Today's pictures are all about food because today was largely about food though there was also art and murder and mayhem. But I've only pics of food.
We started our first full day in Madrid by getting out of the somewhat depressing apartment to do Rick Steves' Madrid walk. Steves is good at hitting the major sites and sharing his thoughts though as I learn more I don't always agree with some of his choices.
As we approach each site we stop to look around and then read the text. While we'd already seen two, Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor, as they are just short blocks from the apartment, we revisited them to learn more about their history. And there is a lot of history here, under foot and all around. It's the same story we will hear over and over again, Visigoths, Moors, Christians, battles, inquisition, torture, heathens made to convert, Jews killed, blah, blah, blah, the oh-too-familiar story of humans behaving badly. In fact, the same story is still playing today.
Along the walk we purchased a bag of simple cookies (10€) from the cloistered nuns at the convent of Corpus Christi. You ring a bell, are buzzed in, then wander until you find an old wooden lazy Susan embedded in a wall. No one speaks English - more common in Spain than in Portugal, we will find - but somehow we managed to place an order. The cookies were simple and a bit dry.
Lunch is at a great find, the wonderful but super crowded tapas market Mercado de San Miguel. A gold star to Rick Steves for including this place.
The highlight this afternoon was seeing the room-filling ominous Guernica at the Reina Sofia, one of Madrid's big three museums. It is across the street from Atocha station. While there we also saw a number of works from artists such as Dali, Picasso and Miro.
Pastries
8 Oct 2015 10:56
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 560
1000 x 667
471 kb
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Pastries
8 Oct 2015 10:56
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 560
1000 x 667
471 kb
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Pastries
8 Oct 2015 10:56
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 560
1000 x 667
471 kb
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Meat and wine
8 Oct 2015 11:07
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 5000
1000 x 667
456 kb
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Meat and wine
8 Oct 2015 11:07
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 5000
1000 x 667
456 kb
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Meat and wine
8 Oct 2015 11:07
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/250s ISO 5000
1000 x 667
456 kb
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Olives at tapas bar
8 Oct 2015 11:33
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/4.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
444 kb
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Olives at tapas bar
8 Oct 2015 11:33
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/4.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
444 kb
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Olives at tapas bar
8 Oct 2015 11:33
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/4.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
444 kb
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Mercado de San Miguel tapas
8 Oct 2015 11:36
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
391 kb
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Mercado de San Miguel tapas
8 Oct 2015 11:36
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
391 kb
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Mercado de San Miguel tapas
8 Oct 2015 11:36
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/60s ISO 100
1000 x 667
391 kb
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Ring for cloistered nuns' cookies
8 Oct 2015 11:44
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/50s ISO 110
667 x 1000
330 kb
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Ring the bell, wait to be buzzed in, wander over to the window, then buy some ok cookies via a sliding panel.
Ring for cloistered nuns' cookies
8 Oct 2015 11:44
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/50s ISO 110
667 x 1000
330 kb
Show Hide
Ring the bell, wait to be buzzed in, wander over to the window, then buy some ok cookies via a sliding panel.
Ring for cloistered nuns' cookies
8 Oct 2015 11:44
Madrid
D800e 24-120 24mm f/8.0 1/50s ISO 110
667 x 1000
330 kb
Show Hide
Ring the bell, wait to be buzzed in, wander over to the window, then buy some ok cookies via a sliding panel.
