Articles from September 2026

I made it to 4 a.m. today so a bit of an improvement. Hopefully the trend will continue! 6 hours sleep is actually pretty good for me, but still running a deficit due to the last three nights.

After breakfast (and caffeine!) another walk to the centre of town, near Plaza Mayor to meet for the bike tour. There were too many signed up for the 10:30 slot so there was an overflow group and happily I was in the smaller overflow group of about 8; one couple with a small child who wailed initially but fairly quickly settled down and was very good throughout the trip (as were her parents in handling her!). It was apparently her first trip in a child seat. They got some pictures of her slumped in it fast asleep which they’ll doubtless use to blackmail her as a teen 😊. Everyone else spoke Spanish, most as a native language though everyone was fluent in English so they ran the tour in two languages.

My first time on an e-bike and it was indeed big and heavy but oh-so-easy to ride… it was not super hot but initially quite humid so wasn’t replete with energy and appreciated the extra power on the inclines. It did feel like cheating, and there weren’t any evil hills, so if weren’t for the humidity, and later on heat, I would have felt guilty! The entire bike share system in Madrid (bici) is electric, and there is a push on to encourage people to bike and take trains – but very few bike lanes around so most riding is done on the narrow streets and/or sidewalks. Helmets are not mandatory > 18 y.o., surprisingly. Competition for bike space comes from pedestrians, electric scooters and motorbikes and there was definitely a lot of dodging and weaving to do.

Once we’d all been fitted with a bike we headed out (everyone in my group on e-bikes despite their youth!) with our guide Rodolfo (Rudy) who enthusiastically regaled us with history at the numerous stops we made. Very helpful and informative, and as usual I learned things I would never have picked up otherwise. Interestingly, one of the Madrid symbols is arbutus (madronas) and there are trees everywhere, and a liquor made from the fruit which I am hoping to try. This is the Arbutus unedo variety, strawberry tree, not our local Arbutus menziesii.

The cycling was mostly on fairly quiet streets until the end, more on that below.

We visited all the usual tourist spots, the Opera House:

the royal palace: more popular than the Prado, I couldn’t get a ticket to get in. There was a heavy police presence as President Macaron was visiting today and he was being welcomed by the royalty so the flag was up over the palace.

There are a few huge parks in Madrid including one with a huge forest that is overlooked by the palace, as well as Buen Retiro, formerly the grounds of the Royal Palace which became the Prado (translates to prairie as it was such all around when first built). I ate lunch in here yesterday and erroneously called it Jerónimos Parc; it’s actually in the Jerónimos neighbourhood which is why that was labelled on the map.

The monument to Alphonso XII across the large artificial lake in Buen Retiro

We visited a curious cloister where the nuns bake cookies for sale, and money is put in a revolving door with the cookies returned so the nuns don’t have to reveal their faces:

In the artists’ quarter we saw Cervantes’ house – he is much admired in Spain.

A very large living wall near Paseo Prado; gardening with an air:

Paseo de Prado was fun to ride down – the central boulevard made it safer

we ended in the Gran Via area, just down from city hall, one of the few places there was a bike lane – of course there was someone pushing a pram with his entire family completely occupying both directions of the bike lane.

Peurta Alcala, one of 6 gates marking entrance to the city. It and the mad traffic circle surrounding were reminiscent of L’Arc de Triomphe

Metropolis private club – expensive AND need an invite

There were a number of other stops, suffice it to say it was a good tour!

Our last stop was to be Plaza del Sol, where all the addresses in Madrid start. It was very crowded, and Rudy told us our visit to Madrid wouldn’t be complete without going by a protest. There was an encampment there which went up on Saturday – it was HUGE and the police were watching but not doing any crowd control. We headed over towards the side of the protest walking our bikes but soon hit a choke point – the crowd was very active chanting and singing, and there was only a single file line with both directions trying to get through. It took a very long time to get to the other side – I was following Rudy, and the others behind disappeared. We were of course very popular pushing heavy bikes through the masses, although the couple going through in the other direction with their luggage were even more popular! It was a huge relief to get through, finally – and there in front of me was the patisserie La Mallorquina that I had been to Sunday aft, clearly going in by a different entrance as I hadn’t even noticed the mess. I ate lunch while Rudy went back on foot to see where the others were; they had found an easier way through on the other side of the plaza, where the active chanting was not happening. I looked up the protest when I got home and got this:

This is primarily a housing/renter-rights protest, not a general political demonstration. It began on Saturday, September 26, after the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal, who had lived in her Madrid home for more than 70 years. Protesters are demanding stronger protections for tenants and action on Spain’s housing crisis. There is now a substantial tent encampment in the middle of Puerta del Sol. Reports today range from hundreds to around 1,000 people remaining overnight, with the camp continuing during the day.

