We woke up at 9 am and left our hotel around 10:30 am. After grabbing a sandwich from the shop next to our hotel, we took a taxi to Plaza Mayor. Our guided walking tour of Madrid was to start there.
When the tour started, our American guide gave us a brief history of Madrid. Whenever he referred to the history of Spain, it was a repetition of what we had learnt from our guide in Barcelona. The most interesting thing about Madrid's history is that unlike most other major cities of the world, neither was Madrid near a significant water source nor was it along a trading route. It used to be a small town at the border of the kingdoms of Leon & Castile to the north under the rule of Christians and the kingdom of Al Andalusia to the south under the rule of Muslim Moors. In the 9th century, the Muslims built a fortress here to keep a check on Christian invaders from the north. When the Christians started reconquering the area ruled by the Muslims, the town of Madrid was conquered in 1085. Till 1561, it remained a small town of about 30,000 people when Philip the second decided to move his court to Madrid and that sparked an evolution of the city. Later kings built many new buildings in the city and strengthened Madrid's status as the capital of the kingdom of Spain.
We saw the hiding place of the Robin Hood of Spain, next to Plaza Mayor. This Robin Hood stole from the rich but instead of giving to the poor, he just spent it partying. We also saw the world's oldest restaurant that is still open. The restaurant displays a Guinness book of world records' certificate in its window to confirm that fact. Then we saw the original statue of the symbol of Madrid which is a bear standing and picking fruit from a tree. In the Middle Ages, Madrid city used a bear as their emblem. When they had a dispute with the Catholic Church over who controlled the land of Madrid and won the dispute, they created this statue as a symbol of the bear of Madrid having right over the land and the right to consume whatever fruits the land bore. Now it has become the symbol of Madrid and can be seen everywhere in the city. Then we saw an old palace built by the Moors and also remnants of an old city wall from that time. After that, it was time for a break in the tour and we had a quick snack (of patata bravas and orange juice) at a restaurant.
When the tour resumed, we saw the old city hall of Madrid followed by the Cathedral of Al Mudena. The city hall is an example of the Spanish attitude of "tomorrow tomorrow" and was built 140 years after Madrid had officially become a city. The Cathedral of Al Mudena is unique since it was built very recently in 1993 and if someone is looking to see a modern cathedral, it's one option. They have used different architectural styles in its construction that can be seen at different places. After that we saw the memorial to honor the people who died when an anarchist attacked the wedding procession of Alfonso the 8th in 1906. It was the largest terrorist attack on Madrid's soil till the subway bombings of 2004. Then we walked towards the end of our tour to the Royal Palace. It's no longer used by the royal family and instead functions as a museum. It was styled on the model of the Palace of Versailles. As you can tell, Madrid's history is not that long - there isn't much to speak of before the 16th century and even after that, it has been a relatively uneventful period and whatever was worth mentioning had already been covered in Barcelona. There is no single monument like an Eiffel Tower or a Sagrada Familia that is the symbol of the city. It's a modern city and a huge financial metro area with a population of 6.5 million.
Once the tour ended, we headed back to our hotel to get some rest after lots of walking in the blazing sun.
We left our hotel again around 5 pm after resting for almost 3 hours. We had tapas at a new place we found online. It's a chain called 100 Montaditos and they serve bite-sized sandwiches. We later found out that they have some restaurants on the East Coast of the US too. Excellent food, the best we've had in Madrid.
After that we took the subway to the starting point of our personal walking route that included some other things we wanted to see. We walked for almost 5 km in the Retiro Park that's like Madrid's Central Park. The park is huge and used to be the royal gardens. As it was a Saturday, we saw lots of people in the park enjoying the weather that had become cooler as the sun had gone down a bit. A crystal palace and a monument building in front of a man-made rectangular water body were the highlights of this walk. There were people rowing boats in the water.
