Madrid’s Puerta de Atocha station is where the high speed trains arrive, and it is more like an airport terminal, with separate arrival and departure areas, endless corridors, moving walkways, etc
We descend into the metro station and are helped to purchase a travel card loaded with tickets for our journey to Gran Via station, five stops down the line. What we should have done, had we been older and wiser, would have been to load the card with 10 journeys giving a 60% discount.
Emerging onto the city streets the first thing that hits us is the heat. Madrid is at 36°C and the breeze is like a hair drier
The second thing that hits us is the grandeur of the buildings, highly decorated and gleaming like masonic wedding cakes
We located our small flat and are buzzed in by the managing agent
I have previously used the terms simple and basic to describe our accommodation, but this is pushing simple to its limits. No wine glasses and a broken corkscrew. It is in the basement, which does insulate us from the heat and noise, but unlike Florence only a high level window with zero view
What it does possess is a washing machine, and we have more or less run out of clean clothes. Me more, Vera less. The washed clothes are hung on a very rickety drier that we put up in the shower. It is very humid in our somewhat airless basement and I somehow doubt these will ever dry. But we are here for three nights, and they eventually lose their damp feel
Our plan for the heat is to set off ‘early’, ie around 9am, before the heat builds. Breakfast in a nearby cafe
We have booked ourselves onto a 2.5hr walking tour of the history of old Madrid. Our guide, Paul, is entertaining and informative taking us through the several Charles’s and Philips that took Madrid from a non-descript settlement to the capitol of the country and a wider empire
This gives us an orientation of the city centre, some recommendations of where else to go in the city, and takes us past many
more
interesting
buildings
of various ages
The heat also sends us, early, to the Parque Del Burn Retiro. We walk through what seems to be a government district. Sub machine gun toting police guard the buildings, but given that the security for the tourist information office carries a truncheon and two sets of handcuffs, this doesn’t appear excessive. The gun toting guard is not above blowing his whistle at someone dropping litter, and making them pick it up
The park is beautiful
We see our first Spanish cat; cats, squirrels, and similar wildlife seem thin on the ground or completely absent
Birds are a different story. They are quite abundant. I have drunk in many a Black Swan, but now I have them in front of me
along with ducks
peacocks
turtles
turtles that have turned turtle
The park has a very nice looking glass house, which is completely empty
An exhibition hall, which is showing works by James Lee Byars
When an artist is described as enigmatic and unclassifiable, you know to be ready for anything, and also illustrates that fine line between genius and madness.
For me, much of this lies on the madness side, though the art establishment would seem to beg to differ
There are interesting pieces. Any figure with five points, apparently, we try and interpret as a human figure. I hadn’t fully realised that
The gold finish on this column was quite fascinating. It seemed to be a swirling liquid
Back outside, fountains abounded
and there seems a fondness for placing life-sized statues in normal and everyday settings, which I like
Madrid is a lively city, with a plethora of pavement cafes and tapas bars
We head to La Latina for snails. Very tasty
In two and a half days we have had a brief introduction to this city. It is definitely worthy of further exploration
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