Jordanovichy
Credit Whore 2016
Whilst I was field tripping in Scotland three weeks ago it hit me that I had no 'proper' trip away in July and I had a think about where I could go to see some cultural stuff and hopefully get some creds whilst at it. Madrid was the obvious choice. I asked a uni friend, Zoe, if she wanted to go and she was up for it.
I booked the flights, £80 return which was a little more than I would like to have paid for three days in Europe but decided I'd find somewhere cheap to stay, and thanks to a recommendation from nadroJ, I booked two nights at Hostal los Perales which was only £10 each per night. Bargain.
Our flight was from Stansted at 06:25 in the morning on 7th July so I met up with Zoe here as I was coming from Cambridge and she was coming from Bexhill, near Hastings on the south coast. Flight was on time and soon we were on route to Madrid! As we were coming into land, the ground looked so hot, dry and dead, it really did look stifling, the forecast was 39C every day. Yay.
When we arrived we followed signs for the Metro...cue walking through T1, T2 and T3 of the airport but we finally got there. We bought a 3 day tourist ticket for the metro for €18.50, they also offer a 10-trip ticket for around €12 but you have to pay an extra €3 when you come back to the airport because it's out of zone A, plus we probably would use more than 10 trips then have to pay for trips individually. It just made more sense to get the €18.50 ticket.
We caught the next metro train and made our way to Puerta del Sol.
Having not been outside yet we were looking forward to stepping outside and feeling the immense heat, and it was quite impressively hot.
Government offices for the President of Madrid
10 streets radiate off the elliptical square, we walked up Calle de Preciados towards Plaza del Callao to find another large square with a cinema, restaurants and hotels.
We realised that we were basically bumbling around seeing not that much and doing little else so we decided to stop pratting around and went to find a world-famous Madrid sight, first stop, Plaza Mayor.
It's Madrid's largest square and can hold up to 50,000 people. It was completed in 1619 but following a fire in 1791 parts were redesigned like the granite arches in the picture above. It was really impressive, there are plenty of shops, restaurants, bars and the like. What annoyed me was how the information centre had just been plonked in the middle and looked so out of place.
And there was quite a bit of scaffolding :/
We took a selfie by the statue of Felipe III.
It would have been nice if I hadn't beheaded him
Such stunning intricate detail on the Casa de la Panadería
And the lampposts were nicely carved too.
Once done here we decided to head towards the Palacio Real to the west. On the way we stopped off at the Iglesia Catedral de las Fuerzas Armadas, a Cathedral Church for the Armed Forces, it really was quite spectacular.
I'm not religious but I totally get why, with this on your doorstep, you would want to be. It was spectacular. I've only ever really visited religious buildings in Malta which are also really really impressive (take Mosta Dome for example), but it was so nice to stumble upon this place.
We continued on toward the Palace. We arrived to discover that it was closed to tourists for that day due to an official event, but it'd be open later in the week so we decided to go back.
Instead, opposite is the Catedral de la Almudena, so we headed over to that.
First I had a look over the fence because I could see an odd looking orange structure.
It was, of course, Abismo at Parque de Atracciones.
We paid the €6 entry into the Cathedral, the first part is a museum with history on the place as well as touching in the history of religion in Madrid, photographs weren't allowed in here, I'm sure you can find some pictures online if you're really that interested. They had a card at the entrance which you could pick up and it gave extra information of the various displays, just choose your language.
You then climb up many stairs to the top of the dome within the cathedral itself, the outside gives some gorgeous views over Madrid. Half way up is the balcony which overlooks the palace front.
But a few more steps and we reached the top. What a reward the views were.
More from Abismo there
The top of the cathedral looking towards the Palace.
https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=561826E0[/img]
Having the breeze up there was lovely, but we went back inside to have a look at the dome and climb down to go into the cathedral itself.
The cathedral was spectacular. As cathedrals go, this one is quite modern, it was only finished in the 1980s (started in 1883) and officially opened by Pope John Paul II in 1993 so it all felt quite hipster and different to other similar places I'd been to, you only need to look at the decoration in the dome or the stained glass windows.