We exited the park to arrive at the Plaza of Independence that has a giant gate that used to be the entrance of the city and was built in the 18th century. We continued walking on the trendy Gran Via and then turned to walk through a street connecting Gran Via to Plaza del Sol, the so-called Times Square of Madrid. Let's just say that its a poor man's Times Square. The plaza itself had lots of people shopping, walking or just taking in the atmosphere and in that sense, there is definite resemblance with Times Sqaure. We sat at a cafe for a little while to have a snack.
Then we took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel. As soon as we got on the train, we saw hundreds of Atletico Madrid fans singing and clapping as their team had just been crowned the 2014 champions of the Spanish Football League or the La Liga. A correction to yesterday's update: today's match was between FC Barcelona and Ateltico Madrid (not Real Madrid as I incorrectly mentioned yesterday). Atletico Madrid is the second team of Madrid. That's what happens when the driver is saying half the things in Spanish and all you pick up is that the match is between Barcelona and Madrid, not realizing that there are two teams in Madrid!
It doesn't end here. Whenever Atletico Madrid wins, its fans celebrate the victory in the Neptuno Plaza (or the square of Neptune) and guess where this plaza is? It's where our hotel is located! So as we were walking back to our hotel, there were thousands of fans pouring in to the plaza to sing and dance to celebrate the victory. There were fireworks, there was music, there were drums and everybody seemed to be dressed in the red and white vertical striped uniform of Atletico. We went to the top floor of the hotel to see the celebrations. When we were back in the room, I wanted to call it a day after walking over 15 km but Samia wanted to take in some more of the festive atmosphere so we walked to the 100 Montaditos place again for some more snacks and people watching. It's about a 300 meters walk from our hotel and all we could see everywhere were merry fans. It's a big coincidence that we were in Madrid the same day their team won and a bigger coincidence that our hotel is right in the plaza where Ateltico fans always come to celebrate. Memorable scenes indeed. We didn't get a chance to see a live football match but this comes quite close. I can still hear the fireworks as I type this.
Now we're off to bed. We have a flight to Lisbon tomorrow that'll take off at 12:10 pm. We've already checked-in online with the airlines so hopefully it should all go smoothly. Our next update will be from Lisbon, our last stop of this trip. Till then, take care and good night!
When the tour started, our American guide gave us a brief history of Madrid. Whenever he referred to the history of Spain, it was a repetition of what we had learnt from our guide in Barcelona. The most interesting thing about Madrid's history is that unlike most other major cities of the world, neither was Madrid near a significant water source nor was it along a trading route. It used to be a small town at the border of the kingdoms of Leon & Castile to the north under the rule of Christians and the kingdom of Al Andalusia to the south under the rule of Muslim Moors. In the 9th century, the Muslims built a fortress here to keep a check on Christian invaders from the north. When the Christians started reconquering the area ruled by the Muslims, the town of Madrid was conquered in 1085. Till 1561, it remained a small town of about 30,000 people when Philip the second decided to move his court to Madrid and that sparked an evolution of the city. Later kings built many new buildings in the city and strengthened Madrid's status as the capital of the kingdom of Spain.
We saw the hiding place of the Robin Hood of Spain, next to Plaza Mayor. This Robin Hood stole from the rich but instead of giving to the poor, he just spent it partying. We also saw the world's oldest restaurant that is still open. The restaurant displays a Guinness book of world records' certificate in its window to confirm that fact. Then we saw the original statue of the symbol of Madrid which is a bear standing and picking fruit from a tree. In the Middle Ages, Madrid city used a bear as their emblem. When they had a dispute with the Catholic Church over who controlled the land of Madrid and won the dispute, they created this statue as a symbol of the bear of Madrid having right over the land and the right to consume whatever fruits the land bore. Now it has become the symbol of Madrid and can be seen everywhere in the city. Then we saw an old palace built by the Moors and also remnants of an old city wall from that time. After that, it was time for a break in the tour and we had a quick snack (of patata bravas and orange juice) at a restaurant.
