Thursday 2 November 2017

We arrive at our hotel in the old part of central Madrid.  We have friends who have stayed here in recent times, two couples in fact, both of whom  told us how much they enjoyed it. Our experience on arrival does not live up to expectation.  Despite having booked a double room months ago, we are dispatched to a very ordinary room with two single beds, a window which doesn’t open and which looks out on the garbage skip. Our pleas for another room, one with a double bed, falls on the deaf ears of the most unhelpful woman at reception.  She assures us there is nothing else available.  Our search of the net on our handy iPads suggests otherwise, but despite my trekking back down to reception and mustering as much charm as possible, she sticks to her guns. Fortunately we had used booking.com and by a stroke of good fortune we can cancel without penalty by 1800hrs.  It’s now 1720 and another quick search of the net reveals a room to our liking in a classy pub next to the Prado. We are so pissed off with this place, we immediately confirm at the new hotel (whose rooms are considerably cheaper than a bottle of wine in the foothills of the Atlas) and return our key to reception, advising them that we are checking out immediately.  We load our cases into a taxi outside and give him the address of the new hotel.  But not before we are chased by the porter who says the manager wants to speak with us and hands me the phone. The taxi driver is torn…does he take off with us, or does he unload our luggage?  He chooses the safe option and stands by the drivers door until all is resolved with the hotel.  I refuse to take the phone, saying in a rather haughty manner that they’ve had their chance and they have my credit card details (which was true but I said it for the cab drivers benefit really, knowing that it would not be charged).  The poor porter, who had been kind to us during the room debacle (and had been tipped accordingly) shrugged his shoulders and told the taxi to spirit us away.  We are very comfortable where we are staying.  The concierge (yes, it’s a classy pub) recommends a nearby casual bar/restaurant which is a triumph of food to our taste. So too is the glass of red wine we each enjoy.  Note, not a bottle on our repertoire since the meltdown in the Atlas.  We walk home on a lovely evening, with light sweaters on, a relief from the recent heat in Morocco.

Friday 3 November

We walk the streets of Madrid early and inhale it’s beauty and vibrancy.  And it’s welcoming and inclusive spirit.

 

 

We breakfast in a small coffee shop and are at the Prado shortly after it opens at 10.  This is, of course, one of the great galleries of Europe and it’s hard to absorb so much. Except what a troubled man Goya was.  After a couple of hours, we can take no more. I am feeling a little under the weather so I return to the hotel (next door) for a lie down while Cherrie visits the nearby botanic gardens.  But first, outside the museum, she spies South American Quaker parrots nesting in the trees.  They have built quite a community

Our photo editor reports that she very much enjoyed her stroll through the gardens

and here is her appraisal

I’m feeling better by the time Cherrie returns to the hotel so we set out on foot in search of the famed markets.  We walk down main streets, into side alleys, through squares and plazas and have a thouroughly enjoyable and exhausting afternoon.

We eat in the main square of the markets. It is apparent that Spiderman eats here a little too frequently

It’s rather nice to be back in Europe although I am thoroughly ashamed at my lack of Spanish, which eclipses even my lack of French.  Cherrie remembers some from her time in South America 40 years ago, but regrettably our tastes have changed since then and we no longer have any real desire to order two beers please.

Cherrie is rather taken by these drawers she saw which used to store seeds, but they won’t fit in the suitcase.

The steps app on my phone tells me that I have walked 12kms today, Cherrie even further.  We decide that a picnic in our room is attractive, so buy a bottle of red wine (6 Euros for the record), cheese, Serrano ham and a rustic baguette.

The legs are tired.  And so to bed. The turndown service here is after we go to sleep! We know we are in Spain!

Saturday 4 November

We breakfast in Independence Plaza, a 10 minute walk from the hotel, and the site of the arch at the top of this blog.  Rain is forecast today so we decide to join the red bus for a city tour.  We walked a lot of the old section yesterday and the legs are not quite up to another 15kms today, so we think that a birds eye view might be good. And so it is.  There are two routes to this tour and we opt for the historic one first.

