Madrid: Love at First Sight

Madrid now is absolutely one of my favorite cities in the world. I fell in love with it immediately and my initial feelings just got stronger as the days passed.

I think that it’s safe to say that the train ride into Madrid put me into the right frame of mind. I have a first-class rail pass, which is pretty much useless in Eastern Europe because of the lack of first-class trains, but does provide some comfort in the west. Only in Spain, however, has it resulted in actual first-class service, by which I mean a free meal and drink. Granted it was airline food, but swordfish is swordfish and I was happy to get some food and coffee in my mid-day trek halfway across Spain.

I arrived at Charmatin station and started looking for the Metro. I’m still not sure what kind of train I jumped on, but it wasn’t the Metro. This turned out to be rather fortunate because it was cheaper than the Metro and got to my stop – Sol – in two stops rather than fourteen. Again, my frame of mind was properly set for Madrid.

The Sol Metro stop is in the Puerta del Sol, which is the geographic center of Madrid. As I learned later, it also is the spot in Madrid where Madrileños celebrate New Year’s Eve. I got off of the train and exited in Puerta del Sol and it was love at first sight. It helped that the weather was beautiful, but it also helped that the area was so lively, with street performers, locals, tourists, people in a rush to get from here to there, people with time on their hands, sitting on the steps of the fountain, statues, buildings with amazing architecture. It had it all. I only absorbed it for a minute or two before heading to my hotel, but since my hotel was only a third-kilometer away, I knew I would be absorbing a lot over the next several days.

I got to my hotel, the Hotel Regina, and I was blown away. The hotel is a relative budget hotel, costing less than $100/night, but I had a huge room, a huge bathroom, a king-size bed, a 26-inch plasma television and a strong wifi connection. I had no view, but I wasn’t planning on sitting in there and staring out the window, and at least not being on the street meant it would be relatively quiet. It was Sunday afternoon. I dropped my stuff off to do a little exploring.

I went back to Puerta del Sol, of course. Not too far beyond is Plaza Mayor, which is Madrid’s old town square. The plaza isn’t quite as magnificent as, say, the old town squares in Brussels, Prague or Amsterdam, but has quite a bit of charm. Again, street performers and artists abounded. Also, there were outdoor cafes almost completely around the perimeter. As you also would expect, there were tons of gift shops and other stores. I’m told that there is a fabulous street market leading from the Plaza Mayor on Sunday mornings and early afternoons, but I must have just missed the excitement.

I ended up having dinner at one of the little restaurants in Plaza Mayor. The dish I had was a steak combination plate with some french fries and a salad. Not very Spanish and not very healthy, but the beer was cold and it did the job.

One of the biggest football matches of the weekend was taking place that evening at the Bernabéu between Real Madrid and Valencia. I couldn’t find any tickets for it that were under $250 and as badly as I wanted to go, I just wasn’t willing to shell out that kind of dough for the privilege. I ended up finding an Irish pub not too far from Puerta del Sol and watched the match there. It was crowded, mostly with locals from what I could tell, but I drank Newcastle Brown Ale (in celebration of Newcastle winning the Championship Division in England) and watched the match. A Cristiano Ronaldo goal mid-way through the second half ended the drama as Real Madrid won the match 2-0.

That was it for my first day in Madrid. I wasn’t hoping for it to get better. I was just contemplating how fortunate I would be if it stayed the same.