Partying in Madrid - September 13 - 14

  Madrid, Spain
Saturday, September 15, 2007

Complete change of scenery, we finally hit a city in Spain.  I heard before we left for Europe that Madrid was good for partying, art museums and just an overall sprawling metropolis that is a little daunting on the map to navigate but nonetheless it was easy to get around.
 
Rob's is not really keen on art, but he agrees the museums are definitely worth the visit.
 
Musuem Thyssen Bornemisza had a wide variety of art works from many different eras. All displayed in chronological order dating back from the medieval religious to the modern works of cubism and pop art.
 
Museum El Prado had the world's finest collection of art, including Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian and German. These art works had been dated from the 12th to the 18th century.  Goya's famous painting Maja Desnuda and Maja Vestida are found in this museum, it was worth the look after knowing the legend behind the portraits.
 
Museum Reina Sofia was a particular favourite of ours. It contained a lot of modern art. The museum had dedicated wing devoted to Picasso and is also the home of Picasso's famous Guernica,. I was gob smacked to see how huge this painting was. Salvador Dali's El Gran Masturbador and Joan Miro's works were refreshing to see.
 
As we headed off we decided to drop into the Parque del Buen Retiro which is very popular with joggers and families and a great break from the chaos of the city. The park is designed with well manicured gardens and statues.
 
 
It was 11pm when we finally decided to head out again which was fine in Madrid, we  headed for Plaza de Santa Ana which was full of diners and some awesome street performers, who would have thought of eating dinner at 11pm.  The Plaza was full of people, the place was pumping. 
 
The hotel was in a very convenient location which meant we were in the thick of the city so dinning out, night clubs, bars, cafes were just a stroll away.
 

 September 14, 2007 Madrid
 
After a nice sleep in we ventured towards Palacio Real but not without dropping into Plaza Mayor this is the oldest city quarter with its many cafes and interesting shops. Arriving at Palacio Real (King Juan Carlos I official residence) we explored the amazing palace and its surrounding gardens.
 
Taking a stroll a little further we found ourselves lost in the maze gardens (Not really lost considering the scrubs were at knee level). These gardens we so carefully designed trimmed and so well maintained scrubs it was unbelievable.
 
We then jumped on a train to Plaza de Torres Las Ventas, Madrid bull fighting ring. The Plaza is the largest ring in the bullfighting world. The queues were filled with people already purchasing there tickets for the Sunday's match.
 
To continue with the bull fighting vibe we found ourselves eating dinner in a restaurant called Torrorines. The restaurants walls were filled with stuffed bull heads with a plaque providing details of the bulls.  Many of the bulls heads displayed on the wall were bigger that 500kg.
 
Knowing it was our last night in Spain, we decided to checkout the night life.  We read in the Lonely Planet which had a rooftop bar on top of Hotel Urban had great views of Madrid and decided to check it out.  We started off in the hotels lobby bar, called the Glass bar, where the theme of the bar carried out the name of the bar.  After finishing off our 15 euro cocktails, we headed for the top floor and didn't find anything special.  Probably biased, Sydney's rooftop bars are much better, so we left after 5 minutes.
 
It was still only midnight, and we had flight out in 4 hours time...we decided to kick on, and went back to Santa Ana, where all the bars and clubs are.  We went club hopping, because when we walked the streets, we were continually offered a free drink upon entering the bar.... we couldn't pass it up.  I lost count of how many clubs we ended up going into.
 
We went back to our hotel at 2am and tried to get some sleep before our 5:45am flight out to Paris.