After a whole day of travelling, we arrived at our hotel after Ubering from the Madrid airport at about 11:30 AM.

We headed straight to Mercado de San Miguel and had a bocadillo de calamares and some pinchos! These reminded me a lot of  cicchetti from Venice and I’ve been missing them so much. Tried looking for cicchetti in Vancouver but they don’t offer unique choices of snack/side dishes for you to choose from and often give you a full sized plate. I like picking one of everything 😅

After eating, we put on our raincoats and headed to the El Rastro outdoor market. We were lucky to catch this market since it’s only opened for a few hours on Sundays! We bought some garlic grating plates and then decided we’d head back towards the hotel since I got a text that our room was ready! Along the way, we took a quick detour to see Plaza Mayor. They were setting up for a festival! 

Since it was on the way, we stopped by El Riojano for coffee break. It’s a 19th century cafe and bakery. We had a jamon sandwich, and a cream pastry, alongside our much-needed coffees. 

After the shortest power nap at the hotel, we walked to the Temple of Debod. It’s so strange that in the middle of one of Madrid’s garden, there’s an Egyptian temple! They were gifted the temple and it now stands proudly in the middle of Parque de la Montaña. This park also had a spectacular view of Madrid! 

Dinner was at Casa Amadeo Los Caracoles. We had a bunch of small plates including snails, mussels, peppers, Ibérico ham, and patatas bravas. I can say with confidence I still don’t like snails. The jamon Iberico was very yummy though! 

After dinner we did a quick trip to check out Primark. And then we headed to Matik Studios to get a photobooth keychain! I collect keychains so it was nice getting a personalized one for our stop at Madrid! 

We ended off the night at Chocolateria San Gines. They’ve been making churros and chocolate for over 100 years. The dipping chocolate was so good. Not too sweet and especially since the churros are not sugared here, it was the perfect match. 

Tired after a long day of travelling and exploring, we called it a night at around 11 PM. 

The next morning I woke up from jet lag at 5 ish AM and managed to stay in bed till 6 AM. I then realized I was hungry and one of the few places opened that early was McDonald’s down the street. We ended up getting rejected from McDonald’s?? Alongside a bunch of other folks. They explained why in Spanish but we didn’t understand. So we walked across the street and  got some food at Oink instead. I had a yummy jamon and cheese sandwich, but definitely destroyed the top of my mouth with the crispy baguette. We then slept for another hour after satisfying our hunger. 

Waking up, we then grabbed a moka frappe from San Gines and we headed to visit the cloistered nuns at the Monasterio del Corpus Christi. These nuns separate themselves from society (for the most part) so you had to interact with them via a turntable when making your order and paying. We ordered their shortbread: the “Mantecados de yema”. The cookies were actually very yummy in taste but oh my goodness they dried up your mouth. Glad we had our frappes to wash it down! You had to buy a half kilo at the minimum by the way. Something to keep in mind if you go! 

Afterwards, we took an Uber to check out Retiro Park. The man-made ponds was cool and we took some pictures. I’m sad that the Palacio de Cristal was closed while we were there since it was under renovations. But the park itself was very cool, and it felt a bit like Central Park in New York. 

Actually, Gran Via street felt very New York too. They had lots of theaters with Broadway musicals, and people dressed up as Transformers or Mickey Mouse hoping you’ll take a picture and pay them.

We weren’t hungry yet so we decided to go visit the Real Madrid stadium at Tour Bernabéu. It was wild learning about their mechanical grass rotation system. The exhibits also lowkey made me emotional for this team, watching their wins and their fans cheering them on through various clips in the museum. What an accomplished team. 

At 3 PM, we had a reservation at the Royal Palace of Madrid. The palace was nice, and not too overwhelming. My favorite room was the Mattia Gasparini room! It featured loads of nature/floral motifs with touches of Chinoiserie. 

After the palace, I was very hungry since we skipped lunch earlier so had some dumplings and noodles nearby the palace. We also stopped by Primark cause we realized we needed some warmer clothes. 

I then headed back to the hotel for a nap before heading back out to Botin for our 8pm dinner reservation. They’re only open 8-11pm each night (and a few hours for lunch), so I wasn’t used to such a late dinner. They’re in the Guinness Book of world records for being the oldest restaurant in the world! Last year, they celebrated their 300th anniversary. We had a delicious meal there. They had cloud-like croquettes, and their sucking pig was wonderful. We rounded off our meal with a Botin layered cream cake. 

We were super full after dinner and walked back to the hotel. We said goodbye to Mercado de San Miguel, Plaza Mayor, and Puerta del Sol—the last one was super close to our hotel: the Hotel Negresco Gran Via. 

We called it a night around midnight, as we had to wake up early to go to Atocha Station for our train to Seville. Thanks for a wonderful first stop in Spain Madrid!