I am in the Easy Everything Cafe near Sol and I was hoping to write a long, long trip report as Madridman does. Well, I have 14 minutes left on my ticket, so it will be a quick recap. We had a pleasant flight on Iberia, and got to an empty Madrid before 8:00 AM. We spent a full day in Madrid (mostly around Sol) and that night we saw an incredible concert in the Palacio de Deportes (where Madrid´s basketball team plays). The headliners were Miguel Bose and Ana Torroja (of Mecano), along with Spanish bands La Union and Revolver. No crowd gets into a concert like the crowd in Spain. It was incredible. Madrid is great. Sunday I got together with some friends from a message board that have been reading me for a couple of years. Then we went to a concert in Libertad 8, a small cafe where cantautores (singer-songwriters) appear just about every night. The singer, Jaime Anglada, who we did not know beforehand was very good. Ay, se me acaba el credito. I promise to continue when I get a chance.

I'm jealous that you saw La Unión en concierto! Anyone who hasn't heard of or seen these guys is missing out. They're very good. Before MTV went to intelligence-insulting and lowest-common-denominator showsl like Jackass and the Real World, they used to have good international programming a few times a week, and you could always catch a good La Unión video or another Spanish group.

Keep the updates coming caminante!

I had way too much fun in Spain and I wish I could have paused for a few minutes each day to give a recap here, but that was not to be.
We had too much fun, Spain is incredible and the people are even better!!!!! I will give more details when I get a chance.

OK let me go back in time to Monday, December 18. One of the major reasons we wanted to spend so much time in Madrid this time around was because we wanted to see our favorite cantautores. We discovered this new movement in Spain when we were there in 1998 . . .

We were on a bus back from Toledo and we heard a concert being announced for the following weekend. It was a benefit for the mentally ill called Hagamos Una Locura. We liked the sound of the singers who were promoting it on the radio, so in Madrid we bought tickets and on our last night in Spain we saw an incredible concert with Ismael Serrano, Tonxju, Paco Bello, Javier Bergia, Kiko Tovar. We loved just about everything and took home the cds we could find. I had once seen Paco singing in El Retiro (maybe you've seen him too - tall, long curly hair, glasses), and hadn't heard more of him until we saw him on stage. Later we ordered Paco Bello's cd (now known as Nauta) from Amazon.com and it took a few months to arrive, but it was well worth the wait.

Well, now on December 18, 2000 we could finally see Paco Bello at the small Libertad 8 café: http://www.libertad8cafe.com/ . After we had enjoyed his music in solitude for a year, we got to see him live. We arrived early to get a good table, and the place soon filled up. It was just the way a singer-songwriter concert should be, with Paco at his guitar on a stage barely big enough for one, singing to fans who could not be more into the music. And noone had known who he was at the 1998 concert. In Libertad 8, there is a 600 pesetas supplement plus consumicion (a 300 ptas glass of wine or beer). Wow!.

On Tuesday, we had planned a day trip to Avila and Segovia, but we didn't get up early enough. We went to the Prado, and I'd never seen my wife so unenthused in an art museum. Still, I love Las Meninas and some of the other famous paintings there. On Wednesday, we got up late again and took a bus to El Escorial. When we got there, the place was closed. It seems some high official was (or had been) inside. The guards told us it would be opening later, but we decided not to wait. We hurried back to Madrid to make the 5:00 PM guided tour (in Spanish) of the Reina Sofia. They give free guided tours three times a week. We were joined on the tour by an Argentinian family and had a very good guide. It's really a great way to see a museum. I had been there before, but never with a guide to introduce the paintings. It was my wife's first time in both museums, and her first time at least seeing El Escorial from the outside.

After the Reina Sofia, we headed over to the Moncloa for our fourth concert in five nights in Madrid. This time it was Antonio de Pinto, a cantautor, who played in the bar musical Galileo Galilei to present his first album. We knew Antonio from a compilation album of young cantautores that I stumbled on in the used cd store La Metralleta two years back. He, and his band, were great in the classy night club that didn't have the intimate atmosphere of Libertad 8. Our time in Madrid was coming to a close, we had gone to too many stores and bought cds, shoes, gifts and other stuff, enough to fill another bag (which we had conveniently brought). We had eaten great seafood at Meson Asturias, on a side street just north of Plaza Santa Ana, and tried two vegetarian restaurants that we also loved. Tapas were dinner three times, and we were never disappointed. Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, I already miss you. We left Thursday on a flight to Barcelona and I will tell of our time there in another post. Happy New Year to all

Hi Caminante

Thanks for all that interesting information. Sounds like you had a really fantastic time.

Can you tell me how to find Libertad 8 cafe?

Also can you tell me how you got to buy tickets for the other things you saw too?

Thanks, and I look forward to hearing more about your trip.

Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne, go to the Libertad 8 web site above and they have a map (plano) showing the exact location. It is on Calle de la Libertad, which if you are on Gran Via heading towards Recoletos, is the continuation of one of the last few streets on the left.

The main places to get tickets for big concerts are El Corte Ingles and FNAC (both on calle Preciados). In El Corte Ingles, you have to go to the fifth floor of the record building which is right on Sol. We got our tickets for the Saturday night benefit concert at El Corte Ingles and found out they were sold out for a concert we wanted to see on Tuesday. The benefit, which I'm ashamed I didn't mention above, was to support the immigrants who try to cross the strait of Gibraltar to come to Spain from Africa.

