Adventures with Jack and Julia

Originally we didn’t even have Spain on our radar as somewhere we were going to visit on this trip, but decided to add it when we found a good flight deal out of Italy, and boy were we happy that we did. Madrid ended up being another of our favourite big cities that we visited and another spot that we could easily see ourselves moving to more long term. Within hours of exploring the city, we were already googling “how to move to Spain as a Canadian,” if that gives you any indication of how much we loved it!

Following a stressful and frustrating ordeal with our original accommodation (we won’t get into it here but feel free to ask us for the story if you want to know!), we ended up booking an airport hotel at 10:00pm after landing. This meant that we had to train into the city, but as we learned, public transit here is amazing, so this wasn’t an issue.

We only had 3 full days in Madrid and we wanted to make the most if it. Some of the reasons why we loved Madrid so much were that it was very clean, had some amazing parks and the atmosphere was friendly and lively. As usual, we got our daily steps in and explored the city on foot. Some highlights for us included visiting our favourite park of the whole trip, El Retiro, where we saw a pond full of turtles and a beautiful rose garden. Best of all, this park was completely free to enter! We walked through the bustling town square, Puerto del Sol, saw the Royal Palace of Madrid (unfortunately tickets to go inside were sold out for a month), and visited the centre of the town, Plaza Mayor. Another one of our favourite parks here was Parque de la Montaña, where we enjoyed a beautiful viewpoint over the entire city and some live music.

Of course, Spain is well known for having delicious food and drinks as well as beautiful sights, so we couldn’t leave without trying some tapas. We found a cozy spot called Taberna La Descubierta, that was tucked away down a quiet street near Puerto del Sol. We sat on the patio and tried some Iberian ham, patatas bravas (traditional Spanish potatoes with a paprika sauce) and discovered our new favourite drink: tinto de verano, which is made with half Spanish red wine and half citrus soda (such as sprite). It was light, refreshing and reminded us of sangria. We also discovered a fun local spot called El Tigre Sidra Bar, where for only 7 euros you could have a giant glass of sangria and unlimited tapas! We tried their version of “arroz con pollo”, a traditional rice dish with saffron, chicken and veggies, as well as “tortilla española”, or Spanish omelette.

Our time in Spain was short and sweet, but we will definitely be returning so we can check out some other cities and continue scoping out potential spots to move! Our trip is sadly coming to an end but we cannot wait to finish off our time by travelling in one of our highest ranked bucket list places: Portugal.