Madrid 2010 Feb Day

We flew out of Gatwick on the 07:30 flight, it was delayed and didn't take off till 08:30 and we landed at 11:45am Madrid time. After landing we went to the Metro in the Airport terminal and purchased 2 tourist all day tickets, we had trouble doing this initially, and filled in our passport numbers on the tickets.

We then left the airport, unfortunately by the wrong route. Next time walk through all terminals and walk out of Terminal 3 and follow the pavement to the foot bridge. Eventually we found the foot bridge and walked over it. We then got on the number 105 bus and stayed on it until we decided to hop off at Torre Arias metro stop and joined the Metro We then took the metro to Gran Via, and then changed and went to Tribunal. We got out of the Metro at Tribunal and went to Pain Quotient, which has a large communal table for customers, and also several smaller tables. We were given a small table for 2, all the food and drink served is organic and sustainably farmed. T had prawns in a spicy sauce salad, with mango, and I had buffalo mozerrella with tomatoes with a wicked sauce. And we had some fresh bread and 2 buckets of coffee.

We then went back to the metro and headed out to the Sol Metro where we changed to the red line to get to Retiro Park station. We walked through the park and saw the sights. Then headed out the park and saw Madrid railway station building which is huge. We got on the metro Atoche Renfe and got off at Atoche and walked to the Rene Sofia Museum and art collection. We went in and had a browse of a couple of exhibits, these included 2 pieces of mirror on a wall, some pallets stacked up, some coloured hoops on the wall, a piece of silver triangle, some pipes with water and bubbles running through it being pump-ed by an electric pump, various videos being projected on walls, including a video of a man with a piece of white plywood, some wire hanging from the ceiling, some copper and magnesium squares on the floor in a chequer pattern.

I wound T up about one of the art guards fancing her as he was watching all the women walking past him.

We left the museum and went to the caffe for 2 expressos, they had illy coffee and were really nice, the cafe was red and had beds that some people were lying on and square lit cubes as tables, we sat at the bar to drink the coffee on tall stalls that T had to climb up and down on to.

We then left the cafe and were approached by a spanish woman who asked us where the cafe was so we pointed it out to her, we then walked back to the metro, there were lots of police around directing traffic, and on a building it showed signs for 3 types of police. I took a photo of the ministry of agriculture building. We then went to the Palace Oriente by going back to Sol station and changing to Opera, we took photos of the palace and area and We saw the oldest restauran in the world - Biton - and then walked down to a big market with lots of lovely goods, a bit like covent garden. We then walked down to a really windy area, and went into Tirso de Molina metro and headed up to the Iglesia station, we walked to the restaurant Polizon who said they would be open 20:00 for bar, 21:00 for restaurant, so we walked back to a Bar and Pizzeria and had some bears and coffee, they gave us free tapas but T wouldn't eat the spam or fatty sausage meat. We then went back to the restaurant and had a great meal of grilled king prawn, and fish soup, and hake in a garlic sauce, and monk fish in lobster sauce, and then fried cremebrulee with flaming rum, and chocolate profiteroles, and then coffee with chocolate mousse balls and almond brandy snaps.

we then walked back to Iglesia and caught the metro again we got off at Anton Martin as we had missed Gran Via, and so went back to Gran Via and changed and got off at Cheuca and it was really busy with youngsters partying in the street and queueing to go in clubs. We went in one bar which had car seats in the window, but we sat on aluminium folding chairs, drank 1 beer and left. We then wandered the city looking at the hundreds of people out on a Satruday night, including a man on a hobby horse, another guyy with funny hair and yellow trousers, finally we walked to the n4 night bus, my ticket wouldn't work so i had to pay 1 euro for the journey.

We then travlled all the way back on the bus and walked into the airport, the proper way, and had a coffee, then dozed a while. Finally we went through got on the plane eventually as they were soooo slow loading. We took off and I had coffee and a snack pack and then got back in quicker time and landed, getting off was good and quick and we were home really quickly seeing an accident of a ford car across the carriage way at one point.