Madrid is a cool city. It is funny how we get a vibe for a city immediately (while we are still pushing/pulling our bags) Pretty architecture. A blend between French and Italian, with Moorish influences. It has a party vibe with lots of young people. They eat dinner here at about 11pm. It is shorts weather. When we left France earlier in the day, we were bundled up and freezing. Plus, the sun is up before we are. The sun was coming up after 8am in France yesterday! The International Women’s day is big. We were told not to expect to get anywhere Friday night while they were marching. There were demonstrations in the square near our hotel all day. Also commemorative, Monday the 11th was the 15 year anniversary of the Al Qaeda bombing of commuter trains in Madrid. Notably, this is the only place we have been where the train stations have security and baggage screening.
We have 5 days here to be tourists before we head to our next house sitting. We went to a flamenco show. Ate tapas, and wine at a local steel and glass market. It is sort of like the market at liberty station where there are numerous food vendors and wine, beer and cocktail vendors selling tapas, sweets and drinks. Avoided museums. It’s a shame, Madrid has one of the best art collections in the world, but we are just a little numb to museums. The City with the better collection of art – Paris, also we went a week without a museum. Instead we explored various neighborhoods on bikes, and took in some street art, visited public gardens, and took pictures of interesting architecture. We rented a row boat in the lake in the middle of the city park, to bask in the sunshine along with every other Madridian on Sunday.
We ate more tapas. Had wine in Hemingway’s favorite bar. Favorite in Madrid, we have seen several other of Hemingway’s favorite haunts. That man had quite a life! Wine here is really good, food is good too. The habit of not eating until 11 is annoying because the restaurants actually close at about 4 and do not open again until 8pm.
We made it out to Toledo. An older City with a rich history. It was a beautiful setting of an old walled City built on top of a granite rock. Here we did visit the El Greco museum. It was made from an old spanish style house, with beautiful mediterranean gardens. And they had a decent collection of art by El Greco and his workshop.
All in all a pretty nice 5 days in a really cool City. Headed out to the region of Cadiz for 4 weeks.