The ceiling was also impressively different.
We looked around some more taking more photographs. Lots of gold!
When your Nando's is extra extra cheeky
It was a great cathedral to go to and I'm really glad we did. It felt so unfamiliar in it being so modern yet so familiar in design as a centuries old cathedral. Excellent stuff.
Lunchtime had come (and passed pretty much) so we found a place across the road to get a quick snack.
It was basically a glorified chicken sandwich but had some odd green peppers in which, whilst tasty, were over-powering with flavour and took the taste away from the chicken.
We decided what to do next, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales. This meant catching another Metro. On the way to the Opera stop we walked through the Plaza de Oriente, which is a nice green area next to the Palace.
We arrived at the Monastery to discover it was closed. A quick look at my travel guide told me that it closes for a couple of hours in the day when the heat is most offensive. We took this as an opportunity to check into (and find!) our hostel. I had booked a place just outside of central Madrid near the Metro station Noviciado, which is only around 3 stops out of central Madrid so a perfect location.
We walked along the street it was supposedly on finding no sign of our hostel. We walked back along, I had a look at my booking reference, number 61. When faced with it it looked rather boarded up and closed. I gave them a ring. The manager spoke not a word of English. Not a word. Cue me trying to get by, for 20 minutes, on my GCSE Spanish and I have to say I felt I did rather well, especially as I was getting panicky as, if he didn't know what I was talking about we'd have literally no where to stay and have to pay an extortionate price for elsewhere. I managed to utter 'tengo una reservacion por una habitacion con dos camas'. He was asking my name, the date, everything, I was so impressed I managed to get him to understand. #ShiningMoment
He undid the door and in we went, up a couple of flights of stairs and into the hostel. Our room was small but nice enough, a tiny bath, slightly broken shower and a window that opened up into the outside corridor...it wasn't much but it was somewhere to rest our heads.
We dumped our bags, had a quick shower each and got on our way back to the Monastery. They were only offering Spanish tours and you're not actually allowed in to look around on your own due to there being nuns living there. As it was only €5 and it was a 'top thing' to do in Madrid we thought why not. No pictures allowed inside but it was pretty darn spectacular.
Beautiful artwork on the walls, many statues dedicated to a crucified Jesus, gold and bronze everywhere, and stunning tapestries. Despite not understanding a word our tour guide was saying, I'm really glad we did this, such a sight. Have a couple of internet pictures.
Given our early flight and a lot of walking in the hot Spanish sun we were getting tired, we headed off to find somewhere to eat before going back to the hostel for an early night. We found a restaurant in the Plaza del Callao we stumbled upon, accidentally, earlier.
They offer a set menu kind of thing, for €12.50 you get a starter (one of two different sausages), a main (chicken or pork) with chips or potatoes, ice cream, a glass of wine or soft drink or pint of beer, we felt this was reasonable and went for it. When we first arrived we were given a small glass of wine each on the house.
Chorizo for starter and the chicken for main is what we both had.
It was great, I've never squeezed lemon on chicken before and it worked well. Before our ice cream came out we were given this small flute-shaped glass of some white foamy stuff, no idea what it was but it tasted lovely, and we were then given a shot each after out desert, of some fruity spirit with bits in, different but again, very nice. We left feeling well fed and slightly merry.
I had one errand to run before turning in, visit the Hard Rock Cafe Madrid. I had always said to myself I'd only buy a Hard Rock pint glass if I visited, but with any larger American trips that might ever happen, that's just not going to be a viable option so I've changed my stance on this. I got my pint glass plus a shot glass for Stone Cold plus a pin badge for nadroJ and Belfast_Conor because I'm amazing.
We then headed back to the hostel, showered again and just chatted about the days events. We were both looking forward to the next day which promised to be full of theme parks. We got our heads down just after 22:00. It was so so hot, the pointless ceiling fan doing **** all but blow hot air at my back. At midnight I gave up and had as cold a shower as I could muster, hardly bothered to dry and got back into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly.
