For our last meal in Spain we decided to eat something nice and not just go for simple tapas.

I looked using the Yelp application for places near to us and found one called Petit Comite. This looked good so I checked up some reviews on TripAdvisor and found that someone mentioned the fork which we had used previously. This is a easy to book restaurants in Europe and sometimes with a discount. In our case 40% off.

The place was very quiet when we arrived at 8:30pm. We got a simple little snack after sitting at our table which was very nice. 

Pam ordered a Camembert in pastry - 5.90 euro, and I had a scallop dish - 16.90 euro

For mains Pam had her first and last Paella in Spain with Ham and Seafood 12 Euro

I had a pasta dish which was very fine pasta noodles where the top was a bit crispy but the bottom soft with Duck Confe and Froi Gras with artichokes. 17 euro

We had a wine and some water as well. 

As part of the deal with the booking we got 40% off the food which bought our whole mean down to 43 euro.

The food was great and by the time we left the place was starting to fill up.

Unlike the Renia Sofia where we did not pre-book on line the Museo Nacional Del Prado museum was prebooked while still in New Zealand. It cost 15 euro for general entry. 

The place is amazing with so many paintings that you are just overwhelmed after a short while. Some of the pieces are huge - probably 25 feet high by 50 feet wide.

There was no signs to say no photos so I took a few until I was told not too.

We woke up to day knowing we had to fly to Palma, Mallorca this after noon - we needed to work out how to get from the airport to our hotel.

So I did a google search and found a huge issue occurred only 16 hours before with 1000's of people waiting for immigration queues of 2 hours or more. (I think this is normal in the US)

We were therefore concerned that we may be affected by this delay as well but luckily we were not at all.

We started the day looking for the Spanish favorite called Churro De Chocolate

The chocolate was pretty crappy as it was just from a packet, mixed with milk in a frothing machine like a coffee maker. A real chocolate shop would be a different experience. Oh Well not to worry we may find somewhere in Barcelona to try the proper dish.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport at a fixed price of 30 EURO. Checked in and got our boarding passes and headed through security. We decided to have a beer while we waited for our flight. 

Large pint of beer for 3.40 EURO each - quite good value for an airport.

We are booked on Norwegian Airlines to Palma and this is a cut price airline so no frills.

Our flight is only an hour so we did not need any drinks etc but the airline did offer free internet on the aircraft. It was quite strange and good to browse the web and check emails while flying. This is definitely the way of the future.

We arrived at Palma and after a considerable walk of probably 1 KM we were out and went to find the bus to the take us near the hotel.

We went to the right area where the bus was and we found that there was a machine that was supposed to give you your ticket. The instructions looked odd and it seemed very difficult to use. We were not sure if we could just pay the driver. A bus then turned up and people got on board and most had some type of card and a sign on the bus said the fare was 5 Euro whereas online it says 1.85 Euro.

We flagged this and caught a taxi for 20.50 Euro right to the hotel door in 15 minutes. The bus would have stopped 14 times and taken more than an hour so this seemed like a good option.

We have a great room with a fabulous view over the yachts in the harbor.

On our second morning we decided to go to the Reini Sofia - so we caught a cab from the hotel to the location for 6 Euro.

We got there about 10:15am and there was a huge queue already. After waiting in line for about 10 minutes 1/2 of the queue walked off - we did not know why so we joined the normal queue. It took about 80 minutes to get a ticket. Quite stupid really as we could have just bought a ticket while waiting inline on the phone and then got in earlier.

 So we got our ticket at about 12:10pm and we could not go into the Picasso part of the museum until 2:45 (fixed entry time). So we accepted this - I checked online and online we could have bought it right them and had entry at 2pm to Picasso. Oh well we will learn from begin stupid and not pre-booking.

The museum seemed to be quite happy with people taking photos except in the Picasso exibition.

  

    

  

    

Our second night in Madrid and we had booked into Botin - this restaurant is registered in the Guinness book of Records as the oldest restaurant in the world. It is not necessarily the oldest, but it is the oldest continually running without closing at the same location.

We had booked in for 10pm which sounds very late but it worked out fine for us as it gave us time to rest before going out.

Pam enjoying her self....

Obviously Chris with another glass of wine.

The house specialty - the suckling pig cooked in the original oven - The pigs are from the Segovia region.

Poor wee piggy - these can not be very old.

The original oven that the pigs are cooked in is from 1700s

It was a very nice dish and was priced at about 24 Euro. 

