Hola! Madrid

My blog on Madrid is going to be very different than the usual ones I write. I spent about 4 days in the city, the first two on work and then the weekend was spent chilling. I did not do the usual touristy stuff at all. In fact I was living more like a local and enjoying the feel of the city, than being a tourist. I took very few pictures too for the same reason. It happened because I was just hanging out with a couple of Spanish friends and again I reiterate - knowing locals is the best way to see any place as compared to reading on trip advisor or following guide books.

Since I went in June, the weather was already very hot. When you are landing, the land looks all dry and yellow all around. And you can almost feel the heat outside from the air itself. I must also mention my experience at the Madrid airport - it was huge. It took me half an hour just to get to the immigration and baggage area!

As I said, the first two days were work, as I was attending a conference. I was staying in the popular area of Castellano, in Hotel Hesperia and absolutely loved the city from Day 1. The temperatures were hot during the day (up to 35 degrees) and lower in the evenings (late 20s), which was perfect for feeling comfortable, relaxed and having a great time.

The first evening started with dinner at Luzi Bonbon, a 10-min walk from the hotel. And by then I had already started enjoying the city:). The second day was a full day conference at one of the TV studios outside the city - the studio for the weekly show, La Sexta Noche. It was great to be inside a TV studio for the first time and see how they record such shows. The light systems seemed very complex and the sound systems were also working well. We had all our meals in the studio itself, and it was good to be inside:). As it was quite a hot day, even the little bit we were outside made us all very tired very quickly.

Casino de Madrid

In the evening, we had dinner at a roof top terrace restaurant called Casino de Madrid. It was a great location for dinner - enjoying the cool breeze on top of a building, with the view of the old city on one side and the TV playing a Euro Cup football match on the other:).

The third day we had a couple of work sessions in the morning and by afternoon I was free to start exploring the city. However, that is when I realised how hot Madrid was and decided to work the whole afternoon, and get out of the hotel only after 5pm! And so the next three days were spent mostly taking siestas in the afternoon, and getting out of the hotel only in the evenings:).

Traffic jam at midnight!

And then it would be time for a long and extended dinner. As a lot of you might know, the Spanish eat dinner late. But I did not realise it was this late! They start around 10, so most restaurants serve dinner from 10-1. And then people go to bars which open from 1-3 serving drinks, and then the clubs open from 3-7. Quite messed up timings I must say. Therefore the peak traffic in Madrid is not at 5 pm as in normal cities, but at 2 am on a Friday night. I saw it myself too, this was the traffic outside my hotel at 12 midnight on Friday!

One of the reasons for the late dinners is the late time zone in Spain which affects the people’s lifestyles. And apparently the cause for that was that Franco, the Spanish dictator had aligned with Hitler, and he wanted to have the same time zone as Germany. One man’s folly once is making the country suffer forever.

Madrid City Hall

In terms of touristy stuff, I did not do much over the next three days. We walked around in the old part of town mostly and crossed a couple of places like the Colon square, the City Hall, the Library, the Post Office and a couple of museums. There are loads of the usual imperial huge stone buildings with extravagant facades all around the old town. The City Hall had the rainbow flag in support of the Pride Parade being held on the weekend (the previous week, it had a flag saying ‘ We welcome all refugees’ when the total number of refugees taken in by Spain is 19:) as per anecdotal numbers!).

Gay Pride Parade

Then we spent an hour and a half at the Pride Parade which was being held in Madrid that weekend. We could see only the first part of the Parade, with a couple of groups of people walking in costumes and some playing the drums. Looking at some of the people walking in the parade, I could see the ‘pride’ in them while walking and realised then why these parades are called what they are.

We did not see the famous carriages with the drag queens as we had left by then. But we saw enough people dressed up and planning to have fun. It looked like the whole city was out in the sun to party. The whole environment was like a huge fiesta, with a lot of people dressing up in random costumes just for fun:).

Buen Retiro Park

After the parade, I went to the San Jeronimo church right next to Prado museum and then walked in the Buen Retiro Park next to it. It is the main park of Madrid, and is about 1.4 sq km. I walked around inside a bit, apparently it has a lake and lot of landscaped gardens and places to explore. Seemed like a good place to spend time during the mid-day heat. It was also fun walking through the park in the warm weather, without needing a jacket, which is something I miss in London.

San Jeronimo church

And last of all, I spent about two hours on the last day in the Prado museum, exploring some of the most famous paintings of Spain. The most popular paintings here are of Goya, Rembrandt, Rubens and Velazquez. It felt quite like the National Gallery in London and was impressive. Couple of tips for visiting Prado museum given how huge it is, is to buy tickets online to avoid the lines, or to go to the museum at 4pm when entry is free. Also you should get a map of the museum, which includes where the top 40 masterpieces are located. And if short of time, just visit them - that itself will take you 2 hours.

Other than these few places, I spent most of my time shopping. The summer sale had started on the Saturday and Zara/Mango etc. were on huge discounts. Even with the drop in value of pound in the last few weeks (thanks to Brexit), shopping was still a steal! We shopped mostly around the Gran Via, which is the main shopping street of the city. The flagship Zara store there was 5 floors high and full of people given the sale. Apparently, Michele Obama and her daughters had come to shop there the previous day!

