Day 4- Madrid

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Hello All - today is the " eve" of the 3 kings - so guess what - today is a Fiesta in Madrid! There is a schedule of events happening in the city this evening - a parade, choirs, childrens choir and a fireworks extravaganza to welcome the kings into the city.

This afternoon we headed over to Calle Gran Via from end to end and made a stop at an Artisans market that was set up for the holidays. I loved all the homemade items and wish we had room in our luggage to be able to shop!

Today, we are also doing our usual with the late lunch - but an actual lunch today - no more tapas 😊 We went to a delicious restaurant called El Rincon on Calle Prado and shared a paella - which was better than the one we shared in Barcelona! They have completely different flavors and colors of the rice. Madrid wins paella!

We stopped into the hotel for a pitstop and got ready to go find our spot for the parade. OH BOY - can we estimate this crowd at 800,000 to a million people - it is pure insanity with no crowd control. A little frightening but I wasn't saying anything yet to Alberto. We had made our plan , if we split meet in the lobby of the hotel. The choir and childrens choir were beautiful, angelic voices. They had screen nd speakerss all around the park so you see and hear them. Also, I guess to see the parade because there is no way we can see floats from where we are and we have no desire to get deeper into this crowd. We lasted about an hour and a half and then headed over to our favorite spot - Taberna de Jose for one last night. They have got this sandwich - pepito salmomillo that Alberto " needed" to have one more time. It looks like sirloin on a roll to me but he says it's out of this world! I'm not fond of eating "beef" in Europe so I won't even budge on taking a bite. They were celebrating the 3 kings so they were giving us all kinds of appetizers to try and he had the 3 Roscocones on the counter for all to enjoy. Those are the cakes that everyone brings to peoples homes on the day after the holiday for good luck. All in all a great day and a great night!

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