The police are hanging back from evicting the encampment as there is an argument between the regional and city authorities; the city wants them removed due to significant disruption to residents and pedestrians (I can attest to that!) whereas the regional govt. says as long as they are peaceful, let them be. To be continued…We are facing the same issues all over the world.

the encampment with blue tarps and many tents showing in the middle; because of the activity it turned out the route to the right was the easier one through, though it didn’t look like that when we started! Once we were in, there was no way but through…

Finally back at the bike shop, an hour late, I repaired for a much needed cortado and another look at original city wall which can be viewed in several locations through a glass floor (the coffee shop just happened to be one location). With recommendations from Rudy I headed to San Génis chocolate shop but wasn’t impressed with either the product or the snooty staff so headed back home for tea and rest. A quick trip back to La Latina district later on to try the madronas liquer – which is served in some places in a chocolate cup which you eat afterwards – brilliant! I loved the liquer but only acquired a small amount to bring home as it’s quite heavy and I’m bearing in mind the return journey to the airport tomorrow!

And so ends my very quick trip to Madrid, but it is a lovely city and I’ve barely scratched the surface so would love to return at some point!

Well unsurprisingly I was up from 12:30 a.m. to 4 a.m., dozed a little after that but a typical jetlag pattern in combo with my usual lousy sleep pattern. The evening revelry had died down outside my flat by 1 a.m., so I was able to open windows again which was nice for cooling as the sleeping loft catches the hot air rising.

The instant coffee was thankfully very tasty (and very caffeinated!) so I came to fairly quickly and with the help of chatty (chat GPT) was able to retrieve tickets to the Prado for 1:45 (they hadn’t been sent by email as they were supposed to be). Admissions are substantially less for seniors over here (1E for the botanical gardens, 7.5 E for the Prado) but one is warned to bring supporting ID so I toted my passport around all day. The botanical gardens didn’t ask to see anything – I am internally offended when I’m not carded these days 😏 but the Prado did.

After a quick breakfast of yoghurt and baguette I headed out on foot to the Prado area – the botanical gardens are right behind the museum. Cooler today, with light rain in the forecast for this afternoon. The more I walk around Madrid, the happier I am to have booked an e-bike for tomorrow’s bike tour – there are quite a few inclines to navigate. But the central area is lovely for the most part, with well kept old buildings, picturesque narrow streets and many plazas and parks.

There was a stream of tourists heading towards the Prado like bees to a hive, all navigating with phones – one huge advantage of technology. The gardens were quiet initially – not much flowering at the moment but ironically one of the most colourful sections was the North American dahlias! A nice herb and medicinal plant section, and the frogs in the water pond near the back were very vocal.

Quite an extensive garden, no areas overrun by weeds like Vancouver’s VDG and UBC botanical gardens… lots of gardeners out working.

flowering plants were strategically located at the entrance. The gardens were meticulously laid out with great labelling and an enormous specimen collection.

Palms outside…

and inside. Small greenhouse compared to many other botanical gardens.

the Australian section.

the artichokes were left to flower, impressively tall plants, and the squash were left on the plants as well.

The filtering pond in the foreground was full of very noisy frogs, unfortunately the blog site doesn’t handle video files.

I reckon this is the right size for a gingko! Amazingly, most of the bonsai specimens were 60-80 years old

I turned off Strava part way through this section as my iphone battery has degraded significantly and runs out quickly on touristing days… by the end of the botanical gardens I am sure I was well into the double digits for walking km. Definitely ready for coffee which I took to Jerónimos Park via a chic neighbourhood. There are lots of trees, and the large avenue in front of the Prado reminds one of the Champs Elysee, with wide treelined boulevards. Lunch in the park of baguette with lovely truffle infused aged white cheese and I felt ready for the Prado.

