So I left off my last post on just getting to Madrid. We are fortunate enough to have a family friends daughter here on a study abroad program and so we had tons of local recommendations and a good first night tour guide.

After meeting her for some delicious sangria and tapas (scroll to the bottom for our food exploration and pics), we roamed around the different plazas in Madrid. Being that we are in December, the entire city was lit up with lights and I have never seen a display like this. Literally every street had a theme going and we had such fun exploring. My absolute favorite streets were the ones that had kindergarten children’s drawings turned into light displays.

After all the walking, we finally hit the sack close to midnight and woke up to find some coffee and breakfast. Our goal for today was to visit Toledo. Seeing as we are in the off season, we definitely underestimated the rush. Our lack of planning did not pay off and we couldn’t get train tickets till later in the afternoon and with no return tickets available. We decided to risk it anyway and return by bus. While we waited for the train to Toledo, we took about 2 hours to explore the wonderful Retiro park (kinda like Central Park).

After grabbing Jamon sandwiches to go, we hopped on the train and explored Toledo. This city lives atop a hill and gave me vibes of Dubrovnik. We made it to the top and after checking out a museum and grabbing some marzipan from St. Tomé, we visited the Toledo Cathedral. We were absolutely blown away by the gothic architecture and the attention to detail. It was everywhere. In this one room, there were a number of chairs and each chair had a different design on it - mind boggling. Definitely not to be missed. We also saw a few more churches including the church of St. Tomé. And then made our way to the bus station to board a bus back to Madrid.

Exhausted now, we freshened up to grab some Tapas but had to stop at the Airbnb first to charge our phones. Turns out our portable charger got conveniently busted and we need our phones to unlock the Airbnb door (the curse of technology). After sufficiently charging, it was time for tapas again and this time we ended the night with churros to top. But not before noticing that the city has a thing for stranger things and the new fifth season coming out (check out the upside down metro station).

And that was our time in Madrid. We have one more day tomorrow before we head back. As promised, here are some awesome recommendations:

• Get tapas at Taberna El Sur and Taberna La Descubierta - best patatas bravas and paella I have had in a while. The second also had some amazing stuffed peppers.
• Coffee and pastries from Hanso Coffee and pretty delish pistachio coffee from Umami Cafe.
• CHURROS and CHOCOLATE (yes, the caps is intentional) from the place it was invented with thick not too sweet chocolate at Chocolateria San Gines - you will not regret this!