France - Spain from a customer

Balmes in Barcelona was located pretty well, and was a solid B on the European scale It had a small room, but it was pretty nice.

Hotel Tryp Cibeles in Madrid was outstanding and rated an A+ (on the European scale). Almost as nice as an American hotel, located exceptionally well and a great view. It is a very good choice for anyone travelling to Madrid. Easy walking distance to Plaza Mayor, the Palace and the Pullmantour center. Even the Prado if you are a walker. I can't say enough good about it.

Castiglione is a C hotel. It did the job, but was extremely small and overall, just average. Expensive for what it was, in my opinion. The good thing about it over the Sheraton was location though. It really was right at the Louvre which was good for us, and also within easy walking distance to the CityRama tour office and Champs Elysees. I would think a better
hotel could be found for that $ though.

Some other tips. Spain was not at ALL concerned with shorts or sleeveless shirts in the Cathedrals. I'd advise people going there to pack for HOT weather (we saw 110F some days, but as they say, "it was a dry heat, so it wasn't terrible") and pack shorts. Something I'd consider if you are REALLY worried about not getting into a cathedral is those tear-away pants where you can unzip the bottom of the leg and turn them into shorts, then zip on the legs if you needed long pants for anything.

As for the cities. Barcelona is REALLY neat. The Panoramic tour we took
was nice, and the Pueblo Village was neat. Good way to learn your way
around a little. You must see Sagrada Familia and the Cathedral there.
Also one we stumbled on because it looked interesting in the guidebook was
Park Guell. AMAZING. We were so astonished when we got there. Cab rides
were dirt cheap in Spain. Take cabs. Our most expensive cab ride across
the whole city was something like $4. Average fare was under 500 pesetas or
about $3. Cokes were cheap there too - unlike Italy and France where they
rape you for tourist drinks. Coke was maybe 75 cents to a dollar in Spain,
where it was $3+ in Paris!

Another spot worth seeing is the Casa Mila. It is a house built by Gaudi
(he designed the Sagrada Familia and the Park Guell, he is Spain's version
of Michaelangelo I suppose - really a genius). We got there and saw they
were working on the outside and thought, "well, that is a bummer." Turns
out, you can tour the inside and roof of the house and it is very neat. We
were glad we did it. I recommend asking lots of questions and being nosy and persistent. We discovered a lot of things that way. We got to go on the
roof of the Cathedral in Barcelona by asking what a door was opening to, and
turned out for a couple of bucks you could go on the roof. Pretty neat.

Another thing the tour books do NOT give justice is the St Pau Hospital. We
literally stumbled on it while walking near the Sagrada and it is beautiful.
It was designed with the idea that patients heal better surrounded by
beauty. It is awesome. And you can wander it freely and take pictures, at
least we did!

A note of warning, the moron chick at the train station in Barcelona very
nearly convinced me to pay for the train tickets again (I showed her we had
paid $67 each for them, but she wouldn't listen) and she was telling us the
8:30am was full and we would have to leave at 10:30. At the last moment,
she looked at the LAST page in the ticket book, and saw whatever she needed
to see and then everything was all right.

Might want to make sure that travellers know to show the last page, and not
just the two ticket-like stubs with the prices on them to the person at the train gate, at least in Spain. It was really her fault though, she works
there every day and sees a million tickets, she should know what to do. We
just got a dumb one I guess.

Train ride was ok, boring but uneventful and pretty to see the countryside.
No complaints.

Madrid is beautiful, but I found it immensely frustrating that in the
Palace, in most of Toledo and in the Prado, they were NAZI-LIKE about not
wanting you to take pictures with a flash. That sounds reasonable, because
they say it hurts the painting, but when you get to the LOUVRE, the most
awesome museum in the world with some of the most awesome paintings in the
world, they let you flash away. I think the spainiards are morons in that
respect.

My suggestion to anyone wanting good shots of Madrid/Toledo and museums
there, is to bring one of those digital video cameras and use it instead,
then make pics of your stills. That would be my only real complaint about
Spain. Overall, I loved it. It was beautiful and interesting, particularly
the Gaudi stuff in Barcelona.

Also, we spent an afternoon wandering from Cathedral to Cathedral. We did
encounter some that were closed in August. We saw that sort of thing
occasionally, but not enough to matter in my opinion. One thing to advise
anyone going there, is to see the San Miguel Cathedral. It is NOT on any of
my tourist info and it is very close to Plaza Mayor and BEAUTIFUL. Not as
big as some, but very pretty. We just came upon it and were astonished when
we walked in.

Toledo is skippable if you ask me. It was beautiful, but much like Pompeii
from Rome, not worth the travel and hassle factor. Also, I wouldn't bother
with transfers FROM the airport TO the hotel on my next trip. You're not on
a time limit, so why bother? But we really liked the transfers TO the
Airports and train stations. It took the worry out of getting to a time
sensitive place out of the equation.

Paris was Paris. You can't go wrong visiting it. I think I already told
you, but the Eiffel Tower dinner/Seine River Cruise/Moulin Rouge tour by
CityRama was excellent. Highly recommended. At dinner they put you at tables with people who speak your language, so we were around an Aussie
chick, some Americans and some British doctors (husband and wife) and it was
lots of fun to be able to talk to someone else in English again. Plus we
all got tanked and we have some really HORRIBLE pictures of a blurry Eiffel
tower at night and the blurry Seine river tour because we and our english
speaking friends were so tanked! But we had fun!