Day 17: June 30 (Madrid)

Dipping Churros in Chocolate

We awoke to our first day in Madrid - our last stop before the end of our trip.  We slept well due to good soundproofing and air conditioning.  Neil had a breakfast plan he found on TripAdvisor; a visit to Chocolateria San Gines,  known for the local breakfast delicacy of churros and chocolate.  Although it wasn't far from the hotel, we stumbled onto it by accident.  Once inside, we were instantly confused by the wording of the sign in English and Spanish that described the procedure for ordering.  You tell the cashier at the door what you want and you pay for it and the cashier gives you a receipt.  You sit down at a table, show the receipt to a waiter, and the waiter brings your order.  The workers all had white uniforms, and I could not imagine how they kept them that way with all of the chocolate being moved around.  The furniture was very substantial.  The walls were covered with pictures of celebrities who had eaten there.  It all reminded me in a way of Felipe's in Los Angeles.  We ordered and ate inside.  Everything was delicious.  The chocolate is melted and comes in a coffee cup.  The churros, which are not sweet like Mexican churros, are dipped in the melted chocolate.  The coffee I ordered was great.  Everything was yummy; a high point of our trip.

Our next stop was El Corte Ingles near the hotel.  We went to look for sunscreen and some laundry detergent. The store was huge!  We found some high priced sunscreen in the cosmetics section,  but found more reasonably priced sunscreen in the supermarket section.  The supermarket had an entire aisle for just olive oils!  The laundry detergent took a while to find.  It was in an area outside the food market. We went upstairs by escalator.  Neil tried to convince me that El Corte Ingles was like Walmart, but the store had high end clothes, custom makeup lines, furniture, and housewares.  We bought an oil cloth tablecloth for home that I had been looking for.  I tried on a dress I never would have considered at Neil's suggestion and bought that too!

Prado Entrance

We went back to the hotel with our purchases.  I did some laundry before we set out for the Prado.  We walked, along with throngs of people on the streets.  The walk was about 20 minutes and took us by some government buildings where some television reporters were set up and filming their stories.  The Prado was truly amazing!  We saw lots of beautiful things.  Many paintings stirred my memories of art history class long ago.  I found that I really liked the Fortunys, some of which we also saw in Barcelona.  I loved the El Grecos and was very impressed with Las Meninas.  We were getting tired, so we stopped in at the Prado cafe for a good lunch.  Neil decided the way to do museums was to live in the city, get a membership, visit for an hour or two and look carefully at a few things, go home and read about them, then come back a week later and repeat.  After lunch, we found ourselves in a bit of a mystery.  Someone "official" was touring the museum.  There were eight or so security / secret service types in suits with the earplugs.  They were strategically placed through the galleries around a couple of people.  We weren't exactly sure who was being protected, and we certainly did not recognize any famous people.  We almost left without checking out the Breugels and Bosches but I saw them on a postcard in the museum store so we doubled back to find them and check them out.  It was about 7:45pm when we left and walked back to the hotel.

At about 9:30pm, we set out for the Plaza Major in search of dinner.  The Plaza was much like those in Bilbao and San Sebastian, but maybe twice the size.  (I thought the Bilbao and San Sebastian Plaza Majors looked alike and found that they were designed by the same person.)  We ate at the Magent in the Plaza.  The meal was okay, and pricey.  I had a salad with tomato, tuna, nuts, raisins, onions and apples.  We had tasty tapas - one with salmon and one with ham.  Many people were in the Plaza Major, but there were many more on the streets and in the Puerto del Sol.  As be walked back through Plaza Callao to the hotel, a big stage was being set up for a Gay Pride Madrid venue.  Loud techno music filled the Plaza.  I did notice a significantly higher number of gay couples out and about today.

Tomorrow, Toledo!!