We had a nice time exploring the city and eating tapas up to our eyeballs. No complaints here about that. After I arrived on Friday, Todd and I met up at our hotel in the city center and then went out to explore. We started at my (now) favorite place in Madrid, the Mercado de San Miguel. The Mercado is a huge indoor market with loads of food and drink and market vendors. They have tons of small options where you spend a euro or two and get a little sandwich or a plate of tasty olives. They have plenty of drink options too from designer coffee to fresh-made sangria to beer. I could live in there!
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| Chorizo! |
After filling up at the Mercado, we took to the streets to explore a bit. Madrid has plenty of cool architecture to take in, here's a few of the spots we stopped along our walk.
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| Palacio Real, the Royal Palace |
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| Catedral de Santa Maria la Real de la Almudena. Excellent tongue twister. |
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| The palace has a great view over the valley. |
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Later in the evening, after a brief siesta in the hotel, we went to the neighborhood called La Latina. This area is known for its many tapas restaurants. And it did not disappoint, there were spots to eat everywhere.
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| Notice all of the ham. This stuff is everywhere. |
We didn't go here, since it looked a little too club-y for what we were envisioning for our night, but the name is pretty great.
On Saturday, we decided we'd go on a guided tour of the city since they usually offer a nice way to learn some interesting tidbits about a city. And this tour did not disappoint. Our guide Connor was fantastic.
During the tour, Todd was made a star as he was called on to act out the role of a crazy Spanish King. He did well, and I'm just bummed that he had the camera so that I couldn't take embarrassing photos of him. Here's some additional photos from our tour.
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| The Guinness Book of World Records has officially certified this place as the oldest restaurant in the world. |
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| Plaza Mayor (yes, at night since Todd only remembered to take a pic the last time he was there) |
Following our tour, we then set out to check out the Reina Sofia, Madrid's museum of 20th century art. Unfortunately, it was at this time that the weather took a turn for the worse, and didn't recover for the rest of our time. I thought rain was supposed to stay in the Netherlands!
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| Trying to stay dry. |
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| Happier once I had purchased my crappy 5 euro umbrella from a street seller. I can't believe this thing held up for 2 days. |
On our way to the museum, we stopped to check out the vertical garden at the Caixa Forum. Pretty neat.
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| Outside the Reina Sofia. |
The museum was great, they have a rather large collection of Picasso's and Dali's work. We enjoyed taking a trip into the surreal with a lot of the pieces there.
At night, we of course went out for more tapas, back in La Latina since we were already in that neighborhood.
Sunday, we started the day off right with a deliciously simple breakfast at a place called La Rollerie.
And then most of Sunday was devoted to checking out the Museo Nacional del Prado. A few weeks ago my art appreciation class had covered the Prado, so it was fun to see pieces and know something about them. The Prado did not disappoint. This museum houses a collection of some of the world's greatest European art, ranging from Velasquez to Titian to Rubens to Bosch to Goya.
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| Not sure why, but this bull also caught our attention while inside the Prado. |
After our many hours spent in the Prado, we needed nourishment. And what better nourishment than churros and chocolate? The Chocolateria de San Gines, recommended to us by friends is awesome. Just check out this food.
So. Good. We completed our time in central Madrid with some more walking to check out more architecture.
And that about wrapped up our time in Madrid. That evening we headed north for dinner since we were spending the night there at the hotel Todd would be staying in for work. But don't think our move meant we weren't going to eat more tapas:
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| Fish platter. |
And one last note before I sign off. I'd be remiss to not mention the trash situation. On November 5th, the trash workers in Madrid went on strike in an effort to save there jobs. So by the 17th when we arrived, you can imagine the amount of trash that had piled up. The side streets were definitely in the worst condition:
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| Apparently some national workers were called in, hence the guys in neon suits. |
It was pretty gross, especially when you had to walk over it! It didn't take too much away from our experience, since it was still easy to tell that, barring these trash issues, Madrid is a very beautiful city indeed.
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