Madrid--No Bull--end of my 2 month trip--June 16--20, 2024

My two month tour of the Iberian peninsula drew to an end as I returned to Madrid, the place where I started. I again stayed at the Staysafe Hostel.

No Bull in Madrid

Even though I arrived at the Atocha Train Station, different from my departure from the Chamartin Train Station back in April, it was easy to navigate my way from the metro back to the Alonso Martinez Metro stop, which was a short walk to the Staysafe Hostel I had stayed at the beginning of my trip.

I found the metro to be the easiest way to get around Madrid and the average cost was about $.75 a ride when I bought a 10 ride package for €6.80.

I stayed in the 12 bed mixed dorm room on the second floor, which in Europe is really the third floor.  Some of the people I met in this dorm room were from Albania, Latvia, Sweden, Kenya, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco--no Americans.

The room was clean and neat with two balconies with views of the treetops and the streets below.  

The showers were excellent with hot water and an ample changing area.  The sink area was well lit and supplied liquid soap and paper towels for use after using the toilets.

The sometimes working elevator was handy. The big problem was that several people continued to forget to close the inner door to the elevator so it didn’t leave their floor. 

Also, the internet did not work on the second floor, only so all my internet work was in the lobby and common area.

As happens with many of my travels, the last few days I transitioned from being a tourist to thinking about what I’m going do when I get home. In the book “Travels with Charlie” by John Steinbeck, he talks about this travel phenomena. 

Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.” 

With just four days before my return to the United States, I planned to see the Palacio Real. I tried on three different days, but it was closed all three days because the king was in residence.

Almudena Cathedral and Museum is across from the Palacio Real.

Throughout Central Madrid, I enjoyed seeing several of the beautiful buildings, plazas and wide walking streets lined with shops and places to eat and drink. 

There were several of these characters wandering around the Plaza Mayor for tips from tourists who had their pictures taken with them.

These immigrant vendors are usually selling imitation brand goods that they tether with ropes so they can quickly pick up and take off before the police arrive to remove or arrest them.

The Mercado de San Miguel near the Plaza Mayor was a popular place to enjoy a whole variety of tapas and drinks.

I enjoyed visiting the large park called Retiro, but unfortunately, I got there after the large Sunday flea market had closed by noon. 

 

I continued on through the park to the large lake where there was a monument to Alfonso XII where several people were taking advantage of the rental boats available.

In addition to sweet stuffed churros, there were several restaurants that offered churros and chocolate as one of Madrid’s specialties. I gave it a try, and I still prefer the stuffed churros over dipping fried churros into the chocolate sauce.  

For dinners, I had ordered fish several times and each time it came with the skin on the bones, heads and tails.  I spent a lot of time peeling away the skin, bones, heads and tails which left me with a small amount of eatable fish.

My favorite tapa place was a chain called Tapa Tapa which offered my favorite tapa of Ensaladilla cangrejo con langostino—crab salad with prawn along with Wok de Verduras con Toque de Sonja Y Sesamo—Vegetable Wok with a touch of soy and sesame.  

Their placemat has pictures of the offerings as well as a QR code for the English translation.

Here is the restaurant by the Plaza Mayor that I visited back in 1964 while hitchhiking throughout Europe. 

Back then, my travel buddy, John McKelvey, and I ordered a pint of beer here and the sandwiches others were eating.  It was the first time I had ever eaten calamari.  It had been deep fried and slathered with mayonnaise on the bun.  I found it chewy, and tasty.  Only after I finished eating it and consulting my Spanish-English dictionary did it realize it was calamari—squid.  

Fast forward 60 years, and I enjoyed another calamari sandwich at another restaurant that had table service right in the Plaza Mayor.

Since my Turkish Air flight home was at 6:55 AM on June 20th, I ended up taking a taxi for €33 to the airport since the Metro did not operate until 6:30 AM. It was about a half hour ride, and it began to rain.  

Instead of a staffed Starbucks at the Madrid airport, they offered this self-service coffee stand beside other vending machines.

To get to our departing plane in Istanbul, we rode a bus to the parked plane and the had to rush up the stairs in during the rainstorm.

The first leg of the flight was to Istanbul with a short layover for my final flight to Seattle where I arrived around 5 PM on June 20 the same day I left with a flight time of 19 hours going with the sun.

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