We left off at the end of the last blog with Michael and I making our way from Lisbon to Madrid via overnight sleeper train. This was an interesting experience. We didn't mind the sleeping on a moving train thing too much, although Michael claims he woke up every time the train stopped at stations during the night. I didn't sleep well but it was nothing to do with the train - my stomach bug was finally showing its true colours. I was SICK!
But we made it to Madrid in one piece, pulling into the station just after 8 in the morning.What made things even better was the hotel letting us take our room straight away at 9am. Problem was, I was so ill that I collapsed on the bed and woke again at 10:30 with Michael saying "There's a free walking tour at 11.... come on!" So I hauled my sorry butt up and smothered myself in sunscreen before we ran into the centre of town (Plaza Mayor) to join said free tour.
Our tour guide was Ed. Ed was from Ireland. Ed had lived in Madrid for 18 years. He claimed that he had tried to leave many times, but he just couldn't stay away for long, he loved it that much! And he was a fantastic, knowledgeable and funny tour guide. Ed showed us the western side of the city of Madrid.
The first stop was in fact Plaza Mayor, where we met the tour. In the centre of this plaza stood a large statue of a man on a horse. This statue itself was nothing special, but it involved quite a story. The statue is of King Philip III and was created in 1616. Well, the original one was. There was a time where the plaza was known because of it's stench. This smell came from the butcher and the baker within the plaza, and the statue. Apparently the original statue had an open mouthed horse, and a hollow belly. For 200+ years, pigeons were flying inside the mouth of the horse to rest, but then could not get back out and thus died inside. No one realised this was happening until the statue was blown up by anti government anarchists, and pigeon guts and bones went everywhere! Don't know why but I loved this story!
The tour with Ed took us to lots of places including the World's Oldest Restaurant, through the Latin quarter, past the viaduct (where we heard tales of a lady who tried and failed to commit suicide - her voluminous period-costume dress supposedly inflated and carried her to the ground where she only broke her ankle), past old remaining Moorish walls, and to the Cathedral of Madrid before a lunch stop.
After the break, we got to see some other interesting buildings, government and other, before taking in the Opera House and the Royal Palace. Now, what we didn't realise was that we had arrived in Madrid at an interesting time, just two days after the King of Spain had abdicated. So as we were being told stories of the royal family currently in place, Ed had to stop himself and say 'sorry, the former king'. We did learn some interesting history about the various Kings of Spain over the last several hundred years, but in an interesting way.
Ed asked for 6 volunteers. I was of course the first to jump up. Michael also agreed to help out. We were each then given the role of one of the 6 important Kings. I played King Philip I. He was a very handsome and sporty King, and did well for his people. And he was German! But he was unfortunately only in power about 2 years. After a very energetic game of tennis, he apparently asked for a glass of ice cold water, then died 3 days later, leading people of the time to believe that drinking cold water after exercise was dangerous for your body. But of course we can all surmise that he was actually poisoned. So I got to drop down dead on the floor during this explanation!
Michael was second in line, the King after me. King Carlos the first. He was supposedly a great king and did wonderful things for Spain, and served a long reign (40 years). He abdicated in 1556 and there was nothing really exciting to say about him. But it was the next 4 Kings that got some bad news, so Michael and I were both happy to go sit back in the audience! We were followed by Philip II who wasn't too bad; Philip the III who was known as the Lazy King; Philip the IV who was known as the Loser King; and lastly, Carlos the II, who was known as the Bewitched - severely demented and handicapped. So we thought we got away with the best two Kings...
The other story that interested me was about the symbol of Madrid - a bear leaning against a tree with fruit in it. There is a formal story, or the Ed version. We prefer the Ed version where he claims that the bear is really just a very typical Spaniard, trying to get drunk from the fruit that has fermented in the hot Spanish sun!
By the end of the tour, sadly, I was feeling incredibly sick again so we returned to the hotel for a short rest. With some medication in my system, I powered on and we ran back to Plaza Mayor to jump on a second tour with the same company as the morning one. The morning tour was a free walking tour, but this time we had booked and paid a small amount to join. This tour was all about the Eastern side of Madrid, which is known as Majestic Madrid. This time our guide was Celia, but Ed also came along for the walk.We spent a fair amount of time in the back streets, learning about the famous writers and creators of Madrid and where they lived. We also saw some beautiful monuments including the Fuente de Cibeles and Puerta de Alcala. At Sol, we saw the meeting point of the 7 main streets of Madrid, and the 0 point, where all the roads in Spain are measured from.
After this tour, back at the hotel, we managed to take an hour to refresh and finally take a shower. After our overnight train experience (baby wipe shower) we were very pleased to be able to jump into a wonderful warm shower and wash our hair etc. We then threw on our gladrags and made our way to the meeting point for our third tour. Same company, this time our guide was Ana. This tour was not really about the where we were seeing, but the what. It was all about the food.
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| check out the ham! |
Our tapas tour kicked off at 7pm, where we met Ana and got to know some other lovely fellow travellers. We met an awesome Irish lady, a lovely young man from Alabama who had spent the last year studying architecture in Rome (and did everything he could to hide the fact he was American) and an interesting couple from Kazakhstan who were on their honeymoon! As we got to know these people, we enjoyed copious amounts of tapas at the first stop, some nice drinks (summer wine and sangria) and ham products (jamon) at the second stop, and a special Madrid cider at the last place. The cider was certainly a unique taste, very woody and smoky, but it was even more interesting because of the way it was poured.
