Operation: Explore Madrid

After a restful first night of sleep in Europe, we woke up early, had breakfast (my favorite meal of the day, as you can see below), and headed to the center of Madrid for a morning walking tour.

Mmmmmmmmmm

It's necessary to mention that sidewalks are extremely different in Spain... Cobblestones. Everywhere. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely beautiful. But let me tell you, they are feet-killers! Anyway, after a solid 30 minute hike, we arrived at Plaza Mayor where our tour guide met us.

Plaza Mayor

I took SO many pictures along the tour, and captioned as many as I could on Facebook, so check out my descriptions there! After a long morning of walking, we stopped for a quick break, and then headed across the street from our hotel to El Museo del Prado. At this point I was already pretty burned out from translating Spanish is my brain and walking my feet off on the cobblestones, so the museum was a struggle for me.

Valencia group outside Museo del Prado

However, I did get to see a couple great paintings that I remember studying in my previous Spanish courses (pretty cool)! I even took a contraband photo before the museum lady scolded me!

My post-museum zombie self could barely function, so after a quick lunch out on a terrace, one of my roommates and I decided to really embrace Spanish culture and take a siesta! Let me just say, BEST. IDEA. EVER. We woke up refreshed, and ready to do some shopping! After grabbing a map from the front desk (which I'm glad to say we did not even need!), we made our way back towards Plaza Mayor and each found a couple cute items! We also decided to have dinner at Plaza Mayor which was transformed into a bunch of cute little dinner cafés as dusk was falling.

panorama of Plaza Mayor at dinner time

We were careful to make our way back to the hotel after dark and pack up everything to leave for Toledo the following morning!