Madrid & Toledo, Part 2

Day 4:

So we started off this day by heading for the Plaza Mayor, which as almost everything else was a short walk from the hotel. It was an impressive plaza. It is completely closed in, with a brick like stone floor, a giant statue in the middle, vendors, performers, people about, vibrant, and alive. The buildings facing towards the plaza were very decorated and quite impressive. It was very enjoyable. There was a Winnie the Pooh there, selling balloons, so we got Sophie one of course. And there was also a man making giant bubbles for the kids there, which Sophie loved, and as a result did not want to leave. After letting Sophie play there for a bit with the bubbles, we headed for the outdoor Rastro Market, which is a flea market. The way out of the Plaza Mayor(there is more than one, so just the one we headed out through) was very impressive as well. Tall buildings on either side of the narrow curved street make for an awesome view.

On our way to the Rastro, we saw some more street performers, one of which was a puppeteer that gave the illusion of playing the violin with his puppet. We also found an awesome potato chip factory on way, and had to get a bag. Once we got to the market, we started looking around at the endless amount of vendors. It is not an exaggeration to say that there was vendors as far as the eye could see, and then there was some more! The vendors just take over several streets, for blocks at a a time. There was also street performers of course. There was an old lady with an out of tune music box that sounded eerie. There was also a strange long wooden wind instrument that made a sound that I can't possibly describe. There was artists selling their art, snacks, clothes, shoes, rugs, pottery, old metal stuff, toys, DVDs, CDs, etc. Chances are good that whatever you are looking for, someone would be selling it there. There was also cops on mopeds there, which was strange, but I have to say an efficient way of getting around such crowded areas.

After looking around at the endless vendors, we bought Sophie some bubbles, and then we headed for a nearby park so she could blow her bubbles there. We also ate our potato chips(or crisps, as they call them here in the UK) there, which were fantastic! So after trying to get Sophie to finish her bubbles at the park, we headed to the Vicente Calderon Stadium, which is where Atletico Madrid plays. It was a few miles away, but we decided to walk and see what we saw on the way there. It was away from the center of Madrid, and sadly, the way there did not have the same feel as what we had previously seen of Madrid. The stadium itself, well, I don't know whether I was more disappointed at the stadium itself(from the outside) or at the fact that you have to pay so much just to see the inside. We didn't feel it was worth it to pay so much to see an empty stadium, so we checked out the restaurant and bar inside, and then headed back.

We passed by the cathedral again, and thought we would check out the inside, but they charged to go inside, and well, we don't feel it is ethical to give religious institutions money, so we didn't. We passed by the Palacio Real again, and then past the Plaza España. We were headed for the Loving Hut, a vegan restaurant chain. We had an awesome dinner there. We had the "menu" which is a soup, bread, main dish, and dessert, but you only have a couple of choices. We opted for that, instead of a la carte. Everything was fantastic!  We had a pumpkin soup, and a kelp/sweaweed soup and bread to start. Then our main dishes were fried rice with a vegetable and fried tofu curry and a fried seitan and potato dish with fried rice and steamed vegetables. The dessert was a magdalena(a muffin) and flan! The waitress also gave us some mantecado candies, made with olive oil that were also very good.

After that we headed back towards the hotel, trying to go through streets we had not been through. We had a map with us, so we tried to map a path that would take us back to the hotel, but we had not walked through. After some rest at the hotel, we decided to go back out at night for some quick groceries. We stopped at a small store and looked around. We just ended up getting some more potato chips and the clerk gave sophie some juice(zumo!) and a lollipop, for no apparent reason; cuteness prizes I guess. So we walked around some more found another small Plaza and then headed to El Corte Ingles for some bread, cookies(biscuits), soy(soja!) milk, grapes, chocolate cereal that Sophie picked, and some more Canary Island bananas!

Day 5:

We were planning on taking a one day trip to a nearby town, and we thought we would try to do that this day. So the first thing we did was head for the Renfe(high speed rail) station in the morning. When we got there, the schedules out to Toledo, the town we decided to visit, were late in the day, and we decided to wait until the next day. From here, we headed to the Reina Sofia art museum, which was right across the street. We looked at the schedules and prices, and decided to return another time, since they offer free admission during certain times.

