We were out of the hotel at 9:33 and on the train just 7 minutes later. The ride to the Opera station took only 6 minutes. There we found a square with a couple of souvenir stands that we just had to check out. We climbed the inclined street that led to the Mercado de San Miguel. Along the way, we enjoyed looking at the street signs, which were made out of tiles and attached to walls. That's not terribly helpful to drivers who have no navigators with them to scout them out and read them, but it is easy enough for pedestrians. We saw these in souvenir shops as magnets, as well larger ones you could buy for decorating your home.
We noted that the last two had the seashells and recognized Santiago, so we knew this was referring to the Camino de Santiago. It was nice to run into it again.
The Mercado had been recommended as a place worth seeing. It was not as large as the one in Barcelona, but still had too much fish. It was too early in the day to think about getting food here, especially after the large breakfast at the hotel. Still, it was worth seeing.
From here, we headed for the Plazuela del Conde de Miranda to find a convent. Not just any convent, mind you. A colleague had told me about the place, but could remember no details such as name or exact location. However, a Google search of Spanish convent and cookies yielded entries with the required information. That did not mean it was exactly easy in the event. When we got to the small square at 10:10, this is what we found:
Nothing said "El Convento de Corpus Christi". I know they are cloistered, but if you are going to sell cookies, there should be something to help. We walked down to the pink building and turned right up the narrow street and thought we found the correct number, but the door provided no information.
We walked back to the little square, deciding along the way, that the pink building was probably a church. An older lady, who, frankly, looked homeless, came out of the open door in the pink building, firing Spanish at us. One of said, No habla Espanol, and she made an eating motion. We said, Si and she took us back up to the brown door, still talking away. She pressed a button and spoke into the intercom. She made a motion that we interpreted to mean that we had to wend our way around, once through the door. Someone responded to her and the door buzzed. We thanked her an walked into the dark passage. A small courtyard was ahead of us.
There were small tiled pictures of saints in a few places. We neither saw nor heard anyone. Into one more dark passage and we found ourselves in front of the turntable I'd heard and read about. We sawa a sign with a list of items and prices. Our feeble Spanish was failing us, though. A female voice said something and the turntable turned revealing 2 bags of cookies and a box of doughnuts. Referring to the price list, we chose one of the bags and put 10 euros in its place. We were about to go, when the voice spoke again and the turntable turned again with 2,50 in change. I would have been perfectly happy with the convent keeping the extra, but since she seemed to want us to take it, we did. (We waited until later in the evening to try the Galletas, which were quite good, with a hint of lemon.)
Back outside, the lady came out of the doorway to us again. My older daughter gave her money as a thank you for helping us, but she gave us three prayer cards. It was an unusual experience.
It was getting warmer as we headed off for the palace. At 10:30, we happened upon a souvenir store at Calle de Mayor that had the first Christmas ornament I'd managed to find in Spain. It was a shopping bag with Madrid buildings in it and was the exact same style as one I have from New York. I found a nice tie for my husband and some other items and both daughters found things as well.
10:50 found us in front of the Palaccio in the hot sun.
Posing at the top of those stairs just below the statue was quite popular.
It had been hot in the courtyard and, while the air conditioning was not great, the palace was a little cooler. We saw the rooms of former monarchs. We had time to look at the previous king's abdication letter and to visit the throne room, where they have diplomatic gatherings.
We also visited the armory and took pictures of the surprisingly forested area to the west and south. We could see where there was an amusement park tucked into the woods. This side of town was hillier than ours, although ours had its undulating streets.
At 12:47, we retreated to the second floor cafe for lunch. It was vaguely cafeteria-style. I decided to go healthy and made myself a 9 euro salad to which I added bread, which turned out to be 1 euro, and a 2 euro can of Coke Zero.
We took our time eating, partially to stay somewhere cool. At 1:30, we repaired to the shop, where one of my purchases was stamps of the royal family.
At 2, we were out of the palace and into the tremendously hot, clear day. There were some clouds on the horizon to the north, but that was it. We heard the only Spanish guitar of our entire trip from a guy sitting outside the gate, but he was playing an Italian tune! We walked around to the north side of the palace to check out the gardens there.
