get a clunker. And the Palacio de los Patos was our clunker. Our Virtuoso TA relied on recommendations from Made for Spain on this one, and while the Alfonso XIII in Sevilla and the Villa Magna in Madrid were amazing, this place was awful... and we couldn't wait to leave. And this was in spite of the fact that we were upgraded at check-in without asking to the Presidential Suite in the old villa.

Where do I begin on this one? First, the location was terrible. Three blocks from the start of anything that looked nice. And if you turn the wrong way, dark poorly lit streets with few restaurants or other redeeming features. No concierge and the front desk staff was of little help with restaurants.

Now the room. At first glance, beautiful old historic suite with a lovely balcony. But upon closer examination, cheap worse than Ikea furniture. Few lights and those that were there had low watt bulbs. No desk. No work space. Free open WiFi rendered virtually useless running at a snail's pace. Filthy carpets. A leaking bidet. Designer bathroom with no place to put any toiletries. A heating system performed a 60 second drum roll every 20 minutes during the night. If looks can be deceiving, this is the place.

The Alhambra
Granada

OK it's interesting and historic but I don't know. Maybe I was expecting more.  Although the backdrop and the Sierra Nevada is stunning. Not sure enough reason to make a side trip to Granada though, IMO.

After seeing old town Granada from the Alhambra, our guide suggested that we have lunch there, or at least enjoy the great view back to where we were. Narrow streets and spectacular views...

And a very nice lunch with great views at Las Estrellas Mirador San Nicolas.

More around picturesque San Nicolas Viewpoint in the Albayzín.

Renfe
Granada to Madrid Atocha
Preferente Class
9:15AM-1:35PM
Yup, the local.

Yeah we could have flown, but the last thing we wanted was to deal with another airport. Plus we figured the scenery would be decent. Granada Station is about what I'd expect in Granada.

Well what do you know? Railroad stations have gate lice as well.

Chillin in the Business Class Lounge. LOL.
At the least the ticket office was warm unlike the main hall where all the gate lice were.

Unfortunately this was not the high speed train, nor new seating. But then again, we were all happy just to leave Granada so no one was complaining. And there were plenty of open seats to spread out.

Nice scenery along the ride...

As we had already eaten at the hotel, I wasn't hungry but took one for the team and the photo op.

Up next: Wonderful Madrid and the fabulous Villa Magna.
 

Madrid

We arrived back at Atocha on a beautiful warm and sunny +13 degree C day for our first introduction to wonderful Madrid.  Pics from our drive from Atocha to our hotel.

Hotel Villa Magna
Madrid

We've stayed at a lot of great hotels but The Hotel Villa Magna is one of the best anywhere. What a wonderful combination of luxury, fabulous location, amazing staff and outstanding service. We were offered an upgrade to a larger room but opted to stay in the original room as it faced Paseo de la Castellana.

The view...

We dropped our bags in the room and headed downstairs for an early (by Madrid standards) 2:30P lunch in the Villa Magna's beautiful restaurant.

Food, wine and service from a great staff led by head waiter Marcos.

My sensational lobster cannelloni...

Madrid
Day 1

After lunch, we met out driver and guide and headed out for our introduction to Madrid.

We wound up at Mercado de San Miguel, a wonderful restored covered market where you can not only do your food shopping, but sample fine food and wines from a variety of high end food retailers.

Day 2

Both Mrs. SFO and Mrs. SoCalTravelFriends begged off the morning tour so the guys headed out for another driving/walking tour. Now we're talking... The home of Real Madrid. According to our driver Miguel, the 2nd most popular tour in Madrid, after the Prado... maybe tomorrow.

Then back to the hotel and the tony Salamanca district.

Hey, just like San Francisco.

A stop to warm up for some hot chocolate, basically a melted chocolate bar. Yum. Then a walk thru the Chueca district.

After lunch back at the hotel, we took a taxi for the 5 minute drive to the wonderful Prado Museum. No pics allowing inside.

And back for some shopping near the hotel.

Day 3
Off to Toledo

On our last full day in Madrid, we were contemplated blowing off Toledo as we were starting to get a little "toured out". But we changed our minds after so many people told us not to miss the old capital and home to the largest cathedral in Spain. So off we go again with our driver getting us there in 45 minutes.

What can I say. This setting is spectacular.

And lunch before leaving Toledo.

We were fortunate to get a bird's eye view of the big annual parade honoring the 3 Wise Men.

After the parade, we enjoyed our best meal of the trip at Villa Magna's elegant Tse Yang Cantonese restaurant. No pics as I gave it a rest that night.
 

And before leave Spain, some of us neanderthals would be disappointed without a pictorial review of...

The Girls of Spain

I apologize in advance about the lack of quantity here, but it is indeed a fine line between being subtle and obvious to both subject and Mrs. SFO. There were many other beautiful candidates but I was either forced to forgo a pic or take a pic so fast that it did not come out with sufficient quality to be included. Need to work on this one.

My vote for the guy most likely to succeed tonight.

And the inevitable "do you really want to wear these in public" pics de l'arriere.

This one probably doesn't count since it was a poster in a flamenco shop.

Aeropuerto de Madrid-Barajas
Terminal 4

With a 3:15P departure, our driver picked us up at the hotel around 12:30P.
A short 20 minutes later, we pulled up to the new and cavernous T4. Not many pax at the LAN counters.

