Madrid
We had an early morning flight from Lisbon to Madrid. We left our hotel at 5:00 AM after about 6 hours of sleep… ish… and got to the airport by 5:30. No passport control as we are traveling through the EU, so it was similar to a domestic flight. Security was quick — maybe a 5-minute line. Once through security, the path to the terminals leads through the duty-free gift shop — lol — kind of like the “exit through the gift shop” philosophy.
Similar to train stations, they don’t announce the gate your plane is departing from until 50 minutes prior to the flight takeoff. The gates don’t have seats near them (maybe 10 seats for elderly people or those who need them). Instead, you wait in a central hub area full of benches, restaurants, shops, etc. We grabbed McDonald’s for breakfast — in the airport it only cost $5 for a breakfast sandwich and a juice!
A short hour-and-a-half flight brought us to Madrid, where we hopped on the metro and headed to our hotel — The Palace Hotel, Madrid. The Palace Hotel was built in the early 1900s at the suggestion of King Alfonso XIII as a luxury hotel in Madrid. It was the first hotel in Spain (and the second in the world!) to have a bathroom in each guest room — a pretty big deal at the time. The hotel’s huge stained-glass dome in the central rotunda was one of the largest glass domes in Europe when it was built.
It has had many notable guests over the years, including Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Marie Curie, Salvador Dalí, Ernest Hemingway, Lauren Bacall, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Orson Welles… and Grant and Bobbi Jo Benedict. The hotel was purchased by Marriott in 2005, and the rooms were completely renovated by March 14, 2025, when it officially joined the Marriott Luxury Collection. Our room was ready when we arrived at 10:30 AM, so we had time to unpack and settle in.
We have four day trips planned while here in Madrid, so we decided to do one right away today to stay outside and in the sunlight since we had so little sleep last night. After a quick breakfast at Honest Greens, we headed to El Escorial. We had originally planned to take the train, but we had a 2:30 timed entry that we needed to get to, and the train only left every hour, so we ended up taking a bus instead. It was about the same travel time, as there is no high-speed train to El Escorial. (It is only about an hour’s drive.)
El Escorial is home to San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Built in the 16th century by King Philip II, it has four major parts in one massive complex, meant to represent Philip’s priorities: intellect (the Royal Library), royalty (the royal palace), spirituality (the basilica), and heritage (the royal pantheon). The complex was built between 1563 and 1584 and became both a royal residence and the political center of Spain for a time.
San Lorenzo is undergoing some renovations, so the normal path to explore the complex was diverted, but we still got to see all of the major sites. The building is a huge rectangular structure with a large courtyard surrounding two sides of it and gardens surrounding the other two. It sits on top of a hill with sweeping views of the valley below. The entire complex is enormous — it has more than 2,000 rooms, 15 cloisters, and miles of corridors.
Our first stop was the Royal Library. One of the most interesting things about this library is that the books are stored with the spines facing inward and the pages facing outward, which was done to protect the decorated bindings from sunlight and damage. The library contains more than 40,000 volumes, including rare manuscripts in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and many other languages. King Philip II was deeply interested in scholarship and collected texts on science, theology, philosophy, and history from across Europe and the Islamic world. The ceiling is covered in beautiful Renaissance frescoes representing the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy — showing how highly Philip valued learning and intellectual life.
Of course, as a Ravenclaw, I give massive props to the king giving such a high priority to knowledge and learning. There are even texts from many different languages here!
Next, we visited the basilica. The Basilica of San Lorenzo el Real is the spiritual heart of the complex and was heavily inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The massive dome rises nearly 300 feet above the floor and dominates the entire complex from the outside. The high altar is made of richly decorated marble and bronze, and behind it are enormous royal mausoleum statues of Charles V and Philip II and their families, shown kneeling in prayer. The basilica was designed not just as a place of worship, but also as a symbol of the Catholic monarchy during the height of Spain’s power in the 16th century. We were very impressed with the large dome in the center, similar to St. Peter’s Basilica. Also, the basilica is literally in the center of the entire complex, which made it very interesting!
The path through the complex next took us down a series of long hallways covered in frescoes along all the walls. It was beautiful, bright, and colorful, depicting biblical stories.
