Not Your Mom’s Madrid

If you’ve been to Madrid before, you’ve probably visited the royal palace, some beautiful plazas, and the many other great tourist attractions this city has to offer. Of the handful of European capitals that I’ve been to before, I would suggest that Madrid’s features are some of the most resplendent and memorable. But the world does not need another blog post about the obvious appeals of this Spanish city. Hence, I offer you here five other things to do when in Madrid.

The unique decor of Zombie Bar

1. Explore the “Brooklyn” of Madrid

It is well known, apparently, that Chueca is the hippest neighborhood in Brookl-I-mean-Madrid. And it is indeed funky, but it’s starting to turn chi-chi rather than chai-chai. However, it’s neighbor Malasaña has inherited that grungy, gentrifying vibe from Chueca. Part red light district, part old family businesses, this area is now interspersed with cute clothing boutiques, artisanal cocktail bars, and Instagram-worthy food-porn restaurants. By pure happenstance, our Airbnb was located here and we had a great time exploring the neighborhood and finding some good seats from which to people watch. Much like riding the L train as it goes from west Manhattan to Brooklyn, the outfits quickly digressed into overalls, mom jeans, and crop tops. You could lose hours wandering around here or drinking in Zombie Bar with the light-up Ronald McDonald head. You know, the usual.

Baos and dim sum at Toy Panda in Madrid

2. Ethnic Cuisine

Of course, Madrid offers excellent native cuisine from pigs ears to tapas classics gone gastronomized (i.e. liquified tortillas). Our favorite meals, though, were some ethnic influences brought in through the active trail of immigrants to this cosmopolitan city. We ate a three course Peruvian meal in Malasaña for only €10 at Ceviche Madrid, including a hearty portion of ceviche (obviously) and stone fruit jelly for dessert. For a more casual meal, we ate baos at Toy Panda not once, but twice within a five day span in a city with a gazillion fabulous restaurants. If that doesn’t tell you something about these amazing Chinese bun sandwiches, I don’t know what will! We loved everything we tried from the wasabi mayo tempura prawn bun to the Korean sriracha sauced crispy squid bun to the wide array of dim sum. Nothing in Toy Panda’s dishes could be faulted, each bite was perfect. Except for the last bite, because it made me sad.

You never know what you might see…

3. The Lesser-Known Collections

Madrid is famous for its art museums, namely El Prado and La Reina Sofia. Most people burn out after one or two art museums per vacation, but People of The World, don’t give up! Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza has a fantastic collection including works from Caravaggio to Dali to Renoir to name just a few. Arranged with the oldest pieces on the top floor so that patrons are obliged to work their way down to the modern exhibitions on the lower floors, this museum offers a great morning activity and is easily located on the same stretch of road as many other major Madrid museums. Best of all, there were so few people there, even during tourist season. No one with a big head to block out Cezanne, yes!

A Dixieland band jamming in La Latina

4. Sunday Street Party

We were fortunate to be in Madrid for a Sunday morning, which allowed us to go down to La Latina, way past Plaza Mayor, to the Il Rastro market. The market itself was overcrowded and offered the same standard issue stalls selling “hemp pants actually probably possibly made in or near Nepal”, but there were street performers all over that kept the crowds upbeat and moving. Hands down, the best musicians we saw were right at the top of the market and they were killing it with Dixieland standards. Situated in a mercifully shady courtyard, this group of artists were jamming out with huge smiles on their faces as small children danced clumsily in front of the “stage”. Next time, I will skip the market and just bring a picnic chair to watch the street acts at their best, just as the locals were doing.

Sunset on the Gran Via

5. Rooftop Bar Market

Mercado San Anton is still a little off the beaten tourist path, but it won’t stay this way for long. Situated on a quiet street in the “Brooklyn” part of town, this market is comprised of three upper levels that are pristine and visually appealing to anyone with a tongue. The first story houses about twenty or so food vendors selling fresh produce, perfect pastries, and a wide variety of charcuterie. The next level up offers more prepared foods, a small art gallery, and a colorful bar with a secluded open air balcony. The top floor is an open-air bar with a wide skyline view of the neighborhood that dazzles during sunset. In short, there is something for everyone here. So everyone should go. Except don’t, this is Madrid’s best kept secret.

