Spain- Part 1 (Madrid)

 For Spring Break this year we decided to go to Spain! We narrowed it down to Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona for this trip and we managed to do the whole 10 day trip with only carry-on baggage and public transportation!

It was cheapest to fly in and out of Barcelona, so we started there but went straight to the train station to go to Madrid.  It would have saved us time to fly directly to Madrid instead, but oh well!

Day one:

So the first day was really mostly travel.  Fly to Barcelona, train to Madrid.  We arrived in Madrid in the late afternoon so we planned to go out and get dinner, but we had a bit of frustration getting into our AirBnb so we decided to just take it easy for the evening.  Aaron and Andrew went out to get a few groceries and picked up burritos (which were delicious!)

Day two:

After a quick stop at Mercado San Anton (not much is open in there first thing in the morning so we were really just checking it out) we took a stroll down Gran Via for some shopping! Of course we had to stop at Primark, which is in a super impressive old building.

After a couple quick stops at the Palacio de Cibeles and the Puerta de Alcala...

We spent the afternoon at Retiro Park.  The Crystal Palace was closed, but we still stopped by to see it and enjoyed seeing the ducks on the pond and exploring the gardens.

We got some traditional Spanish food for dinner and it was delicious, but unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures!

Day three:

We walked around a bit in the morning, visiting Plaza del Sol and Plaza Mayor.  We visited the cloistered nuns at the Monasterio del Corpus Christi to buy some lemon shortbread cookies (you have to know where to look for this, it's not a super publicized thing but the biscuits are delicious and it's a cool experience! We got the info here).

We stopped at the churches of San Isidro and the Basilica de San Francisco el Grande. Both gorgeous, and we especially liked the basilica with its large dome and statues of the 12 disciples. 

Our big thing for the day was visiting the Royal Palace.  (My big tip is to buy your timed entry tickets ahead of time!  The line for those needing tickets went down the street, and we were able to bypass that and go right in because we had our tickets already.  Don't waste your time in line!) You have to go through security to get in the gated area and those security guards didn't have a lot of patience so make sure you have all your things ready to go through the scanner.

The palace is gorgeous, and there are signs with info in each room in both English and Spanish. They have instruments by Antonio Stradivari, beautiful decor, statues, a grand staircase, and incredible chandeliers! (You can't take bags into the palace.  There are free lockers just after coming in the gate, in the same place you can get audioguides.  If you have a stroller though, there are larger lockers inside the actual palace entry, which fit our umbrella stroller just fine.  Bring a baby carrier or wrap to use after you lock up the stroller.)

We were all starving by the time we finished at the palace so we headed over to the food market! Mercado de San Miguel was very crowded but they had some great food options.  I got some little taco bowls, the boys got personal pizzas, Mackenzie had a hot dog, and Aaron got shrimp paella.

For our lunch dessert we went over to Chocolateria San Gines for some churros con chocolate.  There was a line to get in (they also have a takeaway window) but it was worth the wait! So delicious! It's also just a fun place to go- the inside is decorated with pictures of famous people who have eaten there over the years.

We spent the rest of the day walking around and souvenir shopping until we were ready to call it a day. We needed some time in the evening to pack up our things again for our day four morning train to Valencia!

Part 2 here!

Part 3 here!