We set off on a long walk through the city centre and found Mercado San Miguel, a large warren of tapas and wine bars where we washed down bites of tapas with sangria. It's all very convivial in the mercados. Madridelenos love to huddle at long bars in tapas places, chatting away while eating tapas and drinking wine.
The streets here are packed with people, even though it's a Monday night. Madrid impresses as a very vibrant city with a big social life. Weather is hot and very sunny. Nice to be able to continue wearing summer clothes.
Then onto the main cathedral, rather ugly, and Europe's biggest royal palace. The ticket lines were long so we passed to get ready for dinner.
Had a very authentic Spanish dinner at El Senador. A bit off the beaten track and we took some wrong turns but we prevailed, despite some locals giving us wrong directions, and finally found the restaurant. In Madrid no one eats dinner before 9pm so we have to adjust our dining hours to lunch between 2-3pm, dinner around 9pm and a quick breakfast at 9am or so. I don't think we will have much difficulty getting used to that!
Tomorrow we have booked a good long visit to the Prado art museum - one of the world's finest.
Location:Madrid
Glad to hear you both arrived safe and sound. Sounds like you've got a good start on the vacation already (Is that a Sangria you're holding, Fi?).
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