We’ve had the chance to visit quite a few cities on our trip, and no less than five of those so far have been capital cities. Today we are visiting one more, Madrid, which lies at the very heart of Spain, hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline in any direction. Madrid is the second largest city in Europe after Berlin, but I’ve been assured that you can easily walk around the historic centre of town to see the major sights if you are limited to just one day. So that’s the plan really, a walking tour of the centre dotted with some regular food breaks.

The bus drops us off at the Principe Pio station, and Google directs us uphill towards our first stop, the incredible Palacio Real. Despite the fact that this is the largest royal palace in Europe with almost three and a half thousand rooms, and I would love to see inside it, we have decided that rather than use up at least three hours of our day on a guided tour, we will simply marvel at its beauty from the outside. And it really is beautiful, especially as you approach through the perfectly manicured neoclassical Sabatini Garden complete with miniature topiary mazes. As we wandered along the considerable length of the outside of the Palace, we were struck by how uncrowded it felt, a theme which repeated itself throughout the day. Madrid never feels too busy unlike other huge cities like London for example. I spent many years living in London as a young man and never felt it to be too claustrophobic, but now when I visit I find it exhausting due to how busy it feels, everywhere, and all the time. Madrid by contrast feels, well, almost breezy for lack of a better word.

As we breeze on past the Palace, we enter the Plaza de la Armeria and are faced with the equally epic facade of the Catedral de la Almudena. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this imposing building was pretty old, especially considering it’s proximity to the eighteenth century palace next door. But bizarrely this neo-gothic structure was only completed and consecrated under thirty years ago in 1993, following 110 years of stop-start work. There are some pretty cool gigantic 3-D solid bronze doors to the side of the cathedral which are worth a look.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog (good on you, this is quality stuff), you’ll know I’m a bit of a fan of a good food hall. And I know I’ve said it before, but the one here is a stonker! I had been told that it’s pretty hard to find crap food in Madrid, indeed it’s thought to be almost criminal to provide poor quality food. So I was expecting good things from the Mercado de San Miguel. This absolute temple to modern Spanish gastronomy is housed in a beautiful century old wrought iron building, and is host to around 20 stall holders with a shared commitment to producing epic tapas. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, because quality never is, especially in a capital city. But the real benefit of this particular food market is that everything is in tapas sized portions. So often when you visit a place like this it’s torturous trying to decide what to eat when everything looks so appealing. Well you don’t have to decide here. You can waft from one stall to another choosing whichever delicacy takes your fancy, until you eventually decide you’ve tried all you want to, or you simply can’t fit any more in. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t eat like this every day, I’d be even fatter than I currently am. But what a treat to be able to come here today, I love it. 

Our next stop is La Plaza Mayor, the main town square. Once home to the largest market in the city and the centre of life for 15th century Madrilenos, this impressive square surrounds a central statue of Felipe III on horseback. It is lined with restaurants and filled with entertainers and traders trying to make a buck. I use the terms “entertainers” and “traders” very loosely however. By traders I mean slightly dodgy looking gentlemen selling counterfeit goods on sheets laid out on the floor. These sheets have ropes attached to each corner constituting a pretty nifty fast-escape system should the lookouts warn they are about to be approached by the local Guardia Civil. And by entertainers, I mean the dishevelled and, to be honest, pretty filthy looking versions of popular childrens characters handing out rubbish balloon swords. We were immediately approached by one of these chancers, a decidedly shoddy looking Super Mario, who sauntered over and tried his luck. I told him politely that we weren’t interested, but he tried anyway (unsuccessfully) to force a balloon into Bams hand. He then proceeded to grab her (which I didn’t like) and started shouting “photo, photo!”. I repeated that we weren’t interested and told Bam to come away, but he persisted with his balloon based offerings, forcing me to become slightly firmer in my tone. He wouldn’t take no for an answer and absolutely insisted on me taking a photo. Righto, I thought, if he’s that desperate for me to take the photo then I’ll take the bloody photo and we’ll be on our way. ‘Click’. Right, come on them Bam, off we go. “Something for the photo” he shouts with his arm extended. Here it comes! I politely explained I didn’t want the photo, but he insisted over and over that I owed him for the photo. That’s it, you’ve done it now Mario. I proceeded to once again explain to him (cue pointing fingers and angry expressions) that I didn’t want his balloon and I had tried very hard to not take a photo of my daughter in his grubby clutches. “OK, delete photo” was his eventual response. A rally of expletives proceeded to involuntarily spew from my mouth explaining to Mario that I would not actually be deleting anything off my phone on his say so, and maybe he should very kindly bugger off now. Mario eventually seemed to accept that I would indeed be keeping the copy of the photo, and carried on about his day, as did we.

Puerto Del Sol was next on our walking tour of Madrid. This square in the middle of Madrid has a few things of interest that I wanted to see. The Zero Kilometre mark is pretty cool as it’s supposedly the centre of the city and therefore the centre of the country, and all Spanish roads are measured radially outwards from this point. There is also a very famous bronze statue here called El Oso Y El Madroño of a bear and a strawberry tree. This 20 ton statue is a real life representation of the 13th century Madrid coat of arms, and is a popular attraction for tourists. Unfortunately however, Puerto Del Sol is currently undergoing somewhat of a restoration and the entire square has been cordoned off, meaning we can’t actually see much at all. We did manage to glimpse the Bear from behind the fence, and the workman enjoying his siesta at the base with a rather suspicious looking cigarette hanging from his lip added an amusing twist to the photo evidence.

