– art, tapas and getting on with business –
It’s now the summer of 2019 in Europe and I’m here with the boy during his uni vacation. The three of us decided to travel to Madrid in Spain for our first weekend together in a long time, arriving late on Friday night at our apartment in Calle Arenal – which is one of the many large pedestrianised shopping malls in the centre of town. The apartment is a bit soul-less but it’s main advantage is that it’s very central.
Day 1: Saturday
Finding a nice breakfast spot isn’t entirely easy – not sure why that’s the case. Perhaps they don’t celebrate breakfast in the same way that Australians do – or maybe we’re just on the wrong side of town for it. But we decided to stop for a continental style breakfast at La Mallorquina which is a classic 125 year old cafe on Calle Mayor (a bit like our Martin Place in Sydney).
In the downstairs area you can buy pastries and eat them at the counter. Upstairs there’s a dining room – which is where we headed. The intention had been to order some simple pastries and a cup of coffee for breakfast but somehow even the most simple option ended up being elaborate. The pastries were nice, if a little old fashioned. Coffee was so-so.
Most of the entertainment was in actually watching the very busy waitstaff rushing about and setting tables – with as much speed and flair as any Chinese waiter – until our waiter managed to knock over a table of crockery with an almighty crash!
We had the official Madrid app on the phone, so we decided to take the classic self-guided walk after breakfast.
A few snaps of Plaza Mayor (including the obligatory stream of tourists posing in front of the main monument) and then off to the Mercado de San Miguel, stopping for another shot or two on the way.
The Mercado is definitely a must-visit on a trip to Madrid! It’s not huge, but the food on offer is exquisite! It would have been lovely to buy some to take back home for everyone to taste – but sadly, not possible!
Next Plaza de la Ville – a quiet little spot with some historic buildings.
And then we moved on to see Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral. This is Madrid’s main Church and unbelievably it was only consecrated in 1993. Sadly, its architecture has nothing to do with today – and the contrast to Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia could not be more stark!
Facing the Cathedral across the plaza is the Royal Palace. Although the official residence of Spain’s royal family, they don’t actually live here. It is apparently the largest royal palace in Europe but at least from this angle didn’t seem to have the elegance or symmetry of say, Versailles. But then I’m probably being a little too precious!
We passed by the Royal Palace a couple of times during our visit and it was especially nice to see at sunset, so perhaps this was a hasty judgement!
But returning to our Saturday in Madrid, a little further on from the Palace, we were lucky to catch the changing of the guard and couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor sentries and horses who would have to stan in the very hot and very bright courtyard for the next hour or so!
We finally ended up on Madrid’s main shopping street, Gran Via.
But really, the heat was starting to soar by this stage and with no respite other than in the packed shops, we scurried along as fast as we could manage in search of some lunch ending up in Madrid’s gay quarter, La Chuecha. Given that this weekend was the start of Pride Week, the area was totally festooned with rainbow flags and a lot of tourists who had come to join in the revelry. We found our way to a small cafe serving Valencian Paella – which was good, if not mind-blowing. But it was somewhere cool and quiet to rest for an hour or so.
We had decided to spend the afternoon at Madrid’s main art gallery, the Prado, which was a brilliant idea as it had reached a scorching 40 degrees celsius outside.
Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos inside – though that didn’t stop me from sneaking in a couple. Two of the major draw cards are Heironymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and the Velasquez painting Las Meninas. Both of course were so packed that it was difficult to get close, but here they are so you know what I’m talking about:
And here are the crowds:
And a nice little one by Christoph Amberger titled The Goldsmith with no one about, which I managed to snap whilst the guard had their back turned:
The Prado visit over, it was back out into the heat and home. We spotted this place on our way back home – this one is for you nonna. The only one we didn’t come across during the day was Taberna Franca!
By this stage it was so hot that our eyeballs were beginning to scorch! For reasons unknown, the hottest part of the day here is actually around 6pm, rather than the middle of the day. But we weren’t going to let that stop us from our Saturday night tapas crawl. All up, we sampled 4 tapas bars and had eaten enough by 10:30 by which time the Madrileños were only just starting.
The night finished with churros at the legendary Choclateria San Ginés. I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo of this delectable concoction – it was so decadent – but I think the smile on Ni’s face says it all!
The day had indeed ended very well!
Day 2: Sunday
We had planned to take it a little easier today especially as Ni would be leaving for Munich in the afternoon. So the morning started with an amble to the El Rastro Flea Market which takes place every Sunday, stopping for breakfast of course! Everything starts so late here and we had to wait some time to find an open cafe.
The market itself was absolutely huge spanning across a number of streets and plazas and provided you kept to the side streets rather than the main thoroughfare it was really interesting with loads of unusual finds. Well worth a Sunday morning visit and probably the best flea market I’ve ever visited.
We had decided that our next stop would be Retiro Park, which is like the Central Park of Madrid. We decided to walk there through La Latina which wasn’t the most salubrious side of town, but full of local life and very few tourists which enabled us to get a great insight into how real Madrileños live.
The Park itself was a welcome reprieve from the heat.
We found some time to visit the Crystal Palace and Palacio de Velasquez which are outposts of the Reina Sofia Art Museum. They were housing temporary exhibits both of which were worthwhile seeing.
The Crystal Palace was lovely and quite intact. Here was a rare moment – no visitor to be seen!
The Palacio de Velasquez was showing a retrospective of the work of Tetsuya Ishida, a Japanese artist. The works were disturbing and uncomfortably compelling. I hadn’t encountered his surrealist-style work before and it was sad but somehow comprehensible that this young man had committed suicide. The amount of work he produced in his short life was phenomenal!
We made our way back to the apartment so that Ni could get ready to leave – but here is a shot that I took en-route – amongst the weirdest trees I’ve ever seen!
The last thing that Cal and I had planned for the day was a performance of Carmen Buranda by La Fura des Baus. It was tame by comparison to the previous performance that Franca, Ni and I had experienced at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney in our youth, but nonetheless cooky and incomprehensible as you would expect from this troupe. The opera singers’ performances were powerful and sublime – and Calum didn’t follow up on his promise to sleep through the performance, so it must have been good!
Day 3: Monday Morning
Our final few hours in Madrid, so after dropping off our bags, Calum took me on a Church hop. An absolute highlight was the Basilica of San Francisco El Grande. We were incredibly lucky to find it open, as we arrived just as morning mass was finishing. Oh my – what a wonderful building! An absolute surprise! It was dominated by an enormous and intricately decorated central dome – that left us gasping in true shock and awe. It was reminiscent of Rome’s Pantheon in its grandeur, though in an entirely Spanish style with intricate and ornate decoration. Photos were prohibited – what is it with Madrid! – but I managed to sneak some in, so here they are – enjoy!
The crypt of the Almudena Cathedral was also a highlight – actually so much nicer than the Cathedral itself – see previous comments… The crypt was bright and much larger than usual – full of graves – but actually a lovely place to visit.
Cal was so taken by the elderly priest selling rosaries at the front door, that he had to stop and make a purchase. A nice memento of his time in Madrid.
A walk back to the luggage storage store and the end of our short trip.
Will we come back? Madrid is a working city. It’s nice in a muted kind of way, but the city and everyone in it is more focused on getting on with things. In my personal opinion, it pales against the vibrancy and go-go of Barcelona, which is a real shame. Perhaps it’s a city that takes time to fully appreciate and two and a half days confined to the centre is not enough to make an informed judgement. But there you are, that was pretty much our unanimous assessment.
