Sept 16 – 18. Madrid, the capital of Spain. We crammed a lot into just 2 days in this vibrant city. We traveled by train from Sevilla and rented an apartment close to the museum district and the Atocho train station. This was a good location for a stay in Madrid. A short walk on the other side of the Reina Sophia museum we found neighborhoods with many bars and restaurants for evening stroll. However they are all small with only a few tables. After 9:00pm it was difficult to find a place with an open table for four. If you saw a table, you grabbed it and didn’t evaluate if the food was going to be worthy!
We ate lunch near our apartment after an early checkin. We have found that we typically get the worst table when we walk up to a restaurant. At least this one was outside albeit near the dumpster. Zoe’s fish was fried with its tail in its mouth. Lunch was filling and Bill and I skipped dinner that night — we were exhausted and we have been eating way too much every day.
Madrid is a huge bustling city and we decided to take the Hop On Hop Off bus to get oriented and give our legs a break. This was a good move and gave us some perspective on the city. And a bargain for seniors for 9 euros each! We used the taxi system extensively to save our feet. Every ride has been 8 to 10 euros for the four of us. Few of the drivers speak English but we muddled through with our Spanish.
Saturday was our one full day in Madrid. We started at the Mercado de San Miguel. For most of its history this market was a traditional wholesale food market but is now a fancy “gastronomic” market with expensive tapas, fancy bars and lots of seafood. Everything is pre-packaged and ready to eat. We tried a few things but really were not up for seafood for breakfast.
Nearby were some of the famous plazas and pedestrian streets of Madrid – Gran Via, Plaza Mayor, Puerto del Sol. Busy with LED signs on historic buildings, lots of people out on a Saturday, restaurants galore and and the usual tourist shops.
Chocolateria San Gines is a recommended Madrid stop for churros dipped in hot chocolate. The line to get table service was very long, maybe a hundred people. However, take-away was much faster and there were tables inside where you can stand and enjoy the treat.
We ended up back near the Prado for lunch at Cafe Murillo. Being stuck in the far back room was compensated by a lovely lunch.
We had a timed entrance to the famous Prado Museum, with 3 floors of important artwork, many of them famous Spanish works. The 1.5 hours we spent was not near long enough but gave us a taste of their collection. The Prado’s website has images and descriptions of much of their collection at www.museodelprado.es/en.
We said goodbye to Ed and Zoe on Sunday as they started their uneventful trip back to Pensacola. Sunday morning in Madrid found us in El Rastro neighborhood for the weekly flea market. As much as we like antique shopping, we found nothing worthy to take home. Fun experience to wander through the narrow lanes in the old neighborhood. When we told Marta’s mother about our wanderings at El Rastro, she laughed out loud. She and her husband were there many years ago and she wanted to buy a used apron. He gave her some cash to buy the apron (maybe 10 pesetos) and she later found a treasure in the pocket of maybe 5000 pesetos! I’m sure the apron is long gone but that story still makes her smile.
An afternoon train ride from Madrid Charmatin station took us to Vallodolid to meet our friends Marta and Jose and explore their hometown.