Europe Travel Diary – Part I – Madrid

In September my mother and I took an 11 day vacation to Spain, Gibraltar and Portugal. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting my pictures and travel diary.

I left my apartment ridiculously early in the morning on Wednesday September 10. I literally caught the first bus of the morning from my neighbourhood to downtown and then took an express bus to the airport. Originally I’d been scheduled on an 11:50am SEA – YYZ flight. I’ve been scheduled on this flight before and every single time they’ve canceled the flight and moved me to the 8am departure. This left me with a super long (OK it was only 6 hours) layover in the Toronto airport. Luckily my Dad was able to give me a lounge coupon and the time passed quickly enough. I met Mom at the gate and we boarded our flight to Madrid. I had dinner on the flight and then used my red wine & Gravol method of sleep induction (I figure my liver can handle the occasional challenge). I probably got 4 hours of sleep before we landed in Madrid.

We got into our hotel room at about 12:30. We were both pretty tired so decided to take naps and set my watch alarm for 14:00. We slept through the alarm but woke up at 14:30 anyway. We then set out to get some lunch the highlight of which was the 1 euro mini desserts. Mom had a small slice of cheesecake with cherry topping and I had a scoop of vanilla ice cream with brownie bits and chocolate sauce. I should have taken a picture they were so cute.

Then we tried to visit the Royal Palace. Unfortunately after walking all the way there we discovered that the palace was closed. We assume there must have been some event going on. Fortunately we knew would have several more opportunities to make it to the palace. It’s supposed to be third only to Versailles and Schonbrunn!

After the palace disappointment we went back to our hotel for nap number two and then off to the train station to get our Euro Rail passes validated and to get reservations on the one leg of our trip on a regional train. After finding the right place we ended up having to wait about 45 minutes for our number to be called. We were both very tired by the end of the day so we picked up a sandwich at the station for dinner and turned in for the night.

We spent the morning of our second day in Madrid at the Prado Museum. This seems to be the main tourist attraction in Madrid and houses and impressive collection of paintings. Our strategy was to get the audio guide and try to see the 50 or so masterpieces listed on the map. The highlights included: The Garden of Delights, Las Meninas and the pair of paintings the Nude Maja and the Clothed Maja.

After a nice lunch in the museum cafeteria (Spanish torta and salad) we walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens. This is a museum of plants and was a nice quiet place to wander. September might not have been the optimal time to visit but it was neat to see all the different species.

For dinner we went to a Rick Steves recommended restaurant and had a three course meal which came with unlimited wine. We felt sort of odd sitting with two bottles of wine (one red one white) on our table! After dinner we headed back to our hotel to get a good nights rest before our 7:40 train to Granada the next morning.

Next: Part II – The Alhambra