Outside The Perimeter

Finished our last morning in Europe browsing shops like Massimo Dutti, a Spanish brand, and El Cortes Ingles, a Spanish department store where you can get everything from makeup to clothes to shoes to a travel agent to a grocery store to a lawn mower- kinda crazy!

Hoping it wouldn’t be a trend, it seemed to be. I guess along with bad travel luck, Marshall also attracts protests and riots. We found a protest going on outside our hotel this morning at the Department of Labor for hotel workers. We headed back to Chueca to have lunch at Restaurante Momo. Apparently Madrid government requires restaurants open for lunch to offer a 3 course fixed price menu, including a drink- and at Momo, it was all for just 11 euros! To get out of the rain that afternoon, we made our way to Centro de Arte Reina Sofia where we were able to take in great works from Picasso, including the famous Guernica. That evening we made it back to the Plaza Mayor and Puerta del Sol area where we visited the Mercado de San Miguel- it was awesome! Fresh meats, cheeses, seafood, pastries, tapas, mojitos, sangria, coffee, beer- all under one roof. We also visited the very pristine grounds of Plaza de Oriente, just outside the Madrid palace. It offered beautiful buildings and views, but unfortunately due to rain, we weren’t able to catch the sunset there as we had planned. We spent the evening visiting a couple of different tapas restaurants to finish out our true Spanish experience. Madrid has been such a fun place- laid back, great food, not all about the sites, but about some of the friendliest people and enjoying life.