Madrid: Museums and the Sweet Life!

After seeing New York and London I never would have imagined a city capable of surpassing them from the point of view of the movement in the streets. And yet here is Madrid, in this early spring, with all the streets of the center invaded by myriads of people, artists and street performances, engaging sounds and rhythms.

You can't say that Madrid abounds in monuments to visit, at least if we consider those to visit inside: except for the splendid Royal Palace, the churches don't particularly impress: the

Madrid with the kids

If you go to Madrid with children (as in my case), you can combine visiting the city with many attractions that will delight the little ones, and by alternating cultural visits with moments of fun, you won't risk boring them too much. The Madrid Card gives access to all the attractions, as well as the museums, royal palace, tourist tours.

We start the day at the Sunday market El Rastro, a kind of immense flea market. Nearby you can also visit the former Cathedral of San Isidro.

Afterwards we move on to the Zoo-Aquarium, located at the beginning of Casa de Campo, an immense park where it almost no longer feels like you're in a city. It's a cross between a simple zoo and a theme park like Sea World, in miniature version naturally, with various shows including the sea lion, birds of prey, dolphin performances, etc.

From here, a few minutes by bus takes you to the Parque de Atracciones, the city's amusement park, but the lines are long and the rides are either too adrenaline-fuelled or too childish. The children will have a lot of fun anyway.

500 metres from the park exit, an uphill little street leads to the cable car station (it seems nobody knows about it), which descends into the city crossing much of Casa de Campo.

Tired and hungry, we decide to have dinner near the hotel, but the restaurants all open after 20:30 or 21:00. So we end up at McDonald's (despair!!!).

We dedicate the morning to visiting the sumptuous Royal Palace, truly immense, it contains more than 2000 rooms, but naturally the ones you can visit are far, far fewer. Once you've gone up the grand marble staircase, you come to the most significant ones: the throne room, the porcelain room, small and intimate, up to the grandiose dining room, although the bare table doesn't do justice to the beauty of the hall. Outside the palace, back in the Plaza de la Armeria, you find the Pharmacy and the Royal Armoury.

Once the visit is over we move on to the Wax Museum, with the reconstruction of famous figures from Christopher Columbus up to our own times, with Bush, Charles and Camilla and Zidane.

We dedicate the afternoon to visiting the remaining part of Madrid, which we travel entirely with the Madrid Vision, an open-top double-decker bus that crosses the whole centre with about thirty stops at the most touristy spots, from Plaza de Espana to Puerta del Alcalà. We get off at the Paseo del Prado where we visit the most famous museum, the immense Prado, stroll in the Buen Retiro park and stop in Plaza de Cibeles to admire the fountain of the same name, which unfortunately is positioned in the middle of a roundabout in heavy traffic and doesn't get admired as it deserves. Finally a nice Spanish dinner in the centre based on tapas, paella and sangria in a restaurant with "Italian hours".

By metro we come out in the outskirts of Madrid, as far as Valdebernardo, where the theme park "Faunia" is located. It's a park that aims to recreate some of our planet's ecosystems. The most successful ones are certainly the Arctic, which hosts the largest reconstruction of the pole in Europe, with the very cute penguins hopping on the rocks and ice and then diving into the water, and the Jungle, where you can stroll among tropical plants surrounded by toucans, parrots and little monkeys. Of course, the real forest "trodden" in Brazil a year ago was another matter, but the reconstruction is still well done. Then you move on to the Jurassic, with the dinosaur skeletons, to the aviary and then to other less significant attractions. The visit to Faunia is pleasant anyway and recommended for those staying a few days in the capital and making use of the Madrid Card.

We then stop by Atocha station to collect the train tickets to Toledo booked online. So we can calmly admire the incredible tropical garden located right in the centre of the station.

In the evening, instead, we go to the Imax cinema. The equipment provided is mind-blowing: innovative auditorium, 3D effects, giant screen nine storeys high. A shame that the two films we saw weren't up to it, banal plots and too-slow pacing. The image is nevertheless high quality.

It's almost 22:00 and we have dinner at "Spanish hours" in a trattoria where you can still find the typical dishes of the capital, such as Cocido Madrileno and lamb-based dishes, by now impossible to find in tourist restaurants. All at truly modest prices (about 10-12 euros for two courses, dessert, water and wine).