Spanish Adventure Continued - Madrid

Sunday - We arrived in Madrid and navigated to the hotel on the metro (new city, new metro system - luckily they're fairly easy to figure out!). We were staying at the Hotel Emperador which is nice and seems to be in a central location. The area around it has a New York City feel to it, but then you walk a few streets over where all the museums are and it feels like D.C. It's a good mix! We checked in and dropped our stuff off and then went to the Museo Del Prado. We saw paintings by Velaquez, Goya, El Greco and more. Admission was free between 5-7 and thankfully there wasn't the line like at the Picasso museum.

It was raining when we got out of the museum, so we found a place nearby (La Taperia) for dinner. It turned out to be really yummy! We shared a spinach salad with sauted shitake mushrooms and tomatoes and then had gniocchi and a fettuccine with salmon. All of it was really good. I found it kinda funny that the two best meals we had so far were Italian. :) It started to downpour while we were eating... so we stayed for dessert and coffee! Great idea!

Monday - Started the day at Starbucks - we're traditional. There was one right across the street from the hotel. It was two stories and the upstairs was all seating with big bay windows. Plus, the baristas spoke great English and even helped us practice ordering in Spanish.

We took a day trip to Segovia. It's only 35 minutes from Madrid by train. There are three main things to see in Segovia: The Roman Aqueduct, the Cathedral and the Alcazar.

On the train to Segovia

The Roman Aqueduct was built because Segovia was a Roman military base and needed water. It's 2,000 years old, 2,500 feet long, 100 feet high and has 118 arches. It was built from 20,000 granite blocks without any mortar!

The Cathedral was built in Renaissance times and is quite elaborate inside. There are side chapels inside with huge gates - which were private chapels of rich families. One contained the painting "Tree of Life" by Ignacio Ries which shows the Grimm Reaper chopping down a tree to receive the mortals atop into hell. Jesus is on the other side, ringing a bell to wake them up.

Tree of Life painting

The Alcazar is a big castle in Segovia. It was used by the monarchs of Castile in the Middle Ages. It was also a prison for 200 years and then a Royal Artillery school, but now is just a tourist attraction. We wandered through and saw things like the Throne Room, Royal bedroom and the Room of the Monarchs.

The Royal Bedroom 

My throne!

For another 2 euro, you can climb the 152 steps to the top of the tower... which we of course did. :) It was beautiful and you get a 360 degree view of the city

Top of the tower

We found a great place to stop for a coffee and chocolate crepe - just what I needed to warm up.. it was cold in Segovia!

We took the train back to Madrid and dad decided to go to a Jazz club. He said the Jazz was really good! I stayed back at the hotel and had some quiet time to myself. :)

Tuesday - I set my alarm for 8, but didn't get up until 10. Dad either. Guess we were tired... or on European time. We went to the hotel gym so I could run a little bit and then finally headed out for the day around 12:30. 

At Starbucks 

We started at Starbucks (surprise!) and then went to the Palacio Real de Madrid.. or the Royal Palace. According to the guide book, it's the 3rd greatest palace in Europe. It's pretty impressive! Not just in size (2000 rooms!), but the interior too. There's a grand staircase, of course, and then it's full of rooms such as the Guard room, hall of columns, throne room, silver room, china room, smoking and billiards room... they go on and on. There was also an armory and a pharmacy. 

At lunch

After the palace we wandered over to the Plaza de Oriente and had lunch. I had a pizza and dad had a vegetarian sandwich that had hard boiled egg, tomato, lettuce, carrot and asparagus on it. We both thought that sounded a little weird, but it was actually really yummy. Coffee followed of course. Then we decided to head back to the hotel for a little sunshine and siesta. Our hotel had a pool on the roof. :) 


After our rest in the sun, we took the metro to the Bernabeu Stadium (where the Real Madrid play) and took a tour. I thought it would be fun because you can't tour the one in Seattle and because it's such a part of their culture. I would have gone to a game, but their season ended the beginning of May. The tour was pretty cool and you even got to go down to the field and sit in the player's seats. 

We headed back to see Puerta del Sol (a square) and have some churros con chocolate at a place recommended by our guide book. They tasted about the same as the place we tried in Barcelona - leaving me to believe that they are good... but not wonderful.

We walked to see the Templo De Debod which is an Egyptian Temple. It had a really beautiful park by it and a great view of the city! 

We also saw the center of Spain!

Our fried dinner :) 

Then we wandered up through Plaza Mayor (another square) and found a fun little (and crowded!) place for tapas. We weren't terribly hungry, but we ordered 3 things and they were not small. It was too much food. But they had a section on the menu for their eggs and fries - so I had to try that! It was literally fried eggs... over french fries (broken open so the yolk spilled over the fries). It was pretty good actually.. and not so weird once we thought about how people eat eggs with potatoes for breakfast all the time. :) We also had a tomato and avocado salad and fried eggplant. Not a great day for the arteries! But we felt like true Spaniards that day... slept late, left late, siesta and a late dinner!
We walked home after all the food, but went up some side street near Plaza Mayor and there were all kinds of artists on the street selling things. There were a couple of people that do these amazing pictures and it's all with spray paint. They were so impressive... I bought 3!

Wednesday - Spent a very nice lazy last day in Madrid. Slept until 10 again, then went to the gym. We had to checkout of the hotel, but we left our bags there. Made it out to Starbucks for some breakfast, then spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. It was a nice break from all the traveling and sightseeing!