Seville-bound

I'm onboard the AVE train from Madrid to Seville.  I scored a seat on the quiet car with no one in my row.  Time to stretch out and watch the Spanish countryside blur by at 275 km/hr (170 mph).  Nice ride!

My cross-country high-speed chariot

Madrid

AC room

After the typical lose a night, get thrown into the next day NA to Europe flight, I arrived in Madrid this morning.  I eventually made my way onto a city center bound train (two trains in a row never turned up), and here I was.  Arriving at Atocha station, I had to navigate what must be the world's largest taxi stand (there had to be 200 taxis lined up), and in fact circumnavigated the sizeable building before figuring out how to exit onto street-level.  Luckily the weather today was beautiful: sunny,  70's (or mid/low 20's depending where you are from), just an occasional cloud.  I checked into the AC Hotel near Atocha  AC is Marriott's new brand, I was surprised at the ultramodern room, glassed in shower in the bedroom with 27 shower nozzles/heads/rain makers.  Very nice.  Unfortunately this is my one day to explore Madrid, so I wanted to make the most of the time I had left.  Already tired, I decided to take a quick shower to wake myself up and head out on foot. 

Art in the Reina Sofia Terrace

I had a general direction where "interesting stuff" might be, but kind of just took it in stumble-upon mode.  First Stumble-upon was the Reina Sofia, part of the Spanish National Art Museum.  Much smaller than its much bigger sibling the Prada (which I knew I didn't have time for), the Reina Sofia has more specialized exhibits and is famous as the home of Picasso's Guernica.  I toured two of the three permanent exhibit floors, and was duly impressed by the size and number of paintings by masters for being Madrid's "Other" art museum.  Many Dali's and Picasso's, and a handful of Van Gogh's, Gaugin's, Manet's, and various other Spanish and non-Spanish artists.  The Guernica itself was impressive as billed.  Its a huge masterwork taking up a wall, and there are many subtleties to the painting that were never apparent to me in pictures, such as the way undersketches had been allowed to come through in places providing additional layers to the work.

Guernica (stock pic . . .no cameras allowed).

I then marched up, up, up the hill in the general direction of the royal palace.  My random walk afforded me some views of family life living in old Madrid, kid's playing football in the street, dogs running around, and grandparents chasing grandchildren.  It was a very authentic experience and probably not one that is found on the typical tourist routes.  I eventually walked into the Mayor's Square, which was surrounded on four sides by an impressive wrap of government buildings.  It reminded me a lot of a similar square I saw in Brussels a few years ago. 

Town hall on the Plaza Mayor

I then continued on my way and found the Palacio Real (Royal Palace).  At first I stumbled on the side of the building and even that was quite impressive, but I eventually discovered how to access the front and it immediately struck me the similarity of this building to another Habsburg palace I visited last year in Vienna.  In fact they must have been modeled after one another so as not to confuse the royal family.  Slowly I wound my way back down the hill, and made it back to the hotel just seconds before I completely collapsed of exhaustion.  I think its going to be room service tonight, then sleep!

Palacio Real -  Habsburg palace number 3 for me

Cathedral near Palace

A neat market I found

España

Today I'm headed across the pond for a quick trip to Spain to attend a conference.  I'm hoping to have a little time in Madrid and Seville to tourist.  I'll brush off my three major words of Spanish: cerveza, banos, and champiñones (as in 'NO champiñones, por favor').

Driving between two giants

I headed out from Hilo around noon, but first I checked out Hilo's famous Rainbow Falls.  Not able to get a good rainbow picture from the typical tourist vistas, so its possible I may have done a little climbing to nab a successful rainbow view . . .

Rainbow Falls

Rainbow angle

Jack Ass crossing sign :-)

Then I headed inland with hopes of visiting the space observatories on top of Mauna Kea.  Driving up Saddle Road which passes in between the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, I was very aware that I could see neither due to the clouds, but I persisted up the Mauna Kea road anyway.  I made it to about 10,000 feet elevation to the astronomy visitors center, but due to the rain and low clouds visitors weren't allowed up the mountain.  I did get to see a movie on the dozens of space telescopes I might have seen, which in itself was pretty cool, and I bought a couple of telescope t-shirts, which went to support the observatories.  I then headed down the mountain toward the northwest coast and Pu’ukohala Heiau National Historic Park.  En route I encountered many of these interesting signs.


Pu’ukohala Heiau was the site of a number of temples for ancient Hawaiians, including the one built by King Kamehameha immediately before his campaign that united the islands into a kingdom.  There were two preserved temples on the site.  There apparently had also been a temple to the shark gods out in the bay which was visible until the 1960's.  After hiking around this park, I headed north up the coast to visit the birthplace of King Kamehameha and sweeping vistas of the Polulu Valley.

Temple built by King Kamehmeha

King Kamehmeha birthplace statue

Polulu valley

Polulu

As I finally headed toward my hotel in Kailua-Kona, clouds were once again gathering.  I checked into the hotel and then decided to get the rental car gassed up and cleaned before carrying my stuff to the room.  Big mistake.  As I pulled back into the hotel parking lot it started to rain, quite possibly the hardest rain I have ever seen.  The water in the parking lot was nearing the middle of the tires of the SUV.  Despite the fact the storm appeared as only a tiny green dot on the radar.  It lasted for almost an hour, during which I say trapped in the car.  By the time I finally waded across the parking lot to the hotel, they were cleaning up flooding in the lobby.  Pretty intense. 

