We are here, right on time.  Off the plane easily and down the hundreds of yards (miles) of terminal to the passport control where it is a massive scrum!  No direction, no control, just a mass of bodies queued up with seemingly no specific direction of where to go.  Finally a couple of security guys started yelling European passports over here, all others over there.  Perfect – we’re already in the “over there” line and ready to roll.  After that it was truly seamless.  We were pretty far up front of the crowds, walked right through passport control, only waited for one other passenger in front of us, breezed through the health check where they did indeed check our health status forms (thank you for not wasting our time in filling those out!) and were waiting for our luggage in no time.  (FYI – of course 3 days after we arrived, Spain took off the health form check requirement.  Sigh.  Oh well, at least it was easy to do and only took a few minutes.)

Luggage came out quickly – both bags – always a relief, especially in these travel times – and we were out in front of Paul’s café looking for Vlad our driver.  He showed up a few minutes later, escorting out into the parking lot and his waiting Prius to take us the 30 minutes into town.  Vlad was a doll, Romanian born, moved to Spain 15 years ago after vacationing here for years and loving it.  He chatted the entire way, giving us a restaurant suggestion in Barcelona (where they lived first) and after finding out how long we will be traveling, exclaiming how lightly we travel!  And we wanted to take less!  LOL.

A delightful 30 minutes later, Vlad deposits us in front of the AC Atocha where we luckily are able to check in and get a room – changing from a king bed to two twins, which turns out to be two twin beds pushed together, so it might as well be a giant king!  Perfect.  We dump the luggage, freshen up and hit the ground running. 

Quickly finding our way around the area, we scope out the train station to see where we will need to be on Wednesday, then head out to the Anthropology Museum which is pretty much right across the street from the train station. We luck out here as it is Sunday and apparently free entry.  Cool!  It’s a great museum, although mostly all in Spanish which forces us to practice our poor language skills.  But nonetheless there are really interesting exhibits on Philippine history and culture, with different traditions, musical instruments and weirdly scary ritualistic masks.  There are floors devoted to the Americas with full Native American dress (full feather headdress and all).  It is an interesting way to spend an hour or so wandering through all the displays.  And free to boot!

Next we head over to the Museo La Neomudejar, a totally avante garde collection of artwork all situated around and through an old Renfe train mechanical shed.  The main exhibit is artwork from Xabier Egana who uses mixed media to express himself.  The pieces are, well, strangely interesting.  And being hung in the train shed, along old and refurbished wooden and dilapidated concrete walls just adds to the aura of intrigue.  We wander all through the space, looking at different installations (yes, those are books stacked in the middle of an otherwise empty room) along with all the cool old train relics.  We’re honestly more interested in those than the artwork, to tell the truth!

After our little tour of all the nooks and crannies of the space, we end up at the bar at the entrance for a beer and an excellent wine the guy manning the door tells me is quite popular today.  He may be right, because it is quite good!  And while we sit outside, because it is such a nice day, there is this amazing lounge space inside with all sorts of while old nostalgic train items and funky décor.  And excellent way to spend time here on our first day!

Since it is still early, we figure we’ll go have some lunch and then head back to the hotel for a bit, before heading over to the Thyssen Bornemiszma museum to energize our “Art Walk” pass which gives us entry into 3 museums for the price of 2.

We stop at Bar Brilliante, a great little bocadilla joint with a huge selection of sandwiches.  We snag a table on the sidewalk,  unfortunately in the sun, but that was all that was available, and settled in for a lovely snack of chistorro baguette (chorizo, full baguette and huge!) and a mini Lomo con queso (pork and cheese) plus of course, great beer and wine.  A perfect little lunch after all the food we’ve consumed on the plane.

From there, we scope out a couple of little grocery stores, but end up at Lidl, for their great selection of beer, wine and breakfast croissants and sandwiches. Breakfast is not included in our room cost, and it is super expensive at the hotel, so we’re doing our own with some morning pastries.  The only challenge is coffee. There is only an espresso machine in the room and no kettles in the building.  Sigh. We’re on our own for that.  But we’ll figure it out.

Back at the room, we organize our haul, rest up a little bit, making sure to rouse ourselves after about 15 minutes before we both really fall asleep and mess up our entire jet lag routine!  By 2:00 we’re back out on the street heading toward the Thyssen.  That place!  It is amazing.  Amazingly huge. Amazingly varied.  And amazingly a private family collection until 1993 when the State took it over!  Holy cow – the artwork they’ve collected.  Incredible.  Van Eyck, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh, just to name a few!  There are close to 1,000 works of art from the 13^th to the 20^th Century to wander through. The family started collecting in 1905, and the 3^rd son, Heinrich, continued what his father began.

Photos aren’t allowed, so you’ll just have to go with our recommendation – this was one of the best museums we’ve visited.  Totally interesting, 3 full floors of masters.  Just fabulous – kept up awake and walking after very little sleep!

Over 2 hours later, we make our way back to the hotel, stopping at the Estado Puro, a little restaurant right on Avenue Prado for a drink and maybe a snack.  The waitress asks if we are eating, and we say tapas?  She says the kitchen is closed.  Ok, then solo bebidas.  A beer, wine and potato chips later, we realize others around us are actually ordering food.  Huh?  Guess we didn’t look like we should have food? Wait!  We’ve lost weight!  We don’t look that bad, do we?  Ah well, she actually saved us from ourselves, as we are going to the Cuban restaurant down the street from the hotel for dinner and shouldn’t fill up first.

It is a nice walk back to the hotel, the weather is fantastic, hot but dry, and lovely in the shade.  Later we wander the block to Al Son De Cuba, where we had made a reservation for the terrace, that no one there seems to know about.  But – hey – there is a reservado sign on a 2 top, so we just sit there. And not that we needed it, btw, it is hardly busy until later, and even then plenty of seats.

We’re easy, we don’t care. The beer and wine are great, the food even better.  Oh, traditional real Cuban, with a  mix of Spanish influence thrown in – like the ropa vieja croquettas.  I could make myself sick on those little delicacies!  The best mix of Cuban and Spanish cuisine, if ever there was one.  The traditional ropa vieja we had for dinner was excellent as well, as was the Tipica Cubana plate which was perfectly done pork win a fabulous orange and sauce.  Yum!

All in all an excellent first day in Madrid.  Now it is off the room to try to stay awake as long as possible (I make it about 2 minutes) so we don’t end up with jet lag for days on end!