Madrid

On Friday we got up bright and early to get to the train station for our weekend trip to Madrid! We took the AVE, the high speed train, which cuts the trip from 5 hours to 2 and a half. It was pretty comfortable and they played a movie (Get Smart) so it went by pretty quickly. When we got to Madrid, we dropped off our bags and headed out to explore. We passed through the Plaza de España (wonder how many of those there are in Spain…) and then meandered down the streets heading in the direction of Madrid’s version of Central Park. Madrid is a huge city and so much more cosmopolitan than Seville – everyone is speaking a language other than Spanish and it feels like the city is just tourists. It would definitely be easier to get by in Madrid than Seville if you didn’t speak Spanish because absolutely everyone speaks English, which gets kind of annoying sometimes when they respond to you in English even though you asked them a question in Spanish, but obviously boosts their tourism. Madrid also has incredible buildings. After wandering through some cute streets and some commercial streets, we ended up at the Plaza Mayor (see picture below and keep in mind, people live there!) which has a really cool mural and all of these crazy street performers, such as a woman covered in fake fruit or a man who has two scary masks sitting on a table and moves them as people pass by. We wandered out of the plaza and of course found a cookie store. After getting a few for the road, we continued on toward the park. We passed through Puerta del Sol, the plaza that is in the center of Madrid, but it under heavy construction so we continued on. Then we meandered down Gran Vía, stopping every two seconds to take another picture of the beautiful early 1900s buildings that line this main road. At this point, we decided to stop to eat our bocadillos in a small plaza next to the fountain of Cibeles, another landmark of Madrid that sits at the end of Gran Vía. Then we finally made it to the Parque del Retiro. The park is gorgeous – very lush and green and well landscaped. There are fountains everywhere, topiary in some places and statues in others. The best part of the park, however, is the pond that sits in front of a huge monument to one of the King Alfonsos. At the pond, they had paddle boats to rent so we decided to take one out for a little while. It was so much fun despite my lack of coordination and arm strength! The weather was beautiful, the scenery was beautiful, and we got to float across the pond and take it all in. Of course, there were some obnoxious teenagers having a water fight but also an adorable family with children in matching outfits (they are really big on that here). After soaking up our fair share of sun, we decided to head back towards the hotel, yet again passing by Gran Vía and Puerta del Sol. Our hotel is located right next to the Palacio Real, the palace where the kings used to live and where royal functions are still held (now the royal family lives in a more “modest” palace an hour outside of Madrid so they can have a more normal living situation – yeah right!) Luckily, since it was later in the afternoon there was almost no line to get in and we got to walk through some of the old bedrooms and current banquet halls. No pictures are allowed inside the palace but basically it can be summed up in one word: chandelier. Each room had a bigger, gaudier, and shinier chandelier than the last and it got to be a little ridiculous by the end. Because each new king would come in and redecorate, the décor was a little schizophrenic at times – with one room very classical and the next more modern and brightly colored but it made for a very interesting viewing experience. After we were oversaturated with gilt, we sat outside on the grass for another cookie and headed back to the hotel for a much needed siesta. For dinner, we decided to do a “tapas crawl” where we had one or two tapas at three different restaurants. None of them wowed me, but they were still good and it was fun to try different places instead of staying in one restaurant all night. Funny menu translation of the night: sangria = bleeding (as if they needed a translation for sangria?!)

