Day 20: July 3 (Madrid)

San Miguel Market

Today was a "free" day.  We slept in and got going at about 10:30 am.  We had coffee on the way to the nearby Convent de Las Descalzas Reales.  The next tour was an hour away, so we did not hang around.  We headed over to the Mercado San Miguel, which was not at all a real market like the Boqueria.  It was housed in an old market building but the vendors inside sold mostly prepared food, wine, etc.  We got some skewers - one with ham and a kind of fritter, one with chicken satay and one with veggies - along with some little roasted potatoes with a dipping sauce that turned out to be very spicy, like butter with chiles.  We also had a delicious dessert called zarzuela, a coffee and hazelnut cream.  We ate that and took the rest for later for a picnic.  Neil finally found a hat that fit, looked good and wasn't too expensive.

Temple of Debod

After the market, we headed for a new (to us) part of town and found the "Temple of Debod" which was moved piece by piece from Egypt in 1968 when the Aswan Dam was finished to save it from flooding.  It was very close and extremely hot inside, especially in the upper floor exhibit hall.  Even the people working there had to step outside and cool off fairly often.  Outside was nice, with a pool of water leading to the temple entrance.  The temple was at the edge of the Western Park which bordered Paseo Rosales.  The neighborhood was very upscale and the park was super pleasant with paths, lawns, plantings, etc.  We walked over to the Telferico aerial tram and cabled over to Casa de Campo.  The tram cars were small - we had our own - compared to the large trams we rode in Monserrat and Barcelona.  There was an audio program that played in the tram during the ride.  We tried to tell the attendant who loaded us into the car that we wanted the English version, but we got Spanish.  From above, we could see the large "project" apartment buildings.  Many of them had center courtyards not visible from the outside.  The park area was huge.  We trammed above an expanse of dry woodlands crossed with bike trails and paths.

The tram to Casa de Campo

The tram station had a vending machine restaurant and opened onto a grassy picnic area with a playground.  We settled under a tree in the picnic area to relax and eat the food we had brought from the market.  In the distance, about a mile away, there was a sprawling amusement park.  Neil rested.  I caught up on some of my journal writing. There were very few people around.  Nearby, on the picnic grounds, was an old couple well settled in with folding chairs and a card table, a couple of younger couples, and a young family with twins and another child all dressed in red.  We thought it would be busier, especially on a Sunday.  It was quiet and restful.

Picnic Scene with Amusement Park

After strolling the grounds, we took the tram back.  Neil, once again, tried to explain that we wanted English for our audio program.  We thought all was understood but, when we started our tram ride, our journey was described in French!!  Clouds had come in during the day, keeping the temperatures down a little (high 80's to low 90's).  We walked through a rose garden which was huge but seemed nowhere near as well kept up as other areas in the park.  As we walked through the park, we saw several groups of picnickers, including several girls playing badminton.  We stopped to relax at a cafe right on the edge of the park on Paseo Rosales.  It was a late afternoon and the service crew was relaxing.  There was only one other customer.  The setting was very nice, across from a pretty fountain and away from the crush of crowds.  We had drinks, cafe con leech, coca cola, and water and we had to pay for it.  This cafe was expensive.  Our small drinks cost us over 10 Euros.

Lunch spot

We headed back to the hotel along the Gran Via, a new route for us. While on the part of Gran Via called Princessa, we saw a traffic accident.  Actually, we heard it as it happened right behind us and we turned to look.  A woman rear-ended a Mercedes which then hit the car in front of it.  Apparently, the women was driving and did not react to the cars stopped at a red light at the intersection. The Mercedes had some damage to the rear but the car that caused the damage was pretty banged up.  All drivers got out and hugged and everyone was okay, although quite a bit of gas was spilling out the front of the damaged car.  Remarkably, three or four police on motorcycles and an ambulance arrived at the scene within about ninety seconds. Wow!  We continued our walk and peeked through the gate of the Palacio de Liria.  When we got back and checked the internet, we found that this palace was privately owned by the Duke of Alba.  It had been rebuilt after having been destroyed in the Spanish Civil War.

Neil has a good map sense of the city by now.  He turned off Gran Via at just the right place to get us back to the hotel.  We read and rested.  After all our travels, I consulted the internet on "how-to" and experimented with the bidet in the bathroom.

Once again, we followed our routine and set out to find dinner at about 10 pm.  Once outside, I went back for my sweater, although it was probably about 75 degrees farenheit! We headed to the Mercado San Miguel where we had started our day.  We sat down at a place right outside the Market, but there was not enough light and we had too much difficulty trying to read the menu.  We left and wandered some more and sat down at a table with a white tablecloth at a place outside the walls of the Plaza Major.  We were very happy with this choice - Cafe de Asquininas.  The placement was such that you could see people strolling, but it was not a beehive of activity.  Our waiter did not have as many tables (compared to other places we have eaten) and he was relaxed, friendly and attentive.  Neil had an egg / green bean / garlic / shrimp dish and I had some fried cod and tuna salad.  Everything was delicious. Toward the end of the meal, we were puzzled as to why all the waiters were all staring raptly down the street.  I asked and found they were looking for a customer who had left something at his table.  Some thereafter, the customer returned to retrieve his guidebook.

Our trip back to the hotel again took us through the Puerto del Sol.  Although there were still crowds of people about, it was much less congested and mellower than last night.  Additionally, there was a lot less garbage.