I haven't been in Madrid for a year or so, and when I'm there I usually stay in Salamanca (just to the north of the Retiro, I think), but looking at a map that looks like a bit of a hike (a couple of miles at least). The metro in Madrid is very efficient and pretty inexpensive (I think 1€ per ride within the city).

When you say "concerned about eating," does "concerned" mean "interested" or "worried"?

Let's hope. I have several levels of worry, but I guess that is to be expected when embarking on a career change.

I got very good at using all forms of public transport in Madrid and surrounding area and found the metro fairly easy to use. This was my favorite musuem by far

This suggests they closed two years ago; have they reopened?

Your husband

Don't know. If they did, I missed it. I haven't been in SFO in close to 20 years. Google Maps still lists them. :confused:

We had a difficult time eating because we wanted to eat early and that just doesn't happen in Madrid. Lunch was in the late afternoon and everyone goes to the bars to eat tapas. I was traveling with my mother and she likes to go to bed early so we ended up eat at McDonald's.:eek: It was a weird trip and I'm sure others have much better stories of their enjoyable trip to Madrid.

:) Phudnik - let me just give you a bit of background. While I do a great job of managing travel and transportation for myself and the Mister, *both* of us suck at locating food, anywhere we go. So while we can get to our hotel room very efficiently, we can't find decent, non touristy restaurants to try out the local stuff (even when we do include research ahead of time!).

I love tapas and I love eating - but I hate being relegated to tourist stuff all the time! So for this trip, I want to stay near a street that has good food but is sorta off the beaten path, and I think that the two districts should be okay.. but I have been wrong before.

Any comments to help with this is greatly appreciated! :p

Good night, box!

I don't know how much I can help, because I'm bad at locating food too, especially when I'm on my own in a foreign country.

I'm only in Madrid for about a day at a time, and I always end up eating at the same place ("Estay" in calle Hermosillo, no idea if it is considered good, they just put up with my terrible Spanish and bring me what I ask for, plus it's near the hotel and I know how to get there. Usually by the time I get there I'm very tired and just want cerveza y tapas). One of my colleagues recommends "El Pimiento Verde" in calle Lagasca but I've never been there. Both of these are in Salamanca.

Dinner in Spain is definitely a late in the evening activity. When we were there it was pretty normal to have tapas and wine or cocktails around 5:00-6:00 PM, and dinner around 10:00 PM. It's definitely a place where people go out late for the evening, and we witnessed bars that were empty at 10:30 PM packed to capacity by 11:15 PM, only to empty out again around 1:00 AM. Restaurants tended to be busiest around 9:30-10:30 PM; earlier than that and there was no wait, and you'd pretty much have the place to yourself, provided they were even open. It's probably not the best of destinations for those who want to go to bed early, as you probably found.

No worries! I will ping you all when it gets closer to the trip!! :)

We found LIS and its surroundings to be more to our taste than MAD. The people are more accepting and laid back and IMO the area just seems to be more manageable for a short tourist visit than does that big city.

CM - Congrats on getting the certificate! A great teacher I knew said he always wore a tie to the first day of classes to set the right tone. You may want to consider that or a variant.

In terms of food in Spain, I can't help as I haven't been there but one trick I have used to find great local restaurants is to ask the concierge where they go eat (not where they recommend guests go).

I also use this opportunity to deposit my 1,500th post here. I've really enjoyed getting to know several b:rolleyes:xers better here and in the PWP thread.

While I might not bring the daily poop reference to the box, I will bring urine. Nightline had a story about a street in Paris that they are cracking down on people that urinate in the street. Wont be putting that on my vacation lists.