For me, Madrid could be summed up in about three words - museums, food, and fútbol.
I'll be honest, Madrid felt a little too much like New York City for me to want to actively explore, which was disappointing. But I still enjoyed myself quite a bit because like I said, the food and the museums were incredible.
Restaurants
We got to Madrid around 7 pm, and went to our hotel to freshen up before heading out for dinner. The receptionist at our hotel - the very cool and funky Petit Palace Lealtad Plaza - recommended that we walk basically around the corner and into the literary quarter, or the Barrio de Las Letras, for dinner. It's a fairly sizeable neighborhood; there are a few lovely plazas to stop and have some drinks and tapas in, and all three major museums in the city are within close walking distance. It was home to many of the Spanish Golden Age writers and playwrights, such Lope de Vega and Miguel de Cervantes himself.
We ate in this neighborhood every night we were there, we loved it so much. The first night, we decided to forego tapas for the first time and had a really nice, delicious full sit down dinner - unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the restaurant and for the life of me cannot find it online. But god did I have some delicious lamb chops that night. Ah, the memories. Edit: The name of the restaurant is El Barril de Las Letras. Of course. How embarrassing.
The second night, we ate at a traditional tapas restaurant very popular with the locals called Taberna de la Daniela. It was a mouthwatering meal, and it was also where I had my first piece of Spanish meat - a few perfect little chorizos. Like I mentioned in my Barcelona post, my family is Jewish and the Spanish love their ham. It proved a little difficult to find meat on a tapas menu we could eat, but I decided to screw it and just try something not too similar to sliced ham (I had a bad experience in elementary school. It's scarred me to this day). It turned out to be a great decision, and definitely made the whole tapas experience easier afterwards.
Our other two nights in Madrid, we ate in the Plaza de Santa Ana, which is bordered by the ME Madrid Reina Victoria Hotel (located in a beautiful 19th century building) and the Teatro Español. It's also surrounded by a bevy of tapas bars with promising menus. There was a restaurant called O Cacho de San Jose that had an Italian side and a tapas side - the first night (the night before we left for Sevilla), we did Italian, and the second night (our last night in Spain) we went back to good, old, classic tapas. It was a delicious pair of places to cap off different parts of our trip.
Museums
So obviously the biggest one here is the Museo del Prado. I was super excited to go and see what was there, and for the most part, it was really cool. There was a temporary exhibition of Picasso paintings scattered throughout all the Renaissance style stuff, which was a really cool juxtaposition. As far as those classical painters go, I really love Titian, and there was also a bunch of Velasquez stuff including Las Meninas, which was neat. Probably my favorite part of the museum by far were the El Greco and Hieronymous Bosch paintings, though. Both of them were way ahead of their time as far as what was typical in terms of style and movement, and since the Renaissance/classical stuff isn't my favorite, it was really cool to see.
To the left, El Greco's "Immaculada Oballe" (my photo); to the right, Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" (not my photo)
(After we went to the Prado, we also walked through the gardens right next to it, which were lovely and full of really beautiful and interesting flowers and greenery.)
We also went to the Reina Sofia, mostly just to see Picasso's "Guernica." It really was quite impressive, but we didn't stick around to see much else.
But my favorite of the three museums was definitely the Museo de Thyssen-Bornemisza. Part personal collection, part permanent exhibition, it was filled with an impressive variety of paintings, but a huge portion of what was displayed was in the Impressionist style, and if you know me at all you know that Impressionism is my favorite of the art movements. The paintings here were so well displayed and organized, and there were so many Impressionist artists represented that I hadn't even heard of. A lot of the Monets (my fave) were on loan for other exhibitions in other museum, but one of my favorite new guys was Emil Nolde, who some really beautiful impressionist-looking flowers. Anyway, the Thyssen was a really incredible museum and I would easily recommend this over the Prado if you only have time for one museum.
Extras
I guess these are technically partially museums, but there's a also a castle to visit! The Palacio Real de Madrid is still technically used today, if only for official state ceremonies (and sometimes medal ceremonies for Real Madrid), but it's also open for public viewing. There's a really neat permanent arms and armor exhibit to see, and the palace itself is absolutely stunning. Apparently it's often referred to as the smaller Versailles, and I would definitely agree with that statement.
All of the rooms were pretty impressive, but I think my favorite was one in the Baroque style - very lavish and overdone, true to rococo form, the walls were completely covered in pink and green porcelain designs. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside, but I found this officially sanctioned one online so you can get a small glimpse of how ridiculous this room is.
Well, that's it for Madrid. I hope you liked this format better than the other one I tried for Barcelona, because I definitely do. Next up is Sevilla, but I'll probably post some of my creative writing before I do that, just to switch it up a bit.
Until next time! Much love,
Rachel Shoshanna
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