This morning we made our way to the meeting point for our free walking tour of Madrid. If I was asked to describe Madrid I would say gritty, it is incredibly cool but feels like there is an undercurrent here. It’s not about not feeling safe or that things are dirty, but it’s this feeling that they don’t have to try as hard as other cities in Spain and this was confirmed by the enthusiastic Miguel who took us around this really interesting city, they are happy just the way they are and so why change. How fab to be so liberated !

Like many of these walking tours the other ‘tourists’ it’s quite an international group Aussies, Canadians, Americans, South Americans and a mixture of people from throughout the EU, which is kinda cool.

The aim of this tour was to help us get a sense of the city, including pointing out some landmarks to help us navigate the streets and the metro, to provide a bit of a plotted history of Madrid, and to give us some recommendations on where to go as well as point us in the right direction for major attractions. And Miguel did all of this and more.

We started the tour at a spot just near Gran Via one of the city’s most iconic boulevards. It was constructed between 1910 and 1931 when there was a real push to modernise the city Miguel mentioned it might look a little bit like a major US city ….where you can “start spreading the news”….. and he could very well be right, just saying..

There has been a subsequent upgrade in 2018 to expand walkways etc, and it is a great spot to move around,

Miguel took us to a club called La Quimera a flamenco venue since 1911. It was very different from where we went to watch flamenco in Seville as it was an intimate little club. Miguel did scare me a bit here by asking if I would like to flamenco, thankfully he was joking 🥺… oh my !

And now some history, there is a evidence that supports the theory that Madrid has been inhabited since the prehistoric era with the discovery of a number of archeological sites in and around the city. What we do know is that like many parts of Spain, Madrid had been home since the 700’s of the Moors. In the year 1085 the city surrendered to Alfonso VI of Leon and Christianity arrived.

Up until 1561 the capital of Spain was in Toledo (we are visiting there tomorrow) but as lots of the court duties were concentrated in Madrid, King Phillip II of Spain made the decision to move the court and make Madrid the capital.

And this brings us to our next stop, the Plaza Mayor . The Plaza is the grand central square in the heart of the old city. It was built in the 15th century and was originally called Plaza del Arrabal and was used as a the cities market. King Philip II as part of his “refurbishment of the new capital asked for a remodel of the area, it didn’t commence until 1617 under the reign of a new King. It is very familiar looking having now visited a couple of Spanish cities with similar squares. Yes this was the spot in the day to watch bull fights and then hangings during the Spanish Inquisition.

The coat of arms of Madrid. The main components are a bear and a strawberry tree. The bear has been on the coat of arms since 1212. There are lots of different opinions on why it is this combination and I kind of like Miguel’s. He said that the bear was from the Ursa Major constellation or the “the greater she-bear” which dominates the night skies in the northern hemisphere – and night skies are close to heaven, and the strawberry tree is a representation of earth – and so the bear and the tree are symbolic of the connection between heaven and earth.

Miguel as we meandered told us lots of interesting stories, fed us bits of juicy gossip about the Spanish Royals (both now and in the past) as well as very proudly stating that Spanish people have the fifth longest life expectancy in the world. He went on to explain laughingly that whilst he would like this to be because of their siestas, active social lives and churros and chocolate it’s probably more likely that it’s because of the diversity of cultures in their blood. It is a beautiful melting pot here of people from many different cultural backgrounds. He reiterated that the Madrid and I guess more broadly Spain of the past is nothing like it was, it is diverse, accepting and free of the discrimination of the past.

Like all of the tours there is so much information and so many fantastic stories, as always it was a cracker. This is a city of many layers and we only have a few days to see as much as we can, so once to say adios to Miguel after a late lunch we moved onto Museo National del Prado (the Prado Museum).

The Prado team we discovered are very strict about a few things…

• water bottles have to be thrown out even if they are empty 😢 (the water bottles are so gorgeous here I am going to bring one home, empty of course)
• no photos can be taken or you will get a virtual smack and they check your phone
• they close at 8.00pm on the dot, no extensions – I know outrageous.

So as a result of rule number 2, we only have a couple of photos and so I’m going to grab some photos of the web to show you some of my favourites (I have lists of them for different reasons) noting that I didn’t get to see everything because of silly rule number 3. Really a girl needs more than four and a bit hours to go through a museum like this.

It is yet another awesome gallery… a couple of take aways from Dave and from me.

Dave had always held San Jorge (Saint George) on a bit of a pedestal for being a tough guy and slaying the dragon. It has become abundantly clear over the last couple of weeks that the dragon was really only the size of a big lizard, we have seen so many sculptures and paintings that support this – so what was the big deal?

And from me, firstly, I really do need a day in some places particularly if there is any kind of art work and an audio guide. And secondly museums are really serious about there closing times, they threw me out – gee wiz 🤣😂 how come people in movies seem to be able to get locked in so easily.

Another big day tomorrow we are heading to Toledo.