Weekend in Madrid

And old friend of mine, Irene, is a true Madridian. She long ago invited me to visit her in her home town, but working most weekends I have to recognize I couldn't find the right time to go... for years! It's always been her who came to Barcelona.

However, this weekend I made it! I took the AVE train on Friday evening and got to Madrid by 11pm. We didn't have much time, but nightime in the capital city is vibrant until the wee hours, so we had some dinner and strolled around. The refurbishement of the old San Miguel market - now rather a mix of gourmet stores and loads of tapas bars - was certainly what caught my attention the most.

Gemma and me at the Prado Museum

On Saturday morning, Irene has busy with her master lessons, so I met my colleague Gemma from http://madridcoolandcultural.com/ You might remember her from a previous post. If I had enjoyed being with her the first time we met, this time was way much better!

Gemma first took me to La Libre for breakfast, a bookstore and café in Lavapiés. The cakes were amazing! We shared tips and experiences from our jobs and business, then she took me on a walk around the city center. She couldn't stop herself showing me her secret spots: the frescos of the meeting room of the Medical Board building, a beautiful stain-glass dome in a hotel... I loved being walked around by her!

And so we got to the Prado Museum: I really wanted to visit it, after so many years not having been there! Of course, as an official guide and also member of the Friends of the Prado club, she was able to skip the line to get in and show me around. And I have to say, I was totally in love with the way she was explaining the works! She has a deep knowledge of every master-piece and shares it with great passion, mixed with lots of interesting anecdotes and a pinch of sense of humor. I had so much fun! She's kind of like me explaining the Gaudí works!

At the old pastry shop!

Time flew at the museum, and by the time we left it was lunchtime. She again took me into the city center, showing me her favorite old pastry shops (she's got a tour of 100yo pastry shops, as I also have my own Barcelona sweet tour!), then we found a place to eat some tapas: yes! She also does tapas tours!

Irene also joined us for lunch, then we had an ice-cream, and Gemma left. Irene and I spent the afternoon enjoying the city views: there are a few buildings in Madrid where you can access their rooftop, and it was lovely!

We kept walking around, and in the evening we went to a very creative theater show: 5 15-min shows taking place simultaneusly, repeating every 20min. You can buy tickets for just one of them and then leave, or stay for the night seeing one show after the other, and have a drink or some food between shows. The rooms are small and quaint, and the actors of this micro-plays are very close to the public. We only had time for a play, but I thought it was great! Check them out: http://www.teatropordinero.com/

We had dinner at http://www.crucina.com/, the only rawfood restaurant in Spain so far and the only 100% rawfood place in Europe! It just opened a few weeks ago, and I was interested in trying their food. Don't miss their non-dairy gluten-free tiramisù!

The next day, Irene wanted to show me her neighbourhood life. We bought some pastries from her favorite bakery, and after breakfast we explored her district. She showed me old local buildings, we past the former slaughterhouse (impressive XIX century building), the iron-structured old Delicias station housing now the Railway Museum, and reached the Manzanares, the Madrid river. The city council has started a huge project of recovery of the river bank and some new bridges and parks have just been innaugurated. I loved the one designed by Jacques Perrault (Barcelona has also a work by him, the Hotel Me - take my contemporary architecture tour to learn more!). And before lunch we still had time to take metro to the city center and have a look at the charming Sorolla House-Museum. It's a little jewell well worth discovering!


After another tapas lunch we kept strolling accross the different areas of the city center of Madrid and had a coffee and cake stop in Chueca, before we decided to go to the Retiro Park. It is a gorgeous garden, comparable to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The trees were very pretty, many of them in full bloom. There was lots of people enjoying the sunny afternoon. We saw the lake and the beautiful Palacio de Cristal (a glass pavilion), as well as the memorial for the victims of the Atocha Station attacks in 2004. And before we left Irene took me to see the peacocks. We wanted to see their tails open, but at first they weren't very cooperative... but when we were just about to leave one of them found himself surrounded by 3 peacock females and sure he wanted to impress them! So it opened its tail... and it was gorgeous! I took plenty of pictures!

So you see, my friend Irene is not a tourguide (she works as a consultant for social projects), but she is indeed an amateur local expert!
After that, we walked back home, got my luggage and went to the train station were we said goodbye. I wish I won't take that long to be in Madrid again!