That’s the funny thing about traveling, isn’t it? There’s usually a reason places are visited by droves of visitors — because it is historically significant or offers a unique sighting of something that cannot be experienced elsewhere. But when something becomes a must-see, it is promptly ruined by the foot traffic, the rules, and the 25,000 photos of the exact same doorway posted to Facebook. See this recent article from The Guardian on UNESCO heritage designations ruining places. Seriously, we are one hundred percent guilty of this.

We often say to each other, “Wow, it would be so cool to have visited this place 200 years ago, there’d be no one here! It would actually be a novel experience. Our friends and family wouldn’t believe what we’d seen. Souvenirs would actually be treasured. It would be so fascinating!” However, if that were the case — that we tried to travel 200 years ago, we’d be pretty much out of luck between the prohibitive cost of travel and the basic resource of time it would have required. So really, I can’t complain that Madrid has been trampled over by a million gagillion people. The resources that make it possible for everyone else to enjoy Madrid are the same resources that I benefit from. And I’m glad I went.

-Sophie

Bilbao: You Couldn’t Basque for Anything More

Bilbao

The first thing we noticed in the bright and shiny modern Bilbao airport, apart from nicely-dressed passengers deplaning there alongside us, was the first language that appeared on the signage. “That’s not Spanish,” I said to Sophie, “Too many Xs”. My research about Bilbao, insensitively consisting of Googling “Bilbao?” had suggested that Euskadi was a language we would encounter, but I hadn’t realized that we would encounter it to this extent. My first reaction was disappointment, I had thoroughly enjoyed practicing my Spanish in Sevilla and was afraid I wouldn’t have a chance to in Bilbao. Turns out that fear was unfounded. Everyone in Bilbao speaks Spanish, but the will to bring back the Euskadi language, which was much damaged by its prohibition during the Franco years, is strong. As our Airbnb host explained, the language is being encouraged so that the cultural roots of the Basque people can be celebrated. “In twenty years or so,” he told us,”the kids who are learning it in school now will grow up and there will be many more speakers.”

The Basque people, like the Galicians and Catalonians, are constantly seeking independence because of their cultural and linguistic differences

The language itself is very interesting, belonging to its own linguistic group separate from any other language. After a long period of cultural repression, disdain seems to have given way to a profound cultural pride, such energy that is exhibited in all its glory in events like Aste Nagusia (the celebration in Bilbao of the Assumption of Mary). From an outside perspective, the festival might appear to be a drinking competition, but with some insight our understanding of the festival was expanded to a drinking competition that is broken into local chapters and groups called cuadrillas.

Folk band marching through the Casco Viejo

It was an excellent circumstance under which to visit the city, because I think we were given a window into the soul of the city, its excesses, its identity politics, and its local pride exhibited. Bilbao was an industrial capital, before its spirit rose like a phoenix from rusted factories to become a cultural capital, site of the modern art exhibiting Guggenheim museum, and a number of other modernist experiments in architecture and cultural expression. The confluence of the modern and ancient cities doesn’t create the clash you might expect, instead it provides just the right mix of both to provide a visitor with the convenience of modern comfort and all the mystery of old world Europe.

People watch a folk dance as part of the Aste Nagusia festival in the Plaza Nueva

The Casco Viejo, the old neighborhood, was where we stayed and it is overflowing with character. It was the epicenter of the Aste Nagusia festival with folk dancing taking place in the Plaza Nueva five minutes away and traditional pipe bands marching down the street at odd intervals. The only truly uncomfortable part of the festival was the hour long fireworks show that commenced every night at 10:30 and literally rattled the windows of our accommodation. The endurance of the festival-goers was inspiring, some of them coming home from the festivities at 6 or 7 am just as we were having our morning coffee.