We head out for dinner after a rest and find the main Grand Via too busy with people everywhere so we decide to drop back a couple of blocks and find a little bar with only 3 people in it.

We have a red wine and a beer and only stay for a 20 minutes as it is a bit quiet and we wanted to find something a little more lively.

We walk down the street a bit further and find a little place called Cafe De La Luz

  

We ordered a couple of simple dishes - Smoked Sardines with Gazpacho and Beef Carparcio with Arugula and shaved Parmesan.

  

After dinner we had another drink and relaxed at a little table near the door.

We decided to head back to our hotel and finish the night with a drink in the roof terrace. The streets still packed with people.

  

The hotel was quite fancy with a nice lounge along with art works and sculptures around the walls.

  

The root terrace allowed for nice views around the Gran Via.

We arrived at our hotel called Hotel Atlantico which is situated at Gran Via 38

It is a nice hotel - we are given an upgrade from our standard room to a superior room which was nice. The Superior room has a great bathroom with a wicked shower.

We go out to check out the area as it is still early and we need to get ourselves into the time zone. Even though it is after 10am there are still a lot of shops not open and locked up.

We head to the Puesta Del Sol which is only 5-10 minutes away and when we get there it reminds us a little of Time Square in New York with people dressed up in costumes looking for photo opportunities.

   

It was heavily policed as is most of the areas we have seen in Madrid which is good - although some of them have rather large rifles with the finder on the trigger.

We then head towards the Plaza Mayor which was home to Bull Fights and Executions over the years, but now is mainly filled with people selling crap, especially men from Africa trying to sell Bags, Shoes, and Sun Glasses all the while the 4 corners of their sheet connected to their hands via rope in case they need to make a hasty exit.

There was lots of restaurants there as well but we did not go to any as we thought they would be just overpriced.

We went out a couple of blocks and had a beer at a place called Tea & ????  - we sat outside in a small table and ordered a beer each - quite expensive I thought at 5 Euro for a Paul Lander from Germany 500ml. But find out the outside tables have a 20% margin on top of that so 6 Euro.

Oh well it was nice to sit and watch the world go by for a while.

• Manchego Cheese
• Croquetas
• Mushrooms from Segovia
• Scrambled eggs with black pudding and potato
• Roasted red peppers with cod
• Suckling pig
• Dessert from the menu
• Coffee
• Lunch and dinner are served with a rioja crianza wine and mineral water

http://www.botin.es/en

EMMA COCINA
Modern Spanish dishes at an excellent price

Hidden behind the forever-logjammed Mercado de San Miguel, Emma Cocina is a place Madrid locals rave about, but few tourists visit. It’s not my favourite restaurant in the city, but the price to quality ratio is high and if you’re after some light, modern Spanish cuisine for a song, then it’s a good bet. To avoid confusion, there are two Emma places owned by the same woman (yep, Emma) and almost alongside each other – Según Emma (more of a bar, see the DRINK section of this page) and Emma Cocina (more of a restaurant). Choose depending on the vibe you’re after – the menus overlap, with some differences. The website doesn’t show prices, but last time my wife Yoly and I went, we ate and paid thus: a large plate of delicious baby potatoes with mojo picón (a spicy Canarian sauce), a large plate of eggplant Cordoba-style (deep fried, with honey and sesame seeds), two (very generous) tapas: fall-off-the-bone bull’s tail stew and ceviche, plus two beers and four glasses of a local Madrid red. Only €36.

Plaza de San Miguel, 4, 28005
emmacocina.com

This seems to be in the same region as the Mercado de San Miguel or San Miguel Marketplace, nowadays one of the main attractions in Madrid, where you will enjoy a new and fresh Spanish concept tasting the best tapas in Madrid being part of the Spanish culture and habits.

CASA REVUELTA
Small, loud and hectic bar serving the best bacalao (deep-fried cod) in the city

Crunchy, salty and moist – Casa Revuelta does the best bacalao I’ve eaten in Madrid. This brightly-lit no-frills bar  – 120 years old, 50 of those serving cod – is a Madrid institution, so it’ll likely be cheek-by-jowl. Everyone orders the same thing (the generously-sized cod tapa is €2.60), so push past the stomachs, shunt up to the bar and follow suit. There’s beer on tap but if you’re after wine, the only choice is a rather rough Valdepeñas (a variety from Castilla La Mancha). 

Calle de Latoneros, 3  28005