We landed in Madrid from Atlanta without serious issue and quickly caught the 24-hour Express bus to Cibeles. Two blocks later we were at the Mecure Madrid Centero, where a last-minute Booking.com deal gave us a terrific, top-floor suite with terrace, and a lucky break on early check-in. The location is outstanding, sitting at the bottom of a hill that the Barrio de las Letras spills down. The neighborhood is filled with venerable shops, bars, and restaurants, including (as the name suggests) booksellers. We stopped at Liberia Miguel Miranda, an antiquarian book dealer whose shop looks lifted straight from the world of Harry Potter. For lunch, we headed to Casa González, a gourmet grocery and deli that has a smattering of tables and offers many game-centric dishes including boar and deer, along with more unusual bites like cockles. After a jet-lag- (and wine-) induced nap we proceeded to an early evening visit at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum. It is one of the most outstanding collections in Europe, and no one in the canon of Western art's Who's Who has been left unrepresented. As the museum closed it was an easy stroll to Viva Madrid, a cocktail bar tavern and tapas bar in a lovingly restored 1856 space. A few tapas and some house vermouth were all we needed to end the day, especially after a heavier lunch.
With a good night sleep and breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Museo National de Artes Decorativas, passing the hordes lining up for the Prado (which we'd been to twice on previous trips). Decorative Arts is a quiet and eclectic museum, focused on Spanish ceramics, glass, leather work, furniture, and more. The highlight is on the top floor, where curators have installed a late 1700s kitchen (originally from a Valencian mansion), complete with over 1600 trompe l’oeil tiles depicting food, servants, and many hungry/naughty dogs and cats. It is as amusing as it is beautiful. Afterwards we checked out of our hotel, and relocated to an Airbnb in the Malasaña neighborhood. A note on this: We often book a cancellable-to-the-last-minute hotel room for our first night, hedging for any cancelled flights. But generally we use Airbnb, hence the relocation. We enjoyed a Middle Eastern lunch (after all, Arab culture reigned in Spain for centuries), at Restaurant Samara, with a hardy mixed grill and assortment of sides. Grocery shopping and unpacking for our 5-night stay rounded out the evening. As for the neighborhood, it probably turned out to be a little too "energetic" for our tastes. We likely would have been served better in some of the more stately pockets of Salamanca.
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