I jetted to Madrid for the first time this fine August weekend. I had a work meeting on Friday afternoon, so I arranged to stay through the weekend, and husband met me later that night to explore.
Three things made this weekend probably not the best choice for visiting Madrid:
1. It was sweltering
2. It’s August, i.e. when everything is shuttered for holidays in Europe
3. Our visit coincided with a more important visitor: el papa!
It took me a minute to understand exactly what was going on when I grabbed a cab at the airport.
Spanish Cabbie: “This is going to take a while, all of the main roads into the city are closed. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get to your hotel. The potato is here.”
Me: “huh?” [Something about that translation does not add up…]
Spanish Cabbie: “the potato”
Me: [queue 7th-grade Spanish lightbulb] “Oh! The pope!”
In the end, it made for some interesting photos. The streets were packed to the gills with young Catholics from all over the world, over a million of them in fact. All in town for World Youth Day 2011.
I think next time I’ll go in May.