Day 3C), Walk in Madrid

Walking to Near Our Hotel

We walked back to near our hotel from the Palacio Real to find a restaurant to eat lunch at. We first tried the Cafe Opera, almost across from our hotel and recommended by Rick Steves’ “Spain,” but their lunch menu was unexciting and we found that the opera–singing waiters only sing at the evening meal. We checked the menu of another restaurant and Merrie decided that she really wanted to have paella for lunch and that restaurant directed us to a paella restaurant nearby.

Walking to Near Our Hotel

Paella Valenciana

The Paella Valenciana restaurant. It was now only a bit after 2 p.m., so the restaurant was almost empty, not yet time for the Spanish to have this meal. I need to tell you here that this was an upscale restaurant––on a wall, there was even a photo of Placido Domingo having dinner here––because of some events that occurred later during our meal.

Paella Valenciana

Paella was first made in Valencia, Spain, so our restaurant’s name was very fitting. The word paella today refers both to the pan used to cook the dish and the name of the dish itself. Paella’s main ingredients are rice, saffron, and olive oil and there are different other ingredients you can have added to it: We had a choice of seafood; vegetables; chicken and vegetables; lobster and seafood; and chicken, vegetables, and seafood. We chose the seafood paella. We were told that you need two people ordering a paella to have freshly prepared. If you can get it for one, it probably was made up early in the day. Merrie and I ordered the seafood paella. This is a photo of our seafood paella.

Paella Valenciana

Our very enthusiastic waiter about to divide our paella into two servings.

Paella Valenciana

My serving of paella. I traded that mussel for one of Merrie’s crayfish.

Paella Valenciana

Merrie about to eat her paella. An important photo as the next photo shows a much different scene.

Paella Valenciana

Now you may ask why does Merrie now have a gorgeous young Spanish guy, wearing a red bra and a red thong, sitting on her lap. Remember that I told you that this was an upscale restaurant, not some dive we came upon. A group of very cute young men and one girl––they told us that they all worked in real estate office––were giving one of their co–workers––the young man on Merrie’s lap––a birthday party. Presents were given to him before the meal was served and his first present was the bra and the thong. He started parading around the restaurant in it and I innocently asked him if I could take a photo of him. He immediately jumped on Merrie’s lap to have the photo taken.

Paella Valenciana

And one more photo of Merrie and the gorgeous Spanish guy. Now why did his co–workers give him this present? All the other presents given him were things like dress shirts and ties. I really don’t know why except some of his co–workers told us that he was gay but said it in such as way that we think they were trying to shock two American ladies. We weren’t which I think surprised them.

Paella Valenciana

His co–workers. They asked me to take some photos of them so they can e–mail me to send them. Our meal at the Paella Valenciana was very good: seafood paella, salad, 1/2 bottle of wine each, water, and coffee, 59 euros for both meals; the entertainment, priceless. I was laughing so hard when leaving the restaurant that I forgot to take a photo of the photo of Placido Domingo.

Paella Valenciana

Madrid Walk

We went back to our hotel and I was planning on having at least an hour siesta to sleep off that 1/2 bottle of wine. However, I realized that it was getting late in the day and if we wanted to take the Rick Steves’ Puerta del Sol to Palacio Real walk that we had better start out to do it. We used Rick Steves’ “Spain” almost exclusively while we were in Spain as it is the best guide for traveling independently in Spain. We didn’t want to walk on the same streets going there as coming back, so we started out at the Plaza Santo Domingo near our hotel. The statue in the plaza is of Queen Isabel II.