Our flight from Barcelona to Madrid was easy and uneventful. Vueling offered the same tiny seats and low fare we have come to expect. Once in Madrid we found the Metro with little difficutly and were at our hostal within about 40 minutes.
Hostal Cervelo (formerly Hostal Martin) isn't bad. I would use the word, adequate to describe it. The ground level is under contruction which scared me at first, but the Hostal is one floor up and not really effected. Our room isn't bad, though the balcony overlooking the street has three layers of doors and we can still hear the street life. They gave us the room next to the office which is convenient but it means we also hear them chat all night. The price is good and the overall location convenient so we will set our iPhone to play waves all night and enjoy.
By the time we were settled it was 6:30pm and day light was leaving. So we stopped for Churros and Chocolate (as seen in the previous post) and then departed in search of food.
We decided to hunt down La Barraca, a restaurant that Samantha Brown said has the best Paella. We arrived around 9pm only to be told that they were booked but could give us a reservation for 10:30. We said "vale" - okay.
In the mean time we found tapas at Artesnia Iberica at the corner of Calle del Infante and Calle del Leon. The tapas were delicious, the wine delightful and the "cuenta" - bill - shocking, only 10 Euros for two tapas and two glasses of amazing wine.
Back to La Barraca and we were not disappointed here either. They were much nicer the second time around. We had a bottle of white wine for 10 Euros and split a Valencia Paella which is chicken and rabbit in rice with saffron. We had Paella in Barcelona but just weren't impressed, this was a completely different experience. It's like it was an entirely different dish. We were very glad we decided to go back.
I have to say that I get the distinct feeling that tourists aren't welcomed in Madrid. People have been very resistent to help, very few speak English (which is okay) and even less are willing to be patient with us while we try to communicate using our limited Spanish (which is not okay). Today was a long day though, we're hoping that tomorrow is better.
Tomorrow - El Prado y Parque de el Retiro and more Churros!
Hi our friends,
ReplyDeleteWe celebrate you liked churros and chocolate and principally, you enjoyed a good paella. We hope you find nicer people tomorrow when you need them. We don't know if when you can see the south of Spain you are going to enjoy more or less than Madrid or Barcelona, but definitively it's more probably you find nice people here. People in the south has a very open nature. However, we wish you both enjoy the fullest. By the way, you can see in Museo del Prado a exhibition about Rembrandt.
Kisses and hugs from all of us.
We are sure that nicer people exist in the south because in the south we will meet you!
ReplyDeleteMadrid has not been all bad, we found nice people on occasion. I think that part of the problem is that we miss our own bed.
We hope all is well in Cordoba.