Church in the Prado neighbourhood

Lots of joggers in Jerónimos Park, and a formal section called the Parterre

The traffic circle outside the Prado, with the expensive Palace Hotel in the background

Queue time next, despite having booked a ticket online we were all sent to a queue at the ticket office to convert them into a paper ticket. Happily this lineup was much shorter than the “buy at the time” lineup – the booked tickets were allotted a time in 15 min increments. I picked up a pre-booked audioguide as well, which was a recording on an iphone with a headset, and set off to see what I could see. Like the Louvre, the collection is overwhelming (though not as big as the Louvre) and it helped to have the audioguide to focus on select paintings. I chose the 2 hour selection – there is a 9 hr version!!! Apparently the museum is busiest in the mornings – it wasn’t too bad by the time I got there, definitely less crowded than the Louvre but the tour groups were a little annoying if you happened to try and see a painting where they had taken over. The labelling system for the rooms drove me crazy – room 6A didn’t necessarily connect to 6B and sometimes you’d have to go to room 9 to get to 6B…but the audioguide was very good otherwise and well worth the 5E. Due to getting lost, and some diversions, it took me more than 2 hours to get through but so much better than aimlessly wandering through all those amazing paintings. Midway I stopped at the “cafe prado” to get a coffee and had a chat with an elderly ?American couple behind in the line-up who were scouting out GF options and we commiserated how difficult that was during travel. When the lineup reached the coffee machines what I thought were real espresso machines turned out to be a huge nespresso complex so I quickly exited stage right. Ugh. Seems sacriligeous in the Prado!!! (we have a couple of Prado cafes in Tsawwassen which make real coffee).

The museum was most impressive, both in and out!

backside, from the botanical gardens entrance

the rain had started early afternoon, but had petered out for most of my walk home

A couple of false starts on a search for more bread on the way home before I located a decent bakery – bread is really reasonable here with a baguette sized loaf selling for .60 – 1 E. Coffee is also cheaper, with a capuccino in a local cafe going for 2-3E. Didn’t check the prices at Starbucks which are also around, they get a wide berth (though not as wide as nespresso!).

Into one of many shops selling fresh produce yielded some fresh fruit from a great selection, and with the help of google translate was able to get a carabiner from a local hardware store to hold my broken strap on the carryon bag. I was headed for the “mad mad vegan” for dinner but got waylaid by a string of Indian restaurants in my ‘hood – prawn masala was quite different from home but very satisfying after a long day walking. The rain was back so I headed home to put my feet up and prepare for tomorrow. Time in Madrid is flying!

on the way home – cobblestones were wet and a bit hazardous in parts

Patisseries from La Mallorquina -highly rated, est 1894 – I’d give them a 6/10.

Kasha to alternate parents on Friday. Little sleep as usual the night before departure. Uber to airport on Saturday morning, amazingly left on time for Toronto. 2 hr layover there, next onto the Toronto-Madrid leg (7 1/2 hours) where sleep was slotted in, to aid in acclimatisation to jetlag according to the plan. Alas it was not to be. A young girl in the penultimate row in business class screamed at top volume for the first half of the trip; have no idea how she had the energy to keep it up but everyone’s teeth were gritted by an hour in and it went on much longer than that. Meal service was repeatedly suspended for turbulence and announcements of same in three different languages also made it hopeless to sleep. Ate the appetizer and then gave up on the rest of the meal, tried to get some sleep as the shrieker had subsided but as soon as I got comfortable, off she went again. Yeesh.

Thankfully, had an audiobook to listen to which drowned out some of the ambient shrieking and she eventually did die down somewhat, with intermittent bursts thereafter. But it was just brief dozing at that point for me for the rest of the flight.

Fortunately breakfast was edible so decanted from the plane replete from a food standpoint but definitely bleary eyed, into the promised queues from the new EU border check system. Unlike my cousin Marion’s experience recently, sadly showing a UK passport didn’t let me into the EU lineup. We were “processed” through an automatic check machine like ours at YVR which scans the passport, takes a picture and then ???? Of course, my machine decided the picture wasn’t good enough but it didn’t seem to matter as we all seemed to be sent to the same lineup which was Disney-esque in length. After 45 mins of shuffling back and forth through a very warm and stuffy holding area we were put through a similar machine, this time with fingerprinting function, but once again I didn’t get through the picture stage. Which again didn’t seem to matter, and happened also to the couple behind me, as we again were funnelled into the same queue as everyone else. Another 30 mins of snaking and shuffling around and we were sent through yet another machine which rejected my passport completely and I was ushered to a different section to be manually processed – a much shorter lineup, could I have joined that two machines and an hour ago??? Who knows. After being manually processed I was finally disgorged, 1.5 hours later, into the baggage hall where a few forlorn bags were rotating round and round…mine amongst them, happily. Gosh, travelling from A to B is so much fun.

