Madrid: Our Final Days in the Capital

Day 3:

8 hours at an art museums is hard on your body, your back gets stiff and your feet ache. Following the Prado we were eager for a lighter day of sight seeing. We slept in and decided to skip breakfast opting instead to head the Mercado San Miguel for a tapas brunch. The Mercado San Miguel is a beautiful glass enclosed market. However instead of selling ingredients they sell delicious freshly prepared tapas. Beer, wine and sangria is served at nearly every stand for a euro or two. There is a fresh oyster bar, olive stand, roasted nuts, many places with toasted breads adorned with cheese or fish or meat, a small stand that sells imitation baby eels (baby eels are a delicacy in Spain that have been severely over-fished  so instead this stand takes Alaskan cod and fillets it then cuts the fillets into tiny strips that visually look like the baby freshwater eels. I have no idea if it tastes like baby eels but it seems to be common in Spain. The real baby eels are called anguila and cost like $800 a pound for frozen or canned stock and the fake stuff is called guila and is commonly seen around Madrid). Several stands serve traditional Spanish tapas and of course dessert stands. The market is comprised of 12-15 stands so there is a lot to choose from.

We chose a clean brightly lit stand that specialized in seafood tapas and had our favorite tapa on the menu, pimento padron (little green peppers). The bar has a large wicker basket, big enough to hold 4 basketballs, filled to the brim with these little green peppers. When you order them, the server fills a small cast iron pan with the peppers and hands them to the kitchen where they are deep fried and returned sprinkled with thick kosher salt. This was a favorite we first experienced while in San Sebastian that we fondly refer to has roulette peppers because most of them are sweet but a few are devilishly hot. We had toast with tuna and peppers and beer. It was a lovely brunch. And while standing at the counter we struck up a conversation with our server about the peppers. "Donde esta le pimento caliente?"  I asked the man. None of them were hot! He told us he is from San Sebastian and that the peppers get hotter as the summer goes on. He said this time of year none of them are hot but by August they are spicy. Which makes perfect sense. We were in San Sebastian in September of 2011. So the peppers in the bars would be a mix from the season some riper than others making them unexpectedly hot. Perhaps when we get to San Sebastian in a few weeks there will be an early crop of the hotties.

Yum!

Sean at the San Miguel Market. Notice the large basket of peppers behind him.

After brunch we headed over to the Mercado de la Cebada. This brightly painted building is a traditional Spanish market where you buy fresh produce, meat, and fish. Unlike our experience in France where finding a fish market was its own special challenge, here in Madrid we had our pick. This large market had a variety of butchers some that specialize in poultry including pigeons. Some that specialize in lamb and pork. Others just sell cured meats. And of course a nice selection of fish mongers. Much like in France, we did not know the Spanish words for many of the fish. Some we could recognize by sight but others remained a mystery. We asked the man "Que pescado es mas fresca?" What fish is the freshest? And he indicated all of them. We ended up buying a whole fish we later figured out was Haddock. We then proceeded to buy ingredients to make a verde sauce.And of course by we, I mean my husband who was eager to cook.

Late in the afternoon we made our way to the Museo Nacional Centro de Renia Sofia. The building reminds me of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. There are large glass elevators surrounding a mostly historic looking building. A large courtyard with massive modern statues greets you at the entrance.  I know what you're thinking, another art museum? 

Museo Nacional Centro de Renia Sofia

Our feet still sore from the Prado,  we could not resist the modern art museum. It houses a collection of primarily Spanish artists with works from 1900-1985. Most notably it houses Guernica by Picasso. This piece alone is worth the admission price. The museum also houses a healthy collection of Dali paintings that helped to wet our appetite for all we would see while in the Girona region. Compared to the Prado, the Renia Sofia was a ghost town. We had most galleries to ourselves and were able to stand directly in front of and admire the massive scene of Guernica uninterrupted for at least a good 10 minutes. The museums layout is beautiful a colonial Spanish style structure with a massive interior courtyard.

Interior Courtyard of the Renia Sofia

 And walkways that lead you from the main building to a newly built maroon modern building with a cafe and some excellent view points/terraces. The museum allows you to take photographs in most of the exhibits (which mean we have plenty to share!) except the one covering the 1930s (which includes Guernica). We have noticed during our trip that the country has a certain repressive theme about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), mainly it is not talked about. Many of the same issues that lead to the Spanish Civil War are still present today and it is a sensitive and divisive topic that is largely swept under the rug. So it was not surprising that many of the politically charged paintings in this gallery were off limits to photographs and the laminated placard that explained the theme of these galleries, glossed over the war treating the tensions more like a footnote. (Unlike the Prado that is largely organized by country of origin and then by artist, the Renia Sofia is organized by time and art movement. So the collection probably contains 20 Dali pieces but instead of being in the same room, they are sprinkled throughout the museum based on the style or time frame the piece was created in.)

Sean in front of the Tricorn

Dali piece inspired by Cap de Crues (we plan to visit there later this trip!).

