Madrid Travel Guide: We art Spain's capital

Hola Bloggy Friends,

Our last two days in Madrid have been filled with tours, parks, good food and lots and lots of art. I've said it before, but there's no overstating what a busy city this is. The streets are full (and loud) every night and, uncannily, there's a tour group lurking around every corner. I half expect someone to be leading a tour of our hotel room when we get home at night. It's a completely different feel than the other cities we visited, but we've done our best to dodge the crowds in the attempt to discover the best parts of this hustley-bustley city. And I think we've done a great job.

On Thursday, we took a tour of the Palacio Real de Madrid (the Royal Palace of Madrid). The 2000-room palace was built in 1738 by Philip V and is still used by the royal family today for occasional ceremonious functions. The tour was restricted to a fraction of the complex, including the throne room, dining room and the bedroom where King Charles III died. The best part, though, was the connecting armory where we saw the shield of Boabdil, the Moorish sultan who surrendered his throne to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela in the late 1400s. The palace itself, though, was fairly lackluster. Sure, it was grand and decorated over-the-top with sparkly chandeliers, tapestries inspired by Raphael and plush antique furniture, but,it all felt a little obvious and uninspired. Even though all of our guidebooks call it a "must-see," we feel like it's skippable. The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.  is more impressive.

Madrid Travel Guide: A gulp of Goya

Hola Bloggy Friends,

On the walk around central Madrid

To begin our first full day in Madrid, we had breakfast at the Mercado de San Miguel, the same indoor market we visited when we first arrived in Spain. We found a great little frozen yogurt shop that sells a variety of handmade cereals soaked in fresh, organic leche (milk). I had granola infused with dried strawberries and fresh raspberries from a fruit stand around the corner. It was delicious.

Even though we were stuffed, it was hard to tear ourselves away from the aisles upon aisles of delicious foods to gawk at inside the market. Eventually, though, we did find the exit and set out on a orienting tour of Madrid that was laid out in our guidebook. It took us from the busy city block called Puerta del Sol to the regal Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace). Along the way we got a taste of the history of Madrid, while making a mental note about what streets will get us where.

Walking through the city in the light of day helped verify our impressions that Madrid is a sprawling, world class city that's clean and bustling, but it doesn't quite possess the intriguing, old world charm we found in Barcelona and Granada. The one thing it does have going for it, though, is one hell of an art collection.

Madrid Travel Guide: A broke-down bus ride

Hola Bloggy Friends,

Are we there yet?

Our journey from Granada to Madrid was marred with another bout of travelers misfortune. On the recommendation of several guidebooks, we decided to take a bus to Spain's capital city. It was supposedly cheaper and quicker than the one slow-moving train that goes there. Sounds like a win-win, right?

Well, everything was going swimmingly until we stopped at a halfway point for lunch. When we loaded back onto the bus something went wrong and it wouldn't start again. Being the only English speakers among the group of travelers, we had trouble figuring out what we were supposed to do next. Our circumstances began to look rosier when someone told us that another bus was taking some of the passengers to "something, something America." Embarrassingly, our first instinct was, "Oh, it's a bus for Americans!" Come to find out, it was going to Madrid's Intercambiador de Avenida de América — a station we didn't have tickets to. I told Alan that it's just like a bunch of Americans to think a magical bus appeared across the parking lot just for us.