When we decided to start our long European journey in Madrid, I was immediately excited to see the Prado Museum for the first time, but l'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning.
We booked our hotel on Booking.com and based on information from one of our traveling companions that had already visited Madrid, we searched in an area that would be near the city center and close to all the things that we wanted to do while there.
B & B Hotels was what we decided upon and it was quite nice. The rooms were quite comfortable and the location, just off the Puerta del Sol, was terrific and close to many attractions and restaurants. It also has a wonderful rooftop bar, Dona Luz.
On our first afternoon there, we visited the Reina Sofia Museum. The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. The Reina Sofia art gallery makes up one part of Madrid's 'Golden Triangle' along with the Thyssen-Bornemisza gallery and the Prado. The Reina Sofía houses paintings by Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Juan Gris as well as one of Spain’s most famous artworks, Picasso’s Guernica.
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After a long day of museum walking we decided to do dinner in a bustling area of the city, the Calle Cava, which was full of several tapas restaurants that came highly recommended by the hotel concierge.
The short walk to dinner from our hotel took us through the Plaza de Mayor and I was immediately transported back to St Mark's square in Venice.
On our second day in Madrid Roger & I decided to do a Hop On/Hop Off bus tour so that we could really see the city and then pick the places that we wanted to spend more time at.
We decided on the city park which is quite expansive so, we took a Pedi-cab ride through the park with a tour guide that stopped at several unique places in the park to tell us more about them. He also played photographer for us so that was a plus!
We ended that day on the Calle Cava again, at yet another highly recommended Tapas restaurant that lived up to all the hype that we'd heard from our hotel concierge.
Cava Baja was a delightful experience and the food was amazing. The owner was very generous with us and suggested several items on the menu for us to start with. We ate, we drank, and we ate some more.
Note: When dinning in Spain be prepared to eat late....like LATE, perhaps 9PM or so. That is the starting time for dinner with most people eating more like 10PM or later.
On our last day in Madrid the rest of our traveling companions arrived and we hit the ground running with a full day of activities to include a tour of the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum.
The Royal Palace of Madrid (Palacio Real de Madrid) is the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family, although now only used for state ceremonies. The palace has 1,450,000 sq ft of floor space and contains 3,418 rooms. It is the largest functioning royal palace and the largest by floor area in Europe and it is pretty spectacular.
We finished the Royal Palace tour and then went to the Prado! The Prado Museum (Museo del Prado ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to have one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art.
We ended our long day with dinner at the oldest continuously functioning restaurant in the world, Botin. This old world restaurant boasts suckling pig as it's specialty, although I wasn't brave enough to try it. We did however, have an amazing meal and of course, drank some really fabulous wine. All in all, I don't think we could have crammed more in to those three amazing days in Madrid.
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