Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
If you’re in need of some tapas or a good glass of wine the Mercado de San Miguel at Madrid, Spain might be your favorite place. But you shouldn’t be afraid of masses of people in an ancient market hall. The building dates back to 1916 and already the design makes it worth to visit the place. Most people for sure come for the more than 30 vendors from which you can get small snacks of every kind and different drinks.
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Not far away from the Plaza España at Madrid, Spain you can find something quite suprising: an ancient Egyptian temple, the temple of Debod. How did that happen? When the Aswan dam was built in 1960 different archeological sites were threatened. The UNESCO then asked all countries around the world for help and as Spain helped to preserve the temple of Abu Simbel they received the small temple of Debod as a gift.
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It is a place that makes me angry. I mean really angry. A beautiful place with impressive architecture. A symbol of the Spanish civil war. A place where you can see the differences in remembrance culture. A place that creates a lot of discussions still today. It is a place where I would immediatly leave the catholic church if I would by a member. And somehow this all makes it worth to visit the Monumento Nacional de Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos at San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid, Spain.
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A giant palace with wonderful architecture and a large garden, a cloister, a UNESCO world heritage site, the largest building in renaissance style and the graveyard for most kings and queens of Spain – that is what the Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial at San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid, Spain is. And why can it be found at the Sierra de Guadarrama, 46 kilometers outside of the capital city? Because Philip II won a battle against the French in 1557 on the day of San Lorenzo. He wanted to build a cloister for this saint and his star-mongers selected this place.
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The Cathedral de Santa María de la Almudena is quite a surprising roman-catholic church at Madrid, Spain: plans for this church exist since the 16th century, construction works started in the 19th century – but it was only finished in 1993. Therefore this church looks very modern inside and the style of the church was adopted over time to fit to the surrounding buildings (that for sure changed since the 16th century).
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The royal palace of Madrid, Spain is located at the city center with a nice park next to it and a vast garden underneath. It is still today the official seat of the royal family of Spain but they actually live in the Palacio de la Zarzuela a little bit outside of the city. The Palacio Real was first used in 1764 by king Charles III. It is a very large palace with 2000 rooms and is double as large as the Buckingham Palace.
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It is worth to visit the railway station Madrid Puerta de Atocha without wanting to use a train. The dead-end station has a new and an old main hall; the older one is from 1888 and was built in art nouveau style. Under the fantastic roof made of cast iron and glass there is now a large palm garden you can walk through and sit down in. Waiting for a train has never been that nice! When you relax under the trees you might forget that you are currently at the most important inner-city hub.
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If you had enough hustle and bustle in the city of Madrid, Spain than the Parque del Retiro might be your ideal safe haven. And that is what Retiro means: retreat. It is a giant park close to the city center and it was originally a garden for the royal family. After the end of the reign of Isabell II in 1868 it became a park for the people which is still today – on weekends complete families get here to relax. Most iconic is the artificial lake Estanque del Retiro on which you can row a boat.
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The Plaza Mayor is a very special place at Madrid, Spain but quite typical for a Spanish city: a rectangular space with the same four-level buildings on all