REAL Madrid and London Calling - Blog Update

Madrid
We were really excited to see Madrid – Christy had travelled there in high school, and remembered it as a fun city! We took off early our first full day there and once again conquered the Madrid Metro – and took it clear across the city and exited at the La Latina stop, which was about 14 stops away, for only 1 euro per trip. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating – it was cool and rainy! That was not expected and we had pants and sweaters + rainjackets on! At La Latina, we enjoyed walking the cobblestoned streets, seeing “real” tapas restaurants (with really good prices on “fixed price” meals) and seeing the small local shops. Madrid’s old neighborhoods are literally a maze of cobblestoned streets and small alleyways, gorgeous old buildings with lovely balconies over the streets, with the occasional al fresco café or tapas restaurant. So after awhile, we gave up on the map and just let instinct take over. Once we did that, we found the Plaza Mayor, which is the “main plaza” of Old Madrid, a massively large cobblestoned plaza, lined with painted buildings and (very overpriced) cafes. We were there early in the morning, and it was very calm and quiet – not many tourists about, and in fact, workers were still putting out chairs and tables! Madrilenos just don’t do mornings! From there, we veered to another sidestreet, where we stumbled upon the El Mercado, which was a real epicurean adventure…. Small little stalls selling the best of Madrid food! Everything was for sale – breads, cheeses, desserts, coffees, sweets, wines…. It was amazing and looked like a place you could spend your lunch or dinner hour at! Unfortunately, we had arrived at mid-morning, and simply weren’t hungry – even for the freshly prepared foods. We vowed to get back there if we could! We continued on, and decided to find the Catedral de La Almudena and the Palacio Real, which was located up the magnificent Calle Bailen. By walking up this street, we passed by many of the government buildings, all of which appeared to be think tanks or policy organizations. There were quite a number of Secret Service looking types around, and we wisely kept walking and tied not to jay walk in front of them. We finally arrived at the Cathedral, and were amazed at the gorgeous church! There were huge statues on top, but these did not even begin to compare to the inside of the church! The stained glass inside the building was remarkable – a modernist kaleidoscope of colors! Thankfully, there was some sun despite the cool, so the colors just jumped out of the ceiling. Immediately adjacent to the church was the place, which was gorgeous – but a little stark! The massive building was situated in a large plaza and surrounded by a black and gold ornamental fence. There were tourists inside; but the sign outside said that the grounds were closed for a state ceremony. Hm, we were a little befuddled, but not so much nearly so as by the guards’ hats!!!

We then decided to do the Gran Via, which is one of Madrid’s oldest shopping streets, and sure enough, it was chock full of shops and restaurants. However, we were not that impressed. There seemed to be quite a bit of seedy looking people walking about, and the street seemed to be missing something. We did stop in Zara and H&M, where Christy stocked up on some new Tshirts. After a lengthy session for Christy’s shopping, we were starving and decided to check out the Chueca district. We found a few places in the Chueca District that looked amazing to eat at, including a café that the Luxe Guide recommended. However, we decided in the end to go with a menu del dia at the Pizzeria del Vesuvio, a small Italian restaurant that was located on one of the main streets and had a hand lettered menu of the day outside. We figured that it must be really good if it had a hand done menu! You might question the Italian food factor while in Madrid… however, there was a real dirth of places that were non-Spanish in Madrid. Or… at least we never saw them. So when we saw something different, and it almost being pizza Friday (a Gilmour tradition) we jumped at the chance to have a ham, mushroom and cheese risotto, ham and cheese brick oven pizza and coffees. The food was delicious and we were ready to roll out of the restaurant! What a great meal – and the first time we had had decent Italian since (hahaha) Vietnam in April!

That afternoon we walked through Retiro Park, which is almost the Central Park of Madrid. It is a huge green sprawling hilly complex, full of small cafes called terrazas. We had heard that the Madrilenos use these all the time in summer to meet up with friends and family; unfortunately due to the weather while we were there, they were all shuttered. No matter, we were able to listen to a busker playing jazz music at the Alfonso XII memorial, watching the ducks and the massive jumping goldfish. Additionally, we did take pictures of the “Estatua del Angel Caido,” or the fallen angel monument (i.e. the devil). According to the tour books, this is the only monument dedicated to the devil – fitting – since the height of the statute is 6.66 meters!

The rest of our time in Madrid was spent shopping... we needed to find a vintage bullfighting poster, a sangria pitcher, and a metal bull to put on our (future) car. Sadly, we found only one of those items - which was the metal bull at a carshop near our hotel. We did enjoy our time in Madrid, although it would have been nice to have a local show us around. We felt like we were missing out on some good tapas experiences!

