June 16 – June 30, 2018
I can’t believe summer is already here and it’s time to start thinking about going back to New York to visit family in a month. We really wanted to stay in Asia but the weather is not ideal so we decided to make the best of it by spliting up the long haul back and stopping in Spain for a month.
We flew Finnair from Bangkok to Helsinki then to Madrid. For the first week we rented a 1 bedroom apartment with 2 small balconies overlooking a bustling street right in the center of Madrid near Puerta del Sol, the perfect location to explore. We spent our days walking around the city either taking the baby to a park or going to a market for iberico, cheese, bread, olives and wine for lunch at home. After spending so much time on the chaotic streets of a Bangkok, it was such a pleasure to be in a pedestrian friendly city surrounded by beautiful architecture.
My favorite market was Mercado de Maravillas which is a large market with 200 stalls selling meat, seafood, produce, cheese, bread, and more. Everything looked amazing and what we tried tasted so delicious. There was one vendor with a large selection of fish and shellfish displayed so beautifully that I was in awe. Another vendor I loved was selling a large assortment of cheese and he was so friendly that even with a language barrier we were able to talk about Spain and he helped us select our cheese. Then to top it off there was a vendor selling delicious, soft gummy candy of all different flavors.
There are a number of parks in Madrid but El Retiro Park was the flagship park and it stood up to its name. It is a beautiful, enormous park with tons of trees, a man made lake, playgrounds, fountains, restaurants, rose garden, a beautiful building made of glass and lots of places to walk around and sit.
In the evenings we would hang out in the apartment then head out for an early dinner around 8:30 pm, this is Spain where locals eat after 9:30 pm. There are an abundant amount of enticing restaurants and bars to choose from but Casa Lucas won us over and we went twice! Their fried octopus wrapped in bacon with squid ink mousse is delectable and so unique. It was so tender and the mousse complimented the saltiness perfectly. A second memorable restaurant was Chocolateria San Gines for churros and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was so rich and thick, it seemed more like a warm pudding. It seemed that every time we ate, it was so yummy we were always gushing about it and looking forward to our next meal.
After the first week we moved to a different apartment just on the outskirts of the city center across from the famous bull fighting ring Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas. Although it was a small 1 bedroom we still had everything we needed with the bonus of a large balcony facing the plaza. The area was not filled with tourists and it gave us an opportunity to live more like the locals. We spent a few mornings just relaxing on the balcony and enjoyed a couple of dinners at home out there after the hot sun lowered behind the nearby buildings.
Since we were in a Madrid I wanted to go to at least 1 museum so we went to Museo Nacional Del Prado, the main Spanish national art museum considered one of the world’s finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century. We got there when it opened and it was already a mad house but we went ahead and explored it for a couple of hours. As we wandered around the countless rooms filled with art work the baby stayed happy by playing on his iPad sitting in his stroller. The collection consisted of paintings, sketches, furniture, and head stones. It was fascinating to see paintings from the 12th century and how much detail went into their sketches before creating the actual final painting.
During our 2 weeks in Madrid we devoured a tremendous amount of scrumptious food and wine, saw remarkable architecture and paintings, and cherished the long sunny days. It swiftly came to an end but we were not done with Spain, we were going on a road trip through northern Spain for the next 2 weeks!
