By: MJ + PJ
On the first days of our honeymoon here a decade ago, we had stayed at a small hotel called the Francisco off of Plaza del Sol in Madrid. We were determined to see it again. Since that time they had clearly renovated, so we could not find it until we asked in a local shop. Quite fancy it is now, but the memories of squeezing up narrow stairs and standing duck-footed on the narrow ‘balcony’ overlooking the street were worth the visit.
On this visit to Madrid we stayed a short metro ride to the north of the old part of the city. This resulted in us using the metro system daily from our Airbnb. On our last visit we used the Metro once or twice, but were becoming quite apt with public transport now.
On the first morning in Madrid, we did our second of the three Sandemans tours in Spain. The guide showed us some places and told us some things about the city that we had not encountered on our previous visit. This is why we do the city tours, but of course it was all new to AJ! The tour guide taught us how to do the Flamenco via a clever analogy of angrily picking an apple from a tree and stomping on it. She also told us about the “secret bakery” (i.e. local convent that sells cookies without any spoken words). We tried in vain to come back to do this, but we were too late as they were closed both times!
AJ got to see a Lego exhibit downtown, and the Madrid Codecies of Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library. We finally got to visit inside the Teatro Real opera house, seeing most things …except the actual theatre. That’s not a part of the tour! The weekend we were in the city was also International Women’s Day, so we got to participate in the festivities and walk in the parade.
We visited El Retirio Park once again, stopped at a few playgrounds here and there, saw the Royal Palace and Armory. There were some amazing pastries and other delicacies to salivate over as we walked some of the markets. You can see some photos of these things and places in our SPAIN: Madrid album.
Even though we only had three full days in Madrid, we packed them full enough to enable a return to El Escorial. That day was worthy of it’s own post, so take a look at our post titled El Escorial Revisited.
Before we knew it we were back on another high speed train racing across the heart of Spain towards one of our favorite cities – Barcelona.
