Real Madrid for sure

Our first full day in Madrid was, as expected, full of sightseeing and experiences. We commenced the day with breakfast in a little coffee shop, followed by a delightful stroll through some of the loveliest gardens we’ve seen on our travels anywhere, including Rome and Florence.  After several hours enjoying the peace and tranquility of verdant greenery, we walked along some of Madrid’s beautiful tree-lined boulevards, reminiscent in some ways of Paris, although probably not quite as grandiose. The weather was absolutely perfect all day, sunny and warm, with the temperature maxing out at around 29 degrees and not even a breath of wind to ruffle the hair.

We were intending to visit Madrid’s magnificent Prado Museum, which houses some of Europe’s finest art collections, but we have left that for Wednesday. We had heard a little about the river which runs through the city, and the recent development which has taken place along it, so decided to take a short train trip to take a look. The river itself, Madrid Rio, was nothing to rave about, but we decided to forgo the train trip back and walked instead, a decision which involved a couple of hours of walking but gave us an opportunity to see some of the more esoteric parts of the city, probably not seen by too many tourists.

Puerta de Alcala, one of the many arches found around Madrid, although not all are as grand as this one.

Monumento Al Fonso XII, inside the beautiful Parque del Retiro.

The Parque del Retiro has many lovely thoroughfares lined with beautiful trees. We just loved exploring this green oasis.

A typical street view in Madrid, with a number of roads joining at all sorts of angles. The man in the foreground is on his phone to me; I'm telling him to get the hell out of my photo. Unfortunately, my Spanish is not great.

Our walking tour took us past the home of one of Madrid’s three football teams (that’s soccer to all you uninitiated), Club Atletico de Madrid. After taking about 183 photos for Elizabeth and Pete, that’s one photo from every conceivable angle, we continued walking until we came across a most magnificent square, called the Plaza Mayor. It reminded us a little of the square in Ceske Budejovice, but with many, many more tourists.

This is the beautiful Plaza Mayor, where we had our evening meal (our sangrias are in the foreground). This square is over 400 years old, and has hosted countless thousands of ceremonies.

I just loved this whole street of book sellers; it reminded me very much of Paris (I know, I know, now I'm just showing off).

Los Jeronimos, a cathedral near the Museum Prado.

By now, the sun was beginning to set and since we’d been walking for a good two hours, we decided to take dinner at one of the many restaurants facing the open square. We both ordered paella with sangria’s to drink, both traditionally Spanish, but it’s difficult to know how authentic these ‘tourist’ dishes really are – I’d suspect not very. The good news, or bad depending which way you look at it, was that the paella really wasn’t as good as the one I make at home. In fact, I considered going out back to offer the chef a few tips, until Alison suggested it might not be the wisest thing to do. Oh well, I offered.

I really wanted to meet some of the peasant, country folk you hear so much about in Spain. Finally, I found one, although life in the country can be pretty austere - this guy looked like he hadn't had a decent meal in weeks.

The Botanic Gardens is making a real effort to attract native bees.

This is the famous Palacio de Cristal.

Not far from our accommodation we stumbled across, quite by accident, Madrid’s world famous chocolateria, San Gines, which serves another Spanish specialty, the churros dipped in a cup of piping hot, thick chocolate sauce. Although very popular with the locals, it was far too sweet for us, but we are very glad we found it, particularly since Imogen had recommended we find it (you know, the sort of recommendation which really carries the hidden message, “don’t come home if you don’t find it!”)

Today we are off to the Prado Museum, the stadium of Real Madrid (yep, another soccer club) and maybe even the venue for Madrid’s bullfights. We have decided not to see an actual fight, for pretty obvious reasons, but the stadium itself is famous and well worth a look.

We really, really love Madrid. We love the city, the weather, the people, in fact, what's not to love about this place? It definitely is Real Madrid.