Madrid: where even the hobos are good-looking

With school finally finished, it was time for our first holiday of the Christmas break - Madrid. We arrived early Sunday morning, exhausted. Determined not to waste the day however, we checked into our hotel and then valiantly ventured out to visit the first attractions on our itinerary. The Museo Reina Sofia was absolutely  huge, with barely more than one piece of contemporary art in each room. Unfortunately, we were too tired to appreciate it, couldn't read the Spanish descriptions of what we were looking at, couldn't find the Picassos and our eyes were blurring in an effort to sleep. Luckily, this museum was free! We dragged ourselves back to the hotel and went to sleep. Only Sally was to rise again that day, to see the Prado Museum which housed works by Velazques.

The next day found Sally being awoken in an alarming fashion - by me, shouting "Sally! Our tour leaves in one hour!", to which Sally replied "What tour?!" We navigated our way across Madrid on the Metro, arriving in the nick of time for our tour of historic Toledo. Our tour guide told us repeatedly throughout the day that Toledo was a melting pot of Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures. We were glad to have booked a tour, as Toledo is a maze of cobbled streets, beginning with an escalator to the top of the hill! Toledo is where one can buy the very best swords, as well as a special type of jewellery, both of which we saw being made.

Riding up the hill in style

The cobbled paths

Narrow, zig-zagging streets

In front of a church

Toledo makes the best swords

A nativity scene in a church

In Toledo

When we arrived back in Madrid, we went to the Royal Palace. This was one of our favourite palaces, containing such fascinating rooms as the porcelain room (with porcelain figures covering the walls) and the smoking room (the designer of which had clearly been smoking a little something himself).

A Royal Lamp Post

Our final stop for the day was at the Madrid Christmas Market in the Plaza Mayor. We found what appeared to be this rather large market, complete with street performers, only to discover that the entire market consisted of two stalls repeated over and over again. One of these sold nativity figures and the other sold santa hats. What a let-down!

Sally's new friend -
he was a good listener

Fancy street sign

Tuesday saw us heading to the Royal Opera House, only to discover that it was closed for Christmas. This day was not going well as we had already had an unpleasant experience at McDonalds when some children had pushed in front of us and all we could do was swear at them under our breath in English and privately threaten to throw our fries at them. Sally provided the comedic interlude however, when she mistakenly confused her two Spanish words and ended up saying 'hello' instead of 'thank you' to the girl who eventually served us our food.

After failing to enter the Opera House, we trekked through the streets in search of the Templo de Debod, an Egyptian Temple that was given to Madrid as a gift. Whilst a little out of place, this was in quite good condition and we could clearly see the pictures that had been carved into it.

Pondering the pictures on the wall

Walking like an Egyptian

Our next stop was at the Museo Cerralbo, a mansion museum, showing the aristocratic way of life. This was not altogether different from the Royal Palace, showing just how rich some people were. Our final stop for the day was at the Madrid Christmas Craft Market. This market was much better than the market we had already visited, although we still hardly bought anything as the products (mostly jewellery and scarves) were just a little too strange for everyday wear. On our way home, we stopped off at a cafe for some churros and chocolate. Now feeling quite ill, we trudged back to the hotel.

No wonder we felt ill

We had three places to visit on our last day in Madrid. The first was the Bullfighting Museum. This was fascinating and contained pictures, capes and bull heads mounted on the walls, many with their ears cut off. We were hurried out though (25 mins before the advertised closing time) and just missed the last guided tour of the day to see the actual bull-fighting ring.

Some local, colourful characters

The bull-fighting ring

Next, we visited the Naval Museum, which was huge and had rooms devoted to different periods of time in Spain's naval history. The last thing we were planning on seeing was the Crystal Palace in the Parque del Buen Retiro. (Eagle-Eye) Sally glimpsed it moments before I did in the distance and said "Jackie, get ready to be underwhelmed." It was indeed underwhelming, but this at least allowed for a good photo opportunity.

Some weird trees in the park

The Crystal Palace

Underwhelmed

We then said goodbye to the sights and sounds of Madrid (the sounds being the traffic-lights that made us feel like we were constantly in a game of Space Invaders) and headed to the airport to await our flight home.