Madrid
Tuesday was my birthday, and we decided we should go to Madrid to celebrate. It’s about a 2 hour train ride from Valencia to Madrid, so we decided we would have to stay a night or two to make it worth it.
The train left Valencia at 10:40am and we got to Madrid after 12. The first thing I noticed was how big the Madrid train station is. It took us almost 10 minutes to get to the metro from where our train dropped us off. The metro ride was very quick, and we got to our stop within 15 minutes. When we emerged from the ground, the first thing we saw was a giant Christmas tree made of lights.
After we got settled in at our hotel, we went out to go find food. Luckily there was a taco place right near the hotel! I had some chicken tacos and some beef tacos, and they were really good. The tacos were just small tortillas filled with 1 thing, which is much simpler than what I was expecting, but I think the minimalism made the tacos better.
We left the restaurant and started to wander down towards Plaza Mayor. On our way we made a stop at Puerta del Sol, which is a different plaza. There was a giant Christmas tree there, but overall the plaza was disappointing because it was almost completely under construction. The El Oso y el Madroño sculpture of a bear sniffing around in a tree, was almost completely hidden in the construction. I was a little disappointed by not being able to see the sculpture because I noticed that it is the Madrid coat of arms.
We wandered through some side streets to get from Puerta del Sol to Plaza Mayor. I noticed a lot of American fast food chains, more than I had seen in most other cities. When we got to Plaza Mayor we saw people setting up a Christmas market. My mom was disappointed because the market was starting on Friday, and we were leaving on Thursday. Besides the market, there was another giant Christmas tree in the plaza. There was also a cool looking building (The Centro de Turismo Plaza Mayor) that was covered with paintings on the outside. The paintings made the building look more like something that should be in a church instead of a building.
We left Plaza Mayor and started walking in the direction of the Palacio Real de Madrid, the royal palace. The palace is behind a giant gated off plaza, so we didn’t get a great view of it but it was still cool. Right across from the palace is the Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena, which is a big cathedral. We went inside, and the first thing I noticed was how modern it was. The stained glass was very different from the stained glass in all of the churches that are hundreds of years old.
It was mid afternoon when we left the church, so we decided to find a place to sit and have a snack. We wandered back closer to the hotel, and found a churro place. We got 8 churros, and chocolate to dip them in. The churros were fried right in front of us, so we knew they had to be good. We were right. We had churros in Turin and Barcelona too, but I think that these were probably the best we’d had.
The next day we started by going towards the Puerta de Alcalá. I wish I could say what it looked like, but the entire thing was covered up with scaffolding. We kept going past the monument to a big park. In the center of the park is the Estanque Grande de El Retiro, a big rectangular pond. On the other side of the pond is the Monumento a Alfonso XII, a giant monument to the former Spanish king. The monument was covered in light up trees for Christmas, but like the Christmas market, they weren’t being lit up until Friday.
We went to the Palacio de Cristal which is further into the park, which kind of reminded me of a greenhouse. The inside was foggy because every few minutes they fill it with fog using fog machines to give a ghostly effect. There were a bunch of mirrors inside of the palace also. I’m not really sure what their purpose was because they only really reflected the ceiling. Right when we were about to go back outside, the fog machines turned on. My sister wanted to walk through the heavy fog, so I went with her. You couldn’t see anything while inside of the fog.
My mom wanted to go through this neighborhood right across from the park because of an art project. Every fall in Madrid they put up a bunch of different statues inspired by Las Meninas, a Diego Velazquez painting of the Spanish royal family. Each statue was designed by a different person, so my mom wanted to see how many we could find. She found a map online that showed locations of all the statues, and this neighborhood had a lot. We walked around for around 30 minutes and saw more than 10 statues. There were a few blocks with a statue on every corner.
Photo Credit to My Mom
At 5 we went out to a restaurant in the neighborhood of our hotel to watch the Spanish World Cup game against Costa Rica. The place we picked had a projector projecting onto a big screen. The game started off great for Spain, as they scored in the 11th minute. While it was 1-0 the projector suddenly went out because the waitress accidentally pressed a button. Over 5 minutes later, we were getting ready to leave, but they got it back on. When it came back, Spain was up 2-0, so we missed a goal but that was okay because there were a lot of goals that we saw. Spain ended up winning the game 7-0, which is a great result for them, but horrible for Costa Rica.
After we ate and watched soccer, we went to a Flamenco show. There was a theater not that far away that my mom got tickets for. When we got there we were seated at a table right in front of the stage. I wasn’t expecting the show to be that good, because I had been to my sister’s dance recitals and they weren’t very exciting, but I was wrong. The Flamenco show had much more energy. There was dancing, singing, and guitar playing and all of it was great. In the end I liked the show, but my sister didn’t because she thought it was too loud.
Photo Credit to My Mom
The next day we had a train to catch back to Valencia at 2, but we had tickets to the Museo Nacional del Prado, the biggest art museum in Spain, at 11. We spent about an hour in the museum, but we couldn’t take pictures so I have nothing to show you. We saw Las Meninas, and that was kind of cool. There were lots of other famous pieces of art (at least according to my dad) that we saw too. I’m not a big art museum fan, but my dad really liked all of it.
We left the museum around 12 because we had to go find lunch before we went back to Valencia. I saw a Thai place and I suggested we go there, so we went over to check it out. Everyone thought it looked good, so we decided to eat there. I got beef noodles and they were really good. The food was a good way to wrap up our time in Madrid. I enjoyed our time there, but I was happy to go back to the warmth of Valencia.
