Madrid

There is absolutely no way to see Madrid in 2 days, even though Andrew and I tried. We got kicked out of three different museums, tried all kinds of food, boated in the Parque of Buen Retiro, and learned way too much about the Madrid public transit system.

We left Saturday on the 8am bus from Cordoba to Madrid. We got to Madrid around 1, but by the time we got checked-in and back into the downtown part of the city, it was 3pm. We managed to see the fountain of Neptune, Plaza de las Ciebles, the Palacio de Communicaciones, and the Puerta de Alacá before getting to the Parque de Buen Retiro. It’s Madrid’s Central Park, but less pretty with more history. There were statues and fountains everywhere. In the center was this little lake thing where you could rent little rowboats for a couple euros. It was Andrew’s idea to go out on them, and it was a fantastic idea. It was excessively cute and romantic, and I loved it.

After the park we met Sona (from my EAP program) at the Museo Prado, which bordered the park. The Prado is one of Europe’s best museums, and it has a large collection of famous Spanish artists as well as other European masters. It had the fantastic royal portraits of Velazques as well as the 2 & 3 de Mayo paintings. The darkest in the museum were Goya’s black paintings from the end of his life. This was a museum that deserved at least an entire day to truly see everything, but us poor college students can only afford to go at the end of the day from 6-closing (8pm) when its free to get in. Prado was the first museum we were kicked out of.

Afterwards the three of us headed to La Latina to get drinks as tapas. Sona ordered nachos (which came with guacamole… I miss it so much) and we also got some empanadas and an overprice jarra  (pitcher) of Sangria. We sat outside on the Terraza and had some excellent people watching. The bar that we ate at was on Calle de la Cava Baja, a popular place for people to spend the evening bar hopping and eating tapas. It was absolutely packed with people when we were there from about 9:30-10:30. A trip down the metro to a public bus and Andrew and I finally made it to sleep around midnight.

We started the next day early (11am… really early considering it took an hour of public transit to get there) at El Rastro. It is arguably one of the largest swap meets in Europe. It was nuts and literally PACKED with people. We walked for a long time down the main street, stopping at a few booths and didn’t even make it down the side streets. There were a ton of people there and a ton of stands. They were literally selling everything, from stands with the usual futbol (soccer… mostly Real Madrid of course) paraphernalia and leather works to stands with knives and others with cds and movies. You could get almost anything there, but I settled for a pretty blue 2€ scarf.

We then met Sona at Reina Sofia, Madrid’s modern art museum. This museum is famous as the home to Guernica. Pablo Picasso painted it in order to express his anger and frustration over the burning of the Basque (area in N. Spain) city of Guernica. Franco (the dictator of Spain from the 30s-70s) basically had Hitler bomb the Spanish city. It was a crime of senseless violence against his own people, and Picasso was moved by it to create one of his most famous paintings. The painting just recently arrived back in Spain and there are many people who want it moved to the Basque area of Spain, to the people for whom it was painted, but those at the Reina Sofia say it is too fragile to be moved. There were also many other paintings by Picasso and also some by Dalí. I had Andrew watch Un Chien Andaluz, a film by Buñel (a friend of Dalí and the famous poet Frederico Garcia Lorca) that I learned about in class. I don’t think Andrew was as big a fan of Reina Sofia, people either seem to like modern art or they don’t… But, as was the theme, we were eventually kicked out when it closed at 2:30. The Reina Sofia was packed with people because it was a Sunday, because on Sunday you get free entrance. Us college students know all the deals. Some people would have been annoyed with all the people, but I think you can properly enjoy a painting regardless of how many other people are looking at it with you.

We then headed over to the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). It closes at 4 but they stop selling tickets at 3, so of course we got there about 3:05 and they wouldn’t let us in. We split with Sona and went to a place that has 100 different bocadillos (basically sandwiches) and we tried about 7 different ones, mainly combinations of tortilla de patatas, chorizo, and pollo asada, with ali-oli and various sauces and cheese. Andrew got one with tuna I didn’t go near and I got one with Brie he wasn’t interested in. We caught one look of the patatas fritas (French fries) coming out and we immediately went to go order some, they looked so good (and they tasted food too ;) )

Then we headed over to the Museo Thyssen. The museum is about 800 pieces, which were donated by the Duchess Thyssen. It was only about half of her personal collection. It was an impressive collection with 14^th century Italian paintings, Velázquez, Monet, Picasso, and Jackson Pollack, to name a few. There was literally a little bit of everything. Needless to say, we left at 7 when we were kicked out.

We then started out return, because Spain, a traditionally Catholic nation, tends to shut down a little on Sunday. We also were going to have a really early morning the next day. Andrew had an 11am flight out of Madrid-Barajas airport, which meant arriving there at 8am, and starting our public transit trip by 6:30 (before breakfast was even available at 7!!). We just grabbed a loaf of bread on our way out of downtown and made PB & J sandwiches for dinner, because he brought me some wonderful Skippy peanut butter. I do not know what it is about Spain (and I think Europe in general) but they just do not understand peanut butter. Danielle made our history teacher a peanut butter sandwich last week, and he told us he had had jelly on bread before and peanut butter on bread before, but never the two together. I personally had them every day for lunch for about 10 years, and I was more than happy to eat one for dinner than night.

I made it to the Palacio Real the next morning after dropping Andrew off at the airport and before I had to go to the bus station for my 2pm bus. It was incredibly ornate and had the most beautiful stucco ceilings. The armory was open and we could see old armor of the kings, and some of them were SHORT. I had probably 6 inches on some of them. The Palacio Real was a must see with gorgeous views, just make sure if you visit to check when the ticket booths close, lol.

I had planned this weekend with Andrew, thinking that in 2 days I could do a lot of the things I wanted to do in Madrid before I left, but I barely did even half of the things I wanted to do! This is a city that deserves not only more than 2 days, but practically a week. Plus, there’s a day trip to nearby Toledo that’s a must see. I’m anxious to go back there (it’s the city I fly out of) and I’m going to have to budget time to see things I didn’t get to see, as well as a return to Prado and Reina Sofia, because 2 hours in either museum doesn’t even come close to enough time. You would certainly need to study abroad there for a semester to even come close to seeing all the essentials. Just the essentials. What a fantastic city! And thanks to dear Sona, we got plenty of pictures there too ;)