We then headed for an all-vegan store, Planeta Vegano. On the way, we passed the place where we would have dinner that day, El Granero de Lavapies, a vegetarian restaurant. The vegan grocery store was small, but well stocked, and had a huge variety of things. Shoes, shirts, pet food, detergents, and food. We ended up getting some vegan white chocolate, a vegan ham made of sliced seitan(Schinken?), a tofu pate, and an ice cream cone. We started eating the ice cream as soon as we walked out, and we must have been a block away when we had already finished it. It was fantastic! Vanilla ice cream, chocolate covered cone, and strawberry filling! So we returned and bough the last three cones they had and devoured those as well. 

After that, we walked around some more, exploring that are of Madrid. We bought some more potato chips(crisps) from another place that made them there as well. After some more walking, we headed to the Granero de Lavapies for dinner again. It was packed, and we were the last ones allowed in before they closed  for a few hours, to reopen at night. This place felt like you were eating at someone's house, it was a nice atmosphere. We had the "menus" again. They only had 1 kind of soup left, a druid soup I believe it was called, and it was very tasty, vegetable and bean soup. Then we had pan fried tofu, and salad for one dish and lentils, rice and cauliflowers also with salad with the other. The only vegan dessert they had was a pureed banana one, and it was delicious. After eating, we just walked back to the hotel and called it a day.

Day 6(Toledo!):

We decided to go to Toledo, so as soon as we were up and ready, we headed for the Renfe station again. Once there, we found out that we had been thinking it was the wrong time all along! We thought it was the same time as in Colchester, but it was an hour later there! And we didn't even realize it! For 6 days!! Anyway, we just got tickets for the next train to Toledo.

We had never been on a high speed train. And the front of the trains look like airplanes, and on the inside too. We enjoyed the smooth ride over there, which was about half an hour. We arrived at a very interesting train station. Very adorned, very old style. So we headed out of the train station and we looked for somewhere to get a map of Toledo. I stopped at a hotel, to ask where I could find a map, and they sold me one there for €2 Euros. So we headed towards the town, which was an impressive sight. It was on a hill, and with a wall surrounding it, and towers, a river going around it as well, we had never seen anything like it!

As we get there, we see a bridge to enter across a river. This town has specific entrances only, as you cross the bridge you see the town emblem in stone above the arc of the entrance, it was impressive. We then proceeded to walk up the countless stairs towards the town. AS we were going up the stairs, the views to the outskirts of the town were very impressive. Once we made it to the to the town, we headed for the Plaza de Zodocover, which we were told was the center of the town. We didn't have much of a plan for how we would go about seeing the town, we just looked for the vegetarian restaurant on the map, and vaguely plotted a trajectory to go through the town. It was quite overwhelming really. We had never seen anything like it. I felt like a kid, wanting to run in every direction at the same time.

So from the Plaza, we walked through the narrow streets, just looking around. The floors were all stone, or brick, and the streets very narrow. So narrow, that there was no way a car would fit in some of them. After walking around a while, we decided to go eat at Madre Tierra, a vegetarian restaurant we had found online. But when we got there, it was closed. It did not open on Tuesdays at all, and of course, it was Tuesday. So after panicking for a minute, we thought we would just eat the snacks we packed, and find a place to have a late dinner at when we got back to Madrid. We looked for a place with some benches, and ate some granola bars, apples, and oranges. Then walked around some more. We headed for the cathedral, because as usual, it is the fanciest building in town. And it really was stunning, although in a different way. The rest of the town had a humble, old town charm. As if the town was a normal town, but just stuck in time. The cathedral was disproportionally fancy. Covered in statues, sculptures, carved stones, giant pillars, huge, and of course a nice €7 Euros to see it inside. We didn't go inside.

We kept walking, and we noticed there was swords and medieval weapons in a lot of shops. Some even had full armor suits for sale! Medieval authentic looking metal armor, shields, swords, ball and chains, the works. And we had seen a lot of Spanish candy stores as well. We even saw a replica of a church, made of marzipan candy. We hadn't paid much attention to them before because we didn't expect them to be vegan, but the marzipans surprisingly were. Only two ingredients, almonds and sugar. They looked nothing like the Mexican marzipans we were used to, so we were curious. They were delicious, and tasted very different from the Mexican ones.

