Friday, we started the day early with a bus trip to Toledo. The place to board the bus was listed at Palacio Real de Madrid but when we arrived (at 8am) it was deserted! Pam—our translator—spoke to a guard who told us to go underground. Now, I thought Pam’s Spanish just needed some brushing up but we found a door that lead underground and there was our bus! We boarded and headed to Toledo.
Toledo used to be the capital of Spain but it became so crowded and the resources were so overused that the moved it to nearby Madrid. We spent the morning on a walking tour of Toledo. It was beautiful and refreshing to see some green mountains.
Back in Madrid, we visited the Palacio Real de Madrid for real this time. It was the ‘royal palace’ of Madrid. Kings and Queens used to stay here. We took a tour of this as well and learned everything about the interior design. The King ordered each room to be decorated by the best designers in Europe—many of which we not Spanish. Each room was more ornate than the last, with painted ceilings, lavish furniture, and ornate walls. We learned that the famous “Porcelain Room” is not made out of porcelain but a much sturdier material and painted to look like porcelain. We were starved by the end of the tour and made our way to find some lunch. We stumbled upon a steel structure with floor to ceiling glass windows. We were attracted to the place immediately by the large fruit stand in the front window. As we made our way inside, we realized that we stumbled upon a giant tapas market: Mercado de San Miguel. It housed some of the most amazing tapas that I’ve ever had! Each stand specializes in a type of food: fruit, fish, wine, cheese, nuts, beer, meats, etc. I made my way to the chocolate stand for some Spanish chocolates, while Pam tried caviar and my mom had some champagne! Not too bad! We vowed to stop by again, and again.
Saturday, we wanted to explore the opposite side of Madrid so we headed towards Parque Del Buen Retiro. It was a sunny, beautiful afternoon of walking through the park and around the lake. We had a great time in the sunshine
That night we went on a bit of an adventure, Tapas hopping. The concept: make as many stops at as many different bars as you can, stopping to order and drink and tapas at each one. We started with the concierge’s recommendation for Restaurante Casa Granada. He told us to make a few turns, find door number 6, buzz up, take the elevator to the top and walk through the kitchen. Sketchy? Yes. Best tapas in the world? Absolutely! We were surrounded in a hum of Spanish yelling, signing, and talking and locals from students to grandparents. (The latter being the rowdier of the two groups, as they were playing cards.) We order Sangria and a few tapas plates of meat and cheese. A nice cold beer mug of Sangria—a great way to start the night! We headed to another street of tapas bars and picked a lively one. Another round of tapas and Sangria! This time we met friends, a Spanish-speaking guy for Pam, a Frenchman for me, and two English-speaking men for my mom. After a bit of tri-lingual conversations, we headed to another tapas spot before heading home to bed.
Another Spanish tradition that we had to try was “chocolat con churro”—basically Spanish donut sticks to dip in hot chocolate. We found Chocolateria San Gines, a 24 hour ‘diner’, tucked away in Plaza del Sol! We spent the rest of the rainy day seeing the Catedral de Nuestra Senora de la Almudena which was absolutely stunning—and dry. Then we walked back to the hotel to get ready to jet set once again when we walked into a cheering crowd in front of “Plaza de Ronaldo”—and a giant statue of the soccer (football) player, Cristiano Ronaldo. We were a little skeptical about erecting a statue for the player but we figured that the Spanish fans were just extremely dedicated fans. Little did we know, we had stumbled onto a commercial set! So next time you watch the World Cup Intro, look for the three lovely ladies in Spain.
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