But 22 minutes to our concourse?? Don't know about the layout of this place, but we walked for 5 minutes, cleared security, then took numerous escalators just to get to the train. Then hopped the train to the Terminal T4S, 5 minutes and at least 3 miles away from the main terminal. Then more walking, passport control, more escalators, more walking and we were finally in the RSU concourse.

Yep, about 22 minutes later we arrived at the very pleasant Iberia Lounge. Spacious with numerous comfortable seating areas, with full bar and food offerings at each end of the lounge.

Not sure when they use this, but The Bistro was closed today.

A very nice selection of foods. When we arrived, the snack offerings were out.

And at 2pm, lunch...

LAN 704
MAD-FRA
A340
January 6, 2013
3:15P-6:05P
Seats 3AB

After enduring countless intra-Europe fake Business class flights, what a treat to fly a European short-haul route with a long-product. And a new airline... our first time on LAN. Even the boarding process was better than the usual Lufthansa gate scrum where lice block any hope of priority boarding.

A little dated but pleasant and quite comfort cabin and seats.

PDB with small ramekin of nuts. A nice personalized touch as the Purser stopped by to introduce herself to us, acknowledged my OW Emerald status and thanked me for flying LA today.

Although drink and meal service was from the cart, service was outstanding.

The light snack was excellent. Chicken salad including sliced chicken roll with ham, cheese and asparagus.  Chilean wines were offered and the Sauvignon Blanc I tried was quite good.

Impressive array of utensils.

Very nice cheese plate including manchego, blue cheese and spicey chutney.

Mrs. SFO passed on the snack and reported that the bed was very comfortable.

In summary, very impressive service. Good food, wine and outstanding inflight service.  I would not hesitate to fly LA again, indeed would probably prefer them to AA when we go to SA.

Sheraton Frankfurt Airport Hotel and Conference Centre

For anyone with an overnight in Frankfurt, this is a very convenient hotel to use. Even better when, as tonight, it was only $60 and 4,000 SPG points. And even though we arrived at Terminal 2, it was a short train ride and walk across the skywalk to the hotel. Since Mrs. SFO hadn't eaten on our flight, we dropped the bags in our room and headed down for a bite at the hotel's restaurant. For an airport hotel, excellent food and service. Both my onion soup and her Weiner Schnitzel were great. Not very crowded tonight although it was heart warming to see an old Russian man taking his jewel-laden, fur-wrapped grand-daughter on trips with him. LOL. Who says money can't buy happiness?

At 7:30A the next morning, we went downstairs and took a taxi for the short loop around the airport to the FCT. Driver was happy as I gave him 20 euros in advance to make the quick trip.

Lufthansa First Class Terminal
Frankfurt

This was our third visit in the last three weeks. I never tire of this place. Another warm welcome from our PA who took our passports, flight info and one checked bag. After private security, we dropped our bags in our "usual seats" and headed to the dining room for a quick breakfast. Mostly recycled pics from earlier in the month.

During breakfast, our PA came over and returned with our BPs, passports and luggage tag to ORD, and told us that the flight was running a few minutes late and she would come for us at about 8:40A or so. After breakfast, we headed back to our seating area to relax (or so I thought) until departure.

It was around 8:20A when relaxation abruptly stopped as Mrs. SFO casually asks "do you have my jewelry?" For those that have read eightblack's latest classic and the part about the ease and to-the-minute precision timing of traveling solo vs. the challenges of traveling with "the family", this is so apropos.

OK, why would I have your jewelry? Apparently it was my job to remove her jewelry from the safe and hand it to her. I didn't bother using the safe the previous night and didn't even think about in the morning. Oh, crap!

I looked at my watch (8:20A), jumped up and ran out of the FCT. With no taxi waiting (why would they?), I took the elevator downstairs and starting running back to the hotel, dodging taxis and plotting the fastest way back. I still had the key and as long as they hadn't deactivated it, this might work. Amazing it did work and by 8:26A I was back in the room. The room had been cleaned, but mercifully the jewelry was still there... in the open safe to boot. Wow.

I was back at the FCT by 8:35A and naturally, there are two guys in front of me in security, one of whom moved so slowly that he would have fit perfectly in the line to avoid in "Up In The Air". Our now mildly anxious PA (she had asked Mrs. SFO to call me... and what, tell me to hurry?) was waiting for me right after security and we headed downstairs to our 3rd Porsche Cayenne in 3 weeks for the 5 minute drive around the tarmac to A30-something. Pics from last time.

And new ones from today.

Near the gate, our driver escorted us into the lower level of the gate, then up the elevator to mid point of the jet bridge, and walked us down the jet bridge to door of our A321. Another simply wonderful LH ground experience, and the reason I still consider Lufthansa to be the best overall premium travel airline.

LX 1079
FRA-ZRH
A321

9:00A-9:55A
January 7, 2013
Seats 5AC

Still hate the coach seat with an open middle that European airlines get away with calling Business Class, but there did seem to be a little more legroom than on LH. Y was packed but there were only 8 pax in a 36 maybe 40 seat J cabin. Nice newer plane, pleasant FA and a quick 30 minute flight. Amazingly, they even even served a continental breakfast. Sorry, no pics as we passed and I was still trying to recover from my workout, thinking about needing another shower once we get to Zurich. On time arrival, a quick taxi to close in gate A62 and we were in the Swiss First Lounge by 10:00A.

Next up: The disappointing Swiss ground experience continues to underwhelm. Sorry but no amount of better in flight food and service can make up for it.