CB-Come With Me: Welcome to Madrid!

Welcome to Madrid!

Friday, September 22.

Onward Ho… It is early Friday when we grab a cab and lake our way to Sants Station in Barcelona to catch our train to Madrid.

It is a sleek modern Ave train, a fast speed train that will take us to Madrid in 3 hours.

We arrive at our hotel. Hotel Artrip, a small boutique hotel in the Lavapies area of Madrid. It is new and modern with only 11 rooms. While the rooms are small and lack a lot of space to store anything and not much privacy. But we love it… the young staff are friendly and super accommodating. The wifi is good and they provide a mobile hotspot we can take anywhere with us and connect to the hotel’s internet… something we used daily for GPS as we wandered the streets. They provided a great continental breakfast everyday and were more than helpful with tips on where to go, how to get there, best restaurants, shows, etc.

View from our Hotel Artrip in Madrid.

Day one: we wander up a steep little street to the Plaza St. Ana, a small square that is surrounded by little neighbourhood restaurants and bars, a theatre (teatro), a flamenco place, and a beautiful old hotel. The restaurants and bars spill into the square. We find a little table under an umbrellas and sip ice cold white sangria (we decide we prefer the red.)Madrid is very warm- high 20’s everyday- and the cold sangria is always very refreshing.

We discover a lovely little Vinoteca (wine bar) with tapas and decide we will return later that evening for dinner.

Day Two: The day of walking tours.

The hotel has invited us to a free walking tour they provide for guests. We meet our guide Laura at 10:00 and head out. Laura is a native Madridian- she has spent her life in Madrid, as have her parents and her grandparents. She is a wealth of knowledge and history.

We learn that Madrid is newer than some of the other cities like Barcelona. It was just a small village until 1561 when King Phillip III decided to move the capital from Toledo to Madrid and he established his court there. The government of Spain was controlled largely through the Church which was not always to the good of Spain. Even though Columbus had discovered the Americas by then and was bringing ship loads of gold back to Spain, the money was largely going to the Church to finance more cathedrals and convents and the life of the aristocracy who were also supporting the Church. The infrastructure of Spain was suffering and nothing was going to support industry or agriculture. Phillip wanted to make government more independent.

The Royal Palace was built in Madrid and Phillip and his court took up residence there. Today Madrid has over 3 million people and is a bustling modern city. Madrid prides itself on its inclusiveness. There are no separate quarters for this group of people or that group. Everyone mixes together and live harmoniously.

We start our tour at our hotel in the area of Lavapies (which means Washing feet – the area was once a mosque under Muslim rule and this is the place where the worshippers washed their feet before going in to prayer). We pass through a local market where fruits, vegetables, meat and seafood are sold. We are told that Madrid, despite being a landlocked city, is the 2^nd highest consumer of seafood in Europe.

We stroll through the Literatos area which was created by Napolean to bring a more French and cultured area to Madrid. Here writers and artists lived and were free to thrive in their craft, creating some of the greatest artists and writers like Cervantes and Picasso and Dali. Galleries and Museums exist in this area.

We pass a cloistered convent. Under Spanish Catholic rule the area had many convents, which were closed under French rule.

Streets are marked with ceramic signs that contain not only the name of the street but a diagram depicting what it means since many people in those times were illiterate.

We make our way to Plaza Mayor, the main (major) plaza of that time. It is spectacular. There were several gates leading into a large central courtyard that was the centre of the city. Everything took place here – from public executions to markets and bull fights. The arches and walls are original but much of the buildings were rebuilt after a massive fire in the 1800’s. Originally it was 7 stories high which was quite a feat for those times. Everything above the ground floor is living accommodations or apartments, now many are airbnb’s.