Thank you very much for reading day one of my report, it was great to do some cultural stuff in Madrid. Sorry it's not had any prospect of theme parks in it, that's all coming up in part 2.
I booked the flights, £80 return which was a little more than I would like to have paid for three days in Europe but decided I'd find somewhere cheap to stay, and thanks to a recommendation from nadroJ, I booked two nights at Hostal los Perales which was only £10 each per night. Bargain.
Our flight was from Stansted at 06:25 in the morning on 7th July so I met up with Zoe here as I was coming from Cambridge and she was coming from Bexhill, near Hastings on the south coast. Flight was on time and soon we were on route to Madrid! As we were coming into land, the ground looked so hot, dry and dead, it really did look stifling, the forecast was 39C every day. Yay.
When we arrived we followed signs for the Metro...cue walking through T1, T2 and T3 of the airport but we finally got there. We bought a 3 day tourist ticket for the metro for €18.50, they also offer a 10-trip ticket for around €12 but you have to pay an extra €3 when you come back to the airport because it's out of zone A, plus we probably would use more than 10 trips then have to pay for trips individually. It just made more sense to get the €18.50 ticket.
We caught the next metro train and made our way to Puerta del Sol.
Having not been outside yet we were looking forward to stepping outside and feeling the immense heat, and it was quite impressively hot.
Government offices for the President of Madrid
10 streets radiate off the elliptical square, we walked up Calle de Preciados towards Plaza del Callao to find another large square with a cinema, restaurants and hotels.
We realised that we were basically bumbling around seeing not that much and doing little else so we decided to stop pratting around and went to find a world-famous Madrid sight, first stop, Plaza Mayor.
It's Madrid's largest square and can hold up to 50,000 people. It was completed in 1619 but following a fire in 1791 parts were redesigned like the granite arches in the picture above. It was really impressive, there are plenty of shops, restaurants, bars and the like. What annoyed me was how the information centre had just been plonked in the middle and looked so out of place.
And there was quite a bit of scaffolding :/
We took a selfie by the statue of Felipe III.
It would have been nice if I hadn't beheaded him
Such stunning intricate detail on the Casa de la Panadería
And the lampposts were nicely carved too.
Once done here we decided to head towards the Palacio Real to the west. On the way we stopped off at the Iglesia Catedral de las Fuerzas Armadas, a Cathedral Church for the Armed Forces, it really was quite spectacular.
I'm not religious but I totally get why, with this on your doorstep, you would want to be. It was spectacular. I've only ever really visited religious buildings in Malta which are also really really impressive (take Mosta Dome for example), but it was so nice to stumble upon this place.
We continued on toward the Palace. We arrived to discover that it was closed to tourists for that day due to an official event, but it'd be open later in the week so we decided to go back.
Instead, opposite is the Catedral de la Almudena, so we headed over to that.
First I had a look over the fence because I could see an odd looking orange structure.
It was, of course, Abismo at Parque de Atracciones.
We paid the €6 entry into the Cathedral, the first part is a museum with history on the place as well as touching in the history of religion in Madrid, photographs weren't allowed in here, I'm sure you can find some pictures online if you're really that interested. They had a card at the entrance which you could pick up and it gave extra information of the various displays, just choose your language.
You then climb up many stairs to the top of the dome within the cathedral itself, the outside gives some gorgeous views over Madrid. Half way up is the balcony which overlooks the palace front.
But a few more steps and we reached the top. What a reward the views were.
More from Abismo there
The top of the cathedral looking towards the Palace.
https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=561826E0[/img]
Having the breeze up there was lovely, but we went back inside to have a look at the dome and climb down to go into the cathedral itself.
The cathedral was spectacular. As cathedrals go, this one is quite modern, it was only finished in the 1980s (started in 1883) and officially opened by Pope John Paul II in 1993 so it all felt quite hipster and different to other similar places I'd been to, you only need to look at the decoration in the dome or the stained glass windows.
The ceiling was also impressively different.
We looked around some more taking more photographs. Lots of gold!