This drink 'had' to be poured from a height (from behind ones head) into a glass being held down low. After our first taste of this cider, Ana decided to jump in with the bar tender and pour a few herself. She then encouraged us to give it a go. I didn't, but of course Michael jumped up to have a try. He unfortunately wasn't so accurate with his aim and got quite a bit of cider on his arm instead of in the glass. But we had a good laugh. We spent quite some time then in that last stop chatting to all our new friends. A really nice evening, and for the first time in days, I was starting to feel a bit better!The next day...
After being told how amazing and traditional Churros with Chocolate sauce were in Madrid, and how everyone in Madrid has Churros for breakfast (mostly for special occasions), of course we had to follow tradition. We made our way back to a highly recommended Churro shop from our tour the day before, and settled in for a hearty breakfast of Chocolat con Churros. This particular restaurant sells pretty much only Churros, and stays open 24 hours - even during the Civil War, this restaurant was well enough hidden that soldiers patrolling the streets of Madrid never knew this shop remained open 24 hours and thus it became a very popular place.
After breakfast we just took a casual stroll with the aim of finding a few monuments on the map we hadn't yet seen. But naturally we came across a jewellery store! This was not just any old jewellery store either. Michael knew instantly that it was my kind of shop and did not stop me from having a really good look. He then very kindly bought me not one but two special little things. A gorgeous headband that is so uniquely different, unlike anything I have seen before (took me 20 minutes to choose which one I wanted though), and a lovely green stone necklace. I am however quite sad that this designer does not have a website as I feel that I would buy a lot more of their things.
So after wasting precious sightseeing time in a shop, we made our way to Palaciao de Liria. This was an entire Egyptian monument sitting high in a park overlooking Madrid. It was gifted to Madrid after Spain assisted in the relocation efforts in Egypt (1960's) when a new dam threatened several sacred monuments along the Nile. In parts there are still fully intact wall carvings, and a museum documenting the relocation efforts upstairs. It was quite unique to walk through the temple and learn about the relocation.
After this culture jump, we came back to Madrid and wandered back towards town via a park holding a large tower monument called Monumento de Cervantes. At the front are two sculptures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. The whole monument is apparently a dedication to the author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It was quite beautiful. 
We then walked for ages in the aim of navigating our way back to a particular place for lunch. After several days of being really sick, today I finally felt my appetite coming back, and we had found earlier, an open market place with varying stalls of cheese, seafood, meats etc, and each stall sold their foods in tapas forms. So when we finally found the marketplace again, we eagerly dived in and selected little morsels from several stalls. I also got to enjoy a delicious kiwi fruit mojito! But the best bit about this was that we were able to use my allergy card to successfully locate a Kristie Friendly Paella! And it was DELICIOUS! It was the one and only Kristie Paella of the whole trip but it was so worth it! The lady at the stall spoke English but she was so impressed with my card and the fact that we were cautious enough to translate my allergy into Spanish for that purpose, she was able to provide me with safe food! 
So, after our luxurious lunch, we kept on walking. This time though we followed the route we had taken on the tour the previous day, and this time saw some extra things. Some that we hadn't had enough time to really look at, and some that we wanted to see inside of.
This included a better look at the Zero marker at Sol that I mentioned. We also went back to the City Hall of Madrid, as we had been told about the viewing platform on the roof. We had to wait a little bit of time before our scheduled ticket time, and we were amazed to find that the 2nd through 5th floor of the City Hall were actually Art Space. There were several exhibitions going on, and some of them would quite honestly be described as better, more interesting and prettier or more understandable than a lot of art galleries I've seen of late. There was one queer exhibit where you walked into a dark room and there was just sinks and toilets all joined together and water running through them, like a fountain. It wasn't until you got closer that you saw projections of people swimming in the water, trying to swim against the sucking pull from the plug holes! It was really interesting! We did get video footage of this, and in the background is me squealing "Ooooh, there goes another one!!!"
When we did get upstairs, we were greeted with a lovely 360 degree view of Madrid. I think the photos will be better than a description here.
The last stop before we retired for siesta was Monumento Alfonso XII in the Parque De El Retiro. This was a large marble sculpture in the middle of a beautiful big park to the East of Madrid. But we had also been warned not to place our hands in the water of the lake bordering the monument as there were Mutant Fish swimming in there that would eat you! We watched the fist for a bit, took some snaps of the monument, then decided we were both exhausted!
After a nap, a shower, and a fresh change of clothes (and my new headband) we headed out for a special evening. We had booked in for a Flamenco show. Michael had done a heap of research and found a tiny little cafe that was quite far out of the way and hard to find, but came highly reviewed, and wasn't that expensive. When we walked in I must admit I had my doubts, and even during the first song (older man with an open shirt singing while striking an anvil with a hammer) I was giving Michael a raised eyebrow, but as soon as the dancers started to move, I was in a trance. It was incredible to watch and listen to. The cafe, being so small, meant that we were very close to the stage and got to see everything from the syncopated hand claps to the incredible footwork.
The performance went for almost 2 hours and required a costume change halfway through because the two dancers were just wet from sweat! We also shared a very delicious Spanish Omelette! At the end of the night, we made our way home, and wandered past the famous de Toro de Las Ventras - the bullring. Now I am not a fan at all of the idea of bull fighting, but the ring itself was quite beautiful when lit up at night. And outside the ring was a unique sculpture of a bull fight which I quite liked!
But that's it. That was Madrid. The next morning we got up super early and walked to the train station to make our way to Barcelona. our 48 hours in Madrid was fast, full on and fun!
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