Before leaving London and knowing that we had several blog posts in the backlog to clear whilst traveling around Europe, Mei carefully selected all the photos relating to each trip and uploaded them into draft posts. However, for this particular trip it appears that the photos didn't save. So this post will be retrospectively updated once we return home and are reunited with the photo archive. Our trip to Madrid for the second time had two purposes: 1) To escort Mei's parents to the hotel where they would start a tour of Spain; 2) To eat tapas. There was a third motive: To watch Real Madrid play at the famous Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
After work on a Friday night, we caught a late flight out of Gatwick Airport to Madrid. Due to the additional hour for Central European time, by the time we took a taxi to the city center it was close to 11pm. After checking into the HRC Hotel, located close to the Old Town and several tapas bars - we asked the receptionist about the chances of getting dinner at this time of night. He assured us that this was Madrid and everyone eats late, so it would be no problem.
Dinner in Plaza Mayor
Plaza Mayor is a beautiful square that has a large statue of King Philip III on horseback in the center. On our previous trip to Madrid, our walking tour guide told us that as the horse statue's mouth is open, little birds fly in but then can't fly out and so the horse's belly is full of dead birds.
For dinner, we ate at a restaurant in the middle of Plaza Mayor that didn't appear to be closing up. However after we had placed our order, the waiters started to chain up the chairs, eager to end their shift. We ate fried whitebait, octopus, garlic prawns and drank sangria.
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| Fried whitebait and garlic prawns |
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| Galician octopus |
Meeting up first thing in the morning, we skipped breakfast provided by the hotel and walked to the main tourist district. First stop was the legendary (founded in 1894) place for eating chocolate with churros: Chocolateria San Gines, hidden in a side alley but with a sizeable queue in the early hours of the day.
Mercado de San Miguel
One of the highlights of our previous trip to Madrid, was eating at the market (Mercado de San Miguel). We took Mei's parents there and after securing a table, Olie was sent out to buy food for the table to share - fried mixed seafood, tapas, wine and our personal favourite: jamón ibérico de bellota - the Spanish ham made from pigs that have been fed acorns.
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| Eating at the Mercado |
Restaurant Botin
Another legacy of our previous trip to Madrid, was that we had seen the Restaurant Botin (located next to Plaza Mayor) but were not able to secure a booking. This visit, Mei made a lunch booking in advance, so that we could eat at the 'oldest restaurant still running in the world'. The restaurant was founded in 1725 and the menu explains the full history and can be taken home as a souvenir. We ate the recommended: cochinillo asado (roast suckling pig) and it was delicious.
Buying Real Madrid tickets
We then ventured out of the center of Madrid to take Mei's parents to their hotel. As we were researching the public transport route to take, we noticed that the Real Madrid game against Valencia that originally had been planned for Sunday night (and we would not have been able to attend) had been moved back to Saturday night due to the Champions League matches the following week. This gave us the idea of trying to buy tickets for the night's match.
After dropping Mei's parents off and trying unsuccessfully to buy tickets from the Real Madrid website, we agreed to head for the stadium and try our luck at the ticket office.
Santiago Bernabéu Stadium
The Bernabeu Stadium is a large football stadium located near the center of Madrid that is easily accessible by public transport. As the home ground of Real Madrid football club and since we were attempting to get tickets to a 'home' match, the area around the stadium was full of white shirts, police and traffic was blocked off allowing the crowd to parade around the grounds waiting for kick off.
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| The passionate Real Madrid supporters making plenty of noise |
The first ticket office had a sign in Spanish that likely said to try the other office - luckily for us that we saw a number of people see the sign and walk around the corner so we followed them. The second office had a long queue and many ticket scalpers trying to win business. However, as we were not keen to have the risk of 'fake' tickets, we decided to join what we hoped was the official queue. After 20 minutes of waiting and seeing happy people exit the building, it was our turn. Our stomachs churned at the thought that maybe we were too late and all the tickets were sold out.
However, we were in luck and although we were not able to sit next to each other, the seats available were in the same section of the stand. Even better, they were on the bottom level and we had an amazing view of the goals. Holding onto the precious tickets as if they were made of gold, we headed to the nearby streets where dozens of Real Madrid supporters were gathering to drink and eat small bread rolls with ham (bocadillo de jamon). We sat on the pavement, with our small cans of beer and people watched until the PA announcement that the gates were open.
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| View from one of our seats before kick off |
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| Our view of the goal line |
Real Madrid vs Valencia
Whilst we have been living in the UK, we have taken a slight interest in the Spanish football league (La Liga), mainly following the progress of Barcelona FC. However as this game was between two sides fighting for the top spot, it was bound to be interesting.
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| Real Madrid players walk onto the field to a rock-star reception |
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| Both sides face each other for a minute's silence as a mark of respect to the victim's of the Nepal earthquake |
Real Madrid has some of the world's most expensive players branded by just one part of their name: Ronaldo, Bale, James.
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| Ronaldo |
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| Bale |
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| James |
Despite all this talent, the first half of the game was dominated by Valencia, scoring 0 - 2 by the main break. This made the local supporters very unhappy and the (now ex)-coach Carlo Ancelotti was a very forlorn figure on the side-lines.
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| A lot of action in front of the Valencia goal |
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| Valencia score a goal |
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| Real Madrid coach pacing on the side lines |
In the second half, the local team showed a bit more fight and scored two goals to even the score at a level 2 - 2. This (the tied scoreline) killed the atmosphere and there was no big after-part of celebrations. However trying to catch public transport out of the stadium was a nightmare and we ended up walking the entire distance back to the main square Puerta de Sol.
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| Final score at the whistle |
Goodbye Madrid
As this trip was the last planned visit to Spain until some future dated return to Europe, we bought a small collection of jamon to take back to London (cheaper than the prices at the duty free shop). Lunch was at Taberna La Taurina - a restaurant that had a bullfighting theme. The paella was average but the highlight dish was the patatas bravas. And then it was off to the airport to say Adios!
Next blog post:
Southern Ireland
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