We had discovered the cathedral was directly across a large open area from the gates of the palace. It was not on our itinerary for the day, but we're Catholic, so how could we not go in?
I loved that ceiling! A side chapel that was reserved for prayer was even more modern, but one couldn't take pictures in there.
This wasn't the main entrance, so we walked around to the left and paid 1 euro each "donation" to go in at 2:15. It was really rather surprisingly modern for a cathedral, but we found out it was just finished in the last century.
I loved that ceiling! A side chapel that was reserved for prayer was even more modern, but one couldn't take pictures in there.
The devotional altar on the same side as the chapel was quite impressive.
I was thrilled to find my patron saint, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, again and now with not just the spiked wheel, but also the sword that eventually was used to kill her. Unusual to see that.
Our next destination was one whose recommendation my older daughter had gotten as being the best chocolateria in Madrid. In spite of the heat, we were going there for hot chocolate with churros, which is evidently a big thing in Spain. At 3:15, we were in Chocolateria San Gines with its pictures of famous people who'd been there, like Richard Gere, on the walls.
When I reviewed it on TripAdvisor (positively), I found quite a few reviews. The hot chocolate is thicker than the drinking chocolate and not as sweet. For 3, 90 euros, it came with 6 churros, which seemed perfect for the three of us until we ran out of churros before running out of chocolate. This probably explained the smile/smirk from the clerk, when my daughter had ordered. She got us 6 more for another 1,30. They were crispy and fresh and wonderful in the chocolate.
We were brought one glass of water, which was evidently part of the deal, and we shared it. That was not enough, so my daughter got us 3 chocolate shakes, which are just shaken chocolate milk, for 2, 60 euros each. The heat of the day was still getting to us, even though we had been drinking the water we'd brought from the hotel, so we shared 2 slushes (like slushies) as well.
We headed off to find the bear that is the symbol of Madrid about 4 pm. Twenty minutes later, we found him at Puerta del Sol, just hanging out at the far end of the plaza.
Having done our duty in this regard, we headed down into the Sol metro station at 4:25 and hopped on a train 2 minutes later. At 4:31, we were at San Bernardo and in our rooms in just under 20 minutes.
The room still wasn't cool, but I tried to cool off as best as possible for a few minutes, while dumping out all of the purchases. At 5:09, the daughters were back for us to head out for the concert at the Teatro at the Conde Duque, which used to be a barracks for troops and horses and now it's a civic building for art displays, concerts, archives, etc.
We were outside the hall at 5:22 waiting for the other concert to end. The usher waved us in during applause, but it turned out they still weren't finished. So, my husband and the flute and saxophone teachers from his university had to wait until after their 5:30 scheduled start time to be able to begin. The audience was disappointingly sparse, but they missed a very fine concert. My husband had enlarged his music and was able to see well-enough to play very well, in spite of his cornea transplant and cataract surgery of less than one month ago. People came backstage afterwards to congratulate him and his colleagues.
At 6:30, we were back in the hotel to relax a bit before dinner with the two teachers and the flutist's husband. We met them in the lobby about 40 minutes later and walked to the restaurant on the corner, el Sustanciero. The flute teacher is from Puerto Rico, so she was invaluable in deciphering the food choices and in making suggestions. We started with a wonderful cheese plate and one of cured meats.
I ordered Entrecot de Ternera al gusto, which was very good.
My older daughter chose Carillera Iberica c/Salsa, which she enjoyed.
After these two, we shouldn't have been surprised that my younger daughter's Presa Iberica c/cebolla also had fries.
Some of the talk was about the saxophonist's misadventures on this trip. His luggage still had not arrived and he'd had to go to a nearby department store to buy clothes. If his luggage does not arrive tomorrow, he'll be heading home without seeing it the next day. He was interested in visiting the Prado tomorrow, as are the daughters and I. So, we will see to it that he gets there.
My husband paid the 149,10 euro bill- on my Capital One Mastercard- to thank his colleagues for coming over to Spain. The very pleasant meal didn't end until 9:40, when we walked outside to this lovely sunset.
No comments:
Post a Comment