Isn’t it pretty to think so?
Part 4: Central Spain!
Sooo we got into Madrid at stupid o’clock in the morning, watching the sun rise and the fog disperse as we left the train station and took the Metro to our hostel. Joke was on us, however, because the people at the hostel said we couldn’t check in until 1 in the afternoon (in Spanish, since they didn’t speak any English — again, thank goodness for Manuel), so we had to wander the dead morning streets of Madrid with all of our stuff when all we wanted was a shower and a nap. We took refuge in a coffee shop and then a Dunkin’ Donuts before setting off to wander the town.
First views of Madrid.
Trippyyy.
Plaza Mayor.
Cathedral Almundena.
Cathedral again.
We decided to visit the Palacio Real, one of the biggest palaces in Europe, which was beautiful. And we were able to check our bags, which was quite nice. Palaces and castles always blow my mind, no matter how many I see. The throne room was pretty intense, and they had a whole display of medieval armor which I think is amazing.
Cathedral from the Palacio courtyard.
They also had peacocks, so that was good news.
After we went through the Palacio, we continued our stroll through the city, making our way through Puerta del Sol and over to the Parque del Retiro.
Congress
The park was gorgeous, as I’m finding is usually the case with these huge cities. We didn’t stay that long, however, as we wanted to go back and check into our room. I was so disgustingly exhausted at this point there’s not really words for it.
When we got back to our hostel we found out even better news, in that the new computer program the hostel is using has been having a lot of problems and we didn’t come up in their system for the two nights we booked. However, after some confusion we ended up getting a better deal. We got an entire apartment for the first night which apparently the hostel also rents out without being charged any extra. Which meant our own bathroom, TV, couch. So it all worked out quite well despite the confusion at first. Of course, I had nothing to do with any of this because I couldn’t understand a word they were all saying to each other. I really need to learn more languages.
After we settled into our apartment for the night, had rested and watched some dubbed TV shows, and gotten some Pizza Hut, we hopped on the Metro to go to the one actual sight in Madrid that we knew we had to go to — the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia, home to a lot of great art but above all, Guernica by Picasso.
When we got to the museum we made a beeline straight for the piece, which was by far one of the best pieces of art I’ve ever seen. Whether or not you’re usually a Picasso fan, Guernica is such a huge piece of culture and is much more impressive in person than the Mona Lisa. They had some serious security for it as well, with two museum workers on either side of the painting and an alarm that went off if you got too close to the painting, which went off about every five minutes. Therefore, this is the only sneaker picture I can boast to have gotten:
After we saw Guernica, we wandered around the rest of the museum which has some great pieces. However, it was not the art that ended up getting me excited. I still can’t really think of this day without getting frustrated but it has to be told. One of the rooms in the museum was showing a Buster Keaton short, which of course I sat down to enjoy. Manuel wandered off after a few minutes, and right after I had finished watching the 20 minute film or so I got a text from him that said “Viggo is here by the way.” Uh, what? For a minute I was confused because I know Viggo Mortensen is not only the beautiful, wonderful actor that I have a monster poster and countless fantasies of, but he is also an artist, so I did not know if Manuel meant the man was there or his art was on display. Only a few seconds later, I found Manuel who clarified that YES, THE MAN was in the museum and he had seen him not once, but twice. I don’t know if very many people can appreciate how much my heart race sped up at that moment, but I can assure you it was significant. I was determined to find him, even though Manuel said he slipped down the stairs and seemed to be in a rush, and we split up and searched all four floors…twice…but to no avail. I was in the same building as Viggo Mortensen in MADRID of all places (apparently he is doing a play there this winter), and I was watching a dang Buster Keaton short. Needless to say the rest of my night was spent inwardly fuming at my luck. Ughhh life.
Somehow, life continued, and even though it rained off and on for the majority of the night, Manuel and I still managed to make a night of it, going tapas bar hopping which apparently is THE thing to do in Madrid on a Saturday night because the Latina district was packed and we went to about four tapas bars before ending the night at the San Gines Chocolateria, a back alley place that’s been open for 100+ years and serves the most delicious churros con chocolate. So delicious.
The next day, we took a day trip to Toledo, about an hour south of Madrid. It is the former capital of Spain and is full of history dating all the way back to the Romans, with the old city enclosed within huge walls. Basically the entire city is on a giant hill, which makes it incredibly exhausting to walk about, but it’s such a gorgeous city that it was worth it. It’s a pretty small town, full of convents and monasteries as well as a thriving Jewish quarter. We spent most of the day wandering around and outside the city, not doing much besides taking in the astounding beauty of the ancient city. We paid a Euro each to go into one of the many convents (San Antonio), ate at an outdoor restaurant, and spent most of the day just exploring all the little back alleys and plazas of the city.
