Anyway, started the morning slightly lazily with a lovely breakfast at the b&b. one of the owners makes his own bread and he just kept bringing out food. And everyone sits around a table chatting and laughing. All of a sudden an hour had passed. Great way to start the day!
Walked the lovely stroll through madrid's main squares to the cathedral and royal palace. No pictures allowed in the palace but its as amazing as one might expect in a country with an old and active monarchy. Stunning rooms highlighted by a room housing a collection of five or so Stradivari instruments. Also it has a strange old royal pharmacy collection. Interesting.
Walked back towards the main square, and witnessed an incredibly massive line at what appeared to be the opera house, can't imagine what it was bit it was mostly older people literally snaking around the huge square that house the opera house. On my way back to the main area, I had a late morning (really it was almost noon, but whatever) snack of chocolate con churros at the highly recommended chocolateria San gines. It was crazy busy then, and apparently it's even worse at about midnight. Yikes! Then, since its Sunday, i detoured to quickly check out the rastro flea market, which was packed with people and a lot of junk.
On my way back to town center, I found a recommended leather factory/shop and bought a gorgeous dark purple wallet. The guy used Nivea cream to polish it before packaging. Well ok then, guess he'd know better than I would!
Made my way back to mercado san Miguel, which I had quickly checked out just as it was opening around ten. It could be my new favorite place on earth. It's a small but amazing upscale indoor food market. I could live my life there, not kidding; actually let's not kid I could live my life at the olive stand alone. Through the masses of people, I pieced together a delicious lunch of a mini Jamon de bellota (aka the top quality) sandwich, a plate of mixed olives, and a couple croquettes. I also bought a quarter kilo of my beloved teeny tiny delicious arbequina olives to take home. Even in this upscale/fancy market in the middle of a major world city, they only cost me 1.60€.
Got a yummy fresh mixed berry juice to take to my 2pm free Madrid walking tour, which lasted surprisingly almost 3 hours and was pretty good. That ended in the city's main square, puerta del sol, where I hopped on the metro to walk down gran via, the big grand boulevard in the more modern part of town from the 1900s with great architecture and the "big box" stores. The street was closed to traffic and I understood when I got to a square at the other end - protest!!
Got on the metro at that square and went one stop to where the bus station is to get my day trip tickets for tomorrow as well as do a test run so I don't have the same problem as last time. Bought my tickets and made it back to the b&b thankfully uneventfully via metro! Took a short late siesta after a 10 hour day in which I barely sat down and set out for a delicious traditional tapas dinner at these highly recommended spots!!
Yay I'm all caught up on pictures! Tomorrow a day trip to Segovia.
1 comment:
Since I'm the person who introduced you to olives and chocolate before you were born, I'm jealous!!! ;););)
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