Today started off a little slower with a stroll around the nearby streets to find a coffee shop and an ATM. We managed to find both with minimal trouble and then got back to the hostel in time for a free 3 hour guided tour of the old city that is offered daily. Our tour guide, Erika, did an amazing job and taught us a lot about the city. One fun fact was about their iconic bear statue, El Oso y el Madroño, which shows a bear climbing up on a Madroño tree to eat its (fermented) fruit. She told us that this is very symbolic of Madrid because the bear climbs the tree for the fermented fruit until it becomes too drunk, so it takes a nap and then wakes up for more fruit. She also pointed out that the bear is a female which means that their icon is essentially a party girl.
After leaving the bear statue and the main square (which is not only is in the center of Madrid, but is also in the center of Spain), we continued to explore the city and learned about where to find the best (and oldest) churro spot, the best squid sandwich, and the best paella. We also learned a lot about Madrid’s history including details about their civil war which left bullet marks in all of the buildings, the Black Plague, and about the origin of sangria and tapas. The tour also took us to see a few of the most famous plazas, the Royal Palace (which the king was inside of at the time), and amazing views of the mountains.
When the tour ended, we took the suggestion of our tour guide and went to a nearby tapas restaurant. It ended up being more expensive than we expected so we only ordered 2 tapas to share. The first was a smoked burrata and the second was a pastrami sandwich. We both preferred the burrata, but they were both very good. After lunch, we were still a little bit hungry so we headed back to the best churro restaurant in the city and ordered their churro with chocolate special. It came with 6 churros and a glass of very thick hot chocolate to dip in. We loved it and could understand how they made it to be the oldest churro shop in Madrid.
Our next stop was to Primark, a huge department store that we were told has excellent prices. It was something very different see and we had fun wandering through 5 floors of clothes and other things, daydreaming about how much we could get if only we had an extra empty suitcase to fill.
We took a quick detour to the hostel to drop off the few things we did buy before heading back out to the Prado museum. The museum was a lot of fun and we had a great time looking at the art that we saw, but we didn’t quite get through everything before they started getting ready to close. It ended to being for the best because we were very ready for dinner. We decided today was the perfect day for a casual dinner so we stopped at Lidl on the way to the hostel and picked up some bread, cheese, salami, raspberries, garlic spread, lemonade, and yogurts that we ate back at the hostel.
4 thoughts on “History and churros”
You two are amazing to faithfully write the blog and share photos after your action-packed days! Thank you.
I love that the hostel offers daily tours. (In English?) So much fun! The king didn’t invite you in?
Yes, the tours are in English. They have a couple different ones that they offer, but that one sounded the most interesting to us. The king actually had extra security to keep us out, but we will go see the palace today!
You had me at “History” 🙂 Looks like another solid day of fun. I want to be that party girl bear
Comments are closed.