Madrid day 2 - Feb 2018

Another fun-packed day in Madrid is over and we're home first thing in the morning. Up and out at 430 what?

Our day started with a visit to the traditional churros/porras joint San Ginés. Open since 1894, open 24 hours and well worth a visit. We got porras para dos, mine with chocolate and K's with Cola Cao (children's hot chocolate). We got 2 each and they were MASSIVE and delicious.

Set up for the day we headed for the tube via El Corte cos K has an actual shopping problem. We hopped on the tube up to Faro de Moncloa an amazing view point that is only €3 to visit. The views were incredible as it was a super clear day, apparently we could see up to 100 km! This is a "must see" when in Madrid as far as I'm concerned.

Next we went a wee wander through the hipster area of Malasaña, we tried to get a refresco but they forgot about us :(

We visited the Museu ABC which was free and AMAZING! There was an exhibition about the history of comics, an art deco exhibition as well as a couple more wee ones. We absolutely loved it. I will say that everything was in Spanish so you should take a K with you to translate.

We wandered about a bit more then went for lunch at a Chilean cafe called San Wich. They specialise in Chilean sandwiches - geddit? We both got the menu del dia which was only €11. K got vegetable ceviche to start and I got a chickpea salad. Both were delicious and K is still going on about her's hours later. For main we both got beef and chips, the beef was delicious kinda like a Chilean pot roast I guess. The desserts were tiny thankfully - I got a lemon pie in a shot glass and K got a dulce de leche mousse.

Our next stop was Mercado de San Ildefonso which is like a really cool food market. Almost like a hipster version of a food hall I guess. The food looked incredible but we were too full so we just chilled with some beers.

We wandered through Chueca afterwards and the highlight was one of the many gay gift shops where we bought a wee something to put away for Stevo's birthday. It was run by an older lesbian with a mullet, she was great!

We wandered back to Sol where we stopped for our merienda at La Mallorquina - a very popular bakery with upstairs salon. We were lucky to get a table cos it was rammed, by locals not tourists mostly. You can tell it is good if it makes locals brave the mentalness of Sol. Puerta del Sol is the most touristy bit of Madrid, we hadn't really seen that many tourists til we got back. It is full of human statues and people in costume that you can get your photo with. K was tempted by Mr Bean!

We went to Museo del Jamon to buy jamon rolls for breakfast on the plane and ended up staying for beers. 300ml of beer each with a wee free plate of sausages to share was only €1.80! Amazing!

After that we came back to the room to chill for a wee bit before dinner. We had the balcony doors open so we could hear the pumping tunes from the office party across the way. Party time!

Post-chill we headed back out. Unfortunately, neither of us were very hungry so the planned tapas crawl was cancelled. We went to a lovely rustic but somehow modern feeling bar called Matador. They brought us a couple of free slices of tuna empanada with our drinks, K got to handle that on her own. We decided to get a half racion of jamon iberica cos we hadn't had any this break. A massive plate was put on the table and we were worried they had accidentally given us a full racion but when the bill came it was apparently only a half portion! The ham was delicious, I'm glad we had loads. We stayed there for a wee bit, ordering more drinks etc.

We were pretty tired at that stage, and pretty full but we wanted to at least go to one other place before calling it a night. We passed a bar called Taberna Andaluza Restaurante El Rincón de Cardeña, it was rammed which is always a good sign so we had a look at the menu. There was steak with padron peppers, which were both of the things we'd been talking about fancying, so we went in. There were no seats in the bar so the waiter lead us to quite a fancy restaurant area. We explained we only wanted to share one thing and he said that was fine so we sat down. The steak and peppers was only €15 so we didn't expect it to be that big - we were wrong! A giant sizzling platter with a thick steak, chips and padron peppers appeared. It was incredible. A steak that size would easily set you back £25 at home.

Post-steak we just headed back to the room. We've got to be up soon :(