Back To Madrid

Since our flight out of Madrid back to Dulles was at noon on Monday, we trained back from Valencia to Madrid on Sunday, giving us Sunday afternoon to do some things in Madrid.  Fittingly, our train from Valencia left from the Joaquin Sorolla station.

After Metro'ing from the Chamartin train station in Madrid, we were happy to get back to the Aloft Madrid Gran Via and end up in the same large room we had spent the first two nights at the beginning of the trip.  It wasn't a suite or anything, but it was larger than most of the rooms in the hotel because of the layout of the building.

We then headed back up to Sorolla museum so that we could take pictures and video of the beautiful fountain in the garden of the house.  Since the garden is open from the front gate, we didn't have to buy tickets.  We have this crazy idea of having a similar fountain put in our backyard in place of the current never-ending stream, which doesn't work that well.  Well, it's only an idea unless the price to do it is not outrageous.  We'll see what happens.

Back at the hotel, we decided to do the Gran Via walk, which included a stop in a very cool cocktail bar.  Gran Via has wonderful architecture all along it.  This was a good way to end our sightseeing in Madrid.

Madrid city hall.

Bar Chicote

Along Gran Via. . .

At the suggestion of our neighbor and friend Jeff Farrah, we had our last dinner at Celso Y Manolo, which turned out to be one of my favorite meals of the trip.  A small tapas place off the beaten path, the food and atmosphere was delicious.  

We ended up talking to a couple from Marietta, Georgia, seated at the table next to ours.  They were in the early stages of a 53 day tour through Spain, Provence, Italy, and Switzerland.  Wow.  Not sure even the Iron Tourist could do that long of a trip.

We had the CHULETÓN DE TOMATE® CON 6 COSAS RICAS, which is the biggest tomato we've ever had before.  It's tomato with avocado, papaya, seasonal fruit, red onion, cucumber, pine nuts from San Esteban, organic olive oil from Siurana and fresh herbs.  We had a platter of JAMON DEL BUENO, the CA ZUELITA MARINER A 'CUDILLERO' which is octopus, clams and mussels, with crunchy potatoes, and finished with CHURRASQUITO, which is organic veal churrasco with chimichurri sauce.  Every dish was delicious, and I would highly recommend getting reservations!