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Dear
Maribel,
Although
everyone else has already said what I have to say I
feel the need to thank you for helping us on our
first trip to Spain. through tripadvisor I became
aware of your guides. I have been planning our
trip, which we are completing today, since March of
this year. Over the months I have checked out
guides from the library, purchased guides on a whim
(I think I had 10 at the last count) and in the
end, because we are such particular packers,
downloaded your guides onto my Apple notebook and
my husband's iPad, and did not take another guide
with us.
We
have been here 17 days visiting Barcelona, San
Sebastian, Seville, Granada and Madrid. Your food
suggestions really made our trip over the top! We
actually made it a tapas only trip and could not
have been happier. We used your guide daily to
decide where to eat and sometimes what to eat. When
we deviated to our own devices we always said we
should have looked at Maribel's Guides.
Thank you for all you wonderful insights!
Helene, Mobile, AL
AMAZING
Guide!
Just wanted to say THANKS for such an incredible
pack of guides. Even being Spanish (is my case), is
really nice and fully useful to have this reliable
information about the best places to sleep, drink
eat and enjoy. after asking for information about
La Rioja for a wine tour, my friends (from there)
recommended me most of the places of the guide!
Hope your job and invested time is being rewarded
and you continue with new guides all around
Europe!
Congratulations and continue like this!
Luis Garcia, Segovia
Thank
you so much for your reply. I have found your
website to be a great resource and most
informative. Funny enough my husband is a
vegetarian - so appreciate the info there
too.
I
was able to purchase an Estrella fare online after
all. It took quite a bit of effort, credit card
company has to preauthorize for US to Spain
transaction, but it did finally work, so thank you
so much. I had been trying for two weeks and was
only able to figure it out with the assistance of
your information.
With
much appreciation,
Carrie, Bronxville, NY
I
just got back from a 9-day trip to Spain with 5
days in Barcelona and 4 days touring vineyards in
La Rioja (by car). Your guides were invaluable to
me and thanks again.
Jack
Hi
Maribel,
I
have to say that I loved your guide to Spain! My
family and I traveled last year to Spain and used
your guide throughout our stay. It was great! I am
now trying to plan a trip to Paris, France and was
wondering if you have a guide for Paris?
Thank you,
Rosary
Laura
and I wish to express our gratitude for all of your
assistance and the great service that you supplied
in connection with our trip to Spain in July. As
you predicted- we fell in love with Basque Country
and the Basque people. Abalos and La Rioja were
terrific. Our stay in the Pyrenees was all too
short before we had to head down to Barcelona. Our
favorite town nearby in the wine country was
LaGuardia- Laura is already thinking about an
extended trip to get to know that part of the world
as well as San Sebastian a bit better for an
extended time when work commitments slow down for
me in a few years and we can take a month or two
off at a time.
Of course, we did not find the time to do all of
the things that you outlined but experienced many
of them while we explored a bit on our own with the
freedom of the car and some good maps. Food and
wine were fantastic too! But plenty of walking and
other exercise to work it off.
I hope that you had a good summer season with many
adventures and great trips for all of your
customers around the country. At some point we will
discuss another trip with you - this time trying to
make it to see Moorish Spain and places south.
All the best
Glenn & Laura, Park Ridge,
IL
Dear
Maribel,
First off I would like to thank you for all your
advice both written and via email. You helped to
make our trip to Spain such a wonderful experience.
My husband was so impressed that I was able to
connect with you and for all your suggestions and
knowledge.
Thank you for your recommendation for dinner at
Pinera. You were right on. Although the restaurant
was hard to find, we did have an honest cab driver,
who shut off the meter when he was lost. We arrived
early as we still had not gotten used to European
dining times but to be honest we were glad we did.
We had the pleasure of being educated about Spanish
wine by Jorge Davila, the Director of the
restaurant who took excellent care of us. He
suggested and we loved our bottle of Altos de
Losada 2006. We then engaged in a tasting menu,
which was wonderful. It started with an aperitivos,
which showed up in a little fish can but turned out
to be a beautiful tuna with a mussel. We loved the
tartar de atun rojo and bonito ahumado. The tempura
vegetables were delicious and very light. All the
food was beautifully presented. (Foam is still the
rave)
My husband had the Morcillo de Wag-Yu and I had the
Mero Negro. Both excellent. Jorge then presented us
with some tastings of dessert wine. We loved the
vino de Jerez Pedro Ximenez alvear 1927
(px/mantilla) the apple flan I must say was
outstanding. A great finish to great meal. We have
already recommended this restaurant to other guests
at our hotel.
