Following on from my last Madrid highlights post, I want to continue to let you know about some of our top places that we visited on our trip during February half term. Me and Scott decided to head away to get some time together whilst Max took off to the ski slopes of Bulgaria with his grandparents.
It was everything we wanted and more in a short city break and Madrid was a place that I fell in love with. If you missed my first post, you can find it here: Madrid part 1. If not then settle down and see what else we got up to in this beautiful Spanish city.
Going to Madrid was something that I absolutely adored. Between the fantastic food and eye dropping architecture, I was in a photographers heaven and it really helped me fall back in love with my camera. I spent ages wandering around La Latina with Scott taking in all the street art and how it juxtaposed the traditional buildings.
The area of La Latina is a suburb that combines old and new so well and I loved spending a few hours walking around the streets and snapping away. We popped into their food market and browsed the stalls, wandered around the churches and back streets, falling in love with the city even more than we already had done.
There's something utterly charming about the vintage signs, classic buildings and beautiful architecture that really ignited my photographic eye to just snap away to my hearts content.
Heading to the museums was something that we were desperate to do as there were a fair amount of paintings that we were quite intrigued to see in person. But for us we only wanted to see a handful, so we opted for the free hours that the museums hold. During the last two hours of each day, you are free to pop into the museums without an admission charge.
Of course this involved a bit of a wait and we spent about 20 minutes waiting for our turn to get into each museum we went to, but we saved about 30 euros per trip so it was well worth it for us. We were quite clever in the sense that we planned our trips to the museums and made a list of the rooms and painting that we were desperate to see. This meant that we did a bit of a power browse, but was perfect for us as we took in paintings by artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso and Raphael.
It's worth popping onto the websites of each of the museums in Madrid to see when their free entry hours are as they differ from museum to museum.
One evening we decided to take a night off of drinking our weight in sangria and take a late night walk. We ended up finding ourselves in the Sabatini Gardens where we took in some breathtaking views of the royal palace. It was such a romantic place that we were surprised that we didn't see a proposal or two. It was fantastic to be able to see the palace from up close and it was just as beautiful in the daytime too.
Finally (and going back to food) we had to try the famous churros from San Gines Chocolateria just outside of Plaza Mayor. Based in the corner of a back alley, this churro and hot chocolate cafe is one of the oldest in the country and is famous for its eateries. I was super excited to try them and I can honestly say that dipped into their hot chocolate was magic in my mouth. Something that I will definitely try again when I head back to Madrid.
Popping away for a few days was exactly what we needed to reconnect and forget about the day to day worries as a parent. It was so nice to spend time together exploring a new city and I can't wait to see where our next adventure takes us!
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