Tour de los Austrias

One of my favorite things that I have done so far was taking a Tour de los Austrias, which literally means a tour of the Austrian parts of Spain. This is because Spanish kings for many years in the past were Austrian. The more recent kings are Bourbon. This tour I took through my university and it was conducted in Spanish by one of the professors. She told us all kinds of side facts about Madrid. Example: Many years ago, the people of Barcelona attacked the people of Madrid, who then climbed up their buildings to escape and because of this, some people of Barcelona still nickname those of Madrid "gatos" which means cats.

The symbol of Madrid is a bear climbing a Madrono tree (a popular tree in this area). This is to represent the beginnings of a middle class that could rise up in society. I also learned that because Madrid is approximately the center of Spain, the center of Madrid is mile-marker 0 for the country. This is reminiscent of the mile-roads from Detroit.

           Statue of the symbol of Madrid

                                                                                                      Mile Marker 0. The center of Spain.

We walked through La Plaza Mayor (the main plaza), which is simply a giant open plaza in the middle of the city. There are street vendors and shops under the surrounding buildings. Currently the buildings surrounding the plaza are 4 stories tall, but in the past they were 5 stories tall, but just about all of it burned down in a massive fire. In order to make the building more fire-proof, they could only build four stories at the time.

Plaza Mayor

I'm very glad that I went on this tour, because I learned so many little facts about the city as well as important information about its history. I also would never have found many of these old parts of the city on my own. Madrid seems like it never ends. Also side note: I have yet to stumble upon a neighborhood that seems shady or frightening yet. I truly believe that American cities are much more dangerous than Madrid. Anyways, we came upon some very old medieval buildings. They way that you can tell is because the bases of the buildings pertrude out into the street. This just has to do with the architecture of the day. In order to build higher up, it was necessary to make a wider base for your "skyscrapers." All in all, I would say that the older parts of Madrid are by far my favorite, because even though the winding streets can be very difficult to navigate, they are just gorgeous. Every street brings a new surprise!

                             Medieval street

                Oh, how I adore architecture!

                                                                                                 Catholicism is heavily present in older parts

One of the old streets has a traditional rumor that says "Quien no pasa por la pasa no se casa." This literally means whoever does not pass by the raisins does not get married, although it sounds prettier when it rhymes in Spanish. On this street they are known for making raisins. So if you want to get married one day, you should bring your boy/girl of choice down this alley of Madrid!

 And on the end of our tour we indulged in a popular Spanish treat, churros with chocolate at the most famous place for chocolate in Madrid, La Chocolateria de San Ginés. On the wall of this restaurant are hundreds of photos of famous people (American and Spanish) enjoying their food. I ordered the standard churros con chocolate, but should have definitely split it with someone even though it only cost €3.80 or something close to this. It was 6 churros with basically an entire mug of melted chocolate bar. Too much to eat, even for my sweet tooth. This is probably not my favorite Spanish desert, but it is quite good.