travelswithalice
September 23, 2015
The long journey home
We've been away five weeks. Time to go home.
We went from this...
...to this in one afternoon...
We decided to go straight back to Manila without the planned stops in London and Hong Kong. We left Madrid Monday afternoon, picked up our left luggage at the Conrad in London, stayed the night at a Heathrow Hilton, and flew to Hong Kong the next day with an immediate connection to Manila.
The Hong Kong layover was just long enough to have lunch and download the new software for the Apple Watch.
Labels: Holiday, London, Madrid
September 21, 2015
Madrid's Outdoor Sculpture Museum
Under the flyover linking the streets of Juan Bravo and Eduardo Dato, a group of skateboarders are practicing their routines, the thump and clatter of their boards punctuating the buzz of traffic on Paseo de la Castellana. They nonchalantly weave in and out of monumental works of art scattered across the space.
This is the Museo Arte Publico, a free outdoor museum that is home to a superb collection of Spanish abstract sculpture. Represented here are works of major artists like Joán Miro and Eduardo Chillida.
It is one of the cleverest, most beautiful uses of available urban space I have ever seen.
Labels: Madrid, museum, open air sculpture museum, sculpture
September 19, 2015
More Madrid Restaurants
In Salamanca, on Calle Claudio Coello, Oter Restaurant. It has a tapas bar and a dining room. Good fish, seafood.
Off Plaza Mayor, on Calle de la Bolsa, La Imprenta. For a light meal, an afternoon drink. Nice to sit at curbside, quiet street.
Again in Salamanca, on Calle Goya, Nimú, downstairs at the Adler Hotel. We chose this for our last evening in Madrid. Intimate, chic. Great food. The service here is what one rightly expects at a good restaurant but is sadly absent in too many establishments purporting to be good. (To describe professional, knowledgeable, well-mannered restaurant service, can one say waiterly, as in painterly?) The fried chocolate dessert is addictive.
A great way to end a holiday.
Labels: Madrid, restaurants
September 17, 2015
Capas Seseña of Madrid
Capas Seseña
Calle de la Cruz consists of a long line of bars, small restaurants, shops selling Iberico ham, and souvenir shops selling Spanish mementos made in China. Most of the bars are shuttered during the day and come alive only in the evenings, to stay open all night and into the wee hours.
It's an unattractive street littered with cigarette butts, its grimy walls scrawled over with unenthusiastic graffiti.
In the midst of all this is a gem of a shop that sells only capes. All made from excellent Spanish wool onsite in an upstairs atelier.
Designer and cutter Carmen helped me try on several models. I tried everything: from the sinister- looking full-length black ones lined in red to the one I eventually settled on, a more contemporary shorter camel-colored one with a broad collar. This, after much agonizing and pining over the more dramatic braided ones which of course I would never find occasion to wear.
Carmen poses for me at her cutting table brandishing her formidable maestra's scissors:
Labels: Capas Seseńa, cape, Madrid, shopping
September 16, 2015
Eating In and around Huertas
Good food and good wine are not hard to find in Madrid. Servings are generous and prices are mostly low to very low.
Fatigas del Querer
A lively, atmospheric bar decorated with beautiful azulejo tiles and artistically distressed walls designed to coyly suggest a colorful past. Most intriguing is its poetic-sounding name. Our waiter told us it means "Dying for Love."
It's a popular neighborhood meeting place. Customers are warmly welcomed by the cheerful staff and most of them seem to know one another. Food is good, simply prepared. It comes piled high in huge platters. Good local wines.
This popular restaurant has recently moved to its present location on Calle Principe where it stands out with its immaculate freshly painted facade and brightly lit, smart contemporary styled interior.
A boorish waiter was in charge of the waiting list when we were there- diners waiting to be seated were shooed away to stand outside the restaurant llike street urchins come to oggle the patrons eating.
Otherwise this is an attractive place serving good food at very reasonable prices. Service at table is enthusiastic and swift, if a trifle disorganized.
La Tia Cebolla
We got caught out in the rain and found shelter in this friendly taberna. Perfect for people watching. Glass of house tinto at €2 comes with tapas of ham and cheese.
The Hotel Villa Real Madrid
One of the first things hoteliers must learn to do is how to say no graciously. Because that is the first and maybe the only thing a guest will remember about the hotel.
When I asked the front desk at our hotel if it was possible to have a milder coffee for the machine inside our room, it was the way the man at the desk said no that immediately made me decide that the Hotel Villa Real in Madrid is not a hotel I'd be coming back to.
Never mind that the room is a bi-level suite with a private terrace and a nice view of the old city.
In the end, it's the people running the place that make the difference between a luxury hotel and just an ordinary tourist accommodation.