When your Nando's is extra extra cheeky
It was a great cathedral to go to and I'm really glad we did. It felt so unfamiliar in it being so modern yet so familiar in design as a centuries old cathedral. Excellent stuff.
Lunchtime had come (and passed pretty much) so we found a place across the road to get a quick snack.
It was basically a glorified chicken sandwich but had some odd green peppers in which, whilst tasty, were over-powering with flavour and took the taste away from the chicken.
We decided what to do next, the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales. This meant catching another Metro. On the way to the Opera stop we walked through the Plaza de Oriente, which is a nice green area next to the Palace.
We arrived at the Monastery to discover it was closed. A quick look at my travel guide told me that it closes for a couple of hours in the day when the heat is most offensive. We took this as an opportunity to check into (and find!) our hostel. I had booked a place just outside of central Madrid near the Metro station Noviciado, which is only around 3 stops out of central Madrid so a perfect location.
We walked along the street it was supposedly on finding no sign of our hostel. We walked back along, I had a look at my booking reference, number 61. When faced with it it looked rather boarded up and closed. I gave them a ring. The manager spoke not a word of English. Not a word. Cue me trying to get by, for 20 minutes, on my GCSE Spanish and I have to say I felt I did rather well, especially as I was getting panicky as, if he didn't know what I was talking about we'd have literally no where to stay and have to pay an extortionate price for elsewhere. I managed to utter 'tengo una reservacion por una habitacion con dos camas'. He was asking my name, the date, everything, I was so impressed I managed to get him to understand. #ShiningMoment
He undid the door and in we went, up a couple of flights of stairs and into the hostel. Our room was small but nice enough, a tiny bath, slightly broken shower and a window that opened up into the outside corridor...it wasn't much but it was somewhere to rest our heads.
We dumped our bags, had a quick shower each and got on our way back to the Monastery. They were only offering Spanish tours and you're not actually allowed in to look around on your own due to there being nuns living there. As it was only €5 and it was a 'top thing' to do in Madrid we thought why not. No pictures allowed inside but it was pretty darn spectacular.
Beautiful artwork on the walls, many statues dedicated to a crucified Jesus, gold and bronze everywhere, and stunning tapestries. Despite not understanding a word our tour guide was saying, I'm really glad we did this, such a sight. Have a couple of internet pictures.
Given our early flight and a lot of walking in the hot Spanish sun we were getting tired, we headed off to find somewhere to eat before going back to the hostel for an early night. We found a restaurant in the Plaza del Callao we stumbled upon, accidentally, earlier.
They offer a set menu kind of thing, for €12.50 you get a starter (one of two different sausages), a main (chicken or pork) with chips or potatoes, ice cream, a glass of wine or soft drink or pint of beer, we felt this was reasonable and went for it. When we first arrived we were given a small glass of wine each on the house.
Chorizo for starter and the chicken for main is what we both had.
It was great, I've never squeezed lemon on chicken before and it worked well. Before our ice cream came out we were given this small flute-shaped glass of some white foamy stuff, no idea what it was but it tasted lovely, and we were then given a shot each after out desert, of some fruity spirit with bits in, different but again, very nice. We left feeling well fed and slightly merry.
I had one errand to run before turning in, visit the Hard Rock Cafe Madrid. I had always said to myself I'd only buy a Hard Rock pint glass if I visited, but with any larger American trips that might ever happen, that's just not going to be a viable option so I've changed my stance on this. I got my pint glass plus a shot glass for Stone Cold plus a pin badge for nadroJ and Belfast_Conor because I'm amazing.
We then headed back to the hostel, showered again and just chatted about the days events. We were both looking forward to the next day which promised to be full of theme parks. We got our heads down just after 22:00. It was so so hot, the pointless ceiling fan doing **** all but blow hot air at my back. At midnight I gave up and had as cold a shower as I could muster, hardly bothered to dry and got back into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly.
Thank you very much for reading day one of my report, it was great to do some cultural stuff in Madrid. Sorry it's not had any prospect of theme parks in it, that's all coming up in part 2.
