Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: A Tale of Two Cities (2010)
Madrid city centre on foot
I got up around eight o'clock and had an excellent breakfast in the hotel's magnificent La Rotonda restaurant, with its famous dome and walls draped with tapestries - a wonderfully opulent experience and a great way to start the day! I took a quick look outside: it had been wet overnight, but was now drying out nicely and there was just a slight hint of drizzle left in the air. While definitely nothing to worry about, it seemed a little disappointing for what many people would reckon to be the first day of Spring. (I've never been entirely convinced about that one, personally.)
Although my principal objective for today was the main city centre area to the west of the hotel, I decided to kick things off with a reverse and more detailed version of the introductory stroll that I had taken the previous day. As such, I set off in a southerly direction, passing the Prado and the Botanical Gardens on the relatively deserted streets.
I then swung back through the park, this time diverting from my previous route to take a closer look at the Alfonso VII monument, before exiting via the Puerta Independencia.
After a quick caffeine break, I then struck into the heart of the central area, walking via Cibeles, the Gran Via, the Telefonica building, the Plaza del Carmen, Puerta del Sol, the St Genis church and the Theatre Royal opera house, finally ending up in the Plaza de Oriente, where I felt I had earned a nice lunch in the open air.
I tried to ignore the Royal Palace and the Cathedral, which were to be the following day's main objectives. In any case, it was a long way to the hotel and I felt that unnecessary diversions were not a good idea at this stage, with my feet signalling that they'd taken quite a pounding already. So I set out eastwards, visiting the Plaza de la Villa, Mercado San Miguel and Plaza Mayor, before returning to the Westin via the familiar territory of the Puerta del Sol and Cibeles.
Back at base, I listened to some music, caught up on the news (including the worrying development of a severe dust storm affecting Beijing!) and had a relaxing bath. Just as on the previous day, I realised that I'd already had two cooked meals and therefore decided, in what looked set to become a pattern, to make do with sandwiches in the evening. I always have trouble with evening meal times in Spain anyway; they just don't fit with my usual routine. I finished the day with a brief stroll and a short visit to the hotel's business centre before turning in for the night, content that I'd achieved a great deal in spite of the somewhat uninspiring weather.