Dinner at Balzac - We arrived early and again were
the only ones there. That worked to our advantage
as Jose Maria Marron de la Vieja took great care of
us. Spain had just won the world cup so likely
everyone was at the parade. While we had hoped to
see it en route, it was delayed and we ended up
watching it on TV later. We had best of both
worlds.
Jose recommended and we enjoyed a bottle of Pago de
Larrainzar 2006. We then engaged in the tasting
menu. While we are not fans of partridge, Jose was
very flexible and allowed for us to have the
sirloin steak, which was cooked perfectly and
sliced. This was a culinary delight! We started
with a refreshing melon soup and tapenade. We then
had one of the best foie gras we have ever tasted.
There was a caramelized finish like a creme brulee
and it was outstanding. The scallop was also
perfectly cooked and delicious. The John Dory dish
was served with a mushroom risotto that was
excellent. The dessert, which you wrote about in
your guide finished our tasting and did not
disappoint.
Dinner at Gelonch - I had found this restaurant on
chowhound and we loved it. It was almost more
entertaining to see how the food would be presented
than eating it. We had the tasting menu and were
happy we did. This food experience was amazing. The
menu we had is online now as the tasting menu. We
were just blown away when the mussels pate came in
a toothpaste tube.
Maribel, we are headed to Beijing this fall and we
are wondering if you have any knowledge or contacts
there that can put us into the same hands of
wonderful chefs. As well we are looking for an
English guide. Thanks so much again.
Lori
Hi ‚ I had learned about your guides thru
Fodor's and we used them extensively on our trip to
Spain I can't thank you enough for putting them
online! They so enhanced the enjoyment of our trip.
I don't think I've ever found any guide to be as
useful as yours were I wrote a note on
Fodor's thanking you, but just saw contact info
Dona, Bethesda, Maryland
Ola Maribela,
My wife found your guide to the Basque country - we
follow your recommendations and thank you for your
insight. We have decided that Maribel does not fail
nor does she disappoint us. Today we are in Neguri
- Hanna who follows Fromers on all of our trips has
not consulted it even once.
Thank you.
Hanna and Alan, New York,
NY
Went to several of the restaurants and tapas bars
that you recommended and can report back that they
were all brilliant. Thanks for all your excellent
help.
Samantha, Oldbury. UK
Maribel,
We don't who or what you are (a fairy godmother
maybe?), but you were the crucial factor in making
our trip to Spain the fantastic vacation that it
was. Just a day or two before our departure, while
searching for info on Barcelona restaurants
recommended by a friend's sister, I stumbled on
your guides. It was clear your take on food was the
same as ours ("live to eat" and not the other way
around) and from this I deduced that your other
tips would suit us too. Frantically, I downloaded
and printed as much as I thought I could squeeze in
the suitcase.
Consulting those pages ("What would Maribel do?")
became our daily sacrilegious joke ...
but it's no joke that you led us in the right
direction every time. From helping us find all the
perfect tapas bars, onward to your detailed walking
directions through Granada's Albaizin, and down to
filling our last morning in Sevilla with a very
satisfying visit to Casa de Pilatos, your advice
was spot-on every time. Thank you, thank you, thank
you. Now that I've had time to actually look at
your web site, I see you lead tours. Hmm! 'Food'
for thought.
With real gratitude,
Holly and Stephen, Livermore, California,
USA
Maribel,
Thank you for your speedy reply to my questions.
I appreciate the input. It is very helpful.
I think we will enjoy having lunch at the
Parador - I've read such good feedback about it. We
are so excited about our trip. We are walking the
Grazalema Park area for 4 days then staying a
couple nights in Seville, followed by Madrid then
Barcelona. I have not been to Spain in 20
years and then it was only the Basque region. So
this is all new territory. Once again, your guides
are most informative and the fact that you post
them is really refreshing.
Kind regards,
Mary
Maribel,
I just wanted to take a few moments and thank you
for the comments you made on Fodors and the guides
you have put together for all to use. You are a
fantastic resource and we used many of your
recommendations for restaurants, tapas and pintxos
bars, walks, wines and so on.
A few comments I wanted to provide based on our
experiences:
Tenedor Tours: This was one of the highlights of
our trip. Gabrielle and Aitor (sp?) were
fantastic hosts. Unfortunately, the chef had
a family emergency and was not able to make it but
Gabrielle filled in wonderfully and we spent a
great afternoon cooking, eating, drinking wine and
most certainly, talking endlessly. We had a
fantastic time!
We ate at several of your recommendations (and
Tenedors from your guide) and your descriptions of
them were right on the money in our opinion.
We ate at Mugaritz, Casa Urola, Kukuarri, Aldonando
(from Tenedor) all in the San Sebastian area.
