Flying to Madrid from New York wasn't problem at all but the jet lag that followed was! We got in at 10am and had no trouble catching the Metro from the airport to our lovely little hotel (with a lovely little balcony looking down a picturesque stereotypical spanish street) and took a short stroll around to check out the neighbourhood. We had an afternoon nap, grabbed some dinner then headed back to bed. Around 3pm the next day we awoke! The trend of being dead tired during the day and not being able to sleep until 5 or 6am continued throughout the week, fortunately Spaniards keep similar hours to those.
We spent our first few days strolling the streets, particularly Grand Via, and seeing some of the sights but mainly just not trying to exhaust ourselves further. The very stereotypically European streets impressed Bec, she really wasn't expecting cobblestone streets and little outdoor cafes everywhere, more of a Paris thing.
We decided to do the Golden Triangle of Museums in Madrid, Del Prado, Reina Sophia and Thyssen-Bornemisza Museums. For 14 euro, this seemed to be good value, proved to be true considering they took up most our days for the remainder of our time there.
The Prado was a real traditional European art museum, pretty much all the painting were dark, deeply religious and very, very old. Some very famous paintings and artists. Don't know how much Bec enjoyed this one, might have been a bit too depressing for her tastes. Also, the massive line-up outside drained us a bit until we realised we were in the wrong line and go straight in! The Reina Sophia was down right weird. Modern, surealism, abstract concepts, no idea what any of it meant. To be honest I'm not sure what the hell some of it was. A small staircase in a white room is not art! Anyway, there were some cool Dali and Picassos in there including the huge Guernica. The Thyssen was somewhere in between the othr two, it was laid out from anchient works (back to B.C. times) to modern pop art (like Coca-Cola ads). This one was probably the favourite because the painting were a little more upbeat and we could actually figure them out. It was full of Van Gough, Picasso, Monet, Renoir and plenty of other famous artists works.
Dinner time in Madrid doesn't even start until the sun goes down and thats not until 10pm. Was a little hard for us since we'd been eating at about 6pm all across the USA. We tried to fit in with the locals by sitting down at around 9:30pm for a few drinks and some tapas while waiting for it to get dark before we ate, god we got hungry though. Luckily Bec developed a taste for sangria or "blood" in english. Spanish wine with juice, ice and chopped up fruit is a nice way to refresh after a long day in the hot Spanish sun. We strolled to Plaza Mayor, the main plaza in Madrid which is completely built in by housing, and had a meal of paella and sweet Spanish wines. Good way to finish our travel through Madrid.
Really looking forward to Hungary next and meeting up with the family!
