Since we returned home a week ago, the daily pressure to keep up the journal is off. It’s too easy to get distracted by all the activities of regular life. I have just a few days left to add here, and whenever I can turn my brain back to relive them, it's wonderful to be back in Spain. This day, the second of our three day stay in Madrid, exceeded our expectations for fun on the bike in the big city.
In the morning we let the professionals lead us around for a change, meeting up with a small group for a TIM-Bikes tour of Madrid. David, our guide, is a history professor and the fastest talker of any non-native English speaker I've ever heard. While my ears struggled to keep up with his rapid fire narrative on the history, architecture and gastronomy of Madrid, we enjoyed the speed-sightseeing tour and his stream of tidbits.
One nugget was about paella. David affirmed what we'd heard, that the version we had in Valencia with rabbit is the most authentic form of the dish. It makes use of the abundant bunny population. In fact, Hispania, the Roman name for Iberia, means Land of Rabbits.
Starting off near the Plaza Mayor, there are still no bike lanes in sight, but the traffic on these smaller streets moves slowly and it's fine.
At the Plaza de la Armeria we stopped to take in the Royal Palace of Spain. David offered another origin story for the Spanish flag. In the 18th century the flag was white with a red cross of Burgundy. King Charles III thought it looked too much like the British flag and introduced the red and gold colors for the Navy to set the Spanish flag apart. Sounds like a more legit story than the one about the blood on the gold sand of the bullring.
The Spanish flag flies above the largest royal palace in Western Europe, with its 3,418 rooms spread over 135,000 square meters.
From the palace we rode on to Plaza Mayor, once the center of Madrid and the scene of bullfights and jousting tournaments in years past. During the Spanish Inquisition the square was a public theater for trial and execution by garrote of people accused of heresy.
Casa de la Panaderia in Plaza Mayor, another artifact from the Habsburg dynasty.
Our next stop was the Barrio de las Letras - the literary quarter of Madrid. It was here that Miguel de Cervantes penned Don Quixote, published in 1605.Cervantes' success as a writer came late in life. As a young man he served in the navy during the Ottoman-Spanish war, losing the use of his left arm in the Battle of Lepanto. He was captured by pirates and enslaved in North Africa for a time, then served as a spy in the court of Phillip II.
Cervantes claimed to have written over 20 plays based on his experiences in captivity but couldn't make a living at it. Don Quixote, his first real success, is considered the first modern novel for its realistic representation of everyday life, and one of the greatest novels of all time. How have I not read this before? It's next up on my reading list.
From the Barrio we rode east toward El Retiro Park where Barry and I spent the afternoon the day before, with a few stops on the way.
Our guide David at the house where Miguel de Cervantes wrote Don Quixote
Janice BranhamTo Scott AndersonI read that it has more than 15,000 species of plants. I wonder how long they last into the winter. They sure looked healthy when we were there. Reply to this comment 5 months ago
David recommended Iglesia de San Jerónimo el Real, just west of El Retiro Park as more worthy of attention than the national cathedral. Built by the Catholic Monarchs in the early 16th century as a monastery and royal retreat, the gothic church has been the site of many royal weddings.
We missed this one on our walk through the park the day before. The Fountain of the Fallen Angel, the only known public statue of the devil, stands at a height of 666 meters above sea level.
On the way back from the park we ride by Palacio de Cibeles, a Modernist landmark of the early 20th century named for the Greek goddess. Originally the postal system headquarters, it's now City Hall.
In the Puerta del Sol, a stone slab in front of the Royal Post Office marks the position of kilometer zero, the geographic center of Spain from which six roads fan out in all directions.
The Bear and the Madroño tree, a symbol of the city of Madrid in the Puerta del Sol. Both species were abundant in this region when Madrid was founded in the Middle Ages.
Whew, that was a lot of tour for 7 miles, but we hadn't had quite enough bicycling for the day. I asked David about the best places to ride around Madrid. His recommendation: head west across the Manzanares River to the Casa de Campo for an adventure in the forest. We took his advice and had the best time riding there in the afternoon.
Casa de Campo is huge - about five times the size of New York's Central Park. It was mostly empty on this day, just us and a few other cyclists, and the sun came out. We had an absolute joyride here on a little bit of everything from paved paths to gravel roads and bouncy ruts in the woods.
For a little sustenance before our adventure in the woods, we stopped at La Taberna de Ramales, another of David's recommendations. They served up the best tapas of our six weeks in Spain here. So good.
Janice BranhamTo Rachael AndersonThe whole park was great for biking. We were so happy to get one more good ride in before we had to leave. Reply to this comment 5 months ago
The bike paths continued on the way back to within a mile of our hotel as we rode through a series of linear parks. Near the end we ran into a detour where the streets around our hotel were closed for a protest march. Protests have been held in provincial capitals all over Spain this week. The beef is over a plan of prime minister Pedro Sanchez, head of the Socialist party, to grant amnesty to Catalan separatists who fled the country after a failed secession attempt in 2017.
The protest was peaceful and the Policia seemed to have matters well in hand, but the detour spit us back out on a busy boulevard. It wasn't as daunting as our trip in to the hotel from the train the day before, just a little challenge to spice up the ride.
Back at the hotel we appealed to the receptionist to let us take the bikes up to our room to pack them for the trip home. He was doubtful that they would fit in the elevator, but the mighty folders go anywhere.
Just enough space in our little room to get the job done.
For dinner we went to Pampa Beef, one of the Argentinian steak houses in the Barrio de las Letras near the hotel. It was my first steak of the trip, and the last of who knows how many for Barry. Both were grilled perfectly and made a satisfying end to a great day on the bike.
Today's ride: 27 miles (43 km) Total: 981 miles (1,579 km)
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Scott AndersonWe should go back! We were here 25 years ago and I’ve never been tempted to return because it was so difficult to escape on a bike. Reply to this comment 5 months ago
Janice BranhamI was surprised how nice the bike facilities were outside the historic center, especially on the west side of the river. Reply to this comment 5 months ago
