Madrid

As much as we love Spain, our time in Madrid was pretty much just a bounce off to the rest of Europe. We were there for only about 72 hours, so this will be brief. We took a red-eye from Bogota to Madrid on the luxury airline Plus Ultra. You haven’t heard of it? Well, neither had we and the 1.5 star average Google review did not settle our anxieties. But, the flight went smoothly (with a surprise extra 2-hour stop-over in Cartagena…)

We feared the jet lag as we entered Europe and our first night was admittedly rough but we did recoup for two active days in Madrid. We performed the time-honored tradition of an American visiting Europe where we stood in awe on every street corner admiring the centuries-old buildings, the professional musicians disguised as street buskers, the busy sidewalk bistros, and we joined our Spaniard companions in soaking up the early April spring sunlight on the street patios.

We walked to the iconic Madrid points of Plaza de Oriente, Almudena Cathedral, Plaza Mayor, and Puerto del Sol. We walked through El Retiro Park which was a huge area with a lovely lake, lounge chairs, and musicians playing jazz. We also visited the Reina Sofia museum which is where Guernica by Picasso is featured. It was a massive and impressive painting and seemed surprisingly timely in its imagery of the horrors of war fought with modern technology.

Coming from South America, probably the thing that struck us most about getting to Europe was just how easy everything seemed to be now. There were times in South America where everything felt like a struggle. Now, we had storefronts with signs and clear hours of service, grocery stores with fresh produce, clean metro stations and self-serve laundromats! Madrid was a like a tapas late of Europe, it had a little bit of everything and we are ready for more.