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recommendations Spain Travel

Recommendations for 10 things to do in Madrid… and beyond

After receiving another e-mail asking for recommendations on things to do in Madrid for the weekend, I thought I should post the answer here on the blog, then the world and their Google will be able to benefit from it from now onwards as well. Before we get to the list, do you live in or have great knowledge of a city/place/area in Spain? Would you like to help make NFS really useful by sending in a list of “Recommendations for 10 (or less) things to do in… (your place in Spain)”. Just (roughly) follow the format below and e-mail me the text, or a link to a post on your blog. I’ll post your list, and link to you on the web of course, and, well, the world and Google etc will be a better place!

Recommendations for 10 things to do in Madrid – More details and maps in your guide book! (Time Out Madrid is great.)

1. The No-Brainer
Visit at least one of the big three art museums, the Prado, the Reina Sofia and the Thyssen. If in doubt pick the Reina Sofia and see Guernica.

2. Tapas Grazing
Start on Cava Baja, stopping at will on this bar-packed street, then head into the depths of La Latina for more.

3. Something Different
Take a trip on the Teleferico, out into the depths of the Casa de Campo.

4. A Walk
Go to Plaza de la Villa and take one of the small alleys on the left hand side or at the back of the square. Wander aimlessly, follow your nose, change course at will, check out the churches – it’s the best way to see Madrid de las Austrias, the ancient city centre.

5. Everyone misses
Malasaña – a really charming Barrio centered around Plaza Dos de Mayo. Check out the lovely tiled shop fronts, ignore the graffiti, and have a drink at Manuela Cafe, on Calle San Vicente Ferrer 29.

6. A Park
The Retiro: for people-watching, romance, rowing, and relative peace and quiet.

7. A Shop
Antigua Casa Talavera, an incredible ceramics shop on Calle Isabel la Católica, 2

8. A trip out of the city
El Escorial or Toledo. It’s a toss up as to which is best. If you really can’t decide, try Chinchón instead.

9. A reasonable restaurant
Taberna Miranda, at Plaza del Conde Miranda, 4, is local, cheap, has amazing food, and is generally very Spanish. Our favourite in Madrid. Arrive 9ish at weekends if you don’t have a reservation. Otherwise do snacks at the lively bar.

10. Hidden Culture
El Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, at Plaza de las Descalzas Reales, 3. A closed order of nuns still live in the private quarters of this monastery. Amazing treasures lie within.

10+1. Last thing at night
Ward off a hangover with Chocolate con Churros at Chocolaterí­a San Ginés, on Pasadizo de San Ginés, 11. Things lived up after 3 a.m., when locals gather to dip thick battery churros sticks into gloopy hot chocolate.

Add more Madrid recommendations in the comments below, and do e-mail me a similar list for your favourite corner of Spain!

Categories
Spanish Culture and News

Spanish Humour saving the President of Madrid

There was lots of furore last week over the autobiography of the Presidenta de Madrid, Esperanza Aguirre (you know, my mate Espe, who wants to let everyone start smoking in Madrid again). Despite being from a very rich family, marrying a very rich husband, and earning 100 grand a year, the poor thing has trouble making ends meet. She writes:

“The worst thing is the electricity bill. I’ve got very high ceilings and the heating is electric, what a nightmare! … It’s not as if I’m counting my pennies at the end of every month; sometimes I’ve completely run out of money by then.”

Apparently she has even been forced to buy her clothes at Zara, like, well, her normal middle-class subjects. Anyway, all is well, as the internet is once again to the rescue. 1 Euro para Espe is (nearly) ready to take your donations.

Categories
Spanish Food and Drink

A drunken invocation

For ten points, who knows when this Galician verse is chanted, and what it’s called?

Mouchos, coruxas, sapos e bruxas.
Demos, trasnos e dianhos, espritos das nevoadas veigas.
Corvos, pintigas e meigas, feitizos das mencinheiras.
Pobres canhotas furadas, fogar dos vermes e alimanhas.
Lume das Santas Companhas, mal de ollo, negros meigallos, cheiro dos mortos, tronos e raios.
Oubeo do can, pregon da morte, foucinho do satiro e pe do coello.
Pecadora lingua da mala muller casada cun home vello.
Averno de Satan e Belcebu, lume dos cadavres ardentes, corpos mutilados dos indecentes, peidos dos infernales cus, muxido da mar embravescida.
Barriga inutil da muller solteira, falar dos gatos que andan a xaneira, guedella porra da cabra mal parida.
Con este fol levantarei as chamas deste lume que asemella ao do inferno, e fuxiran as bruxas acabalo das sas escobas, indose bañar na praia das areas gordas.
¡Oide, oide! os ruxidos que dan as que non poden deixar de queimarse no agoardente, quedando asi purificadas.
E cando este brebaxe baixe polas nosas gorxas, quedaremos libres dos males da nosa ialma e de todo embruxamento.
Forzas do ar, terra, mar e lume, a vos fago esta chamada: si e verdade que tendes mais poder que a humana xente, eiqui e agora, facede cos espritos dos amigos que estan fora, participen con nos desta queimada.