If you buy Guia del Ocio, it should tell you where to get tickets. Most small clubs (like Libertad 8) don't sell tickets. At Libertad 8, you just show up at 9:00 PM for a 10:00 pm show and you'll get a table after paying the supplement. At Galileo Galilei (where they have concerts every night as well), it seems you can call to reserve a table in advance. We didn't, but still got a good table. People arriving late had to stand. We are snowed in today in New York City, so I will try to continue with my trip report. I'm happy I can share my experiences with all of you

[This message has been edited by caminante (edited 12-30-2000).]

caminante- do you remember the names of the 2 vegetarian restaurants, and where they were located? thanks!!

Well, we decided to limit our ten day trip to only Madrid and Barcelona rather than exploring some new places for two reasons. In Madrid, we wanted to see some concerts, and we had friends in Barcelona we wanted to visit.

Our Iberia flight to Barcelona was delayed by an hour due to traffic congestion, but that just meant our hostal room would be ready upon our arrival. We were dismayed to find out that our Hostal (Hostal Rembrandt, calle Porteferrisa) was on a pedestrian walkway, so we had to lug our considerable baggage a short distance from Las Ramblas. It wasn't really that far. We had lunch at the vegetarian restaurant / juice bar Juicy Jones (on Cardenal Casañas, near the metro stop Liceu). The menu was Asian-style with lots of different things in little bowls, but it wasn't quite enough food. Soon we called our friends Jesus and Celia, and Jesus came from outside Barcelona to pick us up.

My wife Ale met these people when Celia sent a message to someone she had met in a chat, and it went to my wife's email address instead. Celia's message mentioned Barcelona, so my wife answered it with a question about the city. We ended up conversing with them via email for three months before our trip, and they turned out to be even nicer in person. We met Jesus at the end of Las Ramblas, but he was late because the police had cut off traffic and he was unable to turn to pick us up. He finally arrived and took us to surprise Celia in the supermarket where she works. They both live outside of Barcelona in the small beach towns of Castelldefels and Gavá. They took us to a local restaurant called Las Delicias for a late dinner. Later we made stops at a cold beach and a small park where we chatted late into the night.

On Friday, we had some more walking tours of Barcelona and had an excellent inexpensive lunch at the Italian restaurant Il Mercante de Venezia (C. Joan Anselmo Clave, 11), near the sea-end of Las Ramblas. This restaurant has a truly romantic atmosphere. Later we met Jesus and he took us around Montjuic and showed us the fountains in front of the Palacio de Musica. Dinner was chinese food (much different in Spain) at Jesus's apartment.

Saturday would be a day for touring, but unfortunately it rained much of the morning. It was the first rain we'd experienced on our trip. Jesus and Celia had never been inside the Sagrada Familia, so we went there in the rain and climbed the towers to the top (the elevator was not running). We were all (our friends included) amazed at how beautiful it was. We had a great lunch at a nearby restaurant (no idea on the name), and then the sun came out. Fideu de Mariscos is an excellent dish of noodles and seafood. Jesus had to take Celia to work, but he dropped us off near Parque Guell. The glistening wet ground and trees gave a fresh dawn-like feeling to the park Gaudi designed. We wandered around the park, and could see the ocean in the distance. We were in a place with lots of small rock benches and an old man came up to his and told us it was the "Puente de los Enamorados", the lover's bridge and that as a young man (before there were so many tourists), he used to bring his sweetheart there for a good time. Our friends had never been to the Parque Guell, either so we promised to take them there on our next trip.

Saturday night we met two more people who knew me from a message board (not this one ) and one of them invited the four of us to his nearby apartment for a small dinner. Of course, we expected to meet them in a restaurant, and they didn't know we were vegetarians. Still, there was excellent food there we could eat. It's our first time in Spain as vegetarians (we do eat fish and dairy). It was not easy to resist the Jamon Serrano they had laid out for us. At the very elegant dinner, we had pan con tomate (a Catalan specialty), cheese, salad, and smoked salmon along with good wine and Cava. Later we took a taxi to a bar in Tibidabo, a mountain overlooking Barcelona. From there we could see all of Barcelona laid out before us.

Sunday we were invited to Christmas Dinner with Jesus's family. We were nervous about what we would eat as vegetarians and about how to dress. It turns out we were dressed fine, even perhaps overdressed. The family could not have received us better. And they prepared mostly seafood for us, a great feast of octopus, eel, shellfish, shrimp, and one dish that had meat. I hope they didn't change their menu just for us; Jesus assured us that Christmas Dinner with seafood was common in Catalunya. The family had four-year old Rafael and he banged on a decorated log to summon his presents and kept asking about Papa Noel. Well after we had eaten, a knock was heard and Papa Noel himself came in his red suit with a bag full of toys. Papa Noel handed a big box to an overjoyed Rafael that contained the Vuelta del Ciclista set that he had asked for. He then proceeded to hand out presents to everyone at the table, including an Alejandro Sanz cd for us. Santa left, and a few moments later the young boy's uncle arrived.

We clicked so well with our new friends, and we were very sad to leave on Christmas Day. We invited them to New York, and we can only hope to show them half of the hospitality they showed us. They took us to the airport Monday morning. It's great to travel on a holiday because the airports were so empty. We had a pleasant Iberia flight, and returned to celebrate Christmas on two continents.

Eight Earrings:

One of them (can't remember the name) had a green sign for "comida macrobiotica" and was a block south of calle de las Huertas a few streets away from Hostal Lopez. The other is Artemisa which has two locations (one between Preciados and calle Montera at Tres Cruces off the Plaza del Carmen, the other on Ventura de la Vega off of San Jeronimo). On another trip we went to El Estragon (Pl de la Paja, M: La Latina, mentioned elsewhere on this site.

I would recommend both of our hostals: Hostal Lopez in Madrid, and Hostal Rembrandt in Barcelona.