I love Madrid. London was cool, but Madrid is still my favorite big European city.
Flew in on Sunday, and after getting settled, I immediately went out and got my Hard Rock Cafe Hurricane glass. But of course. Also used Madrid’s subway system for the first time. Not bad. Once you know what to look for its fairly easy to navigate.
But here’s the crazy thing…
What was supposed to be just an HRC and lunch trip turned into a 4+ hour jaunt around Madrid, checking off some of sights on my to-do list. I hit up the Parque de Retiro, which is amazingness plus five. I’ll have to explore more of this on another trip. Its THAT cool, and pretty huge.
I then went to the Thyssen art museum. Basically its the Prado’s younger less prolific sister. It was nice enough, but I was a bit tired from all the walking so I was not as engaged as I could have been in all the Impressionist Art. I was probably a little more tired than I realized as I did a foolish thing and felt the wrath of a museum minder-type person. No harm, no foul in the end…but I should have been more careful.
Madrid is a fantastic walking city, but thank god for the subway cause I don’t know if I could have walked as many places as I originally planned.
Monday was…interesting to say the least. The plan was to wake up early and head to Toledo for some sword and damascene shopping. I didn’t set my alarm so I didn’t get to the Atocha train station until about 9:30 (again, thanks for the subway).
Got into Toledo, grabbed a cool-ass sword (100% Spanish steel replica of the LOTR Narsil sword!) and 2 damascenes (one for me and another for a family member). I barely made my train back to Madrid in time. If I’d missed that, I’d have had to wait 2 hours till the next one came through. But that was where the trip took a somewhat ugly turn.
Turns out that three plain clothes train cops singled me out and asked to see my passport. Unfortunately I only had a copy on my person. Plus, I really need to work on my conversational Spanish. Either way, once I confirmed some details that was on my passport, I thought the issue was settled after a firm admonishing in Spanish to always have my original passport. Nope.
Turns out the train cop trio was waiting for me once the train docked in Madrid and escorted me to the Atocha police station. Thankfully, the matter was resolved after they did some finger scan to verify I had no record or whatever. Either way, I call profiling. Plus, that and the late Toledo trip killed my plans to see the Palacio Real. Yet, it was the only real black mark on what was a nice short trip to Spain.
However, Monday ended on a very high note, thanks to a late night flamenco show at the Casa Patas. Thank you Rick Steves for that tip. Beautiful dancing, soulful music. What more can one ask for in one of Spain’s oldest traditions?
Also noticed some funny business on stage. One of the female guitarists seemed very mute and static when just the female flamenco dancer performed. But when the male dancer did his set, her whole body language changed. She grew more animated in her strummings and at times started ‘eye-humping’ him. Ha! It gave me a few chuckles during the show.
Anyway, interesting adventure. Tomorrow I’m heading back to the UK and will be driving. On the other side of the road. I’m kinda not looking forward to that. Oh well. I paid for it. Will reveal the results soon.
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