Blanca & Ian's Travels

Spain

Trip Report - June 2005

Searching for Moors

Madrid & Andalusia

Almagro, Jaén, Granada, Sevilla, Nerja, Madrid

Part 6 - The Finale - Madrid

Retiro Park

Villa Real 150€ Std Dbl          http://www.derbyhotels.com/

Nice boutique hotel with 2 level smallish modern room (not bad size for a major European city though).  Very attentive & helpful staff. 
 

Our bedroom

Day 13 Nerja to Madrid

We packed & got an early start at 9:30 AM.  Top down, I was ready.  The Paraiso del Mar had been a slice of heaven but it was time. 

We got up at 7 AM with B. quite worried about the drive since there was a mountain or two in the way.  We had breakfast & paid the hotel bill discovering that the breakfasts were included - what a good deal.  The hotel even gave us a bottle of wine as a parting gift.  A nice touch & a highly recommended hotel!  Just before we left, we heard some ambulances which helped B. immensely with her fear.

An easy exit from Nerja had us eastbound on E15 in no time but it craps out in Maro, with more multi-lane still under construction.  We drove on the 2 lane N340 which twists & turns through numerous towns & traffic lights along the coast.  There were some very nice sea & town vistas throughout.  Then we swung north on N323 through the Sierra Nevada mountains.  This involved amazing rock clefts, small waterfalls, a big dam & some wind power generators on high for 30 kms until we got to the start of the 4 lane highway.  A scenic drive very reminiscent of Southern California.  Then it was straight sailing through Granada & Jaén to Bailén where we joined the E5 A4 up & over the last mountains & across flat La Mancha to Madrid.  5 hours of no pressure driving with a beautiful country enfolding.  I loved it. 

B. comments: Terrifying winding roads. & when we passed the area near the Cala del Pino Playa east of Maro, we saw many police cars & people looking over the edge from many distances - someone had gone over the edge & the fear in me amplified immensely - I was hoping that I. would take heed & drive carefully.  My butt muscles & right arm (door handle) & right foot (brake pedal) got a good workout from clenching etc.  Beautiful country - huge mountains - terrifying 5 hour drive.  I was never so happy to see the flat plains of La Mancha. 

Traffic heated up on the outskirts of Madrid & since signage for the airport was non-existent at the bottom of Madrid and I was map impaired, I just kept steering away from the city center signs.  Medium heavy 3:30 PM traffic.  The M40 or M50 something, finally yielded airport signs & we made it to the rental drop off after a circle or 2 of the terminal.  We wheeled our bags to the terminal & grabbed a cab to our hotel in downtown Madrid - Villa Real - a block from the Plaza de Cibeles.  25€ for taxi with tip.   We got to the hotel at 5 PM.

We had a quick bite in the busy hotel bar & with nothing else to do, we wandered down 5 blocks or so to the Reina Sofia to see Picasso's Guernica.  We are not fans of modern art so we only stayed 30 minutes or so.  Guernica is undoubtedly a masterpiece & it has become a statement to the horrors of war.  I was glad we went.  But I feel I must apologize for the things I said about Miro's work.  And my laughter . . . but like I said, I am not a fan . . .

Our first impressions of Madrid were not warm & fuzzy.  It was too hot!  And noisy, trafficky & somewhat dirty crowded city.  We left the hotel at 9:20 PM & it was still 36C!  Tomorrow we would sizzle. 

Enroute to dinner we discovered the packed Plaza de Santa Ana scant blocks from our hotel.  It was obviously one of the places to see & be seen in Madrid & it was swarming with tourists & twenty-somethings.  We also walked through the Plaza Real, which had some major food event happening in it so it's cafes were packed as well.  Luckily I had another destination in mind . . .

I had read about Cava Baja & its rows of restaurants in Madrid's La Latina district so we meandered there.  We stopped at a bar before dinner on Cava Baja.  It was local & very Spanish ie no English & we had wine with olive & almond munchies.  As you know, everything seemed better after the wine (surprise!) & we started to get into the Madrid rhythm.  We had dinner at the Vivaejo Madrid - a sister restaurant of the Casa Lucio - when the latter turned us away without reservations.  We had wonderful churrasco - beef seared & sliced & served on a hot clay plate so you finish the cooking at the table.  Awesome!  I managed to spill a glass of red house wine all over the tablecloth & B.'s journal.  The waiter rushed over to clean it up but I was embarrassed as usual.  I always seem to pull a stunt every trip . . . oh well . . . I did rush to the rescue of some Americans who were having a problem ordering.  So with our translation book I leapt into the fray only to discover that they were after some olive oil . . .
 

