WEEKEND IN MADRID PART 1

weekend in madrid part 1 is the first half of the selection of pics i’ve taken recently.

it was my third time in the city so i thought it was time to try and keep away from the tourist hot spots. but well, since our airbnb was very central, avoiding the very crowded areas was not exactly possible. but it was not so bad either. if you really don’t like crowds, try to visit madrid during the week.

we arrived by train, in atocha.

we crawled uphill to drop our bags. we only hugged and kissed one of our girlfriends we were meeting for the weekend, since she had to work so she was in. and then we hopped into the metro to catch the first highlight before the sunset.

this is called torres blancas. i’ll make a little dedicated post soon, so stay tuned if you want to find out more about this brutalist building.

we walked back, taking street after street until we reached a corner of parque del retiro.

we had some early dinner in a chain taperia. we chose it because of the local kids hanging out out front, holding cervezas and enjoying the pleasant friday evening.

not the best huevos rotos but they were ok.

i’ll look this building up. it was right on the corner of the retiro.

back downtown, enjoying the crazy crowds: the weekend was starting!

this was our airbnb view. beside the good location and everything, the mattresses were fabulous! so good we looked them up. but they way exceeded our budget. anyway, we slept like kings and queens!

we passed through plaza mayor.

we reached mercado de san miguel and it was as good as ever. still, we ended up not eating anything. i think it was mostly because of the saturday crowds.

then we walked aimlessly for a while.

can this be more madrid than a little local cinema with an almodovar month?

the brunch was very late and kinda fancy. nubel is part of reina sofia and brunch is their thing. we even had a dj spinning but that was not necessarily a good thing. the food was good though, no excessive portions.

i’ve seen reina sofia before, so i just walked through its patio on my way.

i like caixa forum as an institution. they always have a good selection of exhibitions and a great in-house bookshop. i admired patrick blanc’s incredible vertical garden and left with a couple of issues of tapas and the wallpaper city guide for madrid, of course.

gran via has numberless beautiful buildings.

we were going to this one. inside there is espai fundacion telefonica. they had 3 exhibitions and i liked all of them

an interesting show dedicated to houdini called las leyes del asombro. it means the laws of surprise.

this was certezas ifemeras by leonardo elrich and i liked it. but, ever since we saw it, a friend sent me an work from 2001 by another artist. so similar. see for yourselves…

there was a show about theremins! it was called the theremin, el instrumento intocable, the instrument you cannot play. to prove a point, there was an actual instrument you could try to play. i loved it!

this was a matryoshka-shaped theremin made by a japanese.

next, we went to el circulo de bellas artes for an exhibition of francis bacon‘s drawings and a 360 panorama of the city from above.

on top of the beautiful art deco building there is a bar called azotea, seemingly a madrileno hot spot. it’s decidedly the place to have a drink and chill while watching the city.