Trip 45

January 19, 2024

Today was our rainy day. You’re allowed one on a trip, right? (Hopefully only one). Drizzly and cold, made colder than the 41° by the wind. Fortunately, our first stop out is only about 10 minutes walk from Plaza del Carmen. Mercado de San Miguel (YouTube video) is our first destination; it’s a collection of tapas bars under a common roof. It’s not a fancy place, basically a big hall with lots of individual vendors under a common roof. Opened in May 1916 as a local food market, in 2009 , it became the Mercado de San Miguel and welcomes upwards of 10 million visitors year! Even on a blustery day like today, it is crowded. We walked around inside trying to get a sense of what types of food are served, and it’s a real variety, along with wine and beer.

A tapa is an appetizer or snack in Spanish cuisine. Tapas can be combined to make a full meal, and can be cold or hot. Tapas restaurants or bars are a staple of Spanish dining. Spaniards eat later in the evening than Americans traditionally do; dinner is a lighter meal than lunch and typically is eaten between 9 and 10 pm during the week. Being at the Mercado about 3pm was probably even still an early lunch. The Mercado is open Sun – Thurs: 10am – Midnight. Fri, Sat 10am – 1am.

Tapas- they’re made as small appetizers with just about any combination of ingredients. We saw tapas made with olives/sun dried tomatoes/cheese, shrimp, cheese, mozzarella, seafood (lobster, scallops, salmon, octopus), beef, jamon, paella, pizza, Stromboli, chicken brochettes, crab, fried fish, oysters, and deserts (fruit, churros & hot chocolate, popsicles) and more. They serve these on small plates so you can/should sample many different tapas, not just one big plate. Buy a few, move on to another stall and try some different things. They vary in price based on the ingredients and might be 1.5€ or 15€ (or more). I didn’t keep track of how much we spent, but we sampled a lot! There are larger common tables in the center and some (not enough) smaller tables, but on a day like today, finding a place to sit is difficult.

From the Mercado (now not drizzling), we walked a few blocks on further to see the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace, although the official residence, is not where the royal family actually lives and has their offices (Zarzuela Palace); the Royal Palace is now used only for official ceremonies. With 3418 rooms and 1.45 million square feet , the Royal palace of Madrid is the largest Royal Palace in Europe.

It’s too late to consider taking a tour of the Palace, but the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Royal of the Almudena, across from the south side of the Palace, is open. Our Lady of Almudena is the protectress of the city of Madrid; Almudena means “city wall”.

Around the year 1868, the congregation called Real Esclavitud de Santa María la Real de la Almudena asked permission to the archbishop of Toledo for building a church dedicated to the Virgin of Almudena; the Spanish Crown handed over the area of land in front of the Royal Palace of Madrid. In 1885, Pope Leo XIII made Madrid a diocese and the church became a cathedral. As a consequence, Francisco de Cubas y Montes (the architect ) altered his original plan. Now the temple would have a larger size, a French flamboyant neo-Gothic style, a Latin cross floor plan, and side chapels. The most important modifications were made throughout the 20^th century. They lowered its height to match with the Royal Palace (can’t have something sitting next to the Palace be taller than the Palace, can we?). After 110 years of construction, on 15 June 1993, Pope John Paul II travelled to Madrid to consecrate the Almudena Cathedral.