Friday, October 23, 2015

Quick Madrid Trip - September 2015




A very quick trip to Madrid for a couple days of meetings. Had a Saturday to visit the Reina Sofia museum to see Picasso's Guernica and an interesting display of their collection on revolt and change from the 60's to the 80's including the end of Franco's reign in Spain (see what I did there? :) ) Watched a bit of the Battle of Algiers in French dubbed in to Spanish, but it was not hard to understand what was happening. Highly recommended.



A bit of time in the Retiro and two days of meetings. A good amount of ham. Some mediocre white wine by the glass at more than one place. Averaged about 10 miles a day of walking over the weekend according to my phone.

Food and Drink

Marisque Riveira do Mino - Really liked hanging out at the counter with a glass of white eating cold (previously steamed) prawns and the pulpo you get as a tapa with the wine. Great lunch. They have a number of different things to try. Would definitely return.

Charlotte - Huge gin and tonics outside, then around 2:00 or so the party moves inside. "What time do you close?" (asked around 4:30am Saturday with still like 20 people drinking and eating popcorn) "Oh, around 2:30".

Sifón - Nice and little out of the way. Good chill place on a nice day.

Ramses - Can only comment on the terrace, not on the overly fancy looking inside restaurant or the club that looked pretty euro-douce. Good wine by the bottle list. Food was decent. Great to sit outside.

La Giralda II and Restaurante La Despensa - decent if unspectacular places in an area covered with bars and tapa. Not expensive at all, so a decent time. The places that looked "better" from a food standpoint were jammed full both Friday and Saturday nights.

La Venencia - Very touristy off the Gran Via, but really nice sherry and ham for a snack. Interesting differences between the three types they pour from giant kegs, and if you have a couple people a bottle for €14 is a good deal

Botin - So very touristy but for wine, a salad, and some crispy pig it is a very nice stop. Not expensive

La Barraca - Pass. No need to have paella in Madrid. Rice and clams were great but the prawns were either way overdone or just not great to start with. Wine was good. Super touristy. The Del Diego across the street had good cocktails.

Up very early for the return flight.


€1 = $1.12. Flew Virgin Atlantic SFO-LHR RT, BA LHR-MAD, and Iberia MAD-LHR. Quite nice flights. Made it to SFO just in time to drive to our company offsite in Sausalito.

More Photos

No comments: