It seems that every city we go to we always end up saying that we could live there and that definitely holds true in Spain. Our last blog posted ended with Parque de Retiro and after our walk through the park we continued on through the city. Here are a few of the items we encountered on our walk home that day:
This is the Alcala Door (better known around the world as the triumphant arc)
Here is the inside of the church we had a view of from our window the Almudena Cathedral.
We did our favorite thing and stop for tapas. We had heard about this chain of bars called El Tigre and after one stop it became a hot spot. A large beer is 5 Euros which is expensive relatively speaking but the beer is about 24 ounces and it comes with what seemed like unlimited tapas. Prosciutto on bread, cheese on bread, mini hamburgers, cheese croquettes (my favorite), chicken wings (they look gross but thats because back home we are used to hormone induced chickens and I am sure this is how wings were intended to look and the taste was great).
We saw this little Osito on every post card and were expecting a much larger bear but it was tiny and we had to take a picture of it. This bear is in the heart of the city in Puerta del Sol.
Our friends Emily and Nate arrived after we had been in town for a week. Sadly the weather was not accommodating and the dreary Dutch weather followed Emily and Nate down to Spain. We had one clear day and so we took them on a walk to try and hit up all of the best sites so here is the front entrance of the Royal Palace of Madrid at sunset (yes its about 9 PM in this photo).
We had vowed to go back to Parque de Retiro with our friends when they arrived and go on the boats. We picked up cheese and wine and brought it to the park and started to have a picnic. The day started sunny and warm but sadly that was the last we saw of the sun the next 7 days. We didn't even manager to have a glass of wine or ride the boats but we did get this picture.
So we did the next best thing and made Sangria at home. We were lucky enough to meet a Spanish friend in Argentina and we wanted to make Spanish sangria. He had told us the key was to add a lot of sugar (we learned this later at the bar El Tigre mentioned above because they put one full scoop of sugar in each glass). He told us to add any kind of wine, lemon fanta, gin (I know gross), slice lemons and oranges, cinnamon and sugar and then any fruit we preferred which we added apples. I hate when fruit turns mushy in drinks so I think apples are the best. I will say this was probably one of the best sangrias I have ever had.
Jim arrived the day after Nate and Emily. We had to move into a bigger apartment when our three visitors got there. The apartment was not nearly in as good of a part of town and I would not recommend anyone ever staying there. The buildings looked the same but the clientele in the area were drastically different. They good thing about the apartment is it was seven stories tall and we were on the top floor with no elevator so it was a built in work out daily.
Here is the main walking street in the rain. Our shoes were all soaked and jeans wet and everyone was cold but we powered through the city and made the best of it with our paraguas (umbrellas).
It is always nice to have visitors come and even with the weather we made the best of it. We went to Barcelona after Madrid and sadly the weather followed us there but that is for another blog post. We couldn't be happier to be back in Europe and it seems like a lot of people want to visit including family and friends so hopefully we can meet up with some people (other than Melissa where were all of you when we were in Asia and South America? I get it, Europe has a "safer" image). Okay hasta luego.
By the way we took the train to Barcelona! I love public transportation!
No comments:
Post a Comment