luni, 26 martie 2012

Weekend in Madrid



Now that it's over, I can surely say that the final impression is much better than the feeling I had when arriving in Madrid.



First place I've seen in Madrid was Plaza Puerta del Sol, extremely crowded, full of beggars and garbage, full of people selling false brand bags directly in the street. I felt like I couldn't breathe.

From Puerta del Sol, we went to Plaza Mayor and bad choice, we walked on the big street. Noisy, crowded, dirty. Only after seeing Catedral de la Almudena, I felt like I'm starting to like it.



OK, let's start with the beginning. We traveled from Brussels to Madrid with Ryan Air, from Charleroi airport. We left the car in the airport's parking and paid 44 euro for 2 days.



From Madrid T1, the metro takes you in the center of the town. The price is 2.5 euro/ticket with an airport supplement of 1 euro. You can of course take 10 tickets and the price per ticket is cheaper. A taxi from airport to Plaza del Sol is around 25 euro.



As said above, Plaza Puerta de Sol was not my favorite place in Madrid. But I loved the narrow streets between Puerta del Sol and Plaza Sta Ana.

Of course that you can find everywhere the famous tapas.



Lucky us, we have colleagues that are from Madrid. They told us to try a famous dish: cocido madrileno. We needed a reservation to go to the restaurant; and yes, it was full and not a single tourist.

The waiter brought us a noodles soup, very tasteful. The main course made us say "ulala". A huge plate with around 8-10 types of meat, on a bed of some cereals. It was definitely impressive and nice to try if you go to Madrid. It was not the cheapest meal I had, but it was worth it. To draw the line, the price for soup, gigantic second plate, sweets, excellent wine and one glass of beer (and herbs liquor on the house), was 40 euro. Not bad.



You can easily search for "what to visit in Madrid"; I can only recommend El Retiro, a very nice park and Templo de Debohd. This one was a gift from Egypt and it's simply amazing to see it at dusk.



To conclude, I quote my colleague from Madrid: "this time you came to visit, next time come for fun!"