Welcome to Madrid!
We arrived in Madrid on Tuesday night after a long travel day from Tromsø. Our first flight made a pit stop to pick up more people in Finland right at the base of the Arctic Circle before heading down to Helsinki. After a quick stop at Espresso House for some chicken mozzarella focaccia, we boarded our flight to Madrid.
Steinar’s flight to go pick-up Kuzco left early the next morning, so we made a quick grocery run and got everything ready for Kuz’s arrival. They were supposed to come back the next afternoon, but an overturned semi lead to them missing their flight. I spent my first couple days exploring around where we are staying. I headed to the Temple of Debod to read during the day and started planing potential plans for December during the evenings. Steinar and Kuz made it back to Madrid early Saturday morning after he meowed for almost the entire flight. He didn’t miss a beat when they arrived and kept meowing and exploring the apartment as soon as he got here!
After Steinar recovered with a nap, we headed to the Royal Place and the Sabatini Gardens to walk around before heading of to the Temple of Debod as we completed our walk. There’s been constant heat warnings since we’ve been here, so the parks haven’t been very busy as people stay inside to avoid the sun. We checked in with Kuzco before heading to where we thought our dinner reservation was. As we walked up to the restaurant, there was a surprising sign at the door that said closed for a private event - ope! Luckily we were able to get in at a neighboring restaurant with a similar menu just slightly later.
Sunday morning we woke up and headed to El Rastro which is a giant flea market that is only open on Sunday mornings. We spent around 2 hours just walking through the endless stalls before we headed back to the apartment. We stopped at the Mercado de San Miguel on the way to check out what options they had for a stop on another day. We’re going on a food tour later this week, so we wanted to wait and see if we stopped there before going on our own. We took a long nap after being out in the sun and then headed out for a walk once the temperature started to cool off a little. We walked through the Jardines de Campo del Moro on our way to Casa de Campo. Steinar wanted to see if the random tennis courts there were clay - they were not. The park was very full of people enjoying the shade on a Sunday afternoon even with the hot temps!
We started Monday morning with a late brunch from Revuelto that we ate in Plaza del Rey, before we started our walk to Parque ell Buen Retiro. On the way there we walked past the Plaza de Cibeles and the Puerta de Álcala. El Retiro is massive and we explored about half of the different areas including the remains of an old zoo, a rose garden and many different fountains. As we left the park we made an important stop to get more sunscreen since we have already almost run out, and headed to the Prado Musuem. The Prado has free hours every night before close starting at 6pm, but there are no reservations. You just have to show up and get in line and the line starts early. We arrived at 5:05 and had about 50 people in front of us but with 15 minutes to go, we could no longer see the back of the line. The hour in line gave us plenty of time to catch up on what we’ve been up to this past week and get this written!
We spent about 2 hours inside the Prado museum before heading back to the apartment for the evening. There are so many rooms you could easily spend longer, but we made it through right before close! My favorite piece was “Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint Paul the Hermit” which I think it looks like they’re being gifted a Whopper.
While it hasn’t necessarily been the start to this adventure that we expected, no trip can be perfect. Every step of the way is a new chapter of this crazy story and we wouldn’t want it any other way! This was the only week that we spent just in Madrid so we’re excited to see many new places as we get busier over the next few weeks!