Day 14 Madrid continued . . . 

I woke up early, as always & was wired from 2 hours of CNN & BBC news before we got rolling. Weather prediction: 36C.  We had coffee & a croissant at a little place on Paseo del Prado & headed over to the Museo del Prado.  It has a very, very impressive collection.  El Greco, Velazquez & on & on but we probably enjoyed discovering Goya the most, with the museum possessing a huge number of pieces. 

Around noon, we exited & walked to the nearby Retiro Park thinking that we could grab something to eat while wandering.  The day was really heating up as we stopped to admire the Palacio de Cristal del Retiro.  A wonderful greenhouse-like structure with nothing inside except a decorative floor which mirrored the glass ceiling.  We walked up to the lake with the Monument of Alfonso XII but it was getting too hot to enjoy so we found a bench in the shade & ate a sorbet thing since the one restaurant didn't look interesting.  Escaping the scorching park, we bought lunch at the Museo Jambon on Paseo del Prado & took it back to eat in the hotel in air-conditioned bliss.  4€s for 4 small ham & cheese buns.  A bargain & damn good.  We also stopped for Coke & water but this last bit really exhausted us from the heat.  When we had finished our repast, we decided we couldn't possibly spend more time outside so that nixed the Royal Palace.  We had to go somewhere inside, so we headed across the road to the last of the Big Three, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Art.  This turned out to be a very enjoyable experience.  The Museo is organized chronologically by artistic period & provides a good lesson in the evolution of art. Except for the 'letter' galleries, which threw us off since they didn't follow the pattern.  We started with a Corot exhibit, which was just visiting as an exhibition.

However . . . we ran out of energy when we reached the Impressionists.  We persevered because we like that period but as for the rest . . . we just walked quickly & scanned the remainder because we needed to rest our aching feet & whirling eyes.  We were arted out.

We trudged back to hotel for coffee & B. worked up enough energy to shop for last minute gifts.  God, dinner time is so long in arriving - we had reservations for 9:30.  Dinner at Posada de la Villa on the Cava Baja again.  Very good atmosphere in this old inn built in 1642.  B. had baby lamb chops - so delicious & so tiny that they must be illegal in Canada.  I had veal chop served like the steak the night before on hot clay.  A side of potatoes Posada - very good.  Grilled red peppers - somewhat bitter & mushy according to B. but I liked them a lot.  Wine: Vega Real Reserva 1999 - Ribero del Duero.  The bill was 97€.  A great last dinner in Spain.

B. was pretty tired.  The heat in Madrid had worn us out.  And of course, it was the end of our vacation.  On the walk back to our hotel we wandered through mainly shuttered streets.  11:40 PM & it was still 31C!  My guard was up when I saw a bunch of guys in a group ahead around a bend in the road.  I told B. to be careful & pointed them out.  As we got closer, she saw that they were a group of policeman . . .

20 minutes later, with swollen feet & leaden legs we finally reached the hotel & collapsed.  Good night.
 

Day 15 The Trek Home 

We left hotel at 9:15am in a taxi to Barajas - 19€.

Flying is no fun!  Madrid to Frankfurt via Spanair.  Frankfurt to Toronto via Air Abuse - I mean Air Canada.  All went well except for a tiny issue with too much wine at Canada customs, but they eventually let us go without paying more.
 

Trip Conclusions

Spain is a great place to visit.  We love the scenery.  The people are as friendly as any in Europe (maybe more) & the hotels, meals etc were typically cheaper than France or Italy for comparable quality.

Book early, travel slowly & enjoy!

Resources

Maribel's Guides to Sevilla & Madrid
Michelin Green Guide to Andalusia
Rough Guide Translation Book
Michelin Map to Andalusia
Foder's Website & the Internet in General