Labels: Hotel Villareal, Madrid, Small Luxury Hotels of the World
September 13, 2015
Markets, musicals, cabarets, and circus acts
Spontaneity and a thirst for adventure are great companions on any trip; and Stuart and I are great ones for unplanned holidays. But the total absence of any direction for this particular holiday amazes even me.
I guess you can say we're chasing the sun. Or maybe just escaping the cold. Also, we're just going where our fancy takes us. By the seat of our pants kind of thing.
I'm into markets these days. And cabarets, and circus acts. I keep missing out on museums, art galleries, lectures, and other cultural endeavors. With a few exceptions.
The story so far:
MILAN.
Milan is our usual entry point to Europe.
We shopped a little, ate a lot, had a bit of wine- no, a lot...
We did manage to see La Bayadere at the Coliseum and Hamlet at the Barbican, two of the hottest tickets in London this summer. Admittedly, Hamlet was more about Benedict Cumberbatch and the shocking retooling of the play than about Shakespeare.
After years of avoiding musicals- the last one I enjoyed was Into the Woods which I saw here while it was still in previews- we went to see two relatively new ones: Memphis and Beautiful. I was not thrilled with the first one; loved the second. Stuart enjoyed both.
There were meals in pubs and bistros, the fabulous Borough Market, and a tentative stab at the famously rowdy Notting Hill Carnival. There were no gourmet tastings in celebrated restaurants.
No art galleries or museums. Only the Tate Modern, briefly. In fact, we couldn't get away quick enough. Not our kind of art.
And no lectures. One notable exception: Stuart's lecture. He gave a keynote speech at University of Essex on Big Data Applications for Anti Money Laundering. He of course got rave reviews but none from me as I only got to hear it in previews.
Family thing: Flowers to Mum, All Saints in Theydon Garnon.
MADRID.
No Prado, no Thyssen. Lots of markets though:- San Miguel, San Anton, La Paz, Platea.
Two noteworthy restaurants- Goya (superb) and El Paraguas (not).
Shopping and partying in the elegant Salamanca district.
News flash: "Refugees Welcome " banner at the Ayuntamiento.
BACK TO LONDON.
A birthday treat from Lorna & Tom: dinner at RSJ Bistro and superbly entertaining, deliciously low Black Cat Cabaret at Southbank Centre.
Family thing: Tea with Uncle John and Auntie Pat, Buckhurst Hill. This is Bertie, their baby.
News flash: Jeremy Corbyn wins as leader of the opposition; celebrates at Sanctuary House, the pub next door to our hotel. View from our bedroom window:
And tomorrow, BACK TO MADRID.
At least to get those boots at Meermin and an all weather jacket. Sounds like a plan, right?
Labels: Holiday, London, Madrid
September 10, 2015
At Adler Hotel
The day after my birthday, we moved to a new hotel, a new neighborhood, a new vibe. For the first day of the rest of my life.
Adler Hotel is located in tony Barrio Salamanca, at the junction of Calle de Goya and Calle de Velásquez, amidst quiet shops, cafes, and restaurants. No malls in sight.
Shopping in Salamanca.
Elegant shops. Clothes at Trucco, Spagnolo. Shoes at Meermin. Jackets at Hakei.
The fitting rooms at Spagnolo.
El Paraguas. Interesting but not my favorite. A little too pleased with themselves I think. I was unimpressed by the service- it was disorganized and lacking in charm. I wasn't terribly excited about the food either. We had fabada, seabass, and trotters with morels and black truffles. Frankly, Terry's (our neighborhood Spanish bistro in Makati) serves better food.
Platea on the Plaza de Colón is a food hall in what was once a cinema. The hotel concierge recommended it, saying it's like Mercado de San Miguel but the tapas here is gourmet. Food, drinks, and theatre. We love it and keep coming back.
We usually end the day with fried chocolates at the hotel's Nimú bar. Last night, the maitre d' said the chocolates would go wonderfully with alcohol. So he poured a shot of Superstition whisky for me and a glass of Pedro Ximenez for Stuart. Just a drop, he insisted. He was right- the combination was good.
Labels: Hotel Adler, Salamanca district
September 07, 2015
Madrid
Stuart and I like grand old hotels. We like seeing them before they get modernized and homogenized.
Hotel Ritz Madrid is certainly old, and in some ways still grand. However it's not The Ritz anymore. The property was acquired by the Mandarin Oriental last May and is due to be retrofitted next year.
This means now is the best time to be here, before the renovators and designers swoop in.
Beautiful bed linen, blankets and bed covers; no quick-change duvets here. Enormous thick bath towels big as bedsheets to get lost in. Embroidered shower curtains...oops, shower curtains? Really? Oh well, the bathroom has to go...
And maître d' Juan Jose must stay at Goya to ensure a dinner service that's quietly elegant, knowledgeable, and unobtrusively solicitous.
Okay, now you can renovate the hotel.
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