Our flight left early Thursday morning, so we drove to Las Vegas to stay the night before our flight. We had dinner at Xiao Long Dumplings (we love their XLB and green beans) and walked around the strip for a little bit. We wanted to see the spring display at the Bellagio Conservatory and were surprised to find them transitioning from winter to spring. We were bummed to miss the final product, but it was kind of neat to watch them do the installation.

We boarded our flight early Thursday morning and after a long travel day, we finally landed in Madrid Friday morning and took a cab to Hostal Persal in central Madrid where we would stay for four nights. I forgot to get any pictures of our room - it was basic accommodations, which we expected. I chose it for the location (Barrio de las Letras neighborhood), good reviews, and decent prices (I was pleasantly surprised at how reasonable hotels were in Madrid). It worked out well for our stay. Our room was ready when we arrived and after checking in and leaving our luggage, we were off to walk around Madrid. Our first order of business was getting something to eat and we made the short walk to Antón Martín Market. Everything looked good at Cafés Tornasol and we settled on a charcuterie plate - a delicious choice!

Properly fueled, we hopped on the Metro to visit Museo Geominero, a unit of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain located in the Chamberí district. The origin of the museum was the work of the Commission for the Geological Map of Spain, created by Queen Isabell II in 1849. Early on the collection was dispersed in different venues and it was all brought together in 1927 in the present day museum. The Museum contains minerals and fossils representing the geology of Spain and its former colonies, as well as items from other parts of the world. The mineral collection consists of approximately 21,800 samples, the rock collection has 1,900 samples, and the fossil collection is made up of nearly 53,000 specimens; about 25% of the collection is on display.

The collection is terrific and I like how it was organized and displayed. The specimens are housed in 250 carved wood and glass display cases on the main floor and three tiers of balconies accessed by spiral staircases in the corners of the museum. The central hall has a magnificent polychrome stained glass semi-vaulted ceiling featuring a large royal coat of arms and sixteen smaller ones representing the Corps of Mining Engineers and the provincial mining authorities that existed when the building was completed in 1925. We entered the museum through an impressive stairway in white Macael marble with beautiful stained glass panels. I thought the building was just as much an attraction as the collection - both were fantastic. We were glad we were able to visit Museo Geominero (bonus that it is free to visit!).

We used the Metro to get to Puerta del Sol and start the Historic Core Walking Tour from the Rick Steves guidebook. It’s appropriate the walking tour starts from Puerta del Sol as it’s at the heart of Madrid. The city square was named for a gate carved with a rising sun that once stood at the eastern edge of the old city in the 15th century. Throughout time Puerta del Sol has been an important meeting place, center of activity, and home to historic events and buildings. As a junction for many of the city’s historical and busiest streets, today it’s a pedestrian zone bustling with activity. A few of the things we saw in Puerta del Sol:

- El Oso y el Madroño (The Bear and the Strawberry Tree) by sculptor Antonio Navarro Santafé (installed in 1967). This image of the bear and the madroño (a tree that produces a berry that makes the traditional madroño liquor) has been a symbol of Madrid since it first appeared on the coat of arms of the city in the 13th century.

- Tío Pepe Sign. This neon sign advertising Tío Pepe sherry (“Sol de Andalucia Embotellado!” - Andalusian sun in a bottle!) was installed in 1936 on Hotel Paris and has persevered through a civil war and an ordinance to remove neon advertisements (the mayor of Madrid granted the sign an official pardon). It’s a popular icon in Madrid - a petition gathered more than 50,000 signatures when it was removed from its building when it changed hands in 2011. The sign was refurbished and relocated to its current home in 2014.

- King Charles III statue. King Charles III (1716-1788) was nicknamed “the best mayor of Madrid” for his progressive reforms, such as establishing the public school system, mandating underground sewers, and building the Prado.

- Kilometer 0 plaque. This plaque in front of Real Casa de Correos marks the geographical center of Spain. This is the point from which distances are measured in Spain - it’s the starting point for the national roads and the starting point for Madrid’s numbered streets.

- Real Casa de Correos (The Royal House of the Post Office) was constructed between 1766 and 1768 under the reign of Charles III. It originally served as Madrid’s first post office and currently serves as the headquarters of the Madrid regional government. There are three white marble plaques on the building that commemorate significant events in Madrid’s history: citizens killed by French troops in 1808 when they gathered to protest the French invasion (this event was captured by Francisco de Goya in his famous painting The Third of May), the terrorist train bombings on March 11, 2004; and the victims of Covid during the pandemic.

- El Corte Inglés. So this isn’t on the historic walking tour, but we wanted to pop into the famous department store. They have a store on Puerta del Sol with several floors of athletic gear and shoes. Norah was able to find a coveted pair of Adidas shoes that are hard to buy in the US and I was pleasantly surprised to see a Nike ad featuring Caitlin Clark.

