Madrid — Week 1
Five years after I started the 10 cities project, and slowed down by Covid, I am at city #7: Madrid. And a week into it, I am in love. People, shops, restaurants, cafes, sightseeing, markets. Think of something and Madrid has it. If I would speak Spanish it would have been perfect.
You can find all the places I mention in the blog in my Urbaniser Madrid collection.
Week 1
The first day in a new city in the 10 cities project is always a day of logistics: get a local SIM (if your new cell phone doesn’t support an eSIM😑), get a metro card, buy groceries, orient yourself with the neighborhood. In Madrid all of the above is super easy and close to the apartment I rented in Salamanca.
Get a Vodafone SIM card with 10GB data and unlimited calls in Spain and Europe for 10 euros.
Get a metro card good for 10 trips.
Buy groceries at the local Carrefour, or if you desire a fancier grocery store, go to Sanchez Romero.
My first food in Madrid, beyond an airport sandwich, is at Corazon de Maiz, just around the corner from the apartment. Street food of two really good soft tacos. My second meal is, what a surprise, Indian food at Curry & Canela.
The second day is usually dedicated to a sweep of the city main attractions. For that I highly recommend gpsmycity which despite the horrible name is doing an amazing job of curating city walks all over the world. This ended up being a 13km walk from the apartment in Salamanca thru Retiro Park to Gran Via, light lunch at the food market of Mercado de San Miguel, and then Plaza Mayor, Palacio Real and the Cathedral de Nuestra Senora de La Almudena. From there a long walk back to Salamanca thru the neighborhood of Malasana.
On my third day in Madrid I stuck to the same game plan I always do in the 10 cities project. I walked exactly the opposite from the city center and visited less popular parts of Madrid such as the neighborhoods (barrios) of Arturu Soria and Las Ventas. No attractions there, but I guess this is the real Madrid.
The evening was different though, thanks to Yossi Vardi. Yossi heard that I am in Madrid, and immediately did what he does better than anyone on the planet: connected me to someone in Madrid. That someone is David Hatchwell Altaras (which is really דוד הגואל in Hebrew), who immediately invite me to a Friday evening (Shabat) dinner at his house in North Madrid. The invitation was to 21:00. Welcome to Spain and late night dinners.
Dinner was a real treat. David and his wife Tali (not Israeli, short for Natalia) have an amazing house in North Madrid, and are wonderful hosts. Food was great, and vegan(!), but the highlight was the people. Other than David and Tali and their 3 beautiful kids (with the names Yavne, Dayan and Magen), I was happy and surprised to meet Yusef Zaher, the son of Julia Zaher of El Arz Tahini fame, who is a friend. I know Yusef from Kinnernet, and (spoiler) will meet him again in Kinnernet Costa Brava later this week. After taking a major role in selling El Arz, Yusef moved to Madrid and is involved in several initiatives and investments. I also met Angel, a good friend of David who splits his time between Madrid and London, a couple from Los Angeles who works in real estate, a couple of Apple studios executives and few more people.
I got back to the apartment around 1:30am, which I am told is early for Madrid…
I waited anxiously to Sunday to visit the famous Madrid El Rastro market. It’s a huge open air Sunday market that sells “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”. Think of the biggest market you’ve been to, and then think bigger. Truly, it goes into so many streets that I have no idea where it starts and where it ends. You can find everything here: food, clothing, shoes, books, jewelry, collector cards, watches, cannabis, bags, suitcases, stones, shoes, cameras, painting, records, cosmetics, and this is just a partial list. There’s a great vibe with open air music bands. The downside: it’s very crowded. The swarm of people coming out of the metro station to go to the market reminded me of a World Cup game masses coming out of the metro. There are also shadeless parts of the market that can get hot in hot days, but the majority of it is shaded. So what did I buy? Nothing. Wait, why lie? I bought a pair of earrings. Would I go there again: abso-definitely. I love markets, and this is one of the versatile ones.