Also, every single store sells swords. Apparently Toledo is known for its steel/weapons. I wanted one.
Rebuilt Roman Alcazar.
The city looks fake, it’s so beautiful. It didn’t even look real in person.
One of the many, many convents.
Miguel de Cervantes!
Monastery of San Juan de los Reyes
I also saw the best dog in Spain. And that’s saying a lot. Spanish dogs are about as cool as British dogs, but in a different way. And they’re both much cooler than French dogs.
Mezquita del Cristo de la Luz
I think that gives you an idea of how absolutely gorgeous Toledo is. One of my favorite places I’ve been to, and I feel like I say that about everything, but I mean it.
That night, we got back to Madrid, finally got into our normal hostel room, and after taking a break in our room, went back out into the night to grab a late night bite to eat at another bar/restaurant that was one of Hemingway’s favorites, which is how I make my decisions about where to go.
Centre of Spain.
Hemingway haunt, where I got a lovely sandwich.
The next day, our last in the Madrid area, we took another day trip (more like half day trip) to Segovia, about an hour north of the capital. Before we did, however, Manuel went to our train station to check our bags in so we wouldn’t have to carry them all day, and I took a quick trip to see the Madrid Temple, which was beautiful and peaceful and I love visiting temples.
The bus ride to Segovia was beautiful, as I’m discovering most of my rides through Europe are.
Segovia, like Toledo, is a small, old typical Spanish town with tons of convents and monasteries, but there are a couple big sights that really draw the tourists in. One is the Roman Aqueducts, which are massive and awesome and mind blowing in terms of how they it is still standing and was actually still in use until fairly recently. Those Romans knew a thing or two.
On the whole, the entire city of Segovia isn’t quite as adorable as Toledo, but it’s up there. And it still has plenty of gorgeous buildings.
The second major tourist attraction in Segovia (and let’s face it, is what made me want to go) is the Alcazar, which is the castle that served as inspiration for Sleeping Beauty’s castle. That’s right, I went to the real Sleeping Beauty castle. Disneyland will be just a cheap imitation after this (that’s not true, Disneyland, I still love you).
Inside of the Alcazar
View of Segovia from the Alcazar’s tower
From the Alcazar, we walked through a bit of a nature walk to get to the Vera Cruz church, which is supposed to be one of the best in the city, to find out it was closed that day. The outside was pretty, anyway.
The rest of the day we wandered around Segovia, got some ice cream (a main course on this trip), and went back to Madrid to hang out for a while before our train back to Barcelona.
When back in Madrid, we decided to go to another Hemingway restaurant, and one of the most famous in Madrid, because I had just finished The Sun Also Rises that day, and it is the restaurant the characters eat in at the end of the novel. Side note: The novel starts in Paris, and I started it on the way to Paris, and it ends in Madrid and I finished it while on a bus from Madrid to Segovia. How adorable is that? On the way to find the restaurant, we also saw this place, which seemed to know exactly what we were doing in that part of town.
However, when we did get to the Botin, we decided it was a little too expensive and classy for us (most dishes were around 20 Euro, but you could also get baby eels for 132 Euros, if anyone is interested in that for their next meal in Madrid).
Instead, we went and ate 1 Euro sandwiches at a nearby place. Love being broke college students.
That night, we took a night train back to Barcelona and only got slightly better sleep than on the way out to Madrid because we knew not to even attempt sleeping in our seats anymore and went straight for the dining car booths.
For our last morning in Spain, we got into Barcelona too early to be functional and had nothing to do for a few hours before catching our flight back to London, so we spent our last hours in Spain sleeping on the Mediterranean coast, which was empty at 8:30 a.m.
That afternoon we caught our bus to the airport and our plane back to London, which I was sooo happy to see after two weeks away. I missed it so much. However, spring break was absolutely incredible and I’m so grateful for all the places I was able to go. I label it a success.
I have a ton of stuff to catch up on in the month since I’ve been back, but that will have to wait because in a few minutes I’m catching a plane to Milan, Italy to go visit the lovely Sarah Rogers at her European home. I’m sooo excited to be in Italy, even if I don’t think I’ll be able to afford to go to Rome, which was a heartbreaker. I’ll see you in a week.