The Casco Viejo is the old town in Bilbao. Great place to eat and wander aimlessly

 

‘Pinxtos’

In Bilbao, the food is also a part of the culture that has been positively affected by the cultural revolution. “Pinxtos” as they are called, are the answer to the rest of Iberia’s tapas, it means a “pinch” though the portions are usually more generous. Like clockwork every night the denizens of Bilbao swarm into the pinxtos bars and consume an outrageous amount of decadently rich, gout-inducing bites of tempura-fried and bread-laden goodness. If there’s any modern art worth seeing (read: tasting) in Bilbao, it’s these little delights. My shortlist of candidates for a tasting was pulled from a number of sources and they did not disappoint, with few exceptions.

Fishy bites at El Globo

El Globo: Good

El Globo is like a frenetic food auction. The experience trumps the food, though the food is certainly good. Despite the crowd, there is ample space at the tiny bars to stand and wolf down your tapas. Figuring out what to order is the challenge. Long rows of various delectable meats, cheeses, and seafood creations are lined along both bars. This establishment is a good place to practice shouting your Spanish, they don’t appear to understand English which made it an enjoyable challenge trying to describe obscure foods, many of which have completely different names than the ones we’ve learned. The best dishes here have something pickled on them, which seems to be their emphasis.

An exotic mix of pinxtos

Panko: Good

Panko is, as the name suggests, a celebration of bread and more succinctly, things fried in breadcrumbs. Their selection of wines and pinxtos added variety to our evening, and the prices are very reasonable. The mushroom croqueta was delicious and like all of their pinxtos, atop a piece of bread.

The pinxtos selection at El Huevo Frito

El Huevo Frito: El Mejor (the best)

Easily the best place we ate in all of our time in Spain. Each exquisite bite was adorned with a quail egg, so imagine that with a perfect bit of roasted duck and a raspberry compote on top of a toasty nibble of bread. In hindsight, we could have eaten here every night. I told the woman who helped us that it was our favorite place in the city we had eaten and she beamed at us proudly. Judging by the crowd, the locals like this place as well.

Bar Charly: Disappointment

This bar was too hipster for us even to enter. The cool kids were there and we got nervous and left. The food looked fine, but the prices were too high compared with the rest of the places and shit was just getting too artisenal. This was in Plaza Nueva, which was as beautiful as it was difficult to find.

Gure Toki: Not for us

If Bar Charly had all the hipsters, this place had the yuppies. While the food was too experimental for us to even include in our pinxtos tour, I have to give them an A for aesthetics, the liquid nitrogen-infused tuna eyeball on gluten-free toast looked incredible (pun intended!).

Victor Montes: Just ok

Traditional, uncomplicated pinxtos in Plaza Nueva. While the food can’t be technically faulted, the ambiance as stuffy and the staff was rude, like so rude they threw our change on the ground.

Life Beyond Food

Enough with the food, Bilbao has much more to offer. For an enchanting walk, look no further than a stroll that begins in the Casco Viejo and terminates by the Guggenheim. Wind around through a few of the ancient streets and eventually you’ll arrive at the river with your choice of bridge. I recommend the super modern footbridge that will surely remind you of the Millenium Bridge in London.

Outside the Guggenheim, a dog was covered in flowers

The city is incredibly pedestrian friendly and simple to navigate. Along the walk you’ll witness an incredible variety of architecture, from the very old to the very hideous former council flats now chic apartments to the just-put-up-yesterday corporate high rise.

View from the river side of the Guggenheim Museum

For a quick jaunt outside the city, take public transport out to the coast Bidezabal. A lovely walk is only 30 minutes from the city and Bilbao’s public transport is disturbingly clean and quiet. The coast is beautiful (once you escape the industrial side of the mouth of the river) and you can enjoy watching paragliders tempt fate above the rocky cliffs.

A sportsman parasailing on the beautiful Basque coast near an abandoned bunker

Pamplona

Beyond Bilbao, we spent some time in Pamplona and took a day trip to ritzy San Sebastian. We (sensibly) visited Pamplona after the San Fermin running of the bulls to appreciate the feel of a small, calm city. Our Airbnb apartment was five stories up a rickety building with a few hundred years of history. The windows overlooked the cobbled streets of the bulls run and the smell of dark chocolate garrotes wafted up from the ground floor bakery, Pastelería Beatriz Pamplona.