We also did almost all of your pintxos
recommendations and were not disappointed.
While in the Rioja we ate at Hector Oribe, El
Portal del Echaurren , Asador Txisko and a couple
others that slip my mind at the moment.
The wine shops you recommended, I think we did
every one of them‚ at least it felt like
it. Great recommendations. We did find La
Vinoteca in Laguardia open and were very happy to
find a shopkeeper that spike English quite
well. We were a bit relieved as our Spanish
was not improving very much during our stay.
While in Elciego we stayed at Txoko del
Ingles. This place was fantastic and although
we spoke little Spanish, and the proprietor spoke
little English, we got along just wonderfully and
she was so nice! One item about the "sleepy"
Elciego. It was not so sleepy the last 3
nights we were there. Apparently, there was a
festival going on and they had music, very very
loud music, going on in the main square until 3 or
4 in the morning. It was amazing to see and hear
the friendly folk in the town enjoy themselves. But
we are not quite as rested as we thought we would
be by the time we left to head to Madrid.
Quite an experience.
While in Elciego, we purchased some wine and the
olive oil (Maja) you recommended from La
Ermita. Haven't tried the oil yet but we are
looking forward to it.
La Terraza del Casino (Madrid) –
even though we are near the end of our trip (our
last night) and admittedly, we were getting a bit
tired of the continuous supply of fish, the view
and the experience at this establishment were
incredible! We sat outside on the most
perfect of evenings and spent over 3 hours whiling
away the night.
We went to most of your tapa recommendations on
Cava Baja and were pleasantly surprised with the
quality of tapas. Enjoyed Orixie the best
(the cod tapa with honey was amazing) but they all
had a buzz that was fun to be a part of.
We also went to a few places that we were not
overly fond of but most of them the names escape me
and none of them were your recommendations.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip, due in no
small part to the recommendations in your guide and
the people we met because of them. Thanks
Maribel!!
Tim, Norfolk, CA
Maribel, I just want to thank you for your keen
guidance of which we took thorough advantage during
our recent trip to Madrid and Rioja. You clearly
possess the rare combination of experience, good
taste and common sense. I can't recount for you now
all of the places we enjoyed thanks to your
suggestions, I can only say that starting with the
roast lamb at Casa Brigante we knew we were in good
hands. Our 20th anniversary trip would not have
been the same without your wise counsel. Thank you
barely expresses the gratitude we have, but thank
you all the same.
Bruce, Nashville, Tennessee,
USA
Just wanted to say thank you so much for the
recommendation in the Madrid guide to book train
tickets for Toledo in advance - we'd never have
though of buying them in advance otherwise, and the
trains were booked up on the day so we'd have been
very disappointed without if we hadn't.
Thanks again,
Alison
Maribel, Thanks for all the useful information in
your guides. I see you are following my trip report
on fodors.com.
It was through you that I found all of our guides.
We ate twice in Madrid at El Espejo. We did dine
inside (as opposed to your recommendation on p.
53), as it was still a bit chilly in late April.
The service and food were great.
Thanks for all the great tips.
Norm, San Jose, CA
Hello, I Have completely enjoyed your guides. My
husband and I travel alot, yet we never have been
to Spain. I have never had the enjoyment of reading
a travel guide as much as yours. I am stuck with
one decision. We will be in Madrid, staying
at AC Palacio Del Retiro in Madrid, Palacio de
Santa Paula in Grenada but for some reason after
reading hundreds of reviews I cannot decide on a
place in Seville. I am thinking of Casa del
Rey Baeza, Coral del Rey( worried about reviews
saying bad service), Casa Imperial, Casa NR 7( a
friend told me they are doing construction right
across the street ), Alfonso X111( concerned about
reviews saying rooms are tired, especially
bathrooms. We want a great location, service that
will help us with dinner reservations and
directions and such, and nice rooms . We do not
care about the size of the room, or meals as we
like to eat out and go discovering on or own.
Please tell me what you would do. Thank you very
much.
Best Regards,
Aileen
Dear Maribel: My husband, Tom, and I just returned
from two weeks in Spain, traveling to Madrid,
Toledo, Granada, Alt Emporda and Barcelona.
Your on-line guides, "rife with information and
suggestions" was an invaluable travel source for
us. From hints on getting train tickets to
the best bar from which to enjoy a sunset with a
view of the Alhambra, the sharing of your
experiences, knowledge and expertise proved to be
accurate, reliable, and worthy of note. Even though
we engage in a lot of independent study and
research before visiting a new destination, you
made our journey through Spain a more rewarding
experience. Thank you so very much for
sharing your love of Spain with us and the rest of
the world.
Susan, Davenport, Iowa
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