From the moment we entered the city center of Madrid heading towards our Airbnb I knew I was gonna love this city. We arrived close to midnight on a Sunday and the city was still alive and full of energy. We had 10 days to visit, explore, take some day trips, get some travel planning done, get our flu & COVID jabs, and hopefully find some down time. We did all that and more.
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What we did in Madrid
Museo National del Prado - David thought this was a Prada museum. Oy vey. We learned that many museums in Madrid offer free entry in the evenings and since we’re not big museum fans we went for the free night entry, 6-8pm. Two quick learns (1) if we were to do this or something like it again we’ll find a tour guide to take us through the highlights, provide some context; it wasn’t worth saving the ticket entry fee and wandering with only a little guidance from a blog (2) if you decide to go to the free hours, get there earlier than 15 minutes before, maybe closer to 45-60 minutes prior!
Guru guides and the free walking tours they offer have become our M.O. to get our barring in a new city, learn some history and get some recommendations for the coming days. We’re learning the pros and cons of shoulder season as we travel further into the fall. In some cases we’ve been the only two people on a tour which is great… sometimes tours cancel because there are too few people, but I think that’s only happened once. In Madrid our guide, Tatiana, gave us just enough history as we strolled through the more historic parts of the city; she was so personable, passionate and engaged.
Royal Palace of Madrid - after enjoying a gluten free churro at Churreria Chocolateria 1902 (which also has non-GF options) we made our way to the Royal Palace with tickets in hand, purchased days prior. Again the pros/cons of the offseason, we still find tickets get sold out for the big touristy sights. We also bought the mobile audio guide, but forgot to download the app and content (word to the wise, don’t be like us!) and it was a heavy download on a poor WiFi at the museum. Anyhow, the palace was more impressive than I’d expected. Very ornate rooms, ceilings, wall coverings and many of the rooms are still used for official functions today. Was definitely worth the visit. And apparently my father=in-law, Monte, lived in one of the rooms here when he visited in the 1960s!
La Almudena Catheral also known as Cathedral of Madrid was interesting, a more recent building only consecrated and considered complete in 1993 after about one hundred years of work that was repeatedly stopped and re-started along the way. The interior art is quite modern, refreshing for us as we typically find the cathedrals to be overwhelming in decor, though purposefully designed that way of course.
We spent a Sunday morning wandering around Malasaña, the small streets, street art, cafes and weekend strollers. It was a pretty quiet morning, nothing quite open yet. We had a lazy cup of coffee in a square and did some people watching. Just right!
Madrid Food
Here are some restaurants that were not covered in our Tapas / Pinxtos blog post
Zenith brunch - delicious, amazing, lots of gluten free and vegan options. We ate here our first morning and immediately noted that they have locations in Porto, Madrid, Lisbon and Barcelona (Josh, make note!)
Celicioso Callao - I had previously made note of this place and stopped by for a loaf of bread and some treats. The bread was unlike any gluten free bread I’ve had, soft, spongy white bread! They have two locations, one at my now favorite El Corte Inglés Supermercado and another in the Chueca area (I taste tested the cupcakes there, delicious!)
Mad Mad Vegan - dream come true for a fix of comfort food. Various types of vegan hamburgers, all plant based, with a gluten free bun option and fries, both regular and sweet potato my friends.
Mercado de San Miguel - I was sorta excited about this but it ended up being gentrified food hall, very touristy and the prices matched. It was fun to walk through but plant based/vegan was not the thing here and it would have been challenging to figure out gluten free with all the crowds and chaos.
Places that were on our list but we didn’t get to: Pizza Natura, Okashi Sanda, Santa y pure Vegan bar
Some grocery options: El Corte Inglés has been a savior in Madrid, Porto and Lisbon. Huge supermarket with plentiful gluten free and vegan options. And the produce is great. Eroski, the larger format store near Chiado had some great selections as well.
Day trip: Wine tasting Ribeiro & Segovia - We had plans to take a few day trips but found organizing the tickets to the sights, along with the trains was becoming too much work. At first we were only finding big coach bus tours to Segovia which didn’t sound that great. Then we happened upon a small group tour that paired Segovia with a wine tour - TA-DA! After a wine tour and tasting the time in Segovia was tight but we got to see the main sights and enjoy the sunset over Segovia with a final glass of wine.
Day trip: Avila - We did this on our own which worked out fine. It’s a smaller city, definitely less busy than the others we visited. We walked the city walls which were impressive (not Dubrovnik impressive but nonetheless in beautiful repair and unique in design), we visited the cathedral and ate at Soul Kitchen which had some vegan and gluten free options. Given time of year the tourist crowds had died down and many restaurants and cafes were closed. Yet surprisingly not having a reservation almost prevented us from eating. Lesson learned - during high season or shoulder season make reservations, even for lunch.
Day trip: Toledo - The history here is deep and the sights and stories beautiful. It took some time to get my head around how the Catholics, Muslims and Jews lived in harmony at one time. It helped to visually see this come to life in where they lived, the architecture, how government was run and more. Some friends had recommended a private guide they used and though pricier than other tours we were doing it was well worth it. Our tour guide Javier was amazing and his family is multi-generational Toledo-ians and his uncle runs the tour company Destino Toledo. Sometimes private tour guides can access newly found ruins around the city, especially when under private property - we got lucky and that was a treat! Oh, by the way the phrase Holy Toledo comes from this place.
Food in Toledo: We had made reservations at Madre Tierra as vegetarian place but had also looked at Street & Soul. Our guide had recently eaten at the later and highly recommended it so we ended up switching…I’m sure Madre Tierra was a good option as well.
That's it for Madrid people... more to come on San Sebastian, Seville and Valencia!
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