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Published: January 23rd 2006
Including her adventures...
Getting acquainted with the city
Eating pizza from a cone
Hanging out with famous sportsmen during a Nike commercial shoot
Taking a walking tour of Medieval Madrid
Visiting the Prado Museum
Watching old book printing techniques
Marvelling at the Royal Palace
Wandering through the streets of Toledo
& hanging out with some new friends at Bull's Hostel
...among others
After a fairly short plane ride, I was again in a country where I could understand (much of!) the language, ready to test out my skills after 2 years of university Spanish. It started off well, and I managed to buy a weekly pass for the Madrid transport network and find my way to Bull's Hostel, even getting some compliments on my language skills along the way! After checking in, I decided to go for a walk around the area and get myself acquainted, so I spent the next couple of hours wandering along the streets, through some parks, past the Templo de Debod and Palacio Real and towards the city. At that point, I decided I may as well jump on a bus, considering I had my transport pass, but it took an unexpected turn and I
ended up heading in the wrong direction to where I wanted to go. Luckily, I spotted a subway sign a few minutes later, so I jumped off and caught the train back to the stop next to my hostel. I love subways. They make it so easy to find your way around because they're always in the same place! Back at the hostel, I made myself some dinner and then spent some time clearing out my backpack. It's amazing how much stuff you accumulate when travelling!
On Monday morning, I caught up on some sleep before setting out to the centre of town to complete my journey from the evening before. I wandered through the area around the Plaza Mayor for a while. They had a market set up for Christmas in the square, which seemed to consist entirely of two types of stalls. The first kind sold Nativity figurines, and the second sold practical joke items such as whoopee cushions, fake vomit and magnets that made rattlesnake noises when thrown in the air. I was a little confused by the contrast, but was later told that there is a day close to Christmas in Spain where it is
traditional for people to play jokes on each other, similar to April Fool's Day.
I then caught the subway to another area of town, where I spent about an hour in line at the post office trying to send two letters and a small package. As it was the main post office for the entire city of Madrid, it was incredibly confusing, with at least 50 different windows to go to depending on what you were trying to send, and where. The first window I went to, I got to the front only to be told to go to another, and when I made it there, I was sent somewhere else. I finally got to the front of the package line, and luckily the man there was nice enough to put stamps on my letters as well, so it didn't take as long as it could have, but it was considerably frustrating!
On the way back to the hostel, I walked past a place called "Kono Pizza," an Italian franchise that sells pizzas in cones. They are more like calzones than icecreams, but the cone shape makes them a lot easier to eat, the only problem being that
there tends to be a huge amount of melted cheese in the middle. It was an interesting experience though, and it will be good to see if the idea makes it to Australia eventually.
Bulls Hostel was fantastic. The staff there were all really friendly and hanging out in the kitchen to watch TV or cook felt more like being at home than staying in a hostel. We all sat around every night watching TV or DVDs, and I met a lot of other travellers, so it was lots of fun. That night, we were watching a DVD of the Dave Chapelle show that someone had brought, when another one of the guests came in and said that there were people playing basketball on the roof of the multi-storey carpark next door. It all sounded pretty interesting, so we headed over there (some people in PJs) to check it out.
It turned out that Nike were shooting a TV commercial over there for their new Spanish campaign: "Preparate para Madrid Dos Mil y Algo" (Prepare yourself for Madrid Two thousand and something!). Their aim is for Madrid to win an Olympic bid, eventually, and as a promotion, they
With the Nike Car
"Prepare yourself for Madrid Two Thousand and Something!"were using some of their famous young sports stars in advertisements. All of us from the hostel were standing in our little huddle watching a couple of guys shoot around on some portable hoops that had been set up, when everyone around us started turning around and staring, and we figured that the guy walking in surrounded by guards and cameras must be someone important! He turned out to be Sergio Ramos, a soccer player for Real Madrid, and at 19, the youngest player to make the Spanish national team for decades. The other athlete of note was Felipe Reyes, who is in the Spanish basketball team, and they and a few other guys had a bit of a scrimmage and played it up for the cameras. Sergio wasn't much of a basketball player, but the fans loved it, and us tourists thought it was pretty cool to be watching a Nike commercial being shot. It was all over in about 20 minutes and Sergio was hustled off by security, while everyone else filmed some pick-up shots and then packed up. I don't suppose I'll ever see the ad, but I was standing right there in the background, so there's
Old City Wall
From the outside, it looked just like a regular wall, but if the enemies managed to break through, they hit a rabbit warren. a chance I'll be on Spanish TV in the coming months!