I leave for Oahu in the morning and will be on Waikiki for a couple of days for a conference, and am very excited to get to see Lisa, Andy, and family (previous stars of the July 31, 2010 post).

Aloha!

Hilo

I stayed in Hilo last night.  Hilo is actually the largest town on the island, but is on the wetter and less tourist friendly side of the island, so there are not really any national chain hotels.  I chose to stay in a Hawaiian chain and it really had a personal touch.  On checking two people tag-teamed a five minute introduction to the overwhelming number of features and amenities the hotel has including emergency candles in the room, a museum down one hall, dining options etc.  The hotel was older, but everything was very clean and nicely kept, like there was a pride the people too in the place.  My room had a balcony that overlooked not only the ocean, but also a very impressive Koi pond area (one of the amenities).  I thoroughly enjoyed the stay.

View from my room

I had been very interested to go to Hilo.  Not because there were a lot of things that I wanted to do here, but because it is a place I have heard of since I was a kid.  My grandfather was in the Navy during and after WWII and stationed all over the Pacific.  But one place I clearly remember him talking about was Hilo.  I can't remember the details, but the name really stuck in my mind.  So I decided to take a walk and discover the place.  My hotel was off Banyan Way, a road lined with banyan trees that had been planted by celebrity visitors dating back to the 1920's and 30's.  I kept thinking that it was probable that he had strolled this same street looking at the trees with their celebrity planters, that he may have visited the nearby Liliuokalani Gardens, and walked along the seawall.  It was a nice connection to make to the place.

Banyan Way

Amelia Earhart Banyan

Liliuokalani Gardens

The only other thing I knew about Hilo before this trip was that it was hit by two tsunamis in the 1950's and 60's.  During my walk I saw some memorials to the tsunamis, including the old town clock, which was preserved and still stuck at the time the waves hit from the 1960 tsunami.  It was very sobering to think about everything around me being underwater with buildings and cars and people being dragged out to sea.

Town clock Tsunami memorial

Volcano to the ocean

After I changed clothes in a parking lot and figured out how to hang all my clothes and backpack items around the car to perhaps dry.  I headed south along the chain of craters road.  As advertised there are a chain of craters, lava fields, and eventually sweeping views of the ocean.  Once I reached the sea, I headed east toward the end of the road . . . or at least the current end of the road.  That is to say where the road was ended by a lava flow a couple of years ago.  They actually have the road blocked a mile or two from where the lava flowed, so I parked and started walking.  Eventually there were a series of rough road ahead signs, then I was there.  They had bulldozed a rough road through the lava so that scientists and park officials could still reach the other side.  I decided to follow this and see if I found anything interesting.  A couple of miles in I crested a hill and realized that the lava flow still went as far as the eye could see.  I have to admit when I heard that a lava flow blocked the road, I imagined a narrow stream of lava, not a stretch miles wide.  I knew that it was like 10 miles to the area where lava was actively flowing, so I eventually turned back, but decided to do the return trip out in the lava field proper and saw an amazing variety of lava forms from mounds and pillars to braided ropes.  Very cool.  I even saw a weird turquoise colored lava formation.

Surrounded by lava

Lava flows meet the sea

Where the road was ended

Colored lava

Life finds a way

Swirly lava

Rain and Hiking

I awoke this morning to what can only be described as driving rain.  I got ready, went to breakfast in the Hotel Restaurant. Still raining.  Read a book and caught up on email in the hotel solarium, still raining.  In fact I talked to my waitress at breakfast and the rain first hit yesterday afternoon to the West and apparently washed out the road near the Black Sand beach I went to yesterday afternoon.  Which was when I drove through there, apparently people canceled last night because they couldn't reach the volcano . . . so I must have just made it.  In fact, I do remember it starting to rain as I was leaving (see clouds in pictures).  Thank you lucky stars.

Anyway, around 11 I decided it was enough waiting and headed over to the visitor center and talked to a ranger.  My plan for the morning had been to do the 4 mile hike into and across the adjacent and slightly less active Kilauea Iki crater.  The ranger said it should be doable in the rain, so I went for it.  I bought a "weather-proof" jacket at the hotel gift store and set out.  Within 15 minutes my new jacket was completely soaked inside and out, my shoes were soaked and muddy, but the hike was fun.  On the bright side the rain kept down the crowds and it kept it cooler.  The hike was supposed to take 2-3 hours, I finished in 1:45 and even stopped in the bottom for a while to explore and took a mile or so side-trail to the Thurston Lava Tube near the top.  Unfortunately the rain kept me from snapping too many pics on my phone, but it was definitely worthwhile.  The lava tube was neat, but after the relative seclusion of the crater, I got claustrophobic with the endless line of tourists trying to access this relatively short trail with umbrellas (eye poking deices) in hand.

View of the Kilauea Iki Crater and trail from the rim (look closely, there are people down there).