Madrid, Spain

After a short two nights in Lisbon, we flew to Madrid, Spain. It was considerably colder than Portugal but seemed a huge bustling city compared to Lisbon. I don't speak much Spanish, but Reynald understood a little, so it was slightly easier than Portugal to figure things out. We relied again on the guidebook, and found a couple excellent restaurants. One restaurant we went to twice was run by cooking students and was incredibly reasonably priced. As in Portugal, there was a tendency to eat late and dishes were very meat heavy, with a focus on pork.

We were getting quite tired by the time we reached Madrid and took it a bit easier while we were there. The only major site that we saw was the Prado Museum, which is huge and has a focus on Spanish Art (naturally). One of the things I liked best about this museum is that they sold little guides for one Euro on major artists (quite a deal). We bought a little book on Bosch and on Goya.

We were only in Madrid for two nights (only one full day), so I don't feel like we experienced much of the city. It did feel very cosmopolitan and was full of all kinds of shops and restaurants. We had a very early flight when we left and had to check out of our hotel at 5:30am and walk to the metro, which didn't open until 6am. We managed to get two stops on the metro before the train stopped and everybody had to get off. We weren't sure exactly what the problem was, but it became clear that the train was not going to make it to the airport (it's pretty scary to listen to all the announcements with absolutely no idea of what they are saying). There were many other passengers trying to get to the airport, and once we left the station, there was serious competition for taxis. Reynald was determined though and we managed to walk far enough ahead of everyone else and eventually got one. Which was lucky, because we didn't check in with much time to spare. Our next stop was Lyon, France.