Back to Madrid

Today we are heading back to Madrid to actually see the city. After a leisurely morning around the pool in Seville, we fought the heat to get our train back to Madrid.

A successful three hour high speed train despite the fact that the movie playing was a Spanish dubbed version, a bit disappointing as it was one Jo has been looking forward to seeing! We arrived in Madrid and navigated the metro system to our hostel, just off Puerta del Sol in the centre of the city. After dumping our stuff, it was off to find tapas and a beer before exploring at the best part of the day, after siesta time!

We had downloaded a walking tour (conveniently a round trip from Puerta del Sol) and decided to follow this around the sights. Puerta del Sol was once the edge of Madrid and was known as the Gate of the Sun, due to it being on the east side of the city. This is also 0 km

in Spain, or the place where everything in Spain is measured from. From here the tour wound through back streets to Plaza Mayor, or Main Square, the old centre of town with its memorials to the victims of the Spanish Inquisition, this is where they were tortured and burned, and the bullfighting bar. Next we wandered through the old marketplace that is now a beautiful food hall and past a church where you can buy homemade cookies from the local nuns through a hole in the wall. As it was approaching sunset we reached the Royal Palace. Wow. The largest working Royal Palace in the Europe with 3,418 rooms. It is very impressive.

We then detoured up to Templo de Debod to watch the sunset. Templo de Debod is an ancient Egyptian temple that was gifted to Spain from Egypt for their help with conservation of ancient temples. It was dismantled in Egypt and rebuilt on a hill in Madrid. Very

random, but a great spot to watch the sunset.

After coming back down the hill we headed through Plaza de Espana (not quite as impressive as Seville), and around the Opera house. There is also a famous cinema here, and we learnt about how during Franco's time the Spanish would edit the storylines when they dubbed the American movies in order to remove anything too controversial or risque! Now with not much time left in Spain we desperately needed to sample the infamous Spanish dessert and our tour took us to just the place, Chocolateria San Gines, or Chocolate Café. This place has been around forever and sells Spanish hot chocolates with churros 24/7. A Spanish hot chocolate is pretty much melted chocolate in a cup. It is heavenly and well worth the stop. After rolling out of this place it was back to the hostel to wrap up the day and decide what to visit tomorrow. Madrid goes good.