Krystal with her favorite Man Ray piece

Following the museum we made our way to the Buen Retiro. This is the massive park that lines the streets filled with museums. The park is huge and houses tennis courts, soccer fields, fountains, art galleries, cafes, a man-made lake where you can rent a rowboat and most importantly, grass. Oh how I love to sit on some soft green grass in the afternoon. When we were in Paris, there were dozens of city parks and gardens but all contained dirt paths and manicured shrubs and whatever grass they had was carefully guarded behind tiny fences with signs indicating 'Stay off'. But not here. We were able to stretch out under a tree with a cold soda and just watch the people running, walking dogs, and enjoying this treasure. The lake is an especially beautiful location with an impressive monument dedicated to Alfonso II. After a few days walking around art galleries, a nice trip to the park was just what we wanted.

We ended the day with a beautiful bottle of Spanish wine and a home cooked meal. Sean had made fish stock during our midday break and now late in the evening he used the fish stock with white wine, lemon, olive oil, sauteed green peppers and onions and garlic to make a beautiful Verde sauce. It was light but flavorful and was the perfect accompaniment to the fish. The haddock was a beautiful white fillet expertly cut by the fish monger with a blade that looked like something out of Game of Thrones. The blade was as wide as a dinner plate with a wicked sharp edge that easily could take a person's head off clean. We enjoyed the fish smothered with the verde sauce and some fresh bread from across the street. 

Sean en la cocina. Sean in the kitchen preparing pescadillo.

We were very blessed in Madrid to have an apartment adjacent to a convenience store. It was open at 6am and closed at 1am. It had fresh baked baguettes for half a euro. Along with beer, wine, cold soda, cheese and meats. They also sold fresh squeezed orange juice and bocadillos. We probably went there every day at some point to buy a loaf of bread. And their selection of bread was better than the fancy super mercado (grocery store) that was like a combination Macy's department store and Whole Foods.

Day 4:

Our final day in Madrid we had tentatively planned on taking a day trip to the ancient city of Toledo. Toledo was the capital of Spain for a long time before Madrid and is about half an hour outside the city by high speed train. But the cost of the tickets, combined with the sense that we hadn't seen all of Madrid we wanted, lead us to spending our last day in a city that had grown on us. It is still not my favorite city but having seen more and more of it each day, it has really started to impart itself on me. So our final day we explored the last section of the city we had missed characterized by being elegant and mostly "old money". We passed the only modernisma structure in the city that houses the Society of authors. It is closed to the public but still a beautiful and unique building in Madrid. 

Society of Authors. Madrid.

We ended up at the National Archeological Museum which shares a home with the National Library. The building is spectacular but the museum is probably the best kept secret in Madrid. 

National Library

Archeology Museum

At 3 euro it is a fraction of the cost of the art museums. The museum was founded in the 1860s but recently underwent a massive interior renovation making it sleek, modern and glossy inside. All the exhibits are displayed in clean  brightly lit glass cases. Each period of time depicted in the museum includes a 4 minute introductory video and everything is written in both Spanish and English. Some of the oldest human settlements unearthed are in Spain. And the museum has exhibits on prehistory all the way to 1867 when the museum was founded. We didn't explore the whole museum which is massive and would easily consume half a day. Instead we just focused on the first two floors which went from prehistory to the crusades. It is really interesting how Spain is made up of all these largely autonomous areas with very distinct cultures and looking at all these ancient maps you see that the cultural differences have existed since before the Romans occupied the area. Spain is united only in name.   

2nd floor atrium, Archeological museum. 

Moorish Arch Way with ceiling.

Moorish wood beam ceiling.

After the museum we took a long stroll back to our apartment along a very different route. We enjoyed another meal at Mercado San Miguel this time patronizing different establishments including a stand that specialized in Vermouth. My husband has developed a taste lately for Manhattans made with rye whiskey and sweet vermouth. However vermouth is traditionally an aperitif. An aperitif is a liquor designed to be drank before a meal that is bitter with flora elements intended to wake up the taste buds and prepare them to more fully enjoy a meal. It is uncommon in the United States to drink aperitifs but many classic cocktails contain them. This particular stand had vermouth on tap for a euro fifty so Sean ordered a dry while I had a sweet. It was served straight up with a single large cube of ice. Turns out we are both vermouth fans! We enjoyed our vermouth with a plate of olives. 

Dry and sweet vermouth.

Following the Mercado San Miguel we decided to check out a famous cafe that only serves coffee, hot chocolate and churros. It is open 24 hours and has been operating in Madrid since the 1800s. It is prominently featured in the lonely planet guide so it was packed with tourists but you can't deny it is a tastey dessert. The hot chocolate is so thick its undrinkable, more like a thick warm chocolate syrup. You can imagine it being churned in Willy Wonka's magical factory. Each cup of chocolate is served with 6 crispy churros ripe for dipping. It was a fabulous treat and a great way to spend our last day.

Sean con churros

All in all our time in Madrid has been fabulous albeit busy. We walked 36 and a half miles in 4 days. We visited 3 museums. We ate tapas, enjoyed churros, took many photos and discovered our new favorite zany Spanish sitcom about the lives of a cruise ship crew. But we say goodbye to this capital city and look forward to the next leg of our adventure, Granada!