Madrid

May is supposed to be an exam period at IESEG. Although all students are free first week of May. The reason is probably studying but we used it amazingly for travelling. Therefore, we decided to travel to Portugal first week in May. Firstly we visited Porto and Lisbon. Although my whole Portuguese experience definitely deserves own story because it was my best trip during my whole exchange. This story is about my one day spent in Madrid - which was the end of this trip. When I was planning the trip I still had at least two free days so I was wondering where I could continue after Lisbon to see more places. I could not stay longer than two days because on Monday I had my French exam. I was considering visiting Sevilla but the tickets during the weekend from Sevilla back to Brussels or Paris were so expensive. Same with Barcelona and Faro. In the end I found quite good tickets from Madrid to Paris on Saturday morning. I had been to Spain before this trip only once with my parents for holiday. It was awesome! But it was really long time ago and visiting Madrid – the capital of Spain seemed attractive to me. I searched more and I found new bus company called Alsa. We took the bus from Lisbon directly to Madrid during the night. The price was 31 euros and it took us 10 hours. It is quite a lot but I really don´t mind travelling by bus during the night. In addition, we again saved money for the accommodation.

We arrived to Madrid at 7 am. I was little bit disappointed because of the weather. I expected really warm weather to wear my dress but it was raining almost whole day. I checked the weather forecast two weeks before coming there which was a mistake because it easily changed. Moreover, you can imagine Spanish people at 7 am. Everybody was sleeping and the only open café was McDonald. We had some coffee there and small breakfast. After we walked a lit bit, we found information centre but it opened at 9:30. That´s why we again decided to have another breakfast and we were waiting at another café. At least we charged our phones there and we planned our day.

One thing I usually do when I visit the city for the first time is taking the free walking tour. I really like the whole idea. Recently, it became broaden in every capital city. First I tried it in Dublin and I was really impressed by our guide. They provide city tours and if you really like it you can evaluate it by giving them tips. We easily found free walking tour in Madrid provided by SANDEMANs. Normally they provide tours twice every day and without booking in advance. So it was perfect for us. We start our walking tour at 10 am. The guide was really great. She was telling interesting stories about Madrid.

I like these tours because you get knowledge about the city quite easily in a funny way. In addition, they always recommend you places for eating, drinks, party or whatever you are interested in. Unfortunately, we could not finish the tour because we had check-in for our Airbnb.

After this whole trip I feel quite disappointed by accommodation from Airbnb and on the other hand I am happy about hostels. But that´s the story from Portugal. This time we chose accommodation directly in a very city centre of Madrid. But that was the only advantage of the accommodation. We got the room which did not even have the door! And it was not written on the website. Nevertheless, I was too tired to discuss it and we did not spend there much time anyway. I just really hated people living there because about 2 am they started to do a big noise by speaking in Spanish. Unfortunately I was not so daring to go there and tell them to be silent. So I just tried to fell asleep and it worked. In addition, we had to get up at 4 am to catch our flight to Paris. Also I want to mention that I noticed the difference between spanish accent from Spain and from Mexico for the first time. From Lille I am used to hearing the mexican accent all the time because we had many mexican people on my exchange. I was always telling them that I love the way the speak. I did not realize that it can not be valid for all spanish speaking people. The accent from Spain was not so attractive for me. They spoke too powerfully.

After our check-in we were supposed to meet Juliette – my French friend from International Club! It was really nice coincidence that she was there at the same time! After meeting her I started enjoying our trip in Madrid more. She brought two Spanish friends with her and we went to the Spanish restaurant to try typical Spanish food. It was amazing! Seriously.

Others wanted to order three big menu and share all the food which was a perfect idea but when I read the menu I was worried since I am not a big fan of fish, sea food, shrimp and so on. That´s why I ordered some fried cheese with special bread and marmalade for me. In the end, we shared all the food together and I loved it! We had a lot of small tapas.

During the walking tour our guide told us a funny story about tapas. She was saying that long time ago when all people were poor in Madrid, they had only two options during their break for a lunch in the middle of working: to buy a drink or to buy a food. Due to unknown reasons they always chose drinks. Their employers were of course dissatisfied with it. Therefore, they announced a new law – with every bought drink, people will mandatorily get the plate with food. Later it was widespread in whole Spain. And that´s the history of tapas. Nowadays, the situation is different but the tradition stayed in some restaurants.

Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the restaurant but I was really impressed. We tried almost everything. Very typical Spanish tapas were croquettes and tortilla. We also had a special tomato soup, chicken mixture, eggs with bacon and shrimp, meatballs with potatoes and more and more. I really like the idea that you can try everything because I am really indecisive person regarding the food. As a dessert we had profiteroles. I still can not understand that I was the only one who could not stop eating them. They were perfect! The way more delicious than profiteroles I had before.

Later, Spanish girls wrote a plan for our whole afternoon to see the main sights. I liked all the building but I had an impression that it is just a normal city for me. Maybe we did not have enough time to explore it and I was also influenced by the weather.

Another thing I really like to do in the cities is going to the rooftops. I love views from the top of the building. Therefore Juliette took us to one of the tallest building in Madrid.

As the last point of the day we decided to go to the tapas place called Sidrería El Tigre. It was supposed to be one of the best places for having tapas in Madrid. When Juliette told us that with every drink you will get one plate with food I could not believe it (same as the story from our guide)! I liked the idea! After I just realized that it is not such a good deal because the beer cost 5 euro there. Of course for this price I can have a big dinner in the Czech Republic with drink. But I can not really compare Spain to the Czech Republic…

We ordered a big beer and we got three big plates of food. It was great. The weird thing for me was that people stood at the most of the tables. Therefore, I was happy we came early and we had our table with chairs. Nevertheless, we were still full from the lunch and we did not manage to have more than these three beers for all of us. After 9 pm we went to our Airbnb and I fell asleep really fast.

In my opinion, the best part of the day was Spanish food. Unfortunately we were not able to try typical churros. A churro is a fried dough pastry with cinnamon. I already had it in the Czech Republic and I loved it. Anyway, I am going to Barcelona in two days and I will definitely have it!