Our journey to Madrid started in Manchester.
It’s not that far to the Spanish capital and so our two and half hour journey was on an Iberia flight that arrived at 1-30pm local time. Spain is one hour ahead of the UK.
We decided to stay at the Innside Melia near the airport and for good reason. This would be a very short trip to this cultural city before our onward journey to Peru.
Once we had checked into the hotel we took an Uber to the centre to explore.
We had seen advertised in the plane magazine that there was a show at the Teatro Calderon called The Magical Houdini Musical.
We booked the matinee performance and whilst it was in Spanish the show was amazing, receiving a standing ovation at the end.
The show tells the story of Houdini and the illusions he created. He died of a burst appendix.
After the show we went looking for somewhere to eat. We were surprised that many of the restaurants were not open until 7-30pm or later.
We eventually found a hotel restaurant to eat in before taking an Uber back to our accommodation.
The Innside by Melia is a modern hotel with attentive staff, clean spacious rooms.
I liked that they included some flavoured drinks in the room. The shower was spacious and the bed really comfy.
Breakfast in the spacious dining area on the ground floor was varied and well presented from the kitchen which was separated by a glass screen from the buffet area.
We decided to take an Uber into the city again and headed for The History of Madrid Museum.
This is a free museum that takes you through the centuries and tells you about the monarchy.
On the 3rd May 1846 Napoleon attacked Madrid, but the people fought back despite executions.
Madrid has a bank holiday on this date every year to celebrate its freedom.
From this Museum we walked to the Retino Park, the number one attraction in the city and a communal space that Madrid is particularly proud of. It’s beautifully laid out, mature and well established. It has a boating lake overlooked by a statue of King Ferdinand.
Our next stop two minutes from the park was the world famous Prado art museum where thousands of great masters like Reuben, Valenquez, Triboit works are displayed.
These paintings in some cases are almost photogenic, painted hundreds of years ago. Many telling the stories of the past and the only historical record of what really happened at that time.
Colours are vibrant with depth and skill that over time I have started to appreciate.
These artists didn’t just paint a picture. Often they were veiled in allegory and illusions. Some had hidden meanings whilst others balanced a painting with subtle hints to the mood and current affairs.
Religious paintings portray many images of faith and set out the moral compass that was lacking at that time.
Finally after our two hour English audio tour of the most significant work out of thousands of peaces of art held here, we left and headed back to the hotel.
We had already checked out so grabbed our luggage and headed over to the Madrids Terminal 4 on the hotel shuttle.
This is a seriously big airport!
Check-in was reasonably smooth except when they were asking if we were sure we had a booking! They found it eventually and we passed through the airport quickly.
Our cases were damaged on the way out to Madrid and so we bought suitcase straps to reinforce the integrity of the cases.
Our flight was from Terminal 4S and to get to this you have to take the small train to the other side of this massive airport.
Once we got there we found the Iberia Business lounge where we had something to eat before our flight.
This Iberia A330-200 aircraft is now quite old but our seats were comfy allowing us to sleep for 7 of this 12 hour flight.
The main meal was reasonable but the breakfast was a little lacking.
It’s a strange feeling being able to WhatsApp my family at 38000 feet and travelling at 554mph towards Lima.
Our adventure was about to begin.
