Smitten

WEEK 28

I started the 52×52 project six months ago to treat myself each week to something new, a way to have fun, discover, learn, challenge, observe and, importantly, hold myself accountable to explore my writing. I’m not going to do a look-back just yet, but scanning the inventory of posts, I love that I’ve done all these things and have a few readers alongside me. That’s a new feeling.

This week my present to myself is a Thanksgiving holiday in Madrid, and yes, it follows directly from last week’s post about Milan. (My cousin Nancy coined this my Double M trip. As another aside, if you read the week 19 post about seeing the psychic, you’ll remember she predicted I would travel overseas before the end of the calendar year and that it would be “very good for me to cross water.” Psychic scores a point.)

Back to Madrid. Technically, it’s not a new destination for me. I visited as a teen on my first-ever European trip when my mom and I drove what I assume were thousands of kilometers through England, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. As an adult, I’ve visited a couple of times for work, but those trips only give you a glimpse from an office window, maybe a dinner or two if you’re lucky.

Over the past few days, Madrid came to life. The door opened just enough for me to fall in love, and I left wanting to learn a bit of Spanish, rent an apartment for a month and get swept up in the energy and beauty.

The Madrid we experienced is a stunner across all senses, certainly the central neighborhoods where we spent our time: Retiro, Salamanca, Chueca, Malasana, Lavapies, Arguelles, Plaza Major, Santa Ana, Barrio de Las Letras, even touristy Sol.

The immensity of spectacular architecture in the city center left me speechless. All I could do was look up and point, constantly, at the intricately carved white-stone buildings, one after another so pristine you’d think the city gets scrubbed top to bottom each month. Along perfectly manicured, double-wide boulevards sat exquisite one-time palaces and block-long government buildings with steel, glass, stone and brick. One of my favorites – the Bank of Spain building at the corner of Paseo del Prado and Calle de Alcala – showed off an eclectic mix of intricate exterior elements including the most gorgeous cast-iron hanging lamps, one in each window along all the facades. I never tired of looking at them.

We wandered residential neighborhoods of tree-lined streets and independent shops, each building outdoing its neighbor with charming wrought-iron balconies. The oldest parts of the city came to life post siesta (stores still close from roughly 2:30pm to 5:00pm), the narrow, bricked lanes filled with people shopping. And beyond all we saw, there are more districts with modern towers, many by the star-architects of today.

Across neighborhoods, we found shop after shop inviting us in with unexpected contemporary interior design blended into what I imagine are 100-year old spaces of vaulted ceilings, iron columns, worn tiled floors – and they all smelled divine.

Then, of course, there’s eating and drinking and loving life, which the Madrilenos perfected. Everyone around us seemed to achieve all that we stand for: sleep late, eat later, drink always. And they were constantly engaged in conversation, in pairs or large groups of people—no phones or devices in sight. The amount of intense, serious discourse made the Parisians look lazy and lowbrow.

Irena and I have been getting our Spanish-cuisine on these past few years, learning about and enjoying sherry and vermouth, as well as wines from lesser-known regions (to Americans) like Toro. We’ve been into jamon iberico long before it was approved for export to the US, but more recently, we’ve been loving the food from Galicia and the Basque country in the north. Madrid had it all – more restaurants than we could ever try with beautiful, sexy interiors, flawless execution and service. We ate our way across the city: octopus, croquettes with jamon iberico, tomato tartare, artichokes, arroz with peasant (deliciously rich like a risotto), bass ceviche, tuna, hake and every night secreto – the hard to find “secret” cut of Iberico de Bellota pork.

I am a sucker for cities where people are out and about, in parks, plazas, gardens, restaurant patios, at all hours of the day and times of year. Madrid had a lived in and livable energy.

On Sunday afternoon at 6:00pm, the Mercado de San Miguel was wall-to-wall people, taking their vermouth or wine or beer along with any number of pintxos. Most stores are open until 9:00pm daily. Even the Reina Sofia museum has free evening hours every night from 7:00pm to 9:00pm, which we took advantage of on our last day, between lunch that ended at 4:30pm and a dinner reservation for 10:30pm. What a perfect way, buzzed on sherry and well-fed, to see all our favorite early 20^th century painters.

On Tuesday night at 12:30am, walking back to our hotel, we stopped to have dessert at a restaurant with a large terrace overlooking the Plaza de la Independencia, tables nestled among heat lamps and every seat taken. Who are these people, I wonder, and how can I be one of them?