On Tuesday morning, I went on a tour of "Medieval Madrid" that was arranged by the tourism board. We had an English speaking guide, and it was really interesting to see the oldest buildings in the city, the remains of the old city wall and some other old sites, and hear about how the city began and how it has changed. One site that I found interesting was part of the defence wall that used to surround the entire city. Madrid used to exist completely at the top of a hill, and the wall was a further barrier to enemies. Because the wall had started to fall apart, we could see down into it, and although it looked like a regular wall from the front, anyone breaking through the original barriers would have been faced with a rabbit warren, which I thought was quite ingenious!
Madrid is currently trying to preserve all of its history, so any parts of the old city that are discovered automatically become heritage property and can't be touched. Unfortunately, this means that there are a lot of ugly pieces of wall around
the city, because most of the original stones were stolen throughout the years for use in other construction projects, and there is nothing left but the concrete that held it all together. Many of the plans are going well though. A lot of buildings have been redeveloped in historical style, as anyone willing to renovate the outside of their house to look as it would have in the past has 80% of the cost involved paid by the government... not a bad incentive!
In the afternoon, I went to the Prado Museum to see some more works of art by great painters of days gone by. The most fascinating thing about this museum for me was that there were numerous artists standing behind easels copying various artworks. They were doing an amazing job, and in most cases I could barely tell the difference from the original. At first I thought they were art students practising their skills, but after asking, I discovered that they are copy artists employed by the museum to back up the artworks. I couldn't understand what the woman said when she tried to tell me what they do with them, so if anyone knows, I'd
love you to tell me. It was amazing to stand there and watch them though, and their work was incredibly detailed.
On the way back to the hostel, I decided to go to Calle de Fuencarral and look at the shops along the street. They had some really interesting clothes and unique, arty objects, and I had a lot of fun looking through the stores. Back at Bull's, I made myself dinner, chatted to a few of the new arrivals and watched a DVD of "The Family Man" with some of the people I'd met previously.
Wednesday morning saw me set off towards the Royal Palace. Along the way, I passed the Museo de San Isidro, which we had been past on the Medieval Madrid tour the day before, so I decided to go inside and have a look. The downstairs area of the museum consisted of displays about the history of Madrid, which was quite interesting, although I had heard a lot of the information of the tour. I then headed upstairs to the temporary display about Don Quijote (The Man from La Mancha), which from my understanding is probably the most famous book ever written in
Spanish. This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first printing, and they had set up a display of the original printing presses to show the process that the book had gone through. I was really glad to have stopped by, because it was very interesting.
Each station of the printing process was explained by a different person, and from their skill at working the machines, I'd say they had probably all worked using similar processes before book printing was as automated as it is today. The first man was in charge of placing hundreds of tiny metal letters in order to form words and sentences, all set out in a block that represented a page. The second man took each page, set it in a press and printed the pages with ink, leaving it to dry before the third man explained how they were all bound together into book form. They were all very friendly, and I had a nice chat to all of them, the second man in particular, who presented me with my very own copy of the first 8 pages of the book in both the old and current Spanish languages.
I then went
to the Royal Palace, which was another amazing example of luxury. I was overwhelmed by the amount of detail in everything: the woven tapestries, finely printed wallpaper, amazing artworks on the ceilings, carefully embroidered bedspreads, porcelain crockery, silverware and much more. Everything in the palace was of the absolute highest quality, made by the best craftsmen of the era it came from. As well as the living and entertaining quarters (the King even had a pool room!), the Palace had a chapel, a pharmacy and an armoury. The Royal Pharmacy was pretty interesting, as it contained all of the original jars and porcelain vases that medicines and their ingredients were originally kept in. Many jars still contained their original items, which I found quite amazing. The Armoury was also fascinating, as there was so much armour inside! All of the decoration on the shields and weapons was incredibly detailed, and I also found it amazing how small some of the coats of armour were. I don't know whether the smallest ones were for actual soldiers, or just for the Princes to practise in, but they were tiny!
