On the way to Lisbon from Barcelona, Nico and I had quite the layover in Madrid. This was an intentionally long layover in hopes of stretching our legs a bit and exploring the first city that welcomed me to my semester abroad.
First, we had lunch at Mercado San Miguel. Although more pricey than other lunch locations in Madrid, Mercado San Miguel is hard to pass up because of its energetic ambiance and tasty local bites to eat. Nico and spent the afternoon walking up and down the aisles of the market, stopping at the different stalls, buying cañas (beers) and empanadas.
Nico walks through Plaza Mayor (near Mercado San Miguel)
After lunch, Nico and I wanted to spend some time outside since we'd been on a train all morning and had more train travel to look forward to that evening. We made our way to Parque del Buen Retiro, one of Madrid's largest parks. We spent some time walking around and looking at the sites. I didn't know very much about the park at the time so it was pretty cool to stumble upon structures like the Crystal Palace (that had an art exhibit inside currently) or el Monumento a Alfonso XII.
The Crystal Palace
Exhibit inside the Crystal Palace
Monumento a Alfonso XII
After walking through the park for a bit, Nico and I decided to hang his ENO hammock between some trees and take a nap. We slept pretty comfortably for a while in the sunny park.
For dinner that night before heading back to the train station, Nico and I went to Takos Al Pastor and had some tasty tacos. Then, we boarded our train to Lisbon.
A note about overnight train travel: I highly recommend spending the extra money to have a sleeper car. That night's rest makes or breaks your enthusiasm to site see the next day. Nico and I had to book separate rooms on the train (being from the opposite sexes) but the people in our cars were cool about trading so we ended up getting to share a room (with 2 others). It was nice to do all the traveling while sleeping and waking up in Portugal the next day.
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