IB 6252
JFK-MAD
Airbus A340-600
EC-JCZ
Seat 9C (J)
Flight #42 of 2019
By the time we got to JFK, I was starting to fade. I woke up extremely early in LAX, perhaps 4:30am, and figured since it was like 1:30pm in Madrid, I should just stay awake and try to start adapting to the time early. No sleep at all on LAX-JFK. After landing at JFK, I had to take the skytrain from T8 over to T7, go back through security, and then up to the BA J lounge where this whole trip had started, almost 3 weeks earlier. I drank a lot of water and had another coffee to try to keep my eyes open until boarding.
Initially I had been on the earlier IB flight, an A359, but due to the changes made to my inbound from LAX, I was bumped to this one. I quite like the A340, and there are less and less of them out there, so I saw this as a plus.
I went down to the gate when my ticket indicated boarding would start. Since it was Iberia, boarding of course had not started and the gate area was total chaos. Maybe 20 minutes after boarding was slated to start, it actually kicked off. Through pestering IB, I had managed to finally get a window (9C), but it was one of the windows with the table between the seat and the window, so that you're basically lying in the aisle. Not ideal.
Once on board, I scanned the movie list and found that there was nothing that 1. I hadn't already seen or 2. wasn't complete crap. With this realization, I resolved to skip the meal, skip the movie and go directly to sleep in hopes that I wouldn't feel like death once I got to Spain.
We took off, hit cruising altitude, I hit the lav and put some PJ pants on, and I cranked the seat back and went to bed. I slept straight through until shortly before landing, save for the FA's smacking me with the drink cart while clumsily going up and down the aisle a few times and briefly waking me. This was an excellent decision, we landed around 10am in Madrid, and I felt rested and energized on arrival. I probably got 5-6 hours of much needed sleep. It was time to finally GO to Madrid.
Gran Melia Fenix, Madrid
My girlfriend had arrived at around the same time from London. However, she was coming into T1, and I had landed at T4. After re-entering the EU, I found the shuttle bus and took off on the surprisingly long ride to T1. I gathered her at arrivals, we grabbed an uber and set off for the hotel.
The Gran Melia Fenix is a member of Leading Hotels of the World. I stayed at the hotel once previously on an overnight connection. That time I received an "upgrade" but it was still a very lousy room. I figured I would give the hotel one more chance, before exploring other options in Madrid. We arrived around 11am, and were thrilled to find that the room was ready, and we'd been upgraded. I worried the "upgrade" would be like last time, but this was actually a great room,
#407 . I would request it again in the future. Big bed, spacious room, nice bathroom, good tub. We dropped the bags and figured we might as well get right after it and start running through our tourist itinerary. Pitter patter.
Day 1, we started with Plaza Colon right in front of the hotel, then walked down past Plaza de Cibeles and stopped into the Starbucks under the Palace Hotel for some coffee. Then we went to the Thyssen, which is a surprisingly great museum. After a few hours there, we walked down through Plaza Mayor and stopped into La Campana for a bocadillo de calamares and a beer. I have to say, I have NEVER seen a calamari sandwich on the menu anywhere, but after reading about it being a Madrid institution, I figured we'd have to try it. It was excellent. Salty, crispy, nice bread, perfectly paired with a beer and some patatas bravas. From there, we wandered to Puerta del Sol and then on towards Gran Via and eventually back to the hotel in the early evening. At this point, after flying LAX-JFK-MAD and going directly from the airport to a full day of sightseeing, I was totally shot. I think I passed out before it was dark outside.
Day 2, we went to Museo del Prado, another wonderful museum. After, we walked through all the pedestrian streets in Centro and kept wondering aloud WHY people always hype Barcelona, while you rarely hear about Madrid. I get that Barcelona has a (crappy) beach, but give me Madrid 10 out of 10 times, what a wonderful city. We stopped in to Casa Toni and had crispy pig ear and zarajos for lunch with beers and sangria, then continued to Almudena Cathedral and the Palacio Real before continuing past Plaza Espana, up Gran Via, back to Plaza Cibeles and up the street back to Plaza Colon and the hotel. We rested and showered up, then walked back down through Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor to Botin, another Hemingway favorite (allegedly). I would like to NOTE that I am NOT a Hemingway fanboi, I consider him overrated and vastly inferior to Fitzgerald, but it seems he had good taste in places to live/vacation.
