Madrid

I had originally intended to go to Morocco this weekend, but due to the only flight from Amsterdam to Marrakesh leaving at 3:30pm and a meeting for my new project (which is in Hamburg) being scheduled on Friday until 3:00pm I had to make some adjustments. It turned out alright though as I was able to switch the weekends of my Madrid and Marrakesh trips to get the flights to work for a pretty small change fee and will still (hopefully) be able to visit both of them. 

I was a little nervous before going because there had been stories in the news all week about protests brewing and a showdown coming on Friday at midnight (right when I was getting into the city) when a government ban on protests was set to take effect. Something about students protesting the government over the unemployment rate – doesn't quite make sense to me why you protest something that is a statistic and is largely uncontrollable, especially in the short term, it makes about as much sense as protesting a low level of GDP per capita or a low average life span, but I won't pretend to know too much about what was going on – but regardless it ended up being a very peaceful and kind of fun set of protests. No violence, just lots of hippie students sitting around a square with signs, playing music and the like. 

Besides the protests, I really enjoyed the city. I felt it was very similar to Lisbon (which I also thought was very cool) with similar architecture, great warm weather, lots of narrow cobblestone streets and squares and lots of cool bars and cafes overflowing with people and serving capirinhas and mojitos late into the night. You hear a lot about the nightlife in Spain – how it is very lively and goes very late, and it definitely turned out to be true in Madrid. The bars are packed with people, even older folks and families, past midnight, and clubs apparently don't even get going until 1 or 2am. Maybe the nightlife was kicked up a notch by the protests, which were occurring at night, but I still get the feeling it's like this all the time as it seemed to be the case all over the city.

On Friday night and a bit Saturday during the day I checked out the protests, and after that I went to do some sightseeing. There aren't really any iconic Eiffel Tower-like sights in Madrid, but there were still lots of cool things to see.

Plaza Mayor

Royal Palace 

Palacio de Oriente with Almudena Cathedral behind

It is the middle of the large bullfighting festival in Madrid, so I also went out to the big bullfighting arena, Plaza de Toros de las Ventas, to try and buy some tickets for that night. Unfortunately, the cheapest tickets available were EUR 55, which I didn't think was quite worth it. I was pretty bummed about not being able to see the spectacle, but hopefully I'll get a chance some other time. After striking out there, I went back towards the city, checked out the La Latina and Lavapies districts, and then went to the large park, Parque de Retiro, to hang out for a bit. The park was pretty great – really large with lots of different things (a pond big enough for rowing races, some monuments, an open air orchestra stage, lots of trails, botanical garden, etc) and lots of people making it lively. It also helped that the weather was pretty perfect while I was there.

Bull fighting arena

Another thing I thought was cool about Madrid was the number of markets around the city. There was a very cool, upscale indoor market called El Mercado de San Miguel near the Plaza Mayor with lots of tasty food, a cool open-air used book market that I found near the Banco de Espana, and I also checked out the El Rastro market. The latter is a huge market that goes throughout all the streets in the La Latina/Lavapies area only on Sunday mornings with lots of touristy stuff, used/antique goods and other random stuff. I also took to the Spanish schedule of eating, getting some delicious food during the weekend, all a few hours after the time I would usually eat it.

Fruit stand in the San Miguel Market

Fountain by the outdoor book market

Overall I found Madrid a really cool city, definitely near the top of my list as far as European cities to hang out or live in even if it's a little light on super-famous sights to see. Now, it's back to Hamburg for this week and also looking forward to a visit from my parents the next two weekends!