View of the cathedral in Pamplona

While this city isn’t overflowing with activities for tourists, we kept ourselves occupied by listening to live flamenco during the Flamenco on Fire festival and by ambling around the ornate cathedral with a trippy museum display basically spelling out humanity’s doom. Our hostess provided us with a long list of restaurant and tapas bar recommendations which we sampled. One of the most interesting bites we had was sea urchin chowder served in it’s spiny shell.

While we had a nice, relaxing time in Pamplona, it may be the sort of place you only visit for a night or two if you don’t have any concrete plans. During the off season, the tourist attractions are minimal and the hours kept by shop keepers are limited. Nevertheless, if you want to experience a bit of Navarra’s culture, Pamplona is gorgeous and friendly.

A collection of creepy religious artifacts in the Pamplona Cathedral

San Sebastian

San Sebastian, notorious for it’s upper class appeal, was a treat to visit (but assuredly too expensive to live in). We took an ALSA bus early one morning from Bilbao and arrived into San Sebastian before all of the billionaires recovered from their caviar-induced hangovers. We found coffee and pastries at a friendly cafe near the river and made our way over to the oldest part of the city near the beach.

“Regatta gala” at the harbor in San Sebastian

There is an excellent walk we took up to the castle and statue of Jesus set high up on a hill overlooking the town. Along the way there are excellent vantage points to spot swaths of yachts and the mountains in the distance. To cool off, we waded into the surf down along the shore and were amazed with how clear and refreshing (but not cold) the water was. If we didn’t have another bus ride later in the day, we surely would have thrown ourselves into the calm water for a few sunny hours.

 

 

We’ll definitely be dreaming of this beach in January. Ah, the but the dream had to end, so we hopped on a train to Madrid and bid goodbye to the North of Spain.

-Brian & Sophie

Tips, Tricks & Tapas Tours: Travelling for Many Months with One Person – A Few Days in Seville

Now, almost five weeks into our travels, Brian and I have learned a thing or two about how to be good travel companions to each other. We are sharing one piece of proper luggage during this trip, so it’s been a continual lesson in sharing, consideration, and compromise. For example, if your partner dumps all of your clothes on the floor, it doesn’t mean your partner doesn’t care that you neatly packed your sundresses so they won’t wrinkle, it means your partner is hurrying to find his/her DuckTales shirt so he/she can be ready 20 minutes ago per your request. So really, it’s all for you.

When we were in Seville earlier in August, a few tricks to make this arrangement more sustainable emerged. While much of long term traveling together is a social balancing act, we’ve discovered some tools over the years of traveling together. Below is a list of items we had the foresight to pack this time around to aid in our travels and to keep us from squabbling over non-issues.

Six Things to Pack for Smooth Sailing:

1. Wipes

Baby wipes are the greatest thing to happen to my 20s. Having discovered their usefullness for removing face paint in college, I’ve taken to carrying a pack whenever I’m on the move. When travelling, they are great for refreshing so you don’t have a hissy fit about who gets the first shower when reaching your Airbnb. This was super important in Seville because it was well over 95 degrees Fahrenheit all day. We rented bikes, which was a great way to get around this tiny city quickly, but also meant we were constantly sweaty and in need of refreshing. This is the service we rented from.

Matador statue in Seville

2. Sleep Masks

We’ve both taken to carrying around eye shades during our travels. These are of course helpful when trying to adjust to timezones or if your partner wants to stay up later reading (or blogging). In Seville, the whole city seems to shut down around 2pm for siesta, so it’s helpful to have a blackout shade to adjust to this flow of activity. Anyways, it’s so hot in the middle of the day that you really have no choice but to find a shady corner to nap in. Tip: its really worth getting a slightly more expensive mask so its comfortable and it actually blocks out light. The cadillac of sleep masks — according to Brian anyways.

3. Packing Cubes

I have a set of packing cubes. Brian doesn’t. Therefore, what is in the cubes is mine (theoretically) and the negative space in the rest of the bag is his (theoretically). My former coworkers sent me on my way with this set of packing cubes which are great as there is a “clean” side and a “laundry” side. This makes for neat organization and quick costume changes when switching from morning bike ride adventure gear to an afternoon spent exploring the old town and crossing the river to hip Triana. Here are the kick ass packing cubes I’ve been using.

