If you are not a nerd like us and haven’t read or watched Lord of the Rings, go ahead and do that; we’ll wait.
Unlike Bilbo and Frodo, we’re travelling to all known destinations today. Starting from Quebec City we’ve made our way to the Montreal Airport; the equivalent of getting to the end of the field but without running into Pippin or Merry. From there we skipped stopping by Rivendell as, on vacation, we’re not making any momentous decision nor are we planing to get on a quest to destroy evil. We’ll, however, get to a volcano but that’s not for another 12 days. That one will be sleeping soundly, no spewing lava or getting rescued by eagles required.
Not unlike a good Tolkien’s tale, we had to make one step back to make two steps forward. First we headed west to then go east toward Europe. Our first stop on the European continent is Brussels’ Airport, overshooting quite a bit our final destination, Madrid. Then again, who could complain when there’s Belgian chocolate on offer. While Brussels is no Lothlorien and Galadriel did not show up to gift us wonderful items to aid us on our quest, the box of chocolates Karine bought did make for a suitable introduction to Vacation life.
Upon arrival in Madrid we were greeted by a cold front bringing cooler and rainier temperatures. While I cannot compare 20°C weather with rain to the mountain pass of Caradhras Frodo tried and failed to traverse, just like him, we’re not made for the cold and while the mines of Moria and the Balrog were not the better alternative for Frodo, we think Spain can offer us better.
Then again, upon arrival, our appartement did conjure up vision of mines full of dead dwarves as it hadn’t been cleaned and came with such a crappy shower that parts of me had time to dry before I could get all of myself wet. Not quite the dusty halls of Moria but close if you ask me. Good news, we didn’t get a Balrog.
While somebody came to handle the trash, change the sheets, replace the wet towels with dry ones and clean the appartement, we headed out to caffeinate and plan our next move. After a good jolt to wake us up, we took a page from Frodo’s book and chose not to risk staying in the cold. We decided to head south to Granada tomorrow for the next 2 days. Using Tolkien’s book to make decisions with 4 hours of sleep seemed like the reasonable thing to do.
Energized with our decision and a good amount of caffeine, and still having to wait for the appartement to be cleaned, we headed to the most important spot in Madrid, at least according to Karine: its 📍botanical garden. Even late in the season we found flowers! The green space turned out to be a wonderful spot to keep the slow yet active pace needed to overcome the lack of sleep.
Madrid being so close to the sea, it’s obvious that it would be the place to host the second biggest fish market in the world (after Japans famous Tsukiji Fish Market). The choicest catch are whisked away from the ports around Spain, travelling the more than 350km from the sea, straight to the capital to be sold there. Knowing that, it seemed like a good idea to end our day eating fish and Oxtail at a place our very own Gandalf the gray, Anthony Bourdain, visited: 📍Casa Salvador. We we’re not disappointed.