The real Madrid! A fiery finale to sublime first visit
WITH his curly waxed moustache, he looked like an early 20th-Century villain, but Steven could not have been a more courteous chauffeur. In his tiny, vintage Seat 600 we bowled along avenues, tootled round monuments and nipped through narrow alleys on a whistlestop tour.
For this first-timer in Madrid, it was the perfect introduction to the city as he pointed out the Prado museum, Retiro Park, the Alcala Gate, Cibeles fountain, Cervantes’s house in Barrio de Las Letras, the old literary quarter, the hefty Royal Palace and Cathedral.
By the time we arrived back at my hotel, I was ready to strike out on my own. A five-minute walk from the doors of the new Only You Hotel Atocha brought me to the Reina Sofia national art museum, where a glass lift took me up to see Picasso’s vast anti-war painting, Guernica, set in its own gallery after nearly 45 years touring the world. My return route to the hotel was through Atocha railway station, with an elegant wrought-
iron roof (Gustave Eiffel had a hand in thedesign) big enough to contain a tropicalrainforest. Comeevening, Madrid’s night life to us. The hotel’s court-yard is the place for Thursday night jazz, with cocktails and tapas included in the price. Exploring the little shops and bars of old Barrio de Las Letraswith my poor Spanish would have been very hitand miss with-out a guiding angel. Jo Wivell, anEnglish woman who has lived in Madrid for 17 years, and gives Insider’s Madrid walkingtours. With Jo leading the way, beaming barmen, chefs, shopkeepers and crafts people welcomed us in. IsawErnest Hemingway’s favourite table in Botin, which has been serving suckling pigs from a wood-fired oven for nearly 300 years, and tried on a cape in Sesena, cape-maker to kings, opera-singers and Michael Jackson.
That evening Is at so close to theperformersinCorral de la Moreriaflamenco club that Icould see the sweat and tears as th y bared theirsoulsandstamped their feet. A fiery finale to a fab first taste of Madrid.