hey everybody it's Daniel and welcome to
Madrid today we're going to do a
touristic video I'm going to show you
five places to see in Madrid if you live
in Madrid you've been to these places if
you're just visiting for a few days you
would enjoy seeing them and that's about
it
this is Calle Fuencarral in the centre
basically - Fuencarral goes from Gran Vía
up to Glorieta de Bilbao. It's a
shopping street it's a nice shopping
street with a lot of the important
fashion brands that have shops here and
on the side streets you also have a lot
of bars, cafes, smaller boutique shops
it's a nice place where all the cool
kids go to go shopping of course it's a
Friday morning here and it's a little
bit quiet because life you know shopping
doesn't usually happen early here in
Madrid, and I know it might rain
if it rains we'll continue making the
video because you care I've got a hood
anyway
so our first place for the day is calle
Fuencarral and I'll see you in a minute
on Gran vía
okay so Gran Vía is noisy. That's one
adjective I would use to describe it
gran vía is like Madrid's main street
it got even bigger shops than Fuencarral
and if I understand correctly it was built
in the 1920s or so they were trying to
create a large you know Main Avenue like
other European capitals had they wanted
to be more like you know Paris. I guess you could
compare it to Oxford Street in London
except that Madrid is much smaller than
London. So Gran Vía is a lot smaller than
Oxford street in the end it is a big
city but it's not big on London scale
anyway there's a lot of monumental sort
of architecture here lots of big
building the Telefónica building which
we will see in a minute and plaza de Callao
which we will also see
okay and it's raining
people have this idea that in Spain it's
always sunny and warm and if you're
comparing it to London also it is you
know funny and warm compared to London
but it does still rain here in spring
and an autumn it rained quite bit. So
you know, bring real clothes if you come.
Don't just think you can get by on pair of
shorts and flip-flops because it's Spain.
It does rain here anyway this is Plaza de Callo
Oh yeah. Documentary Style here. They were
trying to sell this a couple of years
ago as the Spanish Times Square or the
Madrid Times Square and whatever if you
have to compare one part of Madrid with
Times Square this would be a good one
because it has you know lights and cinemas
and things like that. Otherwise
you know I would say that making a New
York / Madrid comparison is also not quite
accurate because there are so many
differences between Madrid and New York
but hey you know you got to compare
something to New York. So Madird
like the New York of Spain or whatever so
we're going to walk on to Plaza España
and i'll catch you there
okay so Plaza España here we are in
beautiful Plaza España this is one of
the large squares here in the center of
Madrid it's got a couple of monumental
buildings behind me you can see Edificio
España which is maybe the second
skyscraper that they built in Madrid
after they built the Telefónica
Building this is the number two and it
was the tallest building in Spain I
believe during the 1950's the other one
that we have is Torre Madrid which is
a bit taller there's these kind of old
school you know skyscraper style which
is interesting also Edificio España
the big one behind me is
abandoned now actually I've been hearing
for years that some big company has
plans to invest a lot of money and turn
it into a hotel or something but of
course this is Spain and the government
makes that kind of thing very difficult
the government well you know Spain is
not the best country for doing business
Ask me how I know... it is however probably
the best country in the world to live
which is the big contradiction that
everybody here is kind of walking around
with no money but very happy to be
in Spain because it beats so many other
places anyway
that's something you won't hear on Rick
Steves when he comes to Spain he
probably will not tell you about
government corruption or the fact that
they just make it impossible to invest
money even in useful projects that would
make the country and the city better but
hey I'm not Rick Steves so that's what we're
talking about
anyway this Square has a lot of other
interesting things around it there are
some original version cinemas over here
if you're looking kind of Google "Cines
Plaza España" or something like that and
you'll find original version cinemas
over here and we also have
behind me now the statue of Don Quixote
Don Quixote of course one of the most
famous works of literature in the
history of the world and it was written
by Miguel de Cervantes a Spanish guy
from Alcalá de Henares he also lived here
in Madrid the story is about a gentleman
who reads too many books goes crazy and
starts to believe that he is a knight
course I've actually read the book most
people haven't you know people will talk
about it but virtually nobody has
actually read the book it's really thick
anyway we have the statue of Don Quixote
Sancho Panza and on top we have also
Cervantes the author of the book and yeah
this is a place that you should
definitely visit if you're here in
Madrid and there are you know always
bars and restaurants around here here
you can have a drink at any number of
places around the plaza before you walk
on to Templo de Debod is our next stop
okay so this is Templo de Debod if I
have the story correct it was a gift
from Egypt to Spain because Spain helped
to build the Suez Canal
so it's an Egyptian temple but it's
actually in the Greek style and it was
brought here in the 1970s because the
area that was going to be flooded by the
construction of the Suez Canal
you know contains some of these temples
so they just moved this one here because
it's better than having it under water
so it's a small museum you can go inside
I guess now there are people standing in
line here it was closed for several
months but I think they've reopened it
in any case the nicest thing about it is
just the park and the views it's a great
place to see the sunset if you're into
that on days with Sun obviously that
would be a little bit easier and it's
just kind of a hill very close to espana
where you can see some views of the
Royal Palace and other things anyway
pretty nice place I recommend that you
come here when you're in Madrid another
thing I should mention about this area
is that it's got a lot of history it's
where the French garrison was stationed
during the Napoleonic occupation of
Spain I'm not a historian my
understanding is that you know Napoleon
was here for a few years during his
conquering Europe phase and this is
where the soldiers would you know state
when they're occupying the city the
history is well there's a couple of big
paintings huge paintings by Goya in the
prado museum one of them is the 2nd of
May which is about the uprising that
happened here in Madrid and of a
revolution against the French occupation
and the next one is the 3rd of May which
is people getting executed on this hill
it's the people who were you know
disloyal to France or who were involved
in the uprising
they brought them here they shot them
you know etc so there's a sign here
saying that this is where originally the
barracks or the garrison was and that's
about it
most people don't know a lot of details
about these stories these days and I
certainly don't but it is one of those
things that they talk about a lot of the
the street names the holidays are
related to this the most important days
a day for the Madrid community the
holiday is the 2nd of May in honor of
this uprising against
the French and you know a couple of the
neighborhoods and streets and metro
stops are named after people who took
place in this uprising but today a few
here you know General Velarde
or whatever most people do not
immediately know that he was involved in
this uprising so anyway a little bit of
history here around the Egyptian temple
we're going to see some of the views and
then we're going to go to our last stop
of the day the royal palace catch you in a
minute!