At the end of the hallway we headed downstairs to the Pantheon. First, we walked through nine Pantheons of Infantes — princes, princesses, and queens who were not mothers of kings. Then we entered the Pantheon of Kings, a round, black-marble chamber where almost every King and Queen of Spain since Charles I (who died in 1556) is buried. The room is lined with elaborate marble tombs stacked in tiers around the circular chamber. One unusual tradition is that when a king dies, the body is first placed in a special chamber called the pudridero for about 30 years, allowing the body to fully decompose before the remains are placed in the marble sarcophagus in the Pantheon. It’s a little morbid, but also fascinating.
Finally, we visited the Royal Apartments. These rooms were surprisingly modest compared to many other European palaces. King Philip II preferred a simpler lifestyle and focused more on administration and religion than luxury. One of the most interesting details is that his bedroom and study were positioned so that a small window looked directly into the basilica’s high altar. Because Philip suffered badly from gout later in life, he could observe Mass from his bed if he was too sick to walk to the church.
There was also the Hall of Battles, a long gallery whose walls are covered with enormous frescoes showing major Spanish military victories, including the Battle of La Higuerue a from the Reconquista. The paintings stretch the entire length of the hallway and are full of incredibly detailed soldiers, horses, and battle scenes. The hall was used as a ceremonial passageway, and it is believed that members of the royal family sometimes walked there when the weather outside was too cold or rainy for the gardens.
We had a great time here, seeing way more than we anticipated. Our afternoon visit also meant very low crowds, many times we had the place almost entirely to ourselves. We even spent some time wandering the formal gardens behind the palace.
Next we took a hike to Silla de Felipe II. This is a granite rock formation known as the “Seat of King Philip,” and the legend is that the king would sit on this granite throne above San Lorenzo to watch the monastery’s construction. However, historians now believe the site may actually be much older, possibly a prehistoric Celtic altar used for rituals by the Vettones people who lived in this region thousands of years ago. on.
Our hike took us down through a valley beyond San Lorenzo’s gardens and then back uphill through trees and giant granite boulders to a beautiful overlook of the valley and San Lorenzo in the distance. Our hike was about 3½ km round trip and was a beautiful way to spend the evening.
We had dinner at a tapas place in town called KU4Tro, sharing goat cheese “lollipops” wrapped in pineapple and raspberry, a potato and octopus dish (my favorite!), tataki tacos, and marinated hake cubes. Everything was delicious! I love the Tapas culture.
We took the bus back and even though we were exhausted, we decided to make one more stop… at Chocolatería San Ginés — a chocolate shop dating back to 1894. It’s famous for one of Madrid’s classic foods: churros with thick hot chocolate for dipping. We ordered a set of churros (6), a set of porras (2), two cups of warm melted chocolate (literally the size of a coffee cup), and a cup of coffee. It was heavenly. (A porra is like the bigger, fluffier cousin to the churro.)
Finally back at the hotel, we fell asleep — finally a full night’s sleep — and we did NOT set an alarm.
Our next day started gloriously late with a quick breakfast in a nearby park of pastries and fresh-squeezed orange juice. We spent the day wandering around downtown Madrid through winding medieval neighborhoods, lively city squares, and beautiful gardens.
We started off by walking to Plaza Mayor. Plaza Mayor is one of Madrid’s most famous squares and dates back to the early 1600s during the reign of King Philip III. The large rectangular plaza is surrounded by uniform three-story buildings with balconies that overlook the square, Historically these balconies were rented out so wealthy spectators could watch public events. And those events were not always pleasant… the plaza hosted markets, bullfights, royal celebrations, executions, and even trials during the Spanish Inquisition. Today it’s a much more relaxed place filled with cafés, street performers, and artists. In the center of the plaza stands a bronze statue of King Philip III on horseback, which was actually created in 1616 and later moved here in the 1800s.
From there we wandered through the narrow streets of Los Austrias, the oldest part of Madrid. This neighborhood is named after the Habsburg (Austrian) dynasty that ruled Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, and many of the winding streets and buildings here still follow the medieval street layout from that era. Eventually we made our way to the Plaza de la Villa, one of the city’s oldest squares, surrounded by historic buildings from the 1400s and 1500s that once served as Madrid’s city hall.