When the tour resumed, we saw the old city hall of Madrid followed by the Cathedral of Al Mudena. The city hall is an example of the Spanish attitude of "tomorrow tomorrow" and was built 140 years after Madrid had officially become a city. The Cathedral of Al Mudena is unique since it was built very recently in 1993 and if someone is looking to see a modern cathedral, it's one option. They have used different architectural styles in its construction that can be seen at different places. After that we saw the memorial to honor the people who died when an anarchist attacked the wedding procession of Alfonso the 8th in 1906. It was the largest terrorist attack on Madrid's soil till the subway bombings of 2004. Then we walked towards the end of our tour to the Royal Palace. It's no longer used by the royal family and instead functions as a museum. It was styled on the model of the Palace of Versailles. As you can tell, Madrid's history is not that long - there isn't much to speak of before the 16th century and even after that, it has been a relatively uneventful period and whatever was worth mentioning had already been covered in Barcelona. There is no single monument like an Eiffel Tower or a Sagrada Familia that is the symbol of the city. It's a modern city and a huge financial metro area with a population of 6.5 million.
Once the tour ended, we headed back to our hotel to get some rest after lots of walking in the blazing sun.
We left our hotel again around 5 pm after resting for almost 3 hours. We had tapas at a new place we found online. It's a chain called 100 Montaditos and they serve bite-sized sandwiches. We later found out that they have some restaurants on the East Coast of the US too. Excellent food, the best we've had in Madrid.
After that we took the subway to the starting point of our personal walking route that included some other things we wanted to see. We walked for almost 5 km in the Retiro Park that's like Madrid's Central Park. The park is huge and used to be the royal gardens. As it was a Saturday, we saw lots of people in the park enjoying the weather that had become cooler as the sun had gone down a bit. A crystal palace and a monument building in front of a man-made rectangular water body were the highlights of this walk. There were people rowing boats in the water.
We exited the park to arrive at the Plaza of Independence that has a giant gate that used to be the entrance of the city and was built in the 18th century. We continued walking on the trendy Gran Via and then turned to walk through a street connecting Gran Via to Plaza del Sol, the so-called Times Square of Madrid. Let's just say that its a poor man's Times Square. The plaza itself had lots of people shopping, walking or just taking in the atmosphere and in that sense, there is definite resemblance with Times Sqaure. We sat at a cafe for a little while to have a snack.
Then we took the subway back to the station closest to our hotel. As soon as we got on the train, we saw hundreds of Atletico Madrid fans singing and clapping as their team had just been crowned the 2014 champions of the Spanish Football League or the La Liga. A correction to yesterday's update: today's match was between FC Barcelona and Ateltico Madrid (not Real Madrid as I incorrectly mentioned yesterday). Atletico Madrid is the second team of Madrid. That's what happens when the driver is saying half the things in Spanish and all you pick up is that the match is between Barcelona and Madrid, not realizing that there are two teams in Madrid!
It doesn't end here. Whenever Atletico Madrid wins, its fans celebrate the victory in the Neptuno Plaza (or the square of Neptune) and guess where this plaza is? It's where our hotel is located! So as we were walking back to our hotel, there were thousands of fans pouring in to the plaza to sing and dance to celebrate the victory. There were fireworks, there was music, there were drums and everybody seemed to be dressed in the red and white vertical striped uniform of Atletico. We went to the top floor of the hotel to see the celebrations. When we were back in the room, I wanted to call it a day after walking over 15 km but Samia wanted to take in some more of the festive atmosphere so we walked to the 100 Montaditos place again for some more snacks and people watching. It's about a 300 meters walk from our hotel and all we could see everywhere were merry fans. It's a big coincidence that we were in Madrid the same day their team won and a bigger coincidence that our hotel is right in the plaza where Ateltico fans always come to celebrate. Memorable scenes indeed. We didn't get a chance to see a live football match but this comes quite close. I can still hear the fireworks as I type this.
Now we're off to bed. We have a flight to Lisbon tomorrow that'll take off at 12:10 pm. We've already checked-in online with the airlines so hopefully it should all go smoothly. Our next update will be from Lisbon, our last stop of this trip. Till then, take care and good night!
No comments:
Post a Comment