From here it is a walk straight down Calle de Alcala to see Cibeles fountain and the Cibeles Palace looming behind it. The view of this magnificent building with the fountain of Phrygian goddess Cybele has become an enduring symbol of Madrid. So much so that this is the spot where Real Madrid celebrate their victories by placing a team flag and scarf around the goddess herself. A short stroll south down the Paseo Del Prado brings you to Madrids golden triangle of art where the three famous museums of the Prado, the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen-Bornemisza are located. Seeing as how we are forcing the kids to spend all day walking around the city today, we figured we wouldn’t subject them to a gallery tour on top. A shame really, as the Prado houses Picasso’s Guernica among other impressive pieces. 

I had been told that the main shopping street that runs through town, Gran Via, is not to be missed. So that was to be our route back towards the other end of town. It certainly is very grand, famously being referred to as the Spanish broadway. The shopping isn’t really for me, but if you’re a fan of labels and upmarket fashion brands then you’ll be well catered for here. I’m perfectly happy ambling along and enjoying the impressive revivalist architecture on every corner.

Gran Via brings you all the way back to Plaza de Espana, and while the kids kill 15 minutes on the adventure playground allowing Kate a well earned sit-down, I have a quick look at the Cervantes Monument. This enormous monolith is dedicated to Spains most celebrated wordsmith, and besides the main statue dedicated to the man himself, it also includes several smaller statues dedicated to some of his characters. Most notable are the two bronze statues of his most recognisable characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

By this point everyone was starting to feel a bit jaded, but there was one more thing we needed to see before seeking some refreshment. Situated on a hilltop with views over the city below, Parque de la Montana is home to one of the more bizarre buildings in this city, the Temple of Debod. This ancient stone building began its life around 2200 years ago in Egypt, built by a Kushite king to honour the god Amun. When Egypt built the Aswan dam in the 1960s, this temple and many others forming the site at Abu Simbel were threatened with being submerged forever under the newly created lake. UNESCO called out for international help to relocate the entire complex, and as thanks for donating their help and resources several nations were gifted temples from the site to be located in their own cities. One of the nations gifted in this way was Spain who ended up with this awesome slice of Egyptian antiquity to adorn their capital city.

This park is also a perfectly lovely and peaceful place to explore, with fantastic far reaching views across the city and a unique view of the royal palace. It is also home to many artisans selling their home-made wares under the Spanish sun. We came across an interesting looking chap sat serenely behind a vintage typewriter, with a blackboard in front of him claiming he could write a bespoke poem should you furnish him with a theme to work on. What an awesome souvenir of our trip we thought, so we sauntered over and had a chat. Alvaro Piedelobo is a published poet who plys his trade around his home town of Madrid. He chooses to use the typewriter as the medium for his improvised poetry as a statement against the rapid consumption of modern art, and indeed modern life itself. The kids found it absolutely fascinating as I don’t think they’d ever even seen a typewriter before, let alone seen someone create a poem on one in front of them. I must say, the melodic clicking and clacking of the keys and seeing the words appear on the personalised stationary in front of us was pretty mesmerising. By the time Alvaro had finished his tome, he had attracted a crowd of young Spanish lads interested to see what was happening. He asked me if he could explain the theme to them before reading it out aloud. The theme we had given him was our trip, and I explained that the main idea was spending time together as a family. On asking the kids for their favourite things, Hunter explained that volcanos were his favourite, and Bam had enjoyed pasta in Italy the most. All these things had been expertly weaved into the most beautiful poem in his mother tongue of Spanish. The reading drew a well deserved round of applause and as the crowd dispersed Alvaro helped us with a translation, and Google assisted us in photo form for our records as you can see in the pics. This will definitely be framed and take pride of place on my wall at home.

After thanking and bidding farewell to Alvaro, we made our way to the Churreria, as promised earlier, for a well deserved sugar fix. We headed first for Chocolateria San Gines, the oldest and possibly most famous chocolateria in Madrid. This place has been serving churros and chocolate since 1894 and is amazingly open 24 hours a day, seven days a week! This reputation however means that the queue time can be huge during peak hours, as was the case on our visit. No matter, two minutes walk away is another family owned churreria, 1902, which has been trading for only 8 years less, funnily enough since 1902. Churros are crispy, deep fried, doughnut-esque treats, sprinkled with sugar and invariably served with thick decadent melted chocolate for dipping. They are surprisingly addictive and a Spanish staple. Hunter was straight in there, scoffing them down at a rate of knots. Bam wasn’t keen at first, she had protested how she didn’t like Churros the whole time we had been in Spain and refused to try them. Today she agreed (through gritted teeth and a disgusted grimace) to try one. As she gingerly nibbled a corner, a transcendent wave of pleasure made its way across her face as her eyes opened wide. It turns out that actually Bam did rather like churros (a lot), shock horror, so much so that we had to order seconds. If only she would have the same reaction to vegetables! 

Time to walk back to the train station now. As we wandered the sky started to turn a rather lovely shade of pink in the distance. As we approached the Royal Palace the sun was edging further and further towards the horizon, and the heavens began to light up in every imaginable shade of orange, red and pink in contrast with the bright azul of the Madrid sky. This glorious riot of colour was the perfect way to end the day. My watch informed me that we had walked about 23,000 steps during the day which equates to around 16 kilometres, a solid effort especially by the two little ones, but well worth it.