I also walked a bit on the Serrano street which was the route from my hotel to the Old Town. It was again filled with high-end shops. I also shopped at the Zara on that street:). The Zara store there still retained the old part of the facade on the inside and the outside, as per regulations. But other than the facade, the whole building had been renovated from inside.

The owner of Zara is quite famous in Spain, as you would expect. He is the third richest person in the world and his daughter is the second richest person in Spain, his ex-wife being the third! Looks like he alone has been responsible for a lot of wealth creation in the country:). And its a good successful model, I think half the women I saw around in Madrid felt like they were wearing Zara!

Even though I did not do enough touristy stuff, I learnt a lot about Spain and Madrid from the time I spent there. First of all, it has an amazing weather. And that bestows a very welcoming and warm feeling to the city. I felt so at home just because it was so easy to walk around and enjoy it totally.

Entrance to Buen Retiro

Most of the streets of the city looked very very wide, with lots of green trees planted all around. And the houses were mostly squarish, made of light brown coloured stones. Most of the city felt pretty new and modern, though the old part of the city did have loads of old buildings. The overall feel of the city felt very warm and fuzzy, totally relaxed. People were out late at nights. But people smoke too much here, everywhere you could see them standing outside and polluting the environment:).

There were tons of eating places everywhere - every minute you walk, you run into another one. And all of them were full of people - in the afternoon, evening and so on till early morning. Spanish people really love their food - pork and wine. And sitting outside was a favourite too, all restaurants had areas outside known as the terrace, because no one right now wanted to be inside.

In terms of things to do, apparently Madrid has amazing cultural museums and they are a must see. Though as you would expect, these museums lose out to the most popular museum in the city - the Real Madrid one:).

The posh parts of the city are Salamanca and Castellano. I was staying at Salamanca, and I could see it. There were high end shops everywhere, along the Serrano and the parallel street to it, both of which I walked. All the shops were on sale and very tempting, though I did manage to avoid a lot.

Random facts about the city include that its one of those rare cities with two famous football teams - Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid. And that Madrid annually has a sheep parade when sheep are allowed to walk on the streets:).

I also learnt a bit about the different parts of Spain and how they are considered different. For example, people around Andalusia are considered lazy. And from Basque region are very very tall. They also play some very weird games - two examples I heard about was harrijasotzaile (picking and throwing rocks, seriously!!) and Basque pelota (like squash but played with hands, leading to terrible injuries). The Basques also don’t consider themselves as part of Spain given their language is so different from the rest of the country.

It was also interesting to hear the Spanish (or at least a section’s) view on imperialism, though in a light hearted manner. While talking to my friends, they made light of it saying at those times, imperialism was ‘just business’:). They also while talking about the Spanish colonialism said, that even though the Spanish were brutal and murderers and looters and the rest, unlike the British they were not rascist. They settled in their colonies, accepted those countries and made it their own. Unlike the British who never mingled or settled in their colonies.

To be honest, being from a country which was colonised, it is difficult for me to see it in a lighter vein, but it was refreshing to see them accept that they did do some questionable things in their colonies (though never racism ;-) ).

Food

Our first day dinner was at Luzi Bombon, again in Castellano which had an open area to sit and mingle with everyone. I just ate finger food there, so would not know about its entire offering but have heard good reviews about it. Casino de Madrid, our dinner location had a great terrace outside which was totally enjoyable. Don’t remember much about the food though.

The third day, we went to Casa Lobo, in the Piovera area. The food was very tasty and ambience enjoyable. Unfortunately we did not get the outside terrace seating but it was still fun. The area around felt like a high-end residential area. And then we walked 2 mins to the area where there were loads of bars and very lively even at 1 am. We sat at Ten Beach for sometime but decided to call it an early night:).

The last day we went to Marieta and got a seat outside! The food was good and the place became a dance area after dinner was over at 1:). Just next to it, there are a couple of other restaurants. We had gone to Lateral earlier which again was very lively. In that area in Salamanca, there are 3-4 restaurants next to each other with outside seating and good music playing till late.

In the restaurant scene in Madrid, apparently the most popular places are where everyone turns up, even if its not the best food offering. Given whichever is the most recent popular place, everyone wants to be seen there. Overall, food was very tasty everywhere we ate and much much cheaper than in London.

Hotel

I first stayed at the Hesperia and then Melia Galgos, both of which were located in the Castellano area. Hesperia was quite luxurious while Melia though a bit old was totally worth the price. One funny thing though was that my hand got stuck in the lift at Melia - it did not have lifts which stop when they detect movement. This was highly dangerous! Also given its a 4 star hotel, I was shocked to see that after 1 am there was no one at the reception! They all lock the doors and go off to sleep:). It can happen only in Spain;-).

Overall, I loved Madrid and enjoyed the weekend spent there. I would love to come back sometime, and spend time just shopping, relaxing, eating and enjoying the sun:).