Days 1 and 2: Madrid Meanderings

After quite a long delay sitting on the plane in Dallas, we finally landed in Madrid to a customs line with absolutely zero people in it--a Christmas miracle. From there, we rented our car and hit the road for the twenty-minute drive to the Westin Palace Madrid, which was built in 1912 and has hosted Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Ava Gardner, and Lauren Bacall. It's a beautiful property, even if I still can't manage to hold the camera straight while I'm taking a picture. 

When we were checking in, they let us know they'd upgraded us to a junior suite, and Taylor jokingly said, "Well how about a senior suite?" Which led to us being moved to an executive corner suite overlooking Neptune's Fountain. We have a living and dining area and, my very favorite thing, one bathroom for each of us.

The library bar on the first floor is a good place to sit and have drinks, as well as read about the hotel's history. The center of the hotel is a huge rotunda with a stained glass roof, and even the carpet is beautiful. We'll be having a Christmas Eve gala dinner in the rotunda, as well.

Despite having been up many hours at that point, we dropped our stuff in our room and went to Casa Gonzalez, which is supposed to have some of the best tapas in Spain. I had a tosta with Iberian ham and crushed tomato, and a selection of cheeses. 

After that, though, my thirty-three-year-old bones demanded a nap, so we slept for a while before heading out to see the Christmas decorations around Puerta del Sol, the heart of the city.

We also went to the Christmas market in Plaza Mayor, but the booths were filled with mostly masks and toys, so we gabbed some more tapas at a little bar and decided to call it a day. The streamer-deer-creature pictured below...I don't have words. It was dancing to the beat but it had a wooden mouth that snapped at people when they got too close...Spain is strange sometimes.

Also pictured below is the Christmas tree in the lobby and my late-night fruit salad and cream sherry, since I hadn't had fruit or vegetables for about 48 hours at that point and was trying to stave off potential scurvy. (Cream sherry is just fortified sherry...like port.)

The next day we got up to go to El Rastro, a huge flea market that's held on Sundays and has up to 3,500 stalls at a time. At 10 a.m., it was already packed and you could hardly walk...we didn't see much we absolutely needed, but I did get a wool-lined field jacket that I'm very proud of.

From the flea market we went to Mercado de San Miguel, which was opened in 1916 and was one of the first covered markets in the city. It's full of tiny food counters where you can try a variety of foods, from ham to sweets to croquettes. My favorite places where the little carts selling a variety of mozzarella toasts and avocado toasts. Taylor also had a variety of oysters filled with champagne and caviar, which is brave considering that the last time he had shellfish in Europe he got hellacious food poisoning.

No tocar!!

Our next stop was Harvey's, which Taylor had read was one of the best cocktail bars in Spanish--but I was more excited that it was themed based on the play/Jimmy Stewart movie. Who would have expected that in the middle of Madrid? Not me! I had a drink called a sherry cobbler, which was sweetened sherry with orange and cherry, and it was delicious.

After Harveys, I was getting hangry that I'd only had snacks all day, so we went to Mozzarella Oven Bar, where I had a pink peppercorn burrata with strawberries and marinated tomato, and then a truffle mushroom risotto with crispy Iberian ham chips. 

But the eating did not stop there! I also tried an arepa (a cornmeal pocket stuffed with cheese and meat) at the Mercado San Ildefonso. Tomorrow's post will include--surprise--more eating! And a very foggy, ultimately thwarted day trip to Conseguera and Toledo.