Madrid Moments

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We braved storm Doris to travel from North Yorkshire to Manchester by rail, then onwards, flying from Manchester to Madrid via Heathrow airport.

After a flight cancellation and lots of delays we finally made it to Barajas Airport Madrid at 10pm. With only hand luggage for a long weekend and a rapid passport control we were soon out of the airport. Unfortunately the metro link to Madrid centre was closed for maintenance but there is a courtesy bus from the airport to Mar de Cristal metro station where we took line 4 to our hotel location at Alonso Martinez. Total cost of our transfer from airport to city , only 3 Euros. Pleased with ourselves we emerged onto the city streets but could not see our hotel. Finally we asked two young Spanish girls who were very helpful. They used Google earth on an I pad then pointed out the hotel entrance just across the street from where we were standing! The wonders of modern technology!

After a long day of travel, delays and disruption we were very pleased to get to our hotel Innside Genoa Madrid before midnight.

Next day, after a good breakfast, our explorations began. Madrid is a great place to walk around and enjoy the lovely buildings and street life. We strolled through the tree lined streets through Chueca to the Parque del Buen Retiro. Here we found lovely large scale, formerly royal, gardens. It was nice to sit by the boating lake with a view of the monument to Alfonso X11. We admired the Palacio de Cristal, inspired by the British version.

After a coffee break in the sunshine with the temperature around 16c we went to visit the Museo del Prado, housing one of the worlds finest art collections. We saw some superb art, several masterpieces and lots of Spanish paintings by Goya and Velasquez.

As our visit ended we spent some time with the Muses, sculptures made 2000 years ago. In the evening we had booked a Tapas tour and after some searching in the extremely busy Puerta del Sol we finally met up with Louis our guide holding his red umbrella. We were the only customers and Louis proved to be very friendly and informative about Madrid and where to eat as he took us to several tapas bars.

Our second day started with a long walk in the sun from Alonso Martinez to Plaza de Espana, then on to the Parque de la Montana. It was such a nice day we visited the Jardins de Sabatini then the Campo del Moro parkland overlooked by the magnificent Palacio Real.

After lunch we visited the Cathedral de la Almudena and the Plaza de Oriente. We were tired after all our walking so decided to eat near our hotel. We found a great tapas bar in Malasana, this was very lively and we enjoyed a tapas tasting menu for 30 euros. Great value for 2 people.

On our final day we decided to visit the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. This holds one of the most important art collection in the world. This was an amazing visit with so many superb paintings to see. To end on a good note we had another tapas meal locally washed down with a nice bottle of Rioja!

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