Word of advice, if you’re planning on booking travel…..look into it! We had to somehow make our way from Barcelona to Madrid and realised it was a good 5 hours and 100€ by train! However, by bus it was only 3 hours more and more than a quarter of the price!!! 8 hours later we were in Madrid!!!! Woohoo!
Ahhhhh we fell in love with Madrid…we don’t know if it was the beautiful weather we had or the people, but in all it’s just a gorgeous city!! We booked a hotel right in the centre next to la Puerta del Sol. Nice and clean hotel and coincidently well situated with a Maccas right next door (haha) but little did we know that at all hours of the day and night there were pro’s lingering around our street…that being said it was surprisingly still a safe area!
Again, we hopped on the touristic bus (those buses are a MUST!) haha they give you a whole overview of the city! Again apologies for the endless amount of photos of buildings, we did manage to narrow it down HEAPS! Haha
We squeezed in an afternoon visit to El Prado museum which
is considered to be one of the world’s best art galleries and after spending hours there gazing through masterpieces by Goya, Velasquez and Ruben we now know why! You could easily spend a day in there! We visited the likes of el Palacio Real, which by accident made it there by sunset and seriously we have never seen such a beautiful landscape. As you can see in the photos it was sooo beautiful!! The Palacio (which is the Royal Palace of Madrid and is the official residence of the King of Spain, mind you though he doesn’t actually live here, only uses it for official ceremonies…as you do!!!) is massive! So may people go here of an afternoon and just relax as next to the palace you can visit the beautifully designed garden which looks like something out of Alice in Wonderland!
Strolling along the main street Gran Vila and we came across an outdoor sculpture exhibition by an artist by the name of Igor Mitoraj. The sculptures were amazing and led us to the gate of El Jardin Botanico (Botanical Gardens) which inside is beautifully designed with plants and tress from all over the world equipped with several
sports grounds. You forget where you are with the amount of people that were there in their office suits on their lunch break (PS another thing to keep in mind, most shops and museums close from 1 to about 5ish…not all but some!) Next to El Jardin Botanico is El Parque del Retiro - this is the largest and most beautiful of all of Madrid’s parks. In the middle of the park is a large artificial lake where we were able to hire little row boats!! It was soooo muchb fun! We could’ve spent hours rowing around and judging by the photos we got a little snappy happy hahaha It really is a beautiful park! And what better way to end the day with a slice of Tortilla and an Cerveza (mum and abuela, we’re REALLY missing your tortillas…can you please send some over??!! Haha).
Yes, again the bus takes you by Santiago Bernabeu…the official home stadium to Madrid. Yannick was psyched and must admit, although soccer isn’t Rose’s thing it was an awesome tour. We got to see the whole stadium inside and out. Through the dressing rooms and down to the field. As you can see in
the pics, Yannick made the most of feeling part of the team on the day! Well came towards the end of our trip in Madrid and we were planning on doing day trip out to Toledo but as always, in the end we ran out of time and again, we still didn’t get to see all of Madrid!! Madrid was out last stop in Spain, but having got a taste of it we know we’ll definitely be coming back, next time to see more and for longer!!!
On our last night in Madrid we wanted to eat our somewhere special….we were thinking Paella or some tapas! But when we went past a Uruguayan Parilla we couldn’t resist!!!! Inside they were playing La Vela Puerca and being there, sipping on a Pilsen accompanied by Chivitos and Empanadas, we felt like we were back in Uruguay…good times!! Although we didn’t top off Spain with a typical Spanish dish, we did manage to sum up our travels in just one meal!! We will def be missing the chocolate + churros though!!
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