We had a very short stay in Madrid. We arrived in the late afternoon Tuesday and were gone by Thursday, but we packed in the fun. We had debated going on to Toledo from the train station, but decided we had had enough train for one day. Instead, we dropped our luggage, and decided on Vietnamese food for lunch, yum! On the way there, we discovered a flamenco spot and that gave us an idea. But first, we walked over to El Prado, about 20 minutes away. As you know, we like to walk and it gives us a great feeling for a city quickly.

El Prado is, well, a great, giant Spanish art museum. I was excited to see The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch (I think he is named after a literary detective, right?). Sorry, I don’t take pictures of paintings, there are much better versions online. After about an hour and a half (which seems to be a good museum limit because it gets too overwhelming after that), we headed to El Retiro park. I love a big city with a beautiful central park and Madrid did not disappoint here.

Since it was getting on 8 p.m., it was time to think about dinner. As you might imagine, tapas are abundant but we knew we were going on a food and history tour the next day, we opted out of patatas fritas. The non-tapas dinner: pizza and an Aperol spritz! We had been debating whether to go to the flamenco show and we went with our default answer: We’re here; why not? There was an option for dinner, but we skipped that. We did get appetizers and a glass of wine, because I needed more to drink after that giant mojito. The show was not what we were expecting mostly because we didn’t know what to expect. I was thinking castanets and frilly dresses. Wrong! The dance was passionate and there was a lot of stomping. We got an explanation (in Spanish and English with an Australian accent) and found that the dancers were improvising and encouraging each other as they went. The place was Las Carboneras. The venue is pretty small and intimate, which made it all the better.

The lesson: Yes is a good default answer on vacation.

Wednesday, we did our food and history tour. Our guide, Abel (accent on the second syllable), was chill and fun. We got some fun information about the founding of Madrid by the Moors (aka Arabs) and the inquisition. Here’s a hint for all you “outside Catholics, inside Jews” or Muslims: Eat the pork or you’re a goner! We got to go inside the world’s oldest restaurant in continuous operation (according to Guinness), Restaurante Botín. The oven fire never stops burning. Maybe it’s a secret eternal flame. We also learned that businesses that have been running for at least 100 years get a gold plaque on the sidewalk.

Por sopuesto (that’s of course to you non-Spanish speakers), we did a lot of eating and drinking including Spanish vermouth and tinto de verano, which is basically a Spanish wine spritzer: red wine with Fanta limon and a splash of vermouth. Very summery and refreshing. Lots of meat (for Jake), cheese, olives. Apparently vegetables are not a thing here on the Iberian Peninsula.

Our plan had been to go to Toledo (not the verb tense). The tour ran a bit long, so we hopped in a cab to get to the train station. On the way there, I tried to buy tickets and found that the train was sold out. Who wudda thought? I guess there’s a downside to spur-of-the-momenting everything. Oh well. We decided that getting to Toledo at 5:30 wasn’t worth it so we walked back the way we came, took a short break at the AirBnB and headed out to the National Archeological Museum, where we had two hours until closing time. We used both.

We did stop and have a drink and I have to say that the drinks in Madrid (at least at the place we stopped) were STRONG. Wow. Plus, I got a chance to misinterpret some Spanish, which is always fun. We couldn’t decide whether the waiter was telling us we had to leave quickly because they wanted the table for diners or that she was leaving soon and we should go inside if we wanted to order more. It was the latter. OK, good for us!

Having been all tapased out, we elected to dine on … Vietnamese food! It was delicious the first time and equally delicious the second. You may have trouble remembering the name, but if you can remember Vietnam Restaurante and you’re in Madrid, give it a try.

Thursday was a travel day. We ate a yummy breakfast at Federal Cafe, hung out in the sunshine for a bit and then headed to the airport. I forgot that you often can’t check in more than 2 hours before the flight, so we sat a bit. Then we waited on line for about 45 minutes for one issue or incident after another (thanks TAP). We weren’t stressed. Everyone was on our flight and we figured the plane wasn’t taking off empty.

We are now in Lisbon and having a fab time. Stay tuned for the Portugal edition coming soon.