Where we ate lunch the first day


Metropolis - one of the buildings on Gran Vía


Pond in Parque del Retiro

Rowing the paddle boat

Saturday we woke up bright and early to get to the complimentary hotel breakfast in time. Of course, it turns out that since we have a group breakfast, we are on the side with the small buffet longingly staring at the other side with its luscious fruit and steaming trays of eggs. I can’t complain too much, however, since there were surprisingly good churros and we made “contraband” bocadillos for lunch (the waiter had sternly told us earlier that we weren’t allowed to bring food out of the dining room but we’re trying to save money!) Despite still being in a little bit of a sleep stupor, we headed out right away to the Temple of Debod, an ancient Egyptian temple given to Spain by Egypt as a sign of gratitude for Spain’s help in rescuing other historic temples. The temple sits in a pretty little park that has a great view of the Palacio Real and the outskirts of Madrid. While I found the museum inside the temple to be a little lacking (not a lot of description or context), the temple itself is gorgeous. It sits in front of a reflecting point with two “arches” in the middle of the pond and then the temple itself at the back. I can only imagine how gorgeous it would be at dawn or sunset, but it looked pretty good in the sunshine of the morning as well. We then walked back in the direction of the Palacio Real and wandered through the Sabatini Gardens, which are right next to the palace. The we decided to go into the main cathedral that sits right across from the palace. You enter into the museum, which has some amazing mosaics (I wish I could have taken pictures!) and other treasures relating to the Catholic Church of Spain. Then we climbed to the top of the cupola for some more amazing views of the city. Finally we made our way into the actual church. The Madrid Cathedral is actually very recent – construction finished in the 80s and it was consecrated in 1993. Even though it doesn’t have the long history of other churches I have visited in the past, it was actually one of my favorites. The decoration is spectacular – intricately painted and brightly colored ceilings and enormous stained glass windows that splash prisms of color onto the walls. The architects and decorators seemed to embrace the fact that it is modern and made it into a unique and to me, incredibly beautiful building. After taking approximately a billion pictures of the ceiling, we finally exited to regroup and make a game-plan (which of course included the last of the cookies.) We headed in the direction of the Prado, the biggest and most famous museum in Spain, where we were going to have a tour that afternoon. We came upon the Mercado de San Miguel and decided to get some olives as a snack – some filled with eggplant and some with cornichon and both delicious. It’s very lucky that I have discovered that I in fact like green olives because most tapas restaurants here give you either olives or something resembling lima beans to start and I wouldn’t want to miss out because I still mistakenly thought olives were gross. We meandered over to the Prado, which sits on beautiful grounds with perfectly trimmed grass and some smartly placed trees to provide shade. Let me pause by saying right now that I’m sorry if you’re sick of the word beautiful, I have most definitely overused it in this post and others but with my English rapidly deteriorating, I’m having trouble coming up with good synonyms. Ok back to the Prado - we decided to eat our bocadillos and olives and people watch. It was a great place to do so since the Prado is bustling with people streaming in and out or simply enjoying the atmosphere like us. Soon it was time for our tour with Santiago, an art history professor at one of the universities in Madrid who also happens to have some really cool orange/tortoiseshell glasses. Oh and he was a really good tour guide too! Despite the fact that my feet were aching and I couldn’t stand still for more than a minute without them killing me, I learned a lot about Velazquez, Goya, and some other famous painters in the Prado. It was pretty cool to see all of these paintings in person that we had just learned about in our Spanish culture classes at the center. Normally, as I said before I find it a little cumbersome to have a guide at a museum, but this was perfect since there are far too many pieces of art at the Prado to see all of them in even ten trips, so it was nice to have someone point out the most important ones and explain why they are worth seeing. After the tour we had another quick snack and then explored a few more rooms in the Prado before heading to the Reina Sofia, which houses the modern art collection, including lots of Picasso. I had the brilliant idea that we could walk through the Botanical Gardens to get to the Reina Sofia because on a map the gardens lead right to the museum. We entered and walked around a little, although it is definitely past the prime season for the gardens, since most of the flowers are wilting or nonexistent. We quickly discovered that even though the other end of the gardens is close to the Reina Sofia, there is no exit there so we had to go out the way we came – oh well! Finally we made it to the Reina Sofia and got to see the amazing modern art collection – Picasso, Dali, Miró, and many more famous names grace the walls. At that point our feet were not up for a grand tour, so we hit the highlights, including of course Picasso’s famous “Guernika.” It was pretty incredible to see in person since its large size impressed upon me not only its artistic but historical significance. I was a little distracted by another adorable family (kids are even cuter when you can’t really understand what they’re saying) but still spent a good five minutes just staring at the painting. When we could barely move our feet, we decided it was a good time to head home and actually successfully navigated the metro back to our hotel. After a siesta and good feet soaking (did I mention that my feet killed?) we headed to dinner in the “gayborhood.” It was a really lively area with tons of people just hanging out in the streets so we ended up buying some cheap street food and hanging out as well.

Botanical gardens


Temple of Debod


Ceiling of the cathedral


Stained glass in the cathedral

On Sunday after a quick breakfast (and of course more hidden bocadillos), we again met up with Santiago for a tour of historic Madrid. Even though the tour took us to places we had already went, I actually really enjoyed this reverse order. It was nice to be able to see the monuments or buildings without a guide and make my own judgment before then hearing more about the history and significance. If I had gone on a tour upon arrival in Madrid, I probably would have forgotten everything from it as soon as it ended because of the overwhelming number of buildings and information. However, since I could actually recognize what we were talking about, I think I actually retained some of the information from the tour. We ended up back in the Plaza Mayor and while some people shopped I decided to go get postcards. While on this extremely touristy mission, I was stopped by a Spanish couple who asked me if I was from Madrid (more people think I could possibly be Spanish!) Even though I had to tell them no, I was still able to give them directions to what they were looking for – not bad for three days in a city. After I got back, a few of us headed to El Rastro, a humungous flea market that takes place every Sunday. Flea markets in Europe seem to be a little different from those in the US – a lot more mass produced merchandise and less junk from people’s attics. Although there wasn’t much I wanted to buy, I still had fun wandering and being constantly jostled by the mass of people bargain hunting. We then went to a restaurant, where most people had lunch while Maureen and I looked longingly (we were waiting to have lunch with a mutual friend from Penn who is studying abroad in Madrid). Even though we didn’t eat there we still enjoyed the menu translations – would you rather eat “gluttony with garlic prawns” or “calluses of the house”? We eventually headed back to the hotel where we were meeting said friend, who was coming back from a trip of his own. At 3:40 (our train home left at 5 and we had to be at the station at 4:30) we finally saw met up with our friend! Unfortunately we were too pressed for time to eat lunch so we just walked in the direction of the train station. It was so good to see a familiar face from Penn and catch up but also a little surreal that we were meeting in Madrid instead of West Philly. After too little time, we had to say goodbye and catch a taxi to the train station. When we finally got to our seats (they have assigned seats on all trains here) I had my first bite of the bocadillo I had prepared hours earlier. It was a relief for my stomach to finally have some substantial food and a relief for my body to be sitting down for an extended period of time. After such a busy, exciting, and exhausting weekend, it was great to return home to a delicious meal of Mati’s and my own bed.

Fountain in Parque del Retiro


Topiary in Parque del Retiro


Plaza Mayor