Very hot!
Arrived from Paris Friday afternoon and the first thing that hits you is the heat. Very similar to a January day in Melbourne, dry and hot. We stayed in a great apartment which was a 15 minute downhill (25 uphill) walk to the main part of Madrid.
Friday evening we walked around and ending up eating at 11 p.m. at a great Persian restaurant called Esfahan. We had a collection of dips and starters and a lamb skewer main. Excellent food!
We were in Madrid in 2009 and did all the big ticket items then (Palace, Prado, Reina Sofia, etc..), so this was a more leisurely pace. So after visiting the Temple of Debod and the Cervantes (Don Quixote) monument, we decided to do a big lap of Madrid, starting from the Palace around to Embajadores onto the Atocha train station & Reina Sofia then along the beautiful tree lined Boulevard pass the Prado museum and the magnificent Post Office at Plaza de Celibes. Then up to Gran Via then back to the apartment about 3 hours in 32+C heat..probably a silly idea! We did have a quick drinks break at a Tapas bar when Andy took a wrong turn!
The main reason we diverted our original plans was to meet Andy's sister Mary and her husband Dick, who have been in Europe for about 6 weeks, Madrid being their last port of call before returning home. We went to their hotel and had a couple of pre- dinners drinks on the ninth floor terrace bar...very nice!
We all had lots of travel stories to tell. We went to dinner to Botin which is listed in the Guinness World Records, as the oldest continuous restaurant in the world. We all ate the house speciality Roast Suckling Pig, in a word, fantastic. The maitre'd gave us a guided tour of the restaurant and showed us lots of photos of himself with the celebrities who had dined their.
After dinner we wandered around the San Miguel food market and on the way back we ran into a religious procession (starting at 11 p.m.) through the streets of Madrid.
Sunday turned out to be a big day. Andy and Kristin met Mary and Dick at their hotel and caught a taxi to Atocha train station and caught the train to Toledo. The 70 km trip took about 30 minutes.
Toledo was once the capital of Spain and the city which is built on a hill which has a heavy Moor and Jewish influence. The Santa Iglesia Cathedral is magnificent inside and out. We also went to the Santa Cruz museum and went on a tourist train ride around the city.
We returned to Madrid and went to our next adventure, a bullfight at Plaza de Toros de las Ventas. None of us were over impressed with the spectacle, we only watched the first two ( of six) "fights". If you don't approve don't hassle me!
Back at Mary/Dick's hotel we drank the bottle of red wine the Americans gave us in Paris..a very nice drink and then unfortunately we had to say our goodbyes as we were off to Seville in the morning.
Just outside the hotel there was a free rock concert, looked a very young and hip crowd.
We had a quick dinner at an Indian restaurant next door to the Persian restaurant (which was closed on Sundays).
Cheers,
A & K.
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