At this point, Sophie was getting tired, so we pulled out the secret weapon...bubbles. We told her of she kept walking, we would give her bubbles, and she agreed. So as we walked, she blew bubbles, and she was happy. We kept walking, and it was just surreal, we loved it. I just never imagined there could still be a place like this. As we kept walking, we ran into a playground, the only non-brick or stone surface we saw in the whole town. We stopped there so Sophie could play. It was on the edge of the town, so it overlooked the river and a valley, it was a stunning, beautiful view. The sun was starting to set,  and it was getting close to the time when our train would leave back to Madrid. So we started heading towards the Plaza de Zodocover again. It was strange to see signs pointing to the exit of the town, but then again we had never been on a town that was walled in, on a hill, and surrounded by a river. As we headed back, we saw some buildings that looked exactly like chess pieces. Either that, or the castles from Mario Bros. I loved it.

 

We also saw some graffiti on the way out that said "Go Vegan". That was unexpected. We got back to the plaza, and headed down the endless stairs. By this time, Sophie insisted "Daddy, carry me please," so I did. We went down, and once we went out through the same bridge we came in from(there was others, but we didn't want to get lost and miss our train back). As we were leaving and you looked back, it looked magical. A sunset behind it, a sky with brilliant shades, a river, and a town on a hill...if there was ever a fairy tale town, this was it. But then again, we still have many more to see.

 

We made it back to the train station a bit early, but we were tired anyway. We waited for the train, and headed back to Madrid. An old friend of mine since 7th grade is living in Madrid, but he was not back from a vacation until this day. So when we got back to Madrid, I gave him a call and he agreed to meet us for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant near where he lives. I hadn't seen him in years, so it was great to catch up. Sadly that was the only time we had time to hang out, since he is there doing his masters and we were only there for one more day. The dinner at Yerbabuena was fantastic! I had the 'Canelon de tortita de trigo relleno de boletus edulis' (I'm not sure what that is, but it was amazing!), Geli had the paella and Sophie had some tasty spaghetti. After dinner, we were exhausted. We headed for the hotel and called it a day.

Day 7: 

This was our last full day in Madrid. So we looked at what we had seen, and what we wanted to see on our last day there. I wanted to see the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, where Real Madrid plays. It is about 3 or so miles from the center of town, so we took the metro out there (twice...since we forgot the camera the first time...). We saw the stadium, but again, only the outside. Same thing as the Atletico Madrid stadium. While we were there, an interesting, and rather embarrassing thing happened. While I was there taking pictures of the stadium, I separated from Geli and Sophie so i could get a better shot of the stadium. While I was messing with the camera a bit, some ladies came up to me asking me if I would sign a petition to build a children's hospital. I explained to them I wasn't from Spain, but they insisted, saying it didn't matter(I should have been suspicious at this point, but I wasn't). So I signed it, and then they told me they needed to see my ID so they could see that I was who I said I was. I thought that was weird, but I agreed and took out my wallet to show it to them(I have a wallet with a clear window so you can see the ID without having to take it out. This was all really bizarre, but for some reason, I did not for one minute think to just walk away. As I was showing it to them, she kept looking at it, and back at what I wrote on their clipboard, and at one point she pushed it slightly down, as if to better look at it from where she was and shook it ever so slightly. Then as if it all suddenly dawned on her, she said she was done and they all walked away, rather fast. Again, I noticed all this only in retrospect. There was like 4 of them gathered around me at some point. As they were leaving, I look in my wallet, and the cash I had there was gone, and only then did i realize this was just a front to get me to take out my wallet and pretend to look at it while they cleverly took out my cash, right before my eyes. When I realized this, they were only a block away, so I ran after them, but I had nothing. They denied it of course, and I looked around for police and saw none. I insisted that they return my money, and they denied it, and offered that i search them, which how was I going to pat down and search women. And plus, I am sure they were bluffing. Anyway, it must not have been more than €50 or so. So I decided to just let it go, and learn from it.

