We woke up and found everyone here! Yeah! It was fantastic to walk into the breakfast room downstairs in our hotel and see the whole gang. We hadn’t seen Jamie and Steve since they left for the airport in Norway in June, and we hadn’t seen Mike and Cathy since we sailed from Montreal to Miami a year ago this month.

I want to say right up front that the Hotel Preciados serves a fabulous breakfast. It’s just amazing. I could just eat the bread and the incredible jambon ham. Put that together with the outstanding coffee, and I was in breakfast heaven.

After we all got caught up and fed up, we decided what to do yesterday. Mike and I (as your tour planners) had decided to go light on day one since we would all be a little jet-lagged. The only thing we had scheduled was lunch at Botin Restaurant—the world’s oldest, continuously operating restaurant. Really. They have operated under the same family’s ownership since 1725. The building has been there since 1590 (Isn’t Europe glorious). Their other claim to fame is that the wood-burning ovens they use to make their signature roast suckling pig have never gone out during that entire time. This might be an excellent time to show you our food pics from yesterday (with captions, of course). It is OK to look at these on your phone because I took them with mine ?. This is all of them, from the few at breakfast to the incredible lunch to the tapas Mike, Cathy, and I had to finish off the day.

Once we were done with breakfast, there wasn’t much to do anyway as the skies had opened up, and the torrential downpour Mike and Cathy had experienced the day before while transitioning planes in Lisbon finally got to Madrid. It just poured!  So far, the only thing I have forgotten is a small waterproof bag I use to shield my camera when wet. So before lunch, I wandered off to find a Googled photo store to see if they had something to keep my camera dry. I never found an actual camera store, but I found just about everything else in a nine-story department store. I settled for some small draw-string trash bags that should do the job.

After that, it was almost time to head to lunch (which I have already described), so we did that. Most of the group walked the mile or so to Bodin, but with Kathleen’s bad knee, she and I decided to take an Uber. The only problem is that yesterday was a national holiday in Spain and there were parades, crowds and traffic jams everywhere. (MASSIVE PET PEEVE: The Uber app says the ride is five minutes away. The Uber driver who accepts rides that are actually 15 minutes away and not moving.) We waited for almost half an hour before we gave up, canceled the Uber and got a Bolt (European rideshare company) that was there to get us in two minutes. But we made it, and that is all that matters.

After lunch, we sent Kathleen back to the hotel in another Bolt (lots more of those, so I will be sticking with Bolt in Madrid), and the rest of us went off to walk around the city for a couple of hours. We started at Plaza Mayor, which looked like it would have been very cool if there hadn’t been a big stage for a concert that afternoon. Hopefully, it will be gone when we return to our Madrid walking tour on Monday. After that, we walked down to the Madrid cathedral and palace. And, of course, on this walk, I took a lot of photos, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After our walk back, I reviewed photos until Mike and Cathy asked if we wanted to go out for tapas and a drink. Kathleen and Jamie decided they were done for the day, but the rest of us headed out and found a cool tapas place about a block away. Steve decided he was just too tired and not hungry enough, so he headed back. Mike, Cathy, and I had a marvelous time trying their food, and we drank a glass of Madrid’s favorite drink, vermouth. Photos of the food are above in the food gallery. After the tapas, Mike and Cathy went out to explore. On the other hand, I returned to the room to check in on Kathleen, changed into my walking stuff, and headed out to take photos. I wanted to get a sunset shot of the Temple of Debod. This is a complete Egyptian temple (built in the second century BC) that the Egyptian government gave as a gift to the city of Madrid to save it from being submerged when they built the Aswan dam in the 1960s. It was truly beautiful. On the way there and back, I got some photos I am very happy with. Here’s the place where you can check them out. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

I want to make one last point about Madrid (and most other European cities we have visited). These cities are ALIVE! At night the populace is outdoors, walking around, eating, drinking, listening to music on the street…just living. In all our travels, I have found nowhere like this in the US except New York City and maybe Las Vegas. And the living goes on late. Last night was Saturday and we could hear crowds in the street below our hotel still going strong at 1:00 am. It’s phenomenal. Of course, they don’t eat dinner until 10:00 pm, so they have to stay up that late to digest their food ?.

Madrid is what I call home, but also the States.  —Penelope Cruz