We left Bilbao on a 7 a.m. train. and rode four and a half hours to get to Madrid. We stayed at the Hotel Aloft Madrid, which is in a great location. It is just steps away from restaurants, shopping, and sights. After checking in, we stopped for paella at El Barril de las Cortes. I was waiting for paella on this trip and it did not disappoint. After lunch, we met Majo, our guide for our walking tour of Madrid. Throughout the walk, I kept being amazed by the beauty and history of Spain. We saw the Plaza de Isabel, Madrid Royal Palace, and other stops I neglected to jot down the names of. We ended at Plaza Mayor where we had some jamon and beer to finish our walking tour. Caroline’s friend Emma met up with us there and extended our tour. This portion was the food and drink tour. Emma took us to Tapas Street, just around the corner from Plaza Mayor. Our first stop was a place famous for their fried-calamari sandwich and beer. Fried calamari is all they serve, and they have their service down to a science. After enjoying crispy calamri, our second stop was at place famous for vermouth. I’ve never had vermouth as a drink but this is a popular cocktail in Spain. I was pleasantly surprised by this drink. The bartender sprayed the glass and ice with gin, poured some good vermouth in a martini glass, and topped it with bitters. The cocktail was garnished with an olive and at this place a dried orange slice. At all the other places I tried vermouth on the trip, the garnish was an olive with a fresh olive slice. The next two stops were for more tapas and beer. There was even a dish described as having eels, but it wasn’t actually eels. It was actually surimi shaped like baby eels and was pretty good. We ended the evening at a shop where we devoured warm crispy churros we dipped in melted chocolate. What a perfect end to the evening.

On our second day in Madrid, we started with a paella cooking class at 10 a.m. at Cooking Point. What a fun class. We started at a market where we bought the ingredients for our dishes. We prepared sangria, a vinaigrette for our pan-fried romaine salad, and a chicken, squid, and shrimp paella. I have to say that I enjoyed our paella even more than the paella we had the previous day! I want to buy a paella pan. But I don’t want to add another item to my kitchen. Can I make paella with my cast-iron pan? Or just any pan I have at home? I learned to use a grater to grate a tomato for perfect saucy tomatoes with no skin. I’m going to use this method to make quick pan con tomate at home. After our class, we walked around Madrid. It was pretty cold – felt like the temperature was in the 30s. It was also drizzly but nothing us Hiloans can’t handle. We visited a park with a lake, shopped for Barca gear. Found an espadrille store but also found that it was closed. We wanted to go to San Miguel market but because of the rain, it was very crowded. We had to skip it. Since it was cold and rainy, we went back to the hotel and warm up before dinner. We had dinner around the corner from the hotel and took the evening to pack up to depart to Barcelona. Living Hilo Style in Madrid, Spain.