John decided we HAD to get to Madrid and got tickets online for the fast train for $58 Euro one way. I got online to book the hotel and found a deal at Senator Gran Via, included breakfast and internet, what more could we ask for. I always ask for a high floor in the comments as well so when we showed up and the high room wasn't ready, they asked if we could wait an hour and so we headed to McDonalds across the street. It was worth the wait!!! We got the Penthouse Suite with a separate sitting area and a whole patio with a view of the Gran Via to die for.
Being the tour director I am, I immediately pulled out the Rick Steve's "Spain" for our itinerary. I noticed the Prado was free from 6pm to 8pm (closing time) so decided that was what we were going to do. Then got our list of tapas bars together, mapped them out and found a Flamengo show with an opening for that night and made reservations.
The Prada has more than 3,000 paintings so we really had to plan well. Rick Steve's book gives a quick Self tour that we used and saw all the important and most famous paintings in the two hours. Again, no photos are allowed so only memories can be taken away.
Tapas are like small dishes of appetizers. It is fun because you can taste quite a few things. Some of the places charge you on the honor system by counting the number of toothpicks left on your plate...one toothpick equals one tapas. We had ham sandwiches, olives and tapenade at one place then had Gazpacho soup, chorizo sausage and bread next.
We walked to the Flamengo show at Casa Patas. Due to our last minute reservations we were near the back but it was a small enough venue to enjoy it. We just wanted to see the feet tapping on the floor and had to stand to see that part. It is a very emotional dance. There was a lot of singing by two gentlemen also there were two Spanish guitar players, one drummer (drumming on a hard sided cube) and a percussionist. Two women did all the dancing, no men that night. We had a full day and got back into the hotel around 2am...early for the Spanish.
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