I would not say that good taste extends to Botin, at least not in the present incarnation. The restaurant, which is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the oldest in the world, has been making suckling pig for 300+ years, using the same oven. It has been visited by a laundry list of luminaries over the years, and now it is basically chocked full of tourists like me every night, who read about it and like some combination of history, old timey settings and suckling pig. The place itself was nice, the staff were not rude or jaded as staff in tourist traps often are, the real issue was that the suckling pig wasn't that great. It was OK, but nothing deserving of a world wide reputation. The sangria however, was quite good and strong. We were more than a little drunk by the end of dinner.
After the meal, we walked back through Plaza Mayor, on past Puerta del Sol and took a new route towards Plaza Cibeles. The downtown core of centro looks majestic at night under the lights, and the architecture in Madrid is really phenomenal. It looks like a very imperial city. From Cibeles, we turned left and back to Colon and the hotel and bed.
On our final day, we had another full agenda. We started at Reina Sofia museum, because it felt wrong to come to Spain and NOT see Guernica and the cubism exhibit. The museum was OK, but not as good as the Thyssen and Prado, which I guess is to be expected. At my gf's request, we returned to La Campana for bocadillos de calamares for lunch again. It was jammed this time and we had to share a table with an annoying American couple. After we again looped around to Gran Via, on to Cibeles and back to the hotel to get ready for the main event.
In planning this trip, I scouted the bullfighting schedule, and found there were fights on all of our nights in town. I figured it would be a good end to the trip, booked the tickets and had them delivered to the hotel. We were unsure how long it would take to get to Plaza de Toros, so we took a cab over that way. I knew bull fighting was still popular in Spain, but I had no idea it was THIS popular. 43% of Spaniards actively follow bullfighting, and top matadors are as popular as international football stars. The streets around the stadium were slammed, people spilling out of bars, glasses in hand. We popped out of the cab and figured we'd get into the spirit. We ducked into a bar across the street, I ordered a tinto de verano for my gf and large draft Mahou. We settled in with the aficionados and watched the pregame show on TV while drinking.
Shortly before game time, we adjourned and went over to the stadium. The structure which was built in 1929 is beautiful. We showed our tickets at the gate, grabbed some beers from the bar and located our seats. We weren't quite sure what to expect. My gf had never been to a bullfight before. I had been to one in Portugal, but they play by different rules there and don't kill the bull.
There were a total of six fights. I could see the appeal, and enjoyed it...my gf did not. It was not that she was against the concept of the bull being killed, she just didn't find it very sporting. If you have not been to a bullfight it goes like this:
Phase 1: The bull comes out, and a crew of matadors tire it out a bit. If they get in trouble, they can run behind a wooden barrier, and have other guys distract the bull.
Phase 2: Two guys come out on horseback, the horse is protected from the bull so it can only get blunt force injuries but not get gored. These guys have long spears. They stab the bull twice.
Phase 3: A series of guy with two small spiked sticks run up to the bull and stab these into it's back
Phase 4: With the bull now thoroughly tired and bloodied, the main matador comes out and uses the red cape to bring the bull in close and tire it out further before he finishes it off with a sword between the shoulder blades that penetrates to the heart.
Without getting into the unfairness of Phase 1-3, her issue was with Phase 4. SEVERAL times, the bull knocked the red cape and/or the sword OUT of the matadors hand and at that point, she felt the bull had "won" and was entitled to a free pass, if people were going to be fair and sporting about it. I can't say I disagree. I know some matadors still get gored, but in the interest of safety it seems most of the real danger has been taken out of the sport. Given that the real point of the sport in the first place, was for the matadors to display their courage, it seemed like the current incarnation has been watered down to the point of almost defeating the purpose.
Still, it was a cool experience, and I enjoyed it. She no doubt appreciated it, even if she didn't love it.
With the fight over, we walked from Plaza de Toros back through the streets of (I believe, Salamanca) towards the hotel. It was a beautiful stroll, as the sun set, and the street lights clicked on. A wonderful way to end this all too brief stop in Madrid, which went from unranked to one of my favorite European cities. We will return.
Speaking of returning. The Gran Melia Fenix was excellent. The location is perfect, close to everything but not right in the thick of where tourists will be thronged. Wonderful rooms at very reasonable prices. Leaders Club benefits included free upgrade and free breakfast. The hotel helped us secure the bullfighting tickets, plan our touring, made recommendations, even send someone to get me a decongestant when I had awful sinus pressure/pain after that LAX-JFK-MAD day. Zero complaints, they even gave us a complimentary large bottle of water (and small ones on each side of the bed) plus some sort of complimentary food platter each night. I would for sure return and recommend.