So time to regroup and activate the vodafone plan I’d gotten online before leaving Vancouver. Didn’t go smoothly of course but eventually got it working so I could see where I was headed to my central Madrid apt. Took a bit to find the metro, quite confusing signage but did find it after a couple of elevator rides up and down. The metro station ticket machine where I got a tourist pass for the duration of my stay wouldn’t accept my Wise VISA card preloaded with Euros (but did accept that of the fellow behind me, grrr so will have to troubleshoot that). I ultimately paid with cash and got change in Euro coins, so many it was like winning the jackpot at a casino, they came tumbling out with verve onto the floor as well as into the change section and attracted a few grins from bystanders. By the time I got my ticket quite a lineup had developed 😏 – it was off next to catch a series of trains – 3 changes to be exact. Happily the Madrid Metro is mostly serviced by escalators so there were only two staircases to navigate, neither approaching the magnitude of ones traversed on the London tube with luggage. I did manage to break the shoulder strap of the bike accessory bag though on one of the manual stages uphill, will have to find a hardware store to jerryrig something else to hold it on.

The flat owner lives next door so was very helpful and I was able to stash the luggage while the apt. was being cleaned, thankfully. Surprisingly, and gratefully received, there is an elevator in the building (mignon but functioning!) so I was able to skip the four floor ascent with full luggage. First stop was the recommended cafe on the first floor of the building which has a Columbian owner and beans from Columbia. Excellent coffee and can’t beat the proximity – it is slow as they are mobbed but worth the wait. It’s a lovely neighbourhood filled with old buildings/ethnic sections – I passed through a North African section, an Indian section and a vegan area along the route to Plaza Mayor. Hordes out enjoying the Sunday shopping and eating, and all the small stores were open and seemed to be doing well with tourists of every nationality there as well as locals. A warm day, to be sure, but didn’t feel like the 31C forecast. So glad I’d taken shorts on my carryon to change into though, esp for the interminable wait in the passport lineup in the hot lobby (thank you Kandie for that suggestion!!)

Plaza Mayor

The caramels didn’t look particularly tasty in this shop but made a colourful display!

I managed to gravitate to one of the patisseries I’d hoped to visit, near the Plaza Mayor – it was mobbed with only one person serving so lots of patience needed but samples duly acquired for taste testing in the next couple of days. Checked out a few others and a chocolatier, all in the same area but they didn’t look above ordinary so I’ve crossed those off the list.

Plaza Mayor with a couple of bike groups. Didn’t see a lot of bikes on the roads though I suspect it likely locals would avoid this area on a weekend due to pedestrian congestion – did see the odd weaver and dodger and some delivery bikes.

Stopped at a Lidl on the way back to get provisions and checking out at a self-serve was fun… came home via a loop route along more very pretty streets and lots of restaurant activity.

Must be part of the pedestrian only network as everywhere else the narrow streets are jammed with cars, scooters, and bikes all competing for pavement.

Burners weren’t working so another call to Hector, the landlord – he couldn’t figure it out either (seemed to be on “lock” so couldn’t turn the elements on) and as he offered to get an oil burner it suddenly came back on line. After a tricky session following that trying to get the koodoo, vodaphone and SMS functions going without incurring international daily charges I can roundly curse technology! The verification codes from charge cards were being sent to my Canadian Koodoo number so I couldn’t retrieve them and was attempting to get a ticket for the Prado Museum tomorrow, the whole operation only took an hour! Apparently one needs to reserve tours at least 2-3 d ahead now and of course I didn’t so am relegated to an afternoon slot now which is tough when jetlagged.

And on that note I am nodding at the keyboard – have lasted until 7 p.m. which is amazing but after two nights in a row of little to no sleep I am done!

Testing to see if site is working. 6 days before takeoff and the usual mad scramble getting the garden shut down and getting the luggage organized.

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1. Countdown / Index
2. An epic journey
3. Madrid Day 2 – Botanical Gardens and Prado Museum
4. Day 3 Madrid – bike tour
5. Day 1 Morocco
6. Day 2 Morocco – Brutal.  Marrakesh to Imi n’Ilfri.  47 km, 790 m elev gain
7. Day 3 :  Even more brutal
8. Day 4: Imi n’Ifri – Aït Bouguemez 
9. Day 5 – Rest Day
10. Day 6 – Dades Valley to N’kob