Surprise trip to – Madrid!

We recently celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and did so with a wonderful trip to Spain. Neither of us had ever been to Madrid, and after our five days there we deemed it one of our new favorite cities (another being Barcelona!). We loved the vibe – very cosmopolitan, classy and yet laid-back. The people are friendly, the food and drink are delish, the architecture is just beautiful, it’s very clean, and there is so much pedestrian space. Typically, the air quality in the big city is not the best. To combat this, Madrid has implemented a restricted driving zone in its city centre – only low emission cars are allowed (first time we’ve ever seen this somewhere). Because this greatly reduces the number of cars, it helps not only the air, but provides so much walkable area. We stayed smack dab in the city centre so appreciated walking everywhere! Madrid does have a Metro system, but we never tried it.

The next thing I’ll say about Madrid is don’t be afraid to stay at a hostal. Conor had booked our hotel for its location, and when we arrived we were a bit dubious. We had to take a tiny elevator up to the third floor to find the check-in. Turns out our hotel was actually a “hostal,” not to be confused with a “hostel.” I’ve never stayed in a student hostel before, nor was I keen to. We learned that “hostal” is pretty unique to Spain and is a word that essentially means a budget hotel. Whew. It was fabulous and we can highly recommend Hostal Royal Cruz. It took up half of a floor of the building and maybe had a dozen rooms. You couldn’t beat the central location, the friendly staff, and the comfortable and super clean rooms. We’re talking cleaned spotless every day. And they had a cute little common space with snacks and a kitchen that was really convenient for us when we had to work. Walking around we saw hostals everywhere. In our building alone there must have been at least ten of them.

If you’ve read many of my previous travel posts, you’ll be able to guess what we did early on – we took a walking tour. Our tour guide had a great personality and we learned many fun stories and saw lots of great sites. Not as much history as we had hoped, so we’ll just have to do another one someday. 😉 One thing we did learn is that Madrid is very proud of how old things are there. There are over 175 establishments that are over 100 years old. These generational businesses were awarded bronze plaques that you can see in the ground just outside their locales. We were able to see the oldest shop (a pharmacy) in Madrid (1578), the oldest restaurant in the world (1725; recognized by Guinness World Records), the oldest chocolate shop in Madrid (1894), and the oldest barber shop in Madrid (1900).

There are so many beautiful places to see in Madrid. You could walk and explore for days, which is what we did. Sites we took in:

Plaza Mayor – a major public space in the heart of the city. It used to be the center of Old Madrid and is quite the heart now. I think we walked through here multiple times a day getting to other places.

Puerta del Sol – another large public square, this is probably the busiest area of the city. Like a sun, it is the center for a large number of key streets that radiate out. Unfortunately, the square was completely under construction so please excuse the lack of photos here. 

Madrid Royal Palace – considered one of the finest palaces in Europe and the largest in Western Europe. It is the official residence of the Spanish royal family, though the current royal family chooses not to live there. It’s pretty much used only for state events and is open to the public for viewing. The palace has a whopping 3,418 rooms, and only a fraction are open for viewing. 😉

Almudena Cathedral – the most important religious building in Madrid. It’s the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese in Madrid and happens to sit opposite the Royal Palace. At this point in time, I often think “You’ve seen one cathedral, you’ve seen them all.” And then you walk into yet another one that is completely different than any other you’ve ever seen before. The bright colors in here were amazing. Also amazing that it took 100 years for this cathedral to get built. 

El Retiro Park – What Central Park is to NYC, El Retiro is to Madrid. It was February so nothing was in bloom and the trees were bare, but it was still beautiful. I can only imagine how it must come to life in the springtime. The park used to belong to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th century when it became a public park. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and seems such an amazing resource for Madrid’s residents. 

The Prado Museum – the famous national art museum. It’s a beautiful space known for the world’s most comprehensive collection of Spanish painting. It also has masterpieces of other schools of European painting, largely Italian and Flemish art. We made a point to make sure and see the works by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). I was especially taken with Velázquez’s (mostly royal) portraits – amazing detail and realism.

Flamenco show – a wonderful art form in southern Spain that began back in the late 1700s. It combines music (mostly guitar), singing, and dancing and simply must be experienced in person for the depth of emotion it exudes. Where to see a show? At a traditional tablao. Of course, we ended up at the oldest tablao in Madrid! While all of the performers were wonderful, I especially loved the dancers (myself being a dancer in a former life). The beautiful costumes, the way they used them in their dancing, and the prolonged intensity was very impressive.

Did I mention the food? It was difficult to find a bad meal in Madrid. We ate lots of tapas (small plates), typically for lunch, and enjoyed a variety of meals, even an amazing Spanish Thai dinner. We, of course, had to get some paella, (potato) tortillas, and some churros with chocolate. In Spain (and Italy, and the UK if I recall) if you order “hot chocolate” you literally get a cup of melted thick, creamy chocolate. Perfect for dipping churros into. Orange juice is always freshly squeezed (as is the same in Italy), sangria is awesome, and Conor ventured to say the Spanish red wines were even better than the Italian (shh!). The Spaniards love their pork – Iberian ham – and I couldn’t get over the cured legs of pigs we would see in many places. Madrid also has many fabulous food markets. The most famous is the Mercado de San Miguel, similar to the Boqueria in Barcelona. You can eat there, purchase goods to take home, or just walk around and admire the food art, which is what I love to do.

Ok, some last random photos – largely of the beautiful buildings I couldn’t get enough of…

One final treat… We had the chance to meet up with one of Conor’s first cousins, Tara, and her husband, Xavi. They live in a beautiful home in the north side of the city. It was neat to see their neighborhood and another part of town, and we had a great visit. We always love learning from locals, and they are definitely proud Madrileños (Madrid natives). We look forward to returning to their beautiful city again someday!