After a getting briefly lost on our way out of Barcelona (thanks everyone else for fixing that one!) we had a long but uneventful drive to Madrid and got rid of the car on our way into town.  Madrid has a really great metro system (the best one we’ve seen so far) and so it was much easier to get around that way than with the car in the city.

We were hungry after our long drive, so after getting our friends checked into their hotel we set out in search of something to eat.  We found a type of restaurant I hadn’t seen before.  It was a place where they had a bunch of sandwiches, pastas and salads all ready to buy and take home, but you could have them put it on a nice plate and eat it there if you wanted.  Genius!  After dinner, Justin and I headed over to the same hostel that we had stayed in on our first trip to Madrid and got settled in.

The next day was a sight-seeing marathon!  We saw parks, museums, buildings, the big bullfighting arena, and somehow still had enough energy to go out in the evening!

Really cool statue

We started at the Parque de Retiro and saw the cool buildings, statues and birds there.  As always, click on any of these to see the photo gallery.

Cool structure with statues

These birds followed us around hoping for food

Statues

The Crystal Palace in the middle of the park

Not sure what is going on here!

The local university was putting on a GIANT book sale in the park, so we enjoyed wandering around that for a while.

Books!

We weren’t really interested in seeing a bullfight, but we walked on down to the arena to have a look.  It was a pretty impressive building and really easy to imagine it packed with excited people.

Bullfighting arena

I especially liked the tilework and the shapes used for the entryways.

After a quick lunch we headed to the Museo del Prado and saw some artwork.  This museum is HUGE so we just scratched the surface of what they have there.  I particularly liked the art done by El Greco and they had many of his works on display.

We were pretty tired by this time, so headed back for a little rest before a night out on the town!

First up, beer at a German pub!

Tasty German Beer

Next up, really yummy falafel at a hole in the wall restaurant.  Sorry, no photos because it was too delicious to stop and take any!

And the highlight of the evening was another flamenco show!  We loved the first one, but we have to say that this one kind of blew it out of the water.  So, if you’re in Madrid, please, please go see the show at Casa Patas.  They also had the best sangria and really good appetizers.  And the show!  So much energy, so much good music!

Musicians!

Dancers!

And way too soon it was time to say goodbye to our awesome friends.  It was such a treat to have time with them and we will miss both them and Spain!  Madrid is a very sweet city to visit and we loved the time we spent there.