Day 37: Madrid food tour, National Archaeological Museum.

With a 3-hour time change we sleep later until 6am or so. However Madrid is on a relaxed schedule, nothing opens until 8 am. Esp on a Saturday.  We are first ones to the hotel breakfast (delicious, very nice array) and out for a walk by 8:30 or so.  

This is a walking city! We are close to the center, there are many small side streets with little/no traffic. And people! The streets are alive with people. It's great to see. 

We walk by La Tienda de Los Deseos, or the wish store. Apparently you write your wish on a post-it and tie it onto a string of them. Thousands! Bringing us full circle from PostSecret in San Diego.

We walk over to Plaza Mayor, then vector towards our food tour starting point. 

In Plaza Mayor before the crowds pile up. 

Chocolate doesn't ask questions

Chocolate always understand you.

Hang out in the plaza until 10:30 and our tour guide Jose arrives -- we're on! The group is all Americans, including a woman with family at York & Butterfield Rds in Elmhurst IL.  

Jose says this is the off season, things are quieter than in late spring.  As the morning progress it gets much more crowded -- we're glad to be here in the off season!

Food tour is great! Churros and chocolate. I could wake up for this each day.

A sampling of six different olives, from simply brined, to marinated for flavors, and aged. Nice tasting.  Then sardine on potato chips.

A sourdough roll with chorizo

That roll is from this Galician bakery. Many of the good foods on this tour are from Galicia.

Next to a shop selling jambon, like a prosciutto whether fresh or well agreed, even made of beef. 

Oops, I didn't get a photo of the four cheese and two wines we sampled. 

We get fried calamari sandwiches at a place with a line so long I would never have eaten there myself.  La Cerveceria.

We have a pastry in a pastry shop founded in 1931 where the owner held anti-Fascist meetings in the back room. El Riojano.

After the food tour we head over to the archeological museum.

First, they have a copy of the Altamira caves underground out in the garden. Cool. 

Next we find out that the museum is free after 2pm on Saturday (also for seniors). Otherwise the whopping price of €3. I think we can return if we don't see everything. There is also an English guided tour at 4:00, just 30 minutes away. We put our feet up for a few minutes.

On the tour we learn that the museum has 1.3 million artifacts. We will not be seeing most of them. Strong comparison to the Louvre Abu Dhabi -- this place many have more pieces in one gallery than LAD has altogether.  Our tour guide Sofia is a PhD student in medieval art, just finishing her degree. We get an awesome tour from an expert.

We see about 15 pieces in 90-120 minutes. Just right. 

Solid gold ornaments worn by a bull being sacrificed in 2000-3000 years ago.

Two amazing pieces of sculpture. 

Lost wax method bronze bull heads. Such expert artistry. 

Roman mosaics, they have several large amazing ones. 

Twelve labors of Hercules 

Large ivory carving

One of many gold crowns with blue Sapphire (made here, but with stones from Sri Lanka). Found along roadside after rain eroded soil hiding it.

We pass by monumental buildings on the way home. 

After a nap we head out for dinner. We get seated by 8:00, before the dinner rush. Haha. Food's good and we're back to hotel by 10.

Great day!