Next we relaxed in Plaza de Oriente. Plaza de Oriente sits directly between the Royal Palace and the Royal Theatre and was created in the 1800s under King Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon’s brother), who ordered many medieval houses demolished to open up the space. The gardens in the plaza are lined with statues of Spanish kings, originally they were intended to sit along the roofline of the Royal Palace, but the story goes that Queen Isabella of Bourbon had a dream that the statues would fall on her, so they were removed and placed around the plaza instead.
Fun fact: the statue of King Philip IV on the horse in the center of the plaza has interesting scientific origins. It is the first statue in the world where the horse rears up entirely on its hind legs. Sculptors had struggled with this engineering problem before, because the weight of the bronze statue could cause it to collapse. The sculptor consulted with the scientist Galileo, who suggested how to distribute the weight. The back legs are solid bronze while parts of the horse’s body are hollow, allowing the statue to balance properly.
Also, while construction was done to move the street between the plaza and the palace and to build the parking structure below Plaza de Oriente, archaeologists discovered the remains of an old Arab watchtower dating back to the time when Madrid was a Muslim fortress city (around the 9th–11th centuries). They preserved the ruins under glass inside the parking structure — so of course we walked down to see it!
We walked along the front of the Royal Palace — the largest royal palace in Europe by floor area. The Palacio Real has more than 3,400 rooms and was built in the 1700s after the previous royal fortress burned down on Christmas Eve in 1734. The palace was designed to rival the great royal palaces of Europe like Versailles, and although it is still technically the official residence of the Spanish royal family, they actually live in a smaller palace outside the city and the building is mostly used today for ceremonies and state events.
Then we spent some time in the beautiful Sabatini Gardens north of the palace. The Sabatini Gardens are surprisingly modern compared to the palace. They were only created in the 1930s on the site where the royal stables once stood. The gardens are named after Francesco Sabatini, the Italian architect who designed the palace stables in the 18th century. Today the gardens are laid out in a very formal French style with geometric hedges, fountains, symmetrical pathways, and statues of Spanish kings that were originally intended for the palace roof.
Finally we headed up the hill to the north to spend sunset at the Temple of Debod. The Temple of Debod is actually an authentic Egyptian temple that is more than 2,000 years old. It was originally built in southern Egypt around the 2nd century BC and was dedicated to the gods Amun and Isis. In the 1960s, when Egypt built the Aswan High Dam, many ancient temples in the Nile valley were at risk of being flooded. Spain helped Egypt with the international effort to save monuments like Abu Simbel, and in gratitude Egypt gifted the Temple of Debod to Spain in 1968. The entire temple was carefully dismantled, transported stone by stone to Madrid, and rebuilt here in the park.
It was quite lively up here, as a street musician had drawn a crowd of maybe 100 people all singing and dancing along to his music in the park adjacent to the temple. It made for a festive feeling as we watched the sun set and the stars come out on the horizon.
We took the metro back to the other side of town and had dinner at El Sur Atocha. Dinner was amazing! For just under 45 Euros (including tax!) we shared an endive, goat cheese, and walnut salad, a potato omelette (a quiche-like potato dish with a delicious sauce sort of like a pesto hollandaise), a grilled squid salad (a half order came with four good-sized pieces of calamari), and a half order of mushroom and ham risotto… and two AMAZING mocktails.The mocktails were large, fruity, and delicious. They were also 7.50 Euros each, so 15 of that 45 was drinks!
At the end of our meal, our server — who was also the bartender — came out and confirmed that we did not drink alcohol. I had noticed that at the table next to us he had brought out shots with their bill. Apparently it is customary at many places in Spain as a sign of hospitality to offer a complimentary chupito, which is a small sweet shot at the end of the meal. Well, surprise surprise, he brought us a chupito as well and assured us they were alcohol-free. They were some kind of sour apple cordial (non-alcoholic) and were delicious!
When we left, we decided to take a walk through Barrio de las Letras (the Literary Quarter), a neat neighborhood with literary quotes engraved into the ground. During Spain’s “Golden Age” of literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, many of the country’s greatest writers lived and worked here, including Miguel de Cervantes (who wrote Don Quixote), Lope de Vega, and Francisco de Quevedo. The writers were known for their rivalries and literary feuds, and some historians say they would literally argue with each other in the streets and taverns of this neighborhood.
Our walk “happened” to take us back to Chocolatería San Ginés… so we decided we might as well get churros and chocolate again… and Grant got a scoop of caramel and cookies ice cream as well.
Buenos noches!