After the market it’s time for lunch. I went to Juana Loca, near the market. Here’s how it works: you stand in line outside of the restaurant. When you get close to the door, you are asked if you want to sit at the bar or get on a wait list to get a table, which Is a one hour wait. I chose bar. When it’s your turn, you get into the bar. Hungry after the market and the long wait, you are ready to devour food. But now you have to stand behind people who are eating on the bar and wait for them to finish their lunch and leave. Fun. During that (long) wait, you are allowed to order a drink. As someone leaves, people are pushing to get their seats. Fun. I don’t push. Luckily, the guy who was overseeing the line, noticed my distress, and explained to some of the people who entered the bar after me, and try to push to get a bar spot, that I was there first. When you finally get to sit and order, people are watching over your shoulder to see you finish your meal. Fun. The food is good — I had the batata tortilla, 2 of them… , but there’s no food in the world that it worth going thru this torture. I am not going there again.
Just 100 meters away is the impressive San Francisco El Grande basilica. But you wouldn’t think it’s the largest Basilica in Madrid and the 3rd largest in Europe. It is. Walking in the barrio of La Latina is like walking in a huge food court: there’s nothing but lots and lots of bars, restaurants and cafes. Plaza de la Paja is a nice hidden gem in La Latina.
I walked back from there to the apartment through the Paseo del Prado barrio and the Prado Museum and Retiro Park.
Monday started with watching the Miami — New York game in delay, and then Yusef sent a whatsapp message asking me if I am free. I am… He took me on a tour + coffee at the beautiful neighborhood of Justicia, where the Supreme Court is. There was no demonstration in front of this Supreme Court, but many shops and restaurants, like in almost every Madrid barrio. Yusef introduced me to Nir Hindi, a friend of Yusef, who is an Israeli who lives in Madrid for 10 years, and is lecturing and advising to companies on innovation and the combination and synergy of art and technology. Nir took me to Azotea, where from the terrace you can see great views of Madrid. The problem: it’s seven double floors up (i.e. 14 floors) and getting stuck in an elevator earlier that day, I didn’t want to get into an elevator again, and climbed all 7 floors up.
Tuesday was a super busy day. It started early at 6:30, believe it or not, with my weekly meeting with the VC I am working for. Yossi and Ron came all the way from Israel just to visit me, and then suddenly discovered there a Real Madrid — Manchester City game that same day! 😜
We did a long walk in the city and stopped for a great tapas lunch at La Tasquería. Not cheap, but great tapas and a good rest after along walk. Then it was time to go get ready for the game. We met for a pre-game dinner at Orio Fuencarral in the Justicia barrio. I have no idea how I was able to eat, after just finishing lunch 2 hours earlier. David Hatchwell joined us, and he brought a couple of friends from Mexico City, whom I got to meet as well. One of them was Juan Carlos Baumgartner, who is an architect and deals with innovation of spaces, and we had a really interesting discussion.
Music
It’s a lot of fun to walk the streets of Madrid while listening to music in Spanish. I listen almost all the time to the awesome Bomba Estereo from Columbia. I heard them in concert in my one month on Bogota, and in Berkeley, California since then.
Toilets
Usually a major issue in every city walk, where you need a bio break once in a while. This is not a problem in Madrid. Every restaurant, café or bar will let me go in for a bio break, even if I am not a customer. Maybe it’s because I am a foreigner, maybe because of my age, or maybe because they are just nice. Probably the latter. There’s one problem though, in all the toilets the lights go off after 30 seconds or so. This is not enough time to even pee, and guess what happens to men when it becomes completely dark in the middle of peeing?
My daily schedule
With difficulty, I drag myself out of bed around 10am. This is the part where you envy me. The morning is dedicated to zoom meetings, email and catching up with the night NBA games. And I also make breakfast. I usually leave the apartment around noon, and go on a 4–6 hours walk in Madrid. The time of the walk depends on how much I stop on the way. I almost always get coffee and a bake along the walk, and sometimes I take meetings on the phone during that time. Then dinner mainly at the apartment and sometimes in a nearby restaurant and then it’s time for some more email, errands and Netflix watching. I get to bed around 2am.
This closes the first week in Madrid. It’s an amazing city, with so many options of things to see and eat. By now I have my favorite local bakery (PANEM), my favorite local Café (Sood Cafe), my favorite grocery store, (Sanchez Romero), and my favorite ice cream place (Gelateria La Dolce Fina).
Week totals:
Steps: 106,815, which is just a bit better than what my 91 years old mom walked a couple of weeks ago.
Kilometers: 90