There is a major demonstration scheduled for 5pm this evening, the Catalonia thing, and we are warned to stay clear of the Piazza del Sol in the old town.  The buses have changed their route to avoid it and whilst I would quite like to witness the activities my more considered partner advises against it.  She recalls being caught up in a demonstration in 1979 in Lima where she and Vix were hit by water canons and gas. An experience she doesn’t wish to repeat. Woos.

The bus tour is interesting, in that we see just how much ground we covered yesterday.  We see what we assume to be the headquarters the Gastoenterologists Society

And indications that Madrid not only approves of gay marriage but also a man marrying his bike (as it were)

After nearly one whole circuit in the bus we alight at the Salamanca district, the wealthy part of town between the old and new.  This is where the designer shops are  and how comfortable are we in this area?  The locals are out and about and so beautifully dressed, and groomed.  We do see some women who are no longer able to move their heads due to three face lifts too many. Still, it’s nice to window shop knowing that we have no desire to buy.  I am taken with a small cafe which displays its fresh wares outside

After a coffee break we join the second bus for a tour of modern Madrid. These bus introductions to a city are really only as good as the person operating the recordered commentary. The woman on the first bus got it right, but Dopey here is not too quick with the switch. From our prime front row upstairs seat we admire the newly restored arts centre and the intriguing design by a French architect who won the international competition.  He’s done a terrific job. It’s modern, slick and doesn’t look like an arts centre at all.

That’s because we are looking at the railway station. The whole tour is like this. We are two blocks behind on everything, so once we wake up to this impediment we remove the ear plugs and just looked at modern Madrid, which reveals itself to be like any other large city. The heart of Madrid is in the old part, through which we walked extensively yesterday .

The forecast rain hardly eventuates to any extent.  I suppose that means that the rain in Spain is really just a feign?

So we disembark and leave the other tourists to wonder at the architecture and design of Dooey’s city. We walk to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, where there is an exhibition of Picasso and Lautrec.  This is a terrific museum of an incredibly extensive private collection of the family whose name the museum bears. Spain acquired the collection in 1993 and housed it in a really lovely three storey building.  The temporary exhibition is fabulous too and a real eye opener for me how much Picasso was influenced by Lautrec.  I have never ‘got’ Picasso’s bohemian style and need the titles to explain to me what it is that I am looking at.   “Man with Jug” for example.  It’s a bit like a cryptic crossword for me…even when I have the answer I don’t understand the question.  But, to see Picasso’s early work, when the older artist had a strong influence on him was quite something.

By now it’s 5.30pm, we have been on the go since 9am, have walked 11km despite our time in the bus and we’ve have had no lunch.  We are tired and hungry, but we’re also in Spain where the dinner restaurants do not open until 8.30pm.  We make our way back up to Independence Square,where the tourist restaurants are, and plead starvation to a particularly sympathetic waiter, who probably sniffs our tip.  We succeed in getting a delicious plate of fresh anchovies.  We had these on our first night in Madrid and they are like no anchovies we have had before.  Just yum.   We then share a steak, which our waiter friend has managed to talk the kitchen into preparing for us, with a curious salad of kale and rasperries.  The waiter is really chuffed that he could feed us, as well as provide a bottle of very reasonably priced, and pleasant, tempranillo.  He wants us to have dessert.  We are not tempted by the  selection but bow to his pleas for the( and I quote accurately) the “French Toast with Wire Chocolate Soup and Fresh Milk Iced Cream”.  We get what we deserve and he gets the tip he deserves.

We walk back to the hotel through streets buzzing with more crowds than we have seen before. It’s Saturday night. Turndown will wake us up again tonight.

Sunday 5 November 2017

This  morning we walk to breakfast. The streets are very quiet but half of one boulevarde is cordoned off. Something happening, security around, but we don’t know what. However, walking back, we learn that it is the annual 10km run through the middle of the City

We take a new route back to the hotel, and lo and behold, here is Madrid embracing heterosexuality too

A good place to leave the blog. We’re heading to the airport now to begin the long trip home. Madrid – Doha – Sydney