Madrid

On our final night in Barcelona, we took an overnight bus to Madrid. Upon arrival at the station, I was pretty wary about the trip (I never have high expectations for journeys like this, but the station was quite rank). Luckily, the bus itself was fine and we found ourselves in Madrid the next morning.



We immediately headed to Retiro Park, which was a close and peaceful walk from our hostel. Filled with whimsically groomed trees and shrubbery, the park was a scene out of Alice in Wonderland. We came across a random photorealism gallery and then enjoyed a rowboat ride in the park while the sun warmed up the afternoon.

Our first museum stop in Madrid was the Prado. The period of 1000 to 1850 has never really been of that much interest to me, so I can't say that this was a favorite. However, there were some great works by Goya that were fascinating (and disturbing) to see in person. After the museum, we explored the many plazas in our area. We went to Botin for dinner, the oldest restaurant in the world! I enjoyed a feast of artichokes (literally just a mountain of artichokes) sprinkled with Iberian ham. The first thing that I noticed upon our arrival in Spain was the artichoke fields, so I was glad that that came around full circle. Some medical school students caused a delightful interruption to dinner, performing songs of choice in traditional costumes.

The next day we visited Palacio Real. This may be one of my favorite palaces, as the rooms were very unique and styled in incredibly different manners. Unfortunately, you can rarely photograph palaces, so this will remain as images in my mind. We stopped for lunch, where I had my first enjoyable salad in Europe (and actually probably my only enjoyable one still…). Our next stop was the Reina Sofia, an art museum almost too modern for any understanding (or reason). The group went to La Lateral, a very nice tapas restaurant (but with really nice prices as well). While we were at dinner, Madrid defeated Barcelona in a big match, so we joined in on the celebrations in the street. There was so much energy throughout the city and certainly something worth experiencing.

On our final day in Madrid, we walked up many a hill to a site of an ancient Egyptian building. This seemed pretty random, but the Templo de Debod was moved from Egypt when a dam threatened the location of the temple. Torrential rain put a damper on the evening, but we ran from our hostel to Di Bocca, a really delicious Italian restaurant, for our final feast. After so much paella and tapas, it was a nice break. After all, there was still Lisbon to conquer.