If you have absolutely no idea, or feel like cheating, Sal DeTraglia knows the answer 😉

Damn that’s a fine (and veeeery dangerous) drink! Dangerous because on the one hand you are exposed to the possibility of third degree burns, and secondly because it is one of the strongest alcoholic concoctions known to man. I wonder how we can fit one of these into the Great Madrid Escape?

Categories
Spanish Culture and News

Book launch Madrid-style

Marina and I were at a book launch last night, in a night club here in Madrid. The launch coincided with the inauguration of a new publisher, Drakul, run by one of Marina’s work mates, Javi, who promised us a memorable evening. The whole event went well, with a series of speeches about the book, followed by a comedy sketch involving four men dressed up as bullfighters. Javi then declared the launch party events complete, and the club was opened up to the general public.

As the place started to fill up, a young Spanish belly dancer took to the stage and started a wild dance routine to some Eastern-style disco music. Soon she was running into the crowd, grabbing young men and involving them in her routine, which meant sitting them on a chair and finding interesting ways to wrap her legs around them. With each new man grabbed from the audience, off came something else, until, finally, with a swish of her veil, she stood center-stage and completely naked (un desnudo integral).

‘And now,’ came a voice over the PA, ‘it’s the ladies’ turn!’ And on came a very large black guy, who basically repeated the routine, picking young ladies from the audience. On one of his victim-seeking forays he even grabbed Marina, but she clung so hard to my arm that he had to give up and choose someone else. Lucky for her, as the next part of the routine involved the lucky young lady sucking an ice-cube out of his mouth. I’m not sure whether Javi planned this last part of the show or not (I think it was for the benefit of the singles club that came in when they opened the doors to the public), but he was right about one thing, it was certainly a memorable evening! I wonder if all Madrid book launches end like that…

Categories
Living in Spain

The Ex-pat Manifesto

In response to the previous post, and to a call on Gaping Void for manifestos:

The Ex-pat manifesto: to be signed by all those people who have decided to go and live somewhere else by their own volition.

1. I live here because I want to. Just because I could be paid better for the same job back home does not give me the right to complain about it. In fact, just because anything at all is different here, I do not have the right to be rude about those whose country it really is (“the locals”).

2. Having infinite patience means it goes on forever, or, no matter how long those #*&¿#@ Spaniards (insert other expletive/nationality as appropriate) take to process a form or fix the plumbing, I’m the only one that cares if I loose my patience.

3. Even if I am conned, robbed, humiliated, lonely or homesick, it is worth remembering afterwards that I decided to step out of my comfort zone in the first place.

4. It really doesn’t matter if I hang out with the locals or with other ex-pats, as long as I am happy…

5. But those who continually complain about their new surroundings are to be avoided. It’s contagious.

6. Wow, everything is… new… it’s not the same as where I came from! What a chance to stimulate my senses! I will take photographs, maybe write a blog or keep a diary, produce podcasts, videos – I’m enjoying the fact that my new point of view is necessarily different, I’m revelling in these new opportunities to feel creative!

UPDATE: 7. When living somewhere you don’t originally come from, don’t resign yourself to the differences, just smile and get accustomed to them.

Please feel free to sign, or add to the ex-pat manifesto in the comments:

Categories
Living in Spain

Bad experiences of moving to spain?

One of the last comments on my post “How to start a new life in Spain before it’s too late” particularly caught my eye:

“What a ridiculous and naive take on moving to a new country??!!
In the first instance Spain is in fact one of the worst countries for relocating due to the relentless red tape and beaurocracy that is involved in purchasing property. It is also notorious for many a dodgy deal happening with unscrupulous sellers (apparently the ex-pat Brit is often the culprit) selling properties with all manner of debts attached to them which automatically become your problem. Furthermore, you’ll never actually own the land that your home sits on and therefore can be moved on at any point in the future should the Spanish government decide they want to build a through road right across your land (as with friend’s of my parents).
Work is hard to come by and badly paid. As for teaching, I myself am a qualified English Language Instructor and Spain is one of the lowest paid countries to secure well payed employment (in comparison to living) and it’s not uncommon for people to be paid the same rate whilst working in a bar (again crap pay).
I have been fortunate enough to have travelled extensively and to have lived in many different countries and I have no hesitation is saying that Spain is top of my list for worst places to live (unless of course you’re happy to live in an ex-pat ‘Eldorado’ community). Whilst I do have many Spanish friends, my own personal experience of the Spanish themselves was that they are an unfriendly, unhelpful hostile bunch who do little or nothing to make the tranistion less painful. I had even arrived with a job, enrolled for refresher language classes and communicated soley in Spanish.
Yes, people do move there in there droves but many come back to British shores with only the shirts on their back due to rushed, hurried decision making and lack of a comprehensive plan.
I almost sold up before my last trip there having had many an enjoyable holiday and I’m so glad that I held on to my investment across here instead. As far as Spain is concerned the days of an easy buck in the sun are well and truly over!!”

