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Published: September 8th 2017
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I loved Madrid. Loved it... Wish we could have spent more time here... I'll back up a bit... We only planned 2 nights in Madrid, and only because we had to make a choice whether to go North or South in our journey. Many of my friends advised to skip Madrid in favour of some of the southern hotspots such as Malaga and Valencia... Because we wanted to hit San Sebastian before Barcelona, Madrid was a perfect destination between Porto and San Sebastian. We decided to fly from Porto to Madrid mainly to save some time. Finding our way from the airport on the metro to our Airbnb was fairly simple and we were settled. We totally nailed our location! It was within steps from Plaza Mayor... the main plaza or square in central Madrid and within walking distance to most of the major sights around the city. We got settled and headed out for a bite to eat and a beverage. There are literally hundreds of wine and tapas bars within a 200m radius of Plaza Mayor... It was so hard to decide where to go.. There was also a market close by called Mercado de San Miguel... I would
compare this to the Granville Island Market in Vancouver... It was gourmet eats, treats, wine, tapas and everything in between! We definitely stopped here a few times on our trip 😊 For dinner - we failed to make any reservations so we took a chance and went out 'early' around 8.... Calle Cava de Baja is a great strip close to the plaza with all sorts of tapas bars and restaurants.. we found a great place - also called Cava de Baja and enjoyed! We ventured out after dinner for a stroll, and things were just getting started around 10pm! Apparently showing up for dinner at 8 is the equivalent of the senior's special back home lol! Madrid has quite the nightlife - the streets were packed with families and people of all ages.
Saturday we were off to an early start as we wanted to see the cathedral and palace as well as the surrounding gardens. Early is a good thing as when we got to the palace, there was hardly anyone there and we walked right in... The grounds were beautiful as was the palace. Our walk back through the gardens was a bit disappointing (the Jardins
del campo del Moro), as opposed to the lovely Jardines de Sabatini... but it was a nice day and we made our way back shopping while looking for a place for lunch.
We had booked a Flamenco show a few months back as Flamenco was a definite must-see for me - in one of Madrid's oldest Flamenco houses.... Corral de Marriquinas... IT WAS AMAZING. The show included dinner and the performance. I had seen Flamenco before last time I was in Barcelona, but it was in a larger theatre and certainly not as intimate. This Flamenco house was small, quaint and the performance literally brought us both to tears. If you ever have a chance to see live Flamenco - try to see it in a smaller venue.. was such a different experience. After dinner we were on a high and strolled around a bit before heading home - we had an early morning train to San Sebastian so felt old going to bed just after midnight lol! We lugged our suitcases to the metro at 7am and the amount of people that were still out from the night before was astounding! Madridians sure know how to party hard
😊
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Culinary hot zone
Spain has moved up on our short list of travels and being a foodie destination is alluring. We'd love a Flamingo show. Thanks for sharing.