Continuing on...
Friday, February 6
The train station at Chamartin in Madrid. This was around 7:20 AM. On Sunday afternoon this place had been considerably busier.
Same shot as on the very first day, now sans snow and fog (still cloudy, though).
A shot inside the Linea 2 train. The Metro was overall fairly laid back in both Madrid and Barcelona, but we got into Barcelona in the middle of rush hour back on Monday and it was possibly the most crowded train I'd ever seen (having also enjoyed the, uh, privilege of riding the subway in New York during rush hour a number of times -- but I guess I've never been to a third world country to see people hanging out the windows)
Near the center of Madrid, looking northeast along Calle de Alcala. In the upper left, the black and gold roof belongs to the Metropolis Building.
The Cervantes Institute on the Calle de Alcala across the street from Banco de Espana. Evidently they were celebrating some sort of Spanish film festival.
Plaza de Cibeles, where Calle de Alcala intersects Paseo del Prado and Paseo del Recoletos. The building is city hall.
Following the Paseo del Prado south, we hit this roundabout. This shot is east across the intersection.
Same spot, looking south across Calle de Cervantes.
From here, we ducked into the sidestreets and wandered around there for a while.
Found this library during our wandering. I wanted to go inside, but only library members with cards were allowed.
Looking down the Ronda de Toledo toward Puerta de Toledo.
Puerta de Toledo.
View from the other side.
On the Ronda de Segovia, northwest of Puerta de Toledo.
We were tired from walking, so we hopped on a bus and just rode it to the end of the line, taking in the scenery. It dropped us by this park. We thought we'd hit the suburbanized outskirts of the city.
But really, we were just in Los Angeles.
My friend thought it would be amusing to grab a shot of the train entering the Ciudad de los Angeles station, evidently oblivious to the fact that LA actually does have its own subway. Unfortunately I didn't time it quite well enough, so the train was already passing in front of the station banner by the time I got the picture. Oh well.
We got off the train at the Retiro stop. Parque del Retiro is a giant park close to where were staying. Unfortunately, you can see here that it was getting a little dark, so we didn't go into the park. Here you can see the Puerta de Alcala along the Calle de Alcala on the north side of the park.
Looking toward Banco de Espana.
Zoom out.
Zoom in again. I liked this view a lot but wasn't really satisfied with any of the shots I got of it, so I just kept taking more.
City Hall at night.
Banco de Espana.
Cervantes Institute.
Across Calle de Alcala from the Cervantes Institute. This building was next to Banco de Espana.
Intersection where Calle de Alcala splits off into a smaller street of the same name (left) and Calle Gran Via (right).
Continuing along Calle de Alcala.
Banco Espanol de Credito.
We doubled back down the other side of Calle de Alcala a little bit; this is across the street from Banco de Espanol again.
I really wanted to go into Cine Bogart, but as we got closer it didn't look like there was actually anything there.
We wandered around the smaller streets around our hotel as we sought out bars for the rest of the evening.
This is a five-way intersection near our hotel. It looked really cool but I failed to capture it very well.
The rest of this evening was spent drinking and not photographing. Sorry.
Saturday, February 7
Final morning in Spain. The Ham Museum was only about two blocks from our hotel.
Plaza de la Puerta del Sol.
Heading west along Calle Mayor.
Eventually we could see something down a side street that looked big and important and headed that way.
It ended up being the Royal Palace.
Looking north along Calle de Bailen toward Plaza de Espana, from right in front of the palace.
Royal Palace.
Jardines de Sabatini, on the north side of the palace.
Looking across the garden toward the mountains in the distance.
Senate building.
Continuing along Calle de Bailen.
Plaza de Espana.
We hopped onto the Metro at that stop and headed northeast.
We got off at Avenida de la Paz and began to walk some more. Nearby we found this ad. Nothing particularly special about it, it just amused me for two reasons: the repeating background image and the fact that it's an Opel ad set in Manhattan. I'm not really an expert on cars, but Opel isn't even available in the US, is it?
Hard to believe this was probably the most "suburban" area of the city that we saw, except for maybe Ciudad de los Angeles.
From here, we caught another bus.
We got off at Goya.
Took the Metro back and had a little downtime in the hotel to regroup.
Hit the streets again around 9. We had to catch a plane at 6:15 the next morning, but I was not going to spend a sober evening in Madrid.
That neon sign is not really clear in the picture, but it's advertising Laser Karaoke. Turns out that "laser" karaoke just means disco balls, ultraviolet lights, and Spanish kids singing Ricky Martin songs. Side note: Spain apparently produces the worst karaoke singers the world has ever known. Then again, the novelty of "laser karaoke" wore off pretty quickly and I headed out after only a couple Coronitas (which, as far as I could discern with my broken Spanish, was the only beer available here), so maybe the rest of the patrons were better singers than the ones I witnessed.
Began wandering the streets again for a while.
Plaza de la Puerta del Sol, looking east toward Carrera de San Jeronimo.
Stores with pun names usually annoy me, but I had a soft spot for this shoe store.
Eventually I ended up on Calle Gran Via.
This theatre seemed to be a really popular destination on Saturday night.
Eventually ducked back into the sidestreets.
And once again wandered right up to the Royal Palace totally by accident.
Catedral de la Almudena, directly south of the palace.
The palace again, from in front of the cathedral.
Across the street from the cathedral, looking east.
Walking along Calle Mayor on the south side of the cathedral, which is on a bit of a bluff, there was a great view of the city. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get it all that well.
Which didn't stop me from trying.
Heading down the winding Cuesta de la Vega to the southwest of the cathedral, looking back at it.
Facing south, back to the cathedral.
Wandering back toward the hotel.
The Simpsons kept popping up on this trip and I feel fate was just preparing me to come across this bar. Unfortunately, I needed to get back to the hotel to meet up with my friend, so I didn't stop in for a drink.
Found this church on the walk home. This would end up being the last picture I took in Spain. After this, I headed back to the hotel and we went out to a few more bars before finally getting to bed around 12:30. Woke up a couple hours later to pack up. We had a 3:30 shuttle back to the airport, driven by a surly old man who waxed nostalgic for Franco and complained about the party atmosphere that had taken over the center of the city where we were staying since the onset of democracy -- and in his defense, it really was like Westport or P&L times a hundred, and it was at least as busy when we left at 3:30 as it had been when we went back to the hotel at midnight. I thought it was wonderful, but people who had lived in the neighborhood for decades may understandably disagree.
And so ended my whirlwind self-guided tour of Madrid and Barcelona. Tons of fun and I can't wait to go back some day. My only regret is that I only had a week there. Hopefully when I can eventually make it back, it'll be for a lot longer. Clearly there are tons of sights in both cities that I didn't get a chance to visit.