That night at the hostel I looked through some of the other
guests' photos of their trips, including some amazing shots of Morocco, which is now yet another country on my must-visit list. We also watched "I, Robot." The translation of the title in Spanish is "Yo, Robot," which we all found quite amusing. I then threw together some of the leftover ingredients from my other meals that week and made myself dinner: an awesome pasta with spicy tomato, tuna and bean sauce. It was really, really good!
On my final full day in Spain, I took a daytrip to Toledo, the former capital city. The travel pass I had bought at the beginning of the week covered the journey, so I headed to the train station to swap the pass for a ticket. After waiting in line for a while, I was told that the window was closed, meaning that I would have to get on the end of another line and there was no way I could make that hour's train. Instead, I caught the subway a few extra stops to the bus station, and 15 minutes later I was on a bus to Toledo. It was a nice journey, with some pretty countryside out of the window, and
after an hour or so, we pulled into the Toledo bus station.
The main part of Toledo was set out in the same way as many Spanish cities: on a hill and surrounded by a wall. A river passed by, making a large U shape around three sides of the hill, and around that were more hills, so it would have been a city with pretty amazing defence. I started down the hill in the newer part of town, looking around there for half an hour or so, but it was pretty uninspiring, so I made my way up into Toledo itself. I was very impressed. The whole town is built on the hill, and all of the buildings are in the old style, with gorgeous little window boxes filled with flowers, and extremely narrow alleyways in between. It all felt very historical, and it was wonderful just to wander around and take in the atmosphere, which I did for a couple of hours. Along the way, I stopped to look in many of the shops displaying traditional crafts, particularly metalwork, that seemed to be on every street. In one, a man was sitting there creating the most amazingly
detailed designs in gold, so I stood and talked to him for a while as he worked. It was fascinating to watch, and he was incredibly talented.
After a while, I found myself in the main square in town, the Plaza de Zocodover, so I got some lunch and sat outside watching people go by for a while. I then walked in a circular route along the outside of the town wall, looking at the river and the gorgeous views from the top of the hill, before making my way back to the town to check out some of the historical buildings.
I first went to the Museo de Santa Cruz, which had a fabulous display of tapestries inspired by the Don Quijote story (yes, it was everywhere!) that had been commissioned by one of the former Kings. Once again, the detail and craftsmanship was outstanding. Think about how difficult it is to draw a picture in the first place, let alone create it from woven threads in all different colours, with gradual shading that looks incredibly realistic. The museum also had a collection of various cartoon strips that had also been inspired by the book, probably by
25 or so different artists. These were brilliantly done as well, in all different styles. After seeing and hearing so much about Don Quijote during my time in Spain, I'm definitely going to have to find an English version of the book and read it now (or maybe even try my hand at the Spanish one!)
From there, I went to the Toledo Cathedral, which, although beautiful with some gorgeous architecture, was by that point just another of the many churches in the town (and the continent!), so I didn't spend too long there. Instead, I went back outside the town wall and spent some time walking along the river to take in the gorgeous scenery. It was a wonderful walk, not too cold and very peaceful, with only a few other people about. For part of the time, I was apparently walking along some of the route that Don Quijote had taken during his travels, so that was an added excitement! It was nice just to walk in such a beautiful place, and I felt like I had stepped back in time during the parts where I could no longer see the cars on the main road above.
I also spent some time sitting and thinking by the river, until the sun started to go down and I decided I'd better get moving.
After making my way to the station, I caught the next bus back to Madrid, where I ate the rest of my awesome pasta from the night before and settled down for some TV and a big cricket discussion with a couple of other Aussies. One of them made a big batch of Sangria for everyone, and it was pretty impressive, so I have the recipe if anyone wants to try it when I get home! I then finished packing my bag yet again, ready to head to South America the following day.
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Kris and Tony
non-member comment
Sangria
Yep! We are up for Sangria when you return. Has to be better than the stuff we had at Montezuma's at the bay!!!!