okay so we're here in Jardines de
Sabbatini one of the gardens outside the
royal palace it has started raining
again which means that you know the
light is not as nice as it would usually
be. Madrid is a place with some very
beautiful weather some very beautiful
light sometimes
I'm sure later today we'll have sun
again it will be awesome but hey we're
keeping it real here so it's raining and
we're just gonna keep filming. The Royal
Palace is right over here
and it's a pretty large building I'll
just kind of take you around the outside
of it I guess we'll see the Cathedral
also because it's right next door and
that is a nice place to see also and hey
I guess that means this will be 7
places you should see in Madrid not 5
as I had originally planned but why not
so reality style here just gonna
continue walking this garden is pretty
nice and the palace also. Seeya in a minute!
alright so here we are outside the Royal
Palace the Royal Palace is one of the
nicest places in Madrid
well this square outside the Royal
Palace I'm sure that you know living in
the Royal Palace would be pretty nice
too but I'm not sure that anybody lives
in the Royal Palace now the King does
use it for some official state functions
but generally he lives outside the city
in El Pardo I believe kind of you know
Natural Area outside the city where they
have some important sort of palaces
anyway our current king is Felipe the Sixth
"Felipe Sexto" if you're
watching this Felipe you know tell
Letizia I said hi hey
the royal family here is not
particularly controversial I think most
people are in favor of having a royal
family I'm sure somebody is going to
comment and say that I'm totally wrong
about that but you know generally I
think it's not a huge issue anyway
people don't talk about it that much
because it's just kind of a delicate
subject the previous King abdicated
about three years ago
"Juan Carlos Primero" Juan Carlos the
first and I just found a blog post that
I wrote you know five years ago or
something where I predicted that this
would never happen people were talking
about it like the king was involved in
some corruption scandals and the
previous king of course the corruption
scandals I don't really know the story
it's so boring to read about these
corruption things because they take five
years and everybody just denies knowing
everything and in the end nothing
happens but anyway
the king was involved in some corruption
scandals people were saying he should
abdicate and I said no never!
that will never happen! I was wrong.. he
abdicated and in favor of his son his
son has a couple of important advantages
he's younger he's handsomer you know he
married a woman who's not any sort of
royalty. She's like a journalist. I guess.
Now she's the queen and well the new king is
not directly linked to fascism in any
specific way so that's a positive thing
too. Spain had a fascist dictatorship for
about 40 years that's another long
story which I will maybe tell
some day but not in this video the
previous king also had a problem kind of
a media scandal because it turns out
that he broke his hip well he was on
safari in Africa with his mistress and
shooting elephants which doesn't look
good to anybody I kind of liked him
until I found out that he shoots
elephants for fun. Anyway that's the
royal family and this is the royal
palace it was based on the Bourbon
It as based on the the Versailles Palace
in France outside of Paris I think it's
a little bit smaller because once again
Spain is not France but yeah that's the
palace and the Bourbon family is the
monarchy anyway next on final stop is
the Cathedral
see you there just a minute
okay so Almudena Cathedral – offical motto
Not the most beautiful Cathedral in Europe.
It's a newer cathedral in a modern style is just kind of minimal
it's nothing like some of the other
cathedrals around Spain. Spain has a ton of
really nice and cathedrals you know the
one in Salamanca the one in well
basically everywhere León has a huge one
and basically every city I've ben in
has a huge Cathedral and they're all
pretty cool Madrid's is not the best but hey
Who am I to say anything not anybody?
Because this is my hairstyle for this
rainy Friday morning it has stopped
raining. The sun is coming out which means
Madrid is once again the most beautiful
city in the world I don't know I could
go into Cathedral I don't think I'm
going to because just a night out here
when the Sun comes out anyway I hope
you've enjoyed this adventure if you are
in Madrid at some point maybe we can
hang out we can buy me a beer it'll be
awesome anyway I've got lots more about
Madrid on expatmadrid.com – I hope you
enjoyed this adventure go to my website
read about Madrid to see some of my nice
pictures of beautiful places around here
enjoy life until next time Daniel I'm
out