Evidently I strongly disagree with most of this statement – the government only ‘grabs’ people’s land in Valencia, for example – and I replied to the comment in full over at the original post. But this certainly got me thinking. I am aware that I am always more than encouraging to anyone that wishes to move to Spain, because frankly it has worked out very well for me, and many of my ex-pat friends here, but that can make this website a little one-sided. So I would really like to hear from anyone else that has had similar experiences to the commenter in question, or just simply didn’t find Spain that great. Leave a comment below or email me if you want to tell your story.

Categories
Notes from Spain Podcast

Rambling in the park – Notes from Spain podcast 51


[Download MP3]

Marina on the swing

Despite all appearances no alcohol was consumed before the making of this podcast. It just felt great to have come to some good decisions today about how Notes from Spain and Notes in Spanish are going to continue wonderfully into the future!

Photo: Marina on an unfortunately graffitied swing in the park. Discuss the podcast below or in the forum.

Categories
Top 5

Top 5 Places to find the Ghosts of Spain

A while back I wrote to Giles Tremlett, the Guardian’s Spain correspondent and author of Ghosts of Spain, to see if he would like to take part in our Spain Top 5’s series. He’s been very busy up until now with the release of the Spanish version of his book (España Ante Sus Fantasmas, published by SIGLO XXI), but here at last are Giles’ Top 5 places to find the Ghosts of Spain…

1. Valle de los Caidos

Franco’s tomb and a ghostly reminder that his regime was about both God and Patria. Set in a beautiful wooded valley outside Madrid, the conjunction of fascist grandeur, natural beauty and religious ardour is, in the true sense of the word, awesome. Also El Escorial is just down the road.

2. The cemetery at Paracuellos de Jarama

The huge white cross you see on the hillside by Madrid’s Barajas airport marks a cemetery where the mass graves of those murdered by the defenders of the Republic lie. The civil war was not black and white.

3. The Roncesvalles pass in the Pyrenees

Where the Basques fell on Charlemagne’s rearguard – a central act in the Basque myth of statehood. Also a beautiful spot (though you can skip the “monuments”), and specially good for looking at vultures.

4. The monastery at Poblet

I always try to visit the Cistercian monastery here during the week and out of season. A chilly winter afternoon is best, because you get it virtually to yourself. What can I say? There is something magical about the place, and not necessarily because it represents part of Catalonia’s pre-Spanish past. No wonder Gaudi found his inspiration here.

5. The Creation Tapestry in Girona cathedral

They recently dimmed the lights here so as to prevent the tapestry from fading. This makes the intense colours harder to make out but I can’t help looking at this huge piece of fabric without imagining the 11th century fingers that put it together. Girona is the Granada of the north-east and well worth a visit anyway.

Have you got a Spain Top 5 you’d like to send in to Notes from Spain?

Categories
Notes from Spain Podcast

Lonely Planet Podcasts publish our Galicia edit

Lonely Planet have just published a compilation I put together of the four podcasts we have made this year from Galicia. If you want to be reminded of all the best sounds from that wonderful province in the North West, you can download it via their site (title: Spanish Sounds).

Categories
notes

Quick web round up…

Nicholas Mead points to a particularly amusing bit of English Translation from the toursit office on the island of La Gomera:

IT IS OUR DESIRE THAT TRAVES OF THESE PAGINAS CAN KNOW THE ISLAND THE GOMERA, ITS HISTORY, CULTURE, ARTESANIA, GASTRONOMIA BETTER AND LIKE NO, OUR SUPPLY TURISTICA AND OF COMPLEMENTARY LEISURE

Meanwhile the Guardian comments on the usual Franco celebration nonsense in Madrid this weekend:

Hundreds of right-wing supporters, many making stiff-armed fascist salutes and chanting insults against gays and immigrants, gathered Sunday to mark the 31st anniversary of the death of Spanish dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.

Puerta del Sol mentions an essential new dictionary we Spanishofiles might want to get our hands on.

And finally, you probably have to be Spanish to understand all the humour in this one, but this take on Franco’s death is particularly fine, just before the minute mark, in the announcement for the BBC 🙂

(video direct link)