What Are They Doing?

What a bad night’s sleep! There was a banging noise that went continuously until about 1 am. Yes those who know Carmen could just imagine what a chirpy chick she was the next day! Breakfast was good and no one else seemed to look as tired as us so perhaps ours was the only room with the problem. We spent time during the day searching for a new place to stay and decided to splurge on staying in a hotel rather than another hostel. We took ourselves on a walking tour around Madrid. The first stop was Plaza Mayor which is the city’s most popular meeting place.It is a square surrounded by cafes and restaurants. They were setting up some stages for a concert which we later found out was part of the city’s Carnival that was taking place that weekend. It was interesting to see how they were setting it up. They obviously do not have strict health and safety laws as they had no safety harnesses and were just balancing on the lighting bars attaching the lights! Next we saw Mercado San Miguel which is a glass covered markets. We then continued to Basilica de San Miguel which was a small cathedral with beautiful stained glass windows.We walked along narrow curving streets that opened onto Madrid’s other town square, The Plaza de la Villa. This had a lovely garden and was quite crowded with a tour group. Further along the road was Parque del Emir Mohamed which gave excellent views of the city. Nearby were the remains of the old Moorish walls of Magerit which was the settlement founded which lay the seeds of Madrid. Next stop was La Almudena Cathedral, an enormous cathedral which adjoined the Royal Palace. Inside the cathedral was an ornate temple covered in gold that was very impressive. We didn’t go inside The Royal Palace (Palacio Real) but we admired it beauty from the gates.
We had lunch at McDonalds which was under our hostel. It soon became apparent that the banging noise was linked to the toilet doors in McDonalds. Carmen went to investigate! She worked out that the automatic closer on the door was broken and every time someone went in or out it slammed. Tony went to confirm this by slamming the door a couple of times. We went to our room to plan out the rest of the day. We decided that we were interested in seeing a flamenco dance and a bull fight if possible so we went to the information centre.
Funnily enough we ran into the same man that helped us at the airport. He asked if we were following him! He gave us lots of information about where to eat and what to see and also about the Carnival. We decided to give the flamenco a miss as the price was very expensive. Apparently this is because Flamenco is a tradition of southern Spain and is more of a novelty in the rest of the country. We hung around in town to see the Carnival. The street parade was very colourful and had a big turnout. Afterwards we ate Bocata de Calamares which is fried Calamari in a bun. It is very tasty. We also tried a Spanish favourite Patatas Bravas - fried potato wedges in a strange spicy sauce. We headed back to our hostel for our last night.

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Filed under: Travel, Spain