Madrid: Fantastic Food, Amazing Museums... oh, and an Egyptian Temple!

I don't know why Spain has never been high on my bucket list of places to visit.  I once traveled through the airport on my way to Rome and, glancing out the window, thought, "This place looks really beautiful.  Its a shame I'll probably never be back."

As a night owl, Madrid's schedule is definitely something I could adopt.  "Early to bed and early to rise" is definitely a foreign concept to Madrilenos.  Instead, it's perfectly common to find locals eating breakfast with you at 11 am or noon any day of the week.  Everything is done much later there.  Lunch (the large meal of the day) is eaten around 2 pm and dinner isn't until 10 or 11 pm.  And oh, the food!!

I've decided that southern Europeans just "get" food.  Most of the menus (even the ones in English) were incomprehensible, but waiters were happy to supply a recommendation and there was very little that we had there that I didn't love; tripe croquettes, chorizo, paella, and the ubiquitous egg (in an omelette with potatoes, called a tortilla madrilena, scrambled with vegetables, lightly fried and served over fried potatoes, tomatoes and peppers.  I think we ended up eating some type of egg at least once a day).  So good!  The wine was great, too!  I should find out why the Spanish have such an obsession with ham.  All over Madrid you'll see these ham shrines (Museo de Jamon and Paraiso del Jamon) that carry nothing except row upon row of mummified-looking ham legs.  I was definitely curious.

Madrid is definitely a city of great museums.  You can tour the royal palace and see many of its lavishly decorated 2,800 rooms, each one distinctively different from the last.  You could spend weeks in the Prado, admiring and reading about the thousands of paintings.  Helpfully, they provide a guide of the 50 top masterpieces, but you'll still spend hours there and leave feeling mentally exhausted.  Although I say this every time I visit a new art museum, I left with a new favorite artist- Rubens.  The Prado has an exhibit with 90 of his works!  I even developed a growing appreciation for Picasso at the Reina Sophia, where his work is displayed with photographs, films, and propaganda posters from the Spanish Revolution.  It was emotionally affecting and deeply disturbing.  

Walking north from the Palacio Real, you'll find the strangest attraction of Madrid- an ancient Egyptian temple.  That's right, from Egypt.  Built 2,200 years ago in Egypt and dedicated to Amun and Isis, the Templo de Debod was threatened by the Aswan Dam in the 1960's.  UNESCO made a plea to international countries to rescue this monument and others like it, Spain responded and received the temple as a gesture of thanks.  It was removed from Egypt and reassembled piece by piece in Madrid.

Madrid- Forget everything you ever knew about a map.

If you ever go to Madrid (or Spain in general) expect to get lost.  Multiple times.  Prepare yourself for head-scratching forks in the road, disappearing streets, elusive tourist sites, incomprehensible floor plans and very few (if any) signs.  If you do see a sign, don't let yourself get too optimistic.  You're likely to find that it points to the same destination in opposing directions.  After 4 days in Spain, I feel like we saw a good bit of both Madrid and Toledo, often many times, and sometimes on purpose.  Once, coming back from a bookstore and feeling fairly sure (for once) that we were headed in the right direction, we came to an intersection only to find that we were right back where we started.  I'm still puzzling over that one.  Although, one could make the case that conversation and great map-reading skills are mutually exclusive.

I somehow feel that the Spaniards enjoy their own baffling complexity and are smiling smugly at the foreigners struggling over maps with furrowed brows.  Don't worry, though.  If you get lost, just ask one of the locals who are incredibly friendly and more than happy to help you out.  Perhaps it's all a ruse to lure you into Spain and keep you there.  You won't mind.  By the time you leave you'll be happily lost and not entirely sure you want to leave so soon anyway.

P.S. An an airport almost-disaster

When it comes to plane travel, I'm usually the person you see sitting at the gate ridiculously early, reading a book.  I always overestimate the time it will take me to get to the airport, through security etc, and I hate to feel rushed at an airport, because I'm usually nervous about flying anyway.  I hate it.
This time, however, was the exception.  I'm not sure how I lost track of time quite so badly in Madrid on that last day there, but found myself on the Metro several stops away from the airport with 30 minutes remaining until my gate closed.

Let me just say that the airport in Madrid is massive, unnecessarily lengthy, and not the quickest airport to navigate.  I arrived from the Metro into Terminal 2 and had to walk all the way through it to get to Terminal 1 where I couldn't immediately find the flight information board to find out which gate my flight would be leaving from.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, as it would seem later) the EasyJet check in counter was deserted, so I gave the man at the counter my flight info and asked him what gate I would leave from.  He shook his head and told me that it was gate A2, but that I probably wouldn't make it there in time.

 Luckily, my luggage can be converted into a backpack, so I pulled on the straps and started jogging toward the "A" gates.  I make it there and all the gates there are completely deserted, so I knew immediately that something was wrong.  A lone security guard walking by asked me what I was doing there, so I told him what my situation was.  He pointed out the nearest flight information board and and it turned out that the man at the check-in counter had given me the wrong gate.  Mine was B25, a long way in the opposite direction.  The security guard looked at me sadly and apologetically and told me that I was too late, the plane was departing and I wouldn't make it in time.  But I set off running again, praying for a miracle and made it to the gate exhausted, sweating, gasping for breath and with an entire flight of passengers staring at me oddly for the state I was in.  The flight had been delayed and hadn't even boarded yet.  Whew!  Too close!

Holy Toledo!

Toledo has everything you could possibly wish for in an ancient, scenic hillside town.  Occupied by the Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, and (at one point) the capital of the Spanish Empire, it is a city rich in cultural history and a center for Muslim, Jewish, and Christian worship.  It truly lives up to it's title as "Holy Toledo" and a person could spend days exploring the hundreds of churches, cathedrals, monasteries, former mosques, and synagogues that abound on every street.

As you leave the modern town, an arched bridge carries you over the Tajo river to the medieval walls, ramparts, and imposing gates of the old city.  From here, labyrinthine streets wind almost vertically to the hilltop Alcazar above you.  You enter a different world among the twisted, narrow, cobblestoned alleys.  History seeps from the walls and you can easily imagine an armored knight on horseback just around the corner, or the sounds of clattering cart wheels and clinking swords.  You may be momentarily disconcerted when a very modern car turns the corner instead, breaking into your little medieval reverie.  But you are sure to fall in love with this amazing little town almost immediately. (BTW: Toledo has always been known for its swords, and you can still buy one here if you can figure out how to get it home.)

Forget the map.  Just pick a direction and wind your way along it.  You might feel a little like a mouse in a cheese maze, but you're bound to end up somewhere interesting, and at any moment a sudden turn in the road might just reward you with a fantastic view over the surrounding countryside.

Don't forget the Catedral.  I won't even try to do it justice in writing (a great cathedral can't be described, it has to be felt), but it is immense, overwhelming, lavishly decorated and carved, and yet at the same time beautiful in its simplicity.  The carved wooden choir is possibly the most exquisite piece of art I've ever seen.  You'll leave a little humbler and with a bit of a crick in the neck.

At night, take the mechanical steps up to the top for a whole new perspective as the lights of the modern town spread out as far as the eye can see.  Then wander toward the Cathedral again to get lost in the crowds that appear unexpectedly to eat and shop along the narrow streets.  As you leave, you can't imagine what it would be like to live there, but you kind of wish you could.