After checking out the sights in Puerta del Sol, we started the walking tour. The route of the tour was basically along Calle Mayor to Calle de Bailén, then over to Calle del Arenal to return to Puerta del Sol. There was a lot to see along this route - both places noted in the guidebook and places we just came across (Norah was especially happy to find a vintage thrift store called Humana, that we later learned was a chain and we visited several across the city). Some of the sights we saw along the tour:

- Plaza Mayor. Back in the 1600s this plaza was Madrid’s main square and witnessed much of Spanish history, from the good (fun times at Carnaval) to the horrendous (trials and executions during the Inquisition). The plaza has survived multiple fires, the worst in 1790 that required the plaza to be rebuilt in the fashion we see today. This is when the square was closed off at the corners and the arches were built as entrances to the plaza. The square is surrounded by uniform buildings that today serve mainly as private apartments. The current color of the buildings was selected by a citywide poll. There is a tourist information center housed in Casa de la Panaderia, which was built in 1590 and served as the town’s main bakery among other things (the cellar and ground floor of the original building remain). The frescoes on the façade were painted in 1992 by artist Carlos Franco and feature mythological figures linked to the history of Madrid.

- Mercado de San Miguel. The church San Miguel de los Octoes originally stood on this site and after the same fire in 1790 that destroyed much of nearby Plaza Mayor, the church was damaged and eventually demolished in the early 1800s. An open air market carrying the name of the church was established on the site. A closed market using iron architecture was built and opened in 1916 and today this market is the only example remaining in the city in this style of iron architecture. It transitioned to a gastronomic market in 2009 and was further reimagined as a food hall that draws millions of visitors each year. We knew this was more of a “tourist market”, but popped in to check it out. Everything looked delicious, but it was so insanely crowded that we lasted about five minutes before we noped on out of there. We returned the next morning when it opened and it was a much more pleasant experience.

- Monasterio del Corpus Christi. The main reason we wanted to stop here was to buy “Secret Nun Cookies”. To the right of the main door with the coat of arms above it, is another door where you can ring a buzzer, ask about sweets for sale, and be let in to purchase cookies from the cloistered nuns. The nuns are forbidden from contact with the outside world, so it’s a unique system to buy baked goods. You can look at the menu, announce your choice, put your money on the torno (like a lazy Susan), and spin it around. Then your change and cookies appear. Sounds fun, right? Unfortunately, our timing was never right and the few times we passed by here they were always closed. However, I was able to purchase a rosary as a gift using a similar system when we visited Seville a few days later.

- Madrid’s Oldest Door. Right before we entered Plaza de la Villa, we stopped to admire what is considered the oldest door on Madrid’s oldest building La Torre de Los Lujanes (inhabited since 1480). The wooden door is set in a Mudejar keyhole arch.

- Plaza de la Villa. This plaza was one of the main centers of the medieval capital and has three buildings of historical value: Lujanes house and tower (15th century), Casa de Cisneros (16th century), and Casa de la Villa (17th century).

- Assassination Attempt Memorial. In 1906 Spain’s King Alfonso XIII and his bride, Victoria Eugenie, were married. As they were escorted in their carriage from the church to the Royal Palace after the wedding ceremony, an anarchist threw a bouquet with a bomb attached to it from the third floor of a nearby building. The bomb was diverted by tram wires and missed the royals. Unfortunately, it fell on the gathered onlookers and killed 28 people and injured more.

- Almudena Cathedral. This cathedral is a baby compared to many of the cathedrals we saw in Spain. Plans for the church were drawn up in 1879 and the first stone was laid in 1883, but not long after that the Pope granted a papal bull for the creation of a bishopric. So the plans changed to a grander cathedral in the Gothic style, but delays accumulated as funds were insufficient. When work was restarted in 1939, it was decided a Gothic cathedral was no longer suitable and a national contest found a new architect team with a neoclassical design. The cathedral was completed piecemeal (and with mixed styles) and it was finally considered complete in 1993 and it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II.

- Plaza de la Armería and the Royal Palace. Across from Almudena Cathedral sits the Royal Palace and Plaza de la Armería between the two buildings. Although “building” is insufficient to describe the Royal Palace, which is Europe’s largest palace with over 3,400 rooms and 1.5 million square feet. We took a look at the outside of the palace and would be returning the next day for a tour inside the palace.

- Chocolateria San Ginés. From all my reading pre-trip, it appeared we could not leave Spain without having churros and Chocolateria San Ginés was frequently mentioned. So of course we had to indulge!

- Ratón Pérez. In the US we have the Tooth Fairy, in Spain they have Ratón Pérez (Perez the Mouse), who first appeared in a children’s book in the late 1800s. There is a small museum on Calle de Arenal dedicated to Ratón Pérez. We didn’t go in, but stopped to take a look at the window display.

The walking tour took us full circle and we ended up back near Puerta del Sol. We managed to stave off jet lag for most of the day, but by the time we were done, our beds at Hostal Persal were calling us. We had one last stop however when a small shop with cookies displayed in their window caught our eye. If you google Mantequeria Bermejo, it says it’s a grocery store. A store mostly full of cookies? My kind of grocery store, lol. Of course we had to check it out. After that we called it a day. We felt we got a nice taste of Madrid and it was a great start to our trip!