The Best Things in Life are Free (Madrid)

On our first full day in Madrid we had booked the walking tour with Tio Tours and Nick, the guy we met in the foyer yesterday. We were meeting at the plaza in between the Palace and the Cathedral for a 10:30am start. We were unsure of where we were going so we arrived just after 10am. This was fine, dear reader, because the plaza was quite the spectacle even before the day really got underway.

The Palace.

The Cathedral.

There was a pilgrim or school group on the steps of the Cathedral and tour groups meeting at varying points of the plaza. There were family groups and couples, so it was the place to people watch. Then there were those trying to make a Euro. A giant bear who had a small fan for ventilation in the back of his suit, trying to attract kids for photos. It was a reasonably cool day by Madrid standards but it would be a tough way to make money.

There was also a transformer, the yellow one. Beyond that I have no idea. I even had to Google that. There were also the tuk tuk drivers touting for business.

Just after 10:30am, Nick arrived with the other tourists. A German family of five and a solo Argentinian, making a nice group of eight including our guide. That should ensure we don't cause too many issues blocking pathways.

Random flower. Impatiens I think.

This is a 'free tour' so you pay what you think it is worth when it's all over and Nick certainly didn't press the point. With that, our experiences were all outside the buildings. I thought this was good because it gave us the option of returning, should we wish, to explore at our own pace. This is the obvious link to today's title, The Best Things in Life are Free. I've chosen the Frank Sinatra version from 1949 because the original was from 1927 and the more recent cover was by Janet Jackson (whoever she is) and some arch enemy of Superman's, Lex Luther or someone.

The tour wound itself through the old town commencing with the Palace, the largest in Europe, modelled on Versailles of course, but it has over 3,000 rooms. The Cathedral next door took forever to build. Not Sagrada Familia style, this one is complete - it was commenced almost 400 years after the Palace and consecrated by John Paul II in 1993. It is a genuine architectural mish-mash and apparently, most locals do not care for it, aesthetically speaking.

The rear of the Cathedral.

From the Cathedral, we walked to the 'wall of fire', a barricade built by the Moors,that had a surface of flint. Therefore every time an invader's arrow hit it, the metal sparked, causing the impression of a wall of fire. This was the backdrop to the garden where the cats lived. Cats are the symbol of Madrid because one invader climbed the flint wall 'like a cat'. The tag stuck although there was only one cat visible today. To be a proper cat, however, one's parents and grandparents have to have been born in Madrid.

The remnant wall of fire.

Into the old town now, we paused at the St Nicholas Church, the oldest church in Madrid. It had definite Moorish influences, being constructed of small bricks and having arches in the bell tower.

St Nicholas.

The next stop was at the memorial to Spaniards who were killed in the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. They were made stateless by Franco after the civil war and when WW2 began they were in France. When it was captured by the Nazis, they were interned in Austria, with most being murdered.

Names are inscribed on each memorial.

We wandered through other points of interest, along with many other much larger tour groups. Through the original main square of the old Madrid to the "oldest" of everything, restaurant, barber and hotel, denoted by a local plaque placed on the footpath outside the door of each establishment. Some had Guinness Book of Record plaques. The restaurant has achieved its fame by being the longest continuously operating restaurant in the EU. It has a wood fired kitchen and they kept it burning throughout COVID to maintain the record. Actually the concern is that if the fire goes out, the cooling may shatter the ancient oven structure.

There is no tooth fairy in Spain. Instead they have a small rodent who lives in a hole in the hall in one of the old streets. It leaves its home and collects the teeth of the children and replaces them with a coin. Sorry, no photo of the home of El Ratoncito Pérez - there was a queue of small children and their parents and they justifiably took priority over me barging my way in to take a photo .

Nean, or the Banksy of Madrid as he is known (a bit of a stretch if you ask me), has arranged small mosaics of tiles at night on various walls around Madrid. They are all based on a basketball and hoop and some make political statements. In some council areas they are removed or painted over as soon as they are seen; in others they are welcomed. We spotted a couple on our tour.

A Nean piece. 

Plaza Mayor was next with the story of its construction and destruction by fire three times before it was decided stone was a better building material than wood. Who knew? Originally a market place and public  execution place, the whole Plaza is now a tourist trap, with overpriced restaurants, cafés and shops.

Louis XIV anyone?

The full stop of our tour was Puerto del Sol where we saw the statue of the bear eating strawberries, the plaque where all roads in Spain are measured from and the engraving of the sun on the ground that dates back to the original gate to Madrid through which you could view the sun rising each day.

All roads lead from Madrid.

All  in all, an interesting, informative, quirky and entertaining overview of the history of Madrid in about 2 and a half hours. Highly recommended if you should venture this way.

We headed off to a small street off the main Puerto del Sol to find a place for a well earned beer and some very late brunch, read breakfast, before we then retraced our steps to the Cathedral to venture inside - the interior was much more impressive than the exterior. Again, a mixture of styles.

Typical Gothic arches.

Not so typical frescoes.

Also not so typical.

After a quick rest stop back at our hotel, we walked down the Gran Via towards several other landmarks, the Fuente de la Cibeles, a significant fountain in the middle of a very large roundabout, backdropped by am impressive white public building, Palacio de Comunicaciones and the gate, Puerta de Alcalá.

Palacio de Comunicaciones.

Puerta de Alcalá.

After that we took on the Friday night crowds to wend our way back up the Gran Via to our hotel for a second in house dinner and an early retirement, well early by Spanish standards. Tomorrow would be a pre-sunrise start, albeit the sun does not appear before 8:30am right now in Madrid, for our Uber/bus trip out to San Lorenzo El Escorial to see the palace and monastery.

Madrid's answer to Shibuya.

Until tomorrow.