Jane & David: Madrid

JUNE 2-5, 2017

We hopped a bus from Santiago to Madrid late Thursday evening around 9pm and arrived in Madrid around 7am. We were very lucky that that hotel let us check in around 8am.

This is Puerto del Sol, it is the ‘Times Square” of Madrid. It seems to be filled with people all the time especially in the evening.

This is the statue of the bear and the strawberry tree. It represents the coat of arms of Madrid and is found on the east side of Puerta del Sol. This statue was inaugurated in 1967 by the City Council of Madrid which wanted to represent the the main heraldic symbols of the city and of Spain with a monument. The wild bear and the strawberry tree on the coat of arms has been around since the 13th century.

The side streets leading into Puerto del Sol are shoulder-to-shoulder crowds like a hot Saturday at the state fair.

Lots of entertainment in the square … Mariacha musicians

Skate board guy who is permanently on hold in this position …

Dueling dulcimers …

Mercado de San Miguel was packed on Friday evening … it’s the hot spot for tapas.

Sardines for starters

Lots of seafood

Not sure what this is but it was surrounded with lots of bakery and confectionary items.

The olives are amazing all over Spain

This is a pickle with pimento and tuna, garnished with pearl onions and olives

More seafood

Casks filled with a variety of Port wine.

Also very popular is vermouth which I always considered an accent for martini’s and manhattens. They drink it by the glass here. I thought perhaps it is different from the vermouth in America and asked for a little sample. Nope. It’s very similar to the vermouth we use sparingly in martini’s and manhattens.

These are not baby eels as I once thought. The chef told me it is a very expensive white fish. To make it go further and be less expensive, they shred it. Oddly enough, it tastes like spaghetti. They have nicknamed it spaghetti fish.

High tech cash register here … notice the separate slots for inserting 5, 10, 20 and 50 Euro notes. It’s all automated. They input the bill, feed the money in and the change comes out of the same slots.

More entertainment on the square.

Late night Sangria and Russian salad comes with it as a tapa.

Accordion players are plentiful in Madrid.

Nice tile artwork in a bar

Happy hour and David appears to be happy!

Went to Prado museum on Saturday. Saw a lot of Valesquez, Goya, el Greco … I have to say I’m not crazy about a lot of their subject matter — I think it’s the stuff nightmares are made of.