Exploring the gardens of Real Alcazar

4. (Spare) Plastic Bags & Ziplock Bags

Useful for everything from transporting leftover muesli between Airbnbs to isolating malodorous hiking shoes to sorting liquids for going through security. Useful for relationships too, so my deodorant doesn’t inhale man cologne smell and my clean clothes don’t smell like spilled olive juice from a Sevillian tapas bar. Also, many stores will charge extra for the global damage of plastic bags, so bring your own to seem like a green, European local.

5. Headphone Splitter

Brian is always anxious to get to the airport early and I’m a nervous flyer. Now that Netflix allows downloads (praise be!), we’ve taken to pacifying ourselves with TV and movies at the uncomfortable points of travel. With a headphone splitter, we can watch House of Cards together so that we can make dramatic/outraged/shocked faces at each other along the way. It helps us to be able to share something, rather than retreating into our own backlogs of podcasts. Not to mention, this device is tiny and is easily packed anywhere.

6. Pen

Despite the digital age, in which all of our travel documents are electronic, I’ve needed a pen at least three times a day. We’ve taken to writing down our tapas schemes on napkins before finalizing our order and for writing good ol’ fashion postcards. Brian found some inspiring articles (especially this one) about where to get tapas in Seville, so we had to heavily annotate our map to figure out our route. More on our tapas tour below! What’s more is it’s always useful to have one on a plane so you can start filling out customs forms ahead of getting in line (don’t be that guy with the greasy fingers asking to borrow a pen).

Striking tower of Real Alcazar amid the native foliage

DIY Tapas Tour in Seville

Brian did a great job researching the most interesting, traditional, and popular tapas bars in this Andalucian city. Unfortunately, we learned through the course of activities that many shops and restaurants are closed for a week or longer in the August. This resulted in quite a few disappointments as we attempted to navigate the medieval streets in pursuit of fine bites, but we were able find a handful that were open and worth eating at, as well as discover unknown spots. These three were our favorites:

El Rinconcillo

Antique bar tucked deep within the maze that is the oldest part of the city. This bar is known for the antiquated decor, poker-faced waitstaff, and the quaint tallying of the bill with chalk on the bar. Here, we enjoyed tinto de verano (basically a red wine spritzer), ham croquettes, sheep’s milk cheese, and slices of local cured meat.The price was right: two drinks and four tapas came to about 12 euros.

Having our bill tallied up ON the bar

Bodega Dos de Mayo

In contrast to the previous bar, the waitstaff here are notoriously friendly, offering sincere greetings just as the doors open at 8pm. We sat out in the plaza while sipping sangria and trying various tapas dishes such as fresh seafood salad, more croquettes – prawn this time, and hake cooked with fruits of the sea and garlic. The six or so tapas plates and a pitcher of sangria cost us about 28 euros.

A plate of coveted Iberian ham (jamón)

Bar Pelayo

Set down a side street near the Real Alcazar palace, Bar Pelayo made for a good tapas lunch full of classics and our waitress’ locally recommended specialities. Although I wasn’t wild about the bull head decor, the place was spacious and comfortable. We had olives, goats cheese, avocado anchovy toast, zucchini-wrapped shrimp, and duck breast, amongst other dishes. A pitcher of sangria and eight or nine tapas dishes will set you back about about 35 euros.

To DIY your own tapas tour, seek out recommendations, but also keep your eyes peeled for places set away from the main tourist drags. I’ve noticed that, frequently, the most local-seeming bars are clustered near one another and are easily identifiable by the hordes of smoking Spanish speakers holding glasses of wine out front. These places will most definitely not have pictures in laminated menus, if they even have menus at all.

Of course, Seville is much more than heavy summer heat and cool evening bites. The ornate architecture is stunning and the people laidback. I was surprised by how quiet the city was, but I would happily return, especially to use as a homebase for exploring the surrounding countryside or for day trips to Cadiz or Cordoba. Perhaps that should be our next adventure!

-Sophie