Before getting to the fun of a day in Madrid, we sadly have to share the Kieran would NOT sleep much in the night. Jordan did shockingly well, though she did wake up once at about 1am before going back to sleep until 9am. Kieran, on the other hand, would not settle at all and woke up every thirty minutes or so until 1am when he finally (mostly) got to sleep after I took him for a 45 minute carrier tour of Madrid at 11:30pm. It was shockingly busy still at the late hour, with people in restaurants and in the squares.
Oh well, we weren’t going to let a little thing like jet lag and bad sleep stop us from enjoying Madrid to the fullest. First stop was the Royal Palace, where Jordan flexed her photography muscles and took about 1000 pictures on her little camera she got for her birthday. Right next door is the Cathedral, where we went in to see their museum. No pictures were allowed in here, but I do have two fun facts about it to share.
- Madrid didn’t have its own bishop until the mid 1800s, as it was previously just lumped in with Toledo.
- Real Madrid (the soccer team) donate a replica of each trophy they win to the cathedral. I did manage a sneaky shot of the trophy cabinet.
The church itself was, of course, magnificent. It had very cool coloring on the roof and plenty of side conclaves with beautiful statues and paintings. Even the pews were extremely well built and polished compared to other churches I have been in. It was nearing noon and none of us had eaten anything, so we didn’t linger too long in the church and made our way back towards Plaza Mayor where restaurants are a plenty.
We ended up eating at a cute place on a plaza in front of the Mercado de San Miguel. My calamari sandwich was okay, but the bread was a little crusty and it fell apart after a few bits; still tasty though. Emily’s chorizo de navar sandwich was excellent and the potatoes bravas were delicious. Even Kieran enjoyed them!
After lunch, we wandered through the Mercado de San Miguel and noted some places that we definitely want to hit up for food while we still have a few days left here. From there, it was a short walk back to the apartment to cool down and get some drinks that didn’t cost €3.80 for a can of coke (or €3.50 for a lovely but tiny lemon slush).
It wasn’t time for a nap yet, so we headed out again, walking towards the Parque de la Retiro, a massive park in the heart of the city. On the way we passed the Spanish Congress, a big roundabout with a statue of Neptune and finally the Museo Del Prado. Not today, fancy museum; we will probably fill our quota in that category with the Guggenheim in Bilbao. The first thing we ran into in the park itself was a playground, so we parked the sleeping Kieran in the shade while Jordan ran around in the (fortunately shaded) playground.
We passed a cute area with flower formations and made our way to the central feature of the park, a lake with a huge statue on the far side. We got some ice cream and found a place on the lawn with the sounds of a trumpet performer and a group behind us playing a ukulele and doing some acrobatic dancing. For the record, Kieran likes ice cream, which I am sure comes as a massive shock to everyone.
Instead of walking up the hill 2.5km, we took the metro from the park (which has a direct access to the station!) back to our apartment. This time, it was actually nap time. Except for Jordan, who refused. We did find out that some previous person had not signed out of Netflix on the tv, so Jordan watched a bit of the Super Mario Bros movie and then read on the iPad. Sorry for wrecking your algorithm, previous guest!
By this point, we still haven’t heard anything about our bags, though the online tracker indicated that they were shipped on the evening flight. So hopefully progress. We did want to actually call the, for a real update, but our Airalo sims are data only. So we wandered to the vodaphone store, but needed our passports. That sounds like an after-dinner problem, so we went to find a place to eat with the goal of filling the Downie rule of eating the national dish of Paella.
The place turned out to be on the little plaza that our apartment is, just off the Plaza Mayor. The patio had fans and misters, which greatly entertained Jordan. Emily was more entertained by the giant jug of Samgria we got, which was fabulous. Asparagus and Iberico ham was the appetizer (delicious!) followed by their amazing salad of tomato, eggplant, goat’s cheese, Iberico ham and balsamic vinegar. That salad stack was the star of the show, but the mixed meat and seafood paella was very good also.
Even though it was late following our slow paced Spanish dinner, we got Emily’s passport to finish the sim car set up. We then sat in the Plaza de la Sol and listened to the same violin and cello duo I found last night, though this time they were doing ABBA covers to go with the Coldplay cover. Our call to the airline was not nearly as useful as the string duo, as they told us that the bags are actually still in Dublin, scheduled to come in on an Aer Lingus flight tomorrow morning in direct contradiction to the status of the website.
With that knowledge in hand, we wandered around the extremely busy pedestrian area a bit more and headed back to the apartment for the final time. Bed time tonight has actually been very smooth for both kids (fingers crossed). We are celebrating by drinking a €3 bottle of rose and confusing the Netflix algorithm further by watching a random episode of Friends. Tomorrow is our day trip to Toledo.
Another fun note is that we got emails about a train strike on Friday that may affect our train to Bilbao. So that should be fun to investigate!
p.s. – No photos today, as the blog site won’t take the size of pictures my phone generally takes. Not sure why, but I will try fixing it or find a workaround for the future.
