May 6-7, 2022 – Madrid, Spain – Alex and Kim’s Adventures

Written by Kim

Wow – Madrid is the capital city and most populated city in Spain with approximately 3.4 million inhabitants. It’s the second largest city in the EU behind Berlin. We certainly experienced that. Everywhere you go it is bustling and crowds of people. We took the hop on hop off bus to get the lay of the land. We couldn’t get on a bus due to crowds so walked to another spot but had to sit downstairs where you basically see nothing for a few stops before enough people left and we found seats upstairs. Once when we got on we thought it would be a good idea to sit in the front seats because it wasn’t crowded. That sounded like a great idea until it took us a while to find working headphone jacks that would play the tour in English. We had a good laugh while I checked the various jacks around us to get settled. The bus was good giving us a cursory view of the highlights of the city but basically told us a lot about architecture, etc.

An insurance company with same statue on top of all their buildings

Neptune fountain where Atletico Madrid celebrates when they win

The hotel I stayed in 41 years ago – April 1981- on my very first visit to Europe while in high school

Gran Vie a bit like Broadway in NY. Lots of shopping

Like NY there were lots of shenanigans around the city

A guy blowing bubbles entertaining the kids

We found a fantastic self guided walking tour online we decided to try. Basically you download an app and a narrator guides you on a tour based on the GPS in your phone. We linked our AirPods together so we could both listen. The app is called VoiceMap. Our tour was called “History with a Side of Tapas”. Daniel, our guide, was fabulous sharing history and stories as we walked about 90 minutes. He would offer places to stop and restart the route along the way. I definitely recommend trying a tour like this

This is the oldest church in Madrid. Daniel told us how he would go to the nightclub which was open 24 hours next door and sometimes wander in at 8 am mass where his grandmother would smack him on the head for being out all night. Great storyteller

Where the Spanish tooth fairy, a mouse, was created

A good tapas stop – great cod croquettes and sangria

Kilometer zero – all distance across Spain from Madrid is measured to this point

Botin – the oldest restaurant in the world in continuous operation since 1725. Hemingway liked it here. Suckling pig is their specialty

Street signs included pictures because many could read years ago

Calamari sandwich is popular snack eaten between noon and one. Motto in Madrid is “eat & drink all day but never get drunk”

Plaza major – we almost exited the wrong way on the tour and the tour guide stopped us and told us to look at map. Lol. Very clever

We stopped for a break with a few Duvels, my favorite Belgian beer

We ended the day at Flamenco dinner and show. It was amazing.

Our trip has been fantastic. We are winding down just a few more days in Madrid before heading home. A special treat is that we are able to stream the Mets to our hotel tv so Alex can watch them since they are doing so well.

Good night from Madrid. Heading to Toledo for Mothers Day on Sunday.