I headed back to where Geli was staring back at me, confused. I explained what happened, and she agreed to just let it go. In front of the stadium, there was some gardens dedicated to the 1982 World Cup. There was a tree planted with the flag of each of the participating countries below it. It was neat. We took the metro back, and got off near the river. We had not seen it, so we wanted to check it out. We saw the river, it was nice. Not nearly as impressive as the other things we had seen, but we had to see it before we left. We also hadn't seen the Opera, the Teatro Real. So we walked towards it. On the way, we passed a park with a playground, so we stopped so Sophie could play there a bit. We also passed the Palacio Real again, on the way to the Opera and also saw some street performers, which I always enjoy. Another constant during this trip was Sophie's toilet emergencies. We always had to keep in mind where the nearest tiolet is because at any moment Sophie might ask to go to the toilet and it becomes a race against the clock to find one. During one of these emergencies, we were not near any toilets. So I asked a cop where the nearest one was, and he directed me to a toilet where you pay to use it, just a block away. So we headed there, and well, we almost didn't see it. It is cleverly disguised with billboards and ad posters on it, so we didn't think it was a toilet. But it was, and there was someone using it, so we had to wait(a long time!), but thankfully Sophie made it.

Once we got to the Opera, we took a few pictures and then went to a few art museums, which we had seen from the outside, but not entered. The first one we went to was the Museo del Prado. It had tons of sculptures, and classical, Victorian art. Cameras were not allowed, so we can't show you what was there. They did have some of Goya's work, so that was nice. Besides that, we didn't know many of the artists.


We then headed for the Reina Sofia Museum, which is the modern art once. This one we were excited about because they had Picasso and Salvador Dali paintings here. It was not easy to decipher the rooms they would be in. We were tired, and Sophie was wanting to go to the hotel. The museum was huge, about four floors worth of exhibits! So we looked for the Dali's and Picasso's. They had so many Dalis! Even a sculpture of his. It was impressive, mind blowing really. They had many Picassos too! But the most impressive one, was Guernica by Picasso. It was enormous! Took up a huge wall. We never expected to actually see the real one! And they had his sketches of his ideas, and practice paintings for Guernica in the surrounding rooms. It really is something extraordinary to stand in front of these pieces of art. We thoroughly enjoyed that, and are glad we did not leave Madrid without seeing them!

After that, we headed for the last restaurant on our list. We considered just getting some chinese food at the restaurant close to the hotel, since by this time Sophie was asleep in my arms, and i had to carry her. But we opted to try the new restaurant, Al Natural. Once there, we had an amazing pumpkin soup to start, and we had to order the same dish for the both of us, since it was the only vegan dish they had, despite being a vegetarian restaurant. It was delicious though; it was a breaded tofu, some fried rice, seasoned carrots, and a breaded and fried eggplant with some red sauce on it. It really was delicious. After that, we headed to the hotel, and crashed out. We would be up early the next day to head to the airport.

Day 8:

This day almost doesn't count. The flight left from Madrid at 6:30 am, so we had to take a taxi from the hotel to the airport since the metro does not run at 4:30am when we left. Once at the airport, we waited for the flight and headed to London.We saw the sunrise from the airplane, and it was a stunning sight to see Jupiter from up there. I could even see the Galilean moons with the camera zoomed in(15X). We got to the Stansted London Airport at around 10am and we had to wait for our coach back to Colchester until 5pm or so. So we had a lot of time to kill. Sophie was asleep, so we found a coffee shop there with some booths, and laid her down. We bought some latte's there, and some vegan wraps and sandwiches from a nearby convenience store. After a while there, some talking, some reading, and some music, Sophie woke up. So we moved to another restaurant. We had to buy something, so we bought Sophie a toasted bread and asked them to put avocado on it, since they sold avocado on another one of their dishes. We also got some potato wedges, some hash browns, and a salad. We killed some more time reading and playing with Sophie at the arcade there. Before we left, we decided to also get a jacket potato(baked potato) with baked beans. It was around 4pm and decided to head to where the buses would be. We lucked out, as we were getting there, I saw a bus headed for Colchester, loading people in. So I went to the driver and asked him if he had room on there, and if we could go in his instead of the later one we had tickets for. It was the same company, so he didn't have a problem with it, and we were on our way back. It was a direct one too, ours went to Ipswich first, and took almost an hour longer. It turns out that would have been odd since Ipswich is past Colchester, coming from London. But that's what the website gave me when i asked for a coach from Stansted to Colchester when I booked the tickets. I still don't know my UK geography, but I will study up on it.

This was an amazing trip! We thoroughly enjoyed it, we loved Madrid, Toledo left us in awe, and we learned a few things. I am already anxious for the next trip...

The icon of the city of Madrid - The bear and the fruit tree