36 Hours in Madrid

Hello there!  I hope everyone is enjoying their Fall.  We have settled into a constant 45-50F with rain.  On a positive note, it's not very cold yet!  But I think I would rather have snow than rain everyday.

Pat was in Madrid last week, and I met up with him on Friday night - Sunday afternoon.  Europe ended Daylight Savings Time over the weekend, which changed the time difference between St. Petersburg & Central Europe (CET) from 2 to 3 hours. 

You wouldn't think it would make a big difference, but it does.  With no direct flights between Madrid & St. Petersburg, our entire Sunday was spent traveling (left Madrid at 3:30PM, was home in our apartment at 2AM!).  Not to mention that we now have more late night European office conference calls (7PM and 8PM calls are now the norm). 

But I digress......  back to Madrid. 

My 1st night was dinner at an amazing restaurant called Santceloni.  The Red wine from the Duero region was my favorite, as was the veal knuckle

So let's start with Pat's highlight of the week.  That's right, a little football.  Real Madrid vs. Juventus (Torino, Italy)

I'm so jealous!  Real Madrid won 2-1, and Ronaldo was apparently "the man", which he should be for a 21 million Euros/year paycheck.

So we then visited the 2nd most important "house" in the city, the Cathedral de la Almudena.  Does every European cathedral have a statue of Pope John Paul II? 

It's not very old by European standards.  Construction started in 1879, but was stopped during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and WWII (1939-1945), and was only restarted again in 1950.  It was completed in 1993.

One of three sets of bronze doors

Because the Cathedral is not very old, it has an interesting mix of modern art & colorful design elements.  The ceiling tiles and stained glass were unlike any that you typically see in European catholic churches.

We were lucky that the weather was nice - 70F and sun - so we mostly spent the day walking around.  I
I want that upper floor apartment with the outside terrace!

Not sure what Pat's looking at :)

Lunch!

Love that the flowers are still in bloom

A store that sells jamon below your apartment would be VERY dangerous

This is Plaza Major.  Built in the early 1600's,  then rebuilt in the late 1700's after a series of fires.  It's is mostly a tourist spot today, but most interesting to me is that all 4 sides are now made up of apartments with balconies.  What an interesting place to live.....

Mercado de San Migual. 

These are actually tiny baby eels, that they serve on bread as a tapas.

And paella

But what did I buy????  Beans of course!  My favorites are the green verdinas (on the right), but I also bought a 1/2 kilo of the Alubia de Tolosa (black beans from the Basque region) to try.

This is Puerta de Alcala (Alcala's Gate) at the Plaza de la Independencia.  In 1774, King Charles III commissioned Francesco Sabatini to construct a monumental gate into the city wall.  It's called Alcala's gate because the road at one time led to the city of Alcala de Henares (a UNESCO world heritage city).



Beautiful blue skies, and I love the wrought iron balconies.

Before we left, we took a walk through Retiro Park.