12 Hours in Madrid

I feel like it's been forever since I've blogged, and if I'm jut writing about Madrid now, that essentially means I'm a week behind. After returning to Barcelona and experiencing the game cancellation, compounded by the general strike on Tuesday and just being tired, the wind was kind of knocked out of my sails and I couldn't find any time to sit and write. Now it's evening in Sitges. We've had dinner, adn rather than going out, we've spending some quite time in the hotel. We are sad to think that we only have one more full day in Spain.

A week ago today we awoke in Torrijos and joined Dean for a nice breakfast in his apartment. After breakfast he walked us to the train station to catch a train to Madrid for the day. We had some minor excitement at the train station, when an alarm sounded while Gywen was in the restroom. She swears she didn't do anything to trigger an alarm, and the cleaning woman certainly didn't seem concerned. Some man asked Dean about it in Spanish, and our joke for several days was that Gywen was known all over town as "that American woman who set of the alarm in the restroom."

Dean sent us off on the train around 10:00, as he had to go to Toledo to teach around midday. The train delivered us to Atocha Station in Madrid as expected, around 11:00. Having been there before, we found our way out fairly easily and set about looking for WiFi access so Barry could send off an important email he had composed on the train. My map showed a Starbucks nearby and we headed that direction, but ended up at a Dunkin' Coffee (a.k.a. Dunkin' Donuts, re-branded for Spain) drinking smoothies and coffee at the tables on the sidewalk while Barry took care of the task.

The task complete, it was time to start our sightseeing. We had no particular agenda which was fine, except that no one seemed to offer any strong opinions about what we should do. We considered the Reina Sofia museum, but opted instead to hop on the Madrid City Tour hop-on, op-off bus to get a 45 minute orientation to the city. I'm not sure how long the tour actually took, but we sat on the open-air upper deck as we toured around the central city from the Prado museum past some key monuments, fountains, squares, and churches as well as the Templo Debod, the Royal Palace, the Royal Opera House, and the Cathedral. It was a fun, relaxed way to get a sense of the city and we enjoyed spotting interesting architectural details, people-watching, and seeing the hustle and bustle of the large city. It certainly had a very different character than either Barcelona or Toledo.

We decided that lunch would be good once we had completed the loop, since it was approaching 2:00. After driving past numerous inviting looking cafes with outdoor seating, we got off at the stop closest to the Prado and ended up not finding any such restaurants in the area. We used the restrooms at Starbucks and started out walking to find a lunch spot. We headed toward a small plaza visible on the map and found absolutely nothing there. We passed a couple of fancy restaurants with linen table cloths and high prices. Finally, after walking several blocks and turning back toward the museum we found a small dive offering €10 lunch specials so we sat down and ate it.

Next we went to the Prado. There were a few things in the museum I definitely wanted to see, so we went directly to those areas to check them out. The first was el Bosco, or Bosch (c. 1450-1516), whose almost surreal paintings depict fantastically imaginative scenes based on religious themes. They are often large works filled with amazing detail, and it's difficult to imagine they were created more than 500 years ago. From there we went to check out Valázquez, the famous portrait artist for the royal family. The highlight there was seeing Las Meninas, the inspiration for the series of 40 Picasso paintings based on the work. The room featured many other very large portraits, and we concluded he was better at painting people and dogs than he was at painting horses.

Before leaving, I wanted to check out the Goya paintings, which spread across three floors and incorporate different styles and themes dating to different times. He moved away from religious subjects and more toward human pursuits, country scenes, and political statements, particularly in light of the American and French revolutions. Shortly after we arrived in the Goya gallery, Gywen headed to the restroom. Barry and I continued to take in the Goya, but Gywen didn't come back. We headed out to one of the main areas where we thought the restroom was, but there was no sign of her. Barry decided to continue the search while I ran upstairs to take in the Goya "cartoons" (tapestry studies, essentially) that I really wanted to see. I practically sprinted through the top floor galleries - enjoying what I saw - while awaiting a text from Barry to tell me he had found here. The text didn't come. Meanwhile, I had been texting Dean who had arrived in Madrid following his classes and was waiting to meet us. When her heard that we lost Gywen, he decided to come to the Museum to find us.

I headed back downstairs after my quick look at the cartoons, and discovered Barry and Gywen together near where I had last seen Barry. Apparently she had reported to the staff that she had lost us, and they took her into a secluded room while they called staff all over the museum looking for us. She got tired of being stuck in a room out of sight, so she stepped out into the museum, and that's when she saw Barry. We all headed to the entrance to wait for Dean. I quickly bought postcards and realized from the selection available just how much other great art we didn't see there during our two-hour visit.

Royal Palace

Dean found us seated outside the museum about 5:30. The other  thing in Madrid I wanted to see was the Royal Palace, and they had free entry at 6:00 so we took a cap across town to the Palace. When we got there, we discovered a huge line that snaked through the plaza between the Palace and the Cathedral. We stood in line for about 10 minutes to see how quickly it was moving... and it would have taken us probably another 30 minutes to get in the door. I wasn't willing to commit that kind of time to it, so we moved on.

We walked to the nearby park where the Egyptian Templo de Debod is - although it's actually a bit more of a hike than I expected. The park was lively, as people started to gather in anticipation of the sunset. The line to enter the temple was long - well, not long by palace standards - so we didn't go in. Gywen sat down on a bench while Dean, Barry, and I explored the park further. We stopped to look over the city to the west and take some pictures with the Palace and Cathedral in the background.

At Parque de Oeste near Teplo de Debod.

We decided to sit for a cool drink, so Barry went back to retrieve Gywen. As we sat outside the little cafe next to the park, we watched countless people and their dogs go in and out of the park and we decided we must have seen every dog in the city. As the sun set, we walked back through the park and took photos of the temple before walking to Plaza de España and Dean's car.

View toward Plaza de Espa from the cafe.

Fountain behind Templo de Depod at dusk.

Templo de Debod sunset

Dean drove us to a different neighborhood for dinner, to an area popular with locals. The restaurant we originally planned to patronize didn't have room for us, so we picked a different spot down the street. We had a nice variety of some typical Spanish dishes, and it was quite good. After dinner, around 11, Dean drove us all back to Torrijos. As we approached home, we passed the neighboring town of Novés and got to see their festival fireworks from the road. They were really quite impressive -  on par with those in Torrijos, although I don't think I am supposed to say that. We arrived home close to midnight and quickly fell into bed. I remember sleeping pretty soundly until the music from the festival woke us up around 4:15.