London
We flew from London to Madrid, and were grateful for the quick easy flight on BA! Our ride across London from LHR via the Tube to our friend's house in Canary Wharf took us two hours and a few changes where we lugged our suitcases up and down the stairs all for $15 USD. Let’s just say that some of the older stops on the tube are not exactly created for ease of access.

We had two sets of friends we stayed with in London, and we had a blast. Both live in two very different neighborhoods - one in Canary Wharf, which is a newer area of the city that has been re-claimed, and the other in Putney Bridge, in the southwest of London near Wimbledon. Both areas of the neighborhoods bordered on the Thames, and are gorgeous, each with their own little neighborhood areas with "high" streets. We really enjoyed our walks and runs on the river!
Our first day, we checked out a really neat kite festival in Greenwich, up towards the observatory, and through the village green, where there was huge festival on. There were rides for the kids, food vendors (including a meat pie company that did not sell pies), demo areas for different types of bicycles and quad bikes, and a really neat show area where there were some incredibly talented master kiters who had their kites synchnonized to music. We have never seen anything like it! After some threatening clouds passed over (with no rain), we walked through Greenwich. Greenwich is a really nice small neighborhood with a massive park and the Royal Observatory and Museum (where Greenwich Mean Time starts), a “high” street with shops and cafes, and the Royal College. It is a lovely area of town, situated right by the river, where you can take the “Thames Walk” for quite some time along the side of river, observing the tidal river, and the industrial, historical and residential areas. There is an underground (under the Thames) tunnel (with an elevator at both ends), where both pedestrians and commuter and casual bicyclists (non mounted of course), can walk across one side of the river to another. Yes, we did find it spooky that there is water (in the form of small puddles) in the tunnel in the middle part! There is also a small lovely market with antique and new finds from Wednesday-Sunday. We had seen a lunch place called the Gourmet Burger Kitchen that morning in the Canary Wharf Mall while getting our morning Starbucks, and there was a chain in Greenwich. We had to go – especially since it looked like it was kiwi owned! Sure enough, it was, and it was really good, although 2 burgers and 2 beers in GBP can set you back $38 USD!

We also headed to the British Museum --- we had not made it there on our previous travels, and intended to check out the Egyptian exhibit, which we hoped would fill in the blanks about our previous few weeks in Egypt (without getting violently ill, ahem). The exhibit did not disappoint, and we really learned quite a bit. Apparently it is the #1 tourist attraction in London – and we can attest to that. The museum was packed! We also walked through the Roman exhibits, which was also well established. It helped us remember the ancient history of Europe, which we wound soon be traversing through. One of the most fascinating things we learned was that the Romans practiced “damnation memoriae,” or erasure of memory. Apparently if an emperor was deposed or was ill thought of, all objects relating to the emperor were then destroyed, and in some cases, the statues depicting them simply had the heads removed to be replaced with later emperors! We also checked out the clocks and watches exhibit, as it was on the same floor, and were fascinated by their collection, which included a “mystery” clock by Andre Gilmer, from the 1860’s. Christy liked them so much she vowed to find one or our house eventually.

Our last day in London (with the nicest weather forecasted), we decided to hit the Camden markets, which were about 45 minutes away on the tube. Camden is northwest of the city and is the home of all the “alternative” markets, where Doc Martins, plaid ripped punk tights, those ugly trendy neon plastic sunglasses and audacious t-shirts are sold. We are sure it was a little different back in the hey-day, but now of course, a Starbucks had moved in, and so had the big chains. Regardless we still had a great time shopping around all the fringe stores, mostly doing window shopping. In all honesty, we are a few years past the prime of shopping there, but it was still good fun. They also have a cool little food area where you can sit and eat on old Vespas, which was great, especially in the opened up sky (we finally saw the sun!). It was also a little hard to shop there, since all of the clothing at the markets was summer – and it was about 65 degrees. We found a great Thai restaurant near the zoo, which cost 5 pounds, about $7.50 USD, for an appetizer and a main entrée. Later as we took the tube home that afternoon, we had more delays, as there was a “person under the train” for the second day in a row. How crazy is that!?!?!

We had a great time in London and think the city is great! Admittedly it would be even greater if we had the GBP, as it is still quite a strong currency, but ... oh well. We looked forwards to carrying our way up north to Scotland and continuing to watch the World Cup games. We do have a problem --- too many teams to root for! USA and New Zealand are naturals.... and while staying in the UK - do we go for England? The underdogs?

Next Up: Scotland!