Flying to Madrid and Day 1 of Touring

We have never had it so smooth flying out of Toronto. No traffic slowdowns on the non-toll roads all the way to the airport "economy" parking. The shuttle bus was there within a few minutes. We were early to drop our luggage at check-in and had to wait 10 minutes because we were early.  Then there was the one-person line up at the security screening! Hence we had lots of time to kill waiting for departure and we pushed off 15 minutes early.

Chris had an empty seat next to her so had lots of room to spread out on the seven hour flight. Unfortunately, leaving at 6:45 pm messes with your internal clock a bit and I was only able to get a very brief 5 or 10 minute nap before we were preparing to land at the equivalent of 1:30 am Toronto time. Again the customs line-up was one person and we breezed through the airport to meet our ride service driver who whisked us to our downtown hotel to drop our bags. That part was a bit slower due to morning rush hour but no where near as painful as Toronto in the morning.

We dropped our bags at the front desk and headed out on a walking exploration of the centre of Madrid.

Our hotel/apartment was across the street from the royal palace so we had a chance to check out the exterior. It was a bit cool and damp (16C).

We were on our way to a Vodaphone store to get a SIM card for my phone so we had data and calling for the time we were here.

We ended up at the Plaza de la Puerta del Sol.

With the phone all set up, we started on a self guided walking tour. By now, we had figured out that every prominent Spanish leader has a statue of himself on a horse in a city square. Complete with pigeons.

We made our way to Plaza Mayor.  A popular tourist mecca complete with the Sengalese counterfeit goods vendors. It looks like the Madrid police are trying to control them in contrast to what we saw in the south of Spain last year. They lay their stuff out on a blanket that has ropes attached to each corner and when one of the scouts sees a cop coming, they pull the string and immediately close up shop. Like the cops can't figure that out????

There are many pedestrian streets with a myriad of small shops we have long lost in North America.

A real gem was the Mercado de San Miguel. A lovely market that featured a large variety of tapas, beverages and other foods.

We wandered a number of more streets before finally wanting to sit down for lunch. We picked a little square with a tapas restaurant and enjoyed a light lunch and a beer/wine. The one thing that struck us however that detracts from the Madrid experience is the pestering you experience from vendors selling crap or begging for money. Something we haven't seen in over parts of Spain. They seem to understand a firm "go away".

After lunch we slowly made our way back to our apartment to check-in. Some interesting street scapes.

After a bit of a rest, we headed out to get a few essential supplies at a little supermarket in our neighbourhood.

By now we were pretty well tired out and consulted Yelp for a nearby restaurant. We lucked out and found a very small place within 5 minutes of our place and had some amazing homemade paella and a bit of wine.

I just have enough energy to finish the text of this issue of the blog before retiring for the night.