. .
|
18 hours in Madrid. When you do not know what to offer for a birthday to your love one, well it is time to be more original and surprising! My idea was an 18 hours journey to Madrid, Spain. Why 18 hours? Well we took off from our local airport at 09.00 am to take off again the day after at 06.00 am. We flew with Ryan Air, the low cost airline, price of the ticket 10 € each return so, 7 pounds each, of course you need to add the cost to go to our local airport 20 € and only 2 € in Madrid, well in total this journey cost us 32 € (aprox 25 pounds), so expensive!The flight was fine, and the Spanish crew on board was more than friendly, I do not know why but I feel Ryan Air crew based on the continent are not as cold or unfriendly like those based in the UK - it is my view, you mightdisagree. We enjoyed ourselves there you are standing around all sort of tapas with Ham above you (Not a vegetarian thing) and the happy noisy ambience of the bar, there is no break for employees, with a variety of tapas, we took the wild mushroom stuffed with ham, calamari’s, various kind of ham and cheese, so wonderful and good value for money, we spent about 30 €, (24 pounds), which included 3 glasses of Rioja, this famous and tasty Spanish wine from the Madrid area.  Refreshedby lunch, it was time to enjoy the city, and we went straight away near
the
tapas bar, to one of the most beautiful square of Europe,
La Plaza Mayor, used often for registers like Almodovar in its
film, the
flower of my secret (1985).We enjoyed the atmosphere on the square with a lot of tourists and attractions, restaurants ass well around it with terraces where you can enjoy a glass of wine or a nice meal with a fantastic view. This area of Madrid is one of the most popular areas in the city with the Plaza del Sol, the Plaza Mayor, the Casco Viejo (the old town and streets) and the shopping area with Los grandes almanecen ( large department stores). Some of the largest stores in this area are, El Corte Inglés, Cortefield and La Fnac. See our Spanish Shopping Guide  Allsorts of boutique are here and if you like shopping it is
probably a good
place to spend a few hours. We
continue to wonder and found a funny exercise bike attached to the
floor: see
picture, a good way to kill calories and be able to go back to the
tapas bar
again.We stop in bar but just only for a coffee as it was 5pm and we had another 12 hours to go without any rest.The Barman got upset with a lady seated next to us she was lighting a cigarette and reminded her that it was a non smoking Bar restaurant. A friendly discussion started between us and the barman and this lady about the fact we couldn't find a lot of non smoking places in Madrid, in fact the law in this country, is very flexible, decided in 2005, any bar or restaurant or public place can choose if they want to be smoking or non smoking, it means that 99.8 percent of places are smokers and can be difficult for a non smoker to appreciate it.
As
we said previously, we were in Madrid for an express Birthday visit and tried to enjoy that way. The rest of the evening
was tapas bar, el
abuelo, specialised in fish and prawns and decided to wonder in bars,
and clubs
till late in the night.Was
a lovely day, crazy idea but so cool and I recommend it. |
We landed on time about 12.noon in Madrid. The transportation from the
airport to
the city centre is very efficient, with buses, trains, inexpensive
taxis and
the metro, Spanish underground, is modern and fast. We decided to use
the metro
with a day ticket valid 24 hours for 5 euro each for unlimited travel
in Madrid. We
knew Madrid already and our intention were to have fun there, tapas, walking around
and to
take pictures for the website for you to enjoy! By 1 pm, we were in the
city
centre, the weather was fine, about 18 degrees (in November) and the first stop was a
very
known tapas bar and restaurant near the Plaza del Sol, El museo del
jamon, or the Ham museum, Ham is such a treasured food that
not only are
there several Denominations of Origin, but there is even a chain of Museos
de Jamón or "Ham Museums" around Spain!
Copyright (c) 2008 Andrics Ltd. All rights reserved. Built and Managed by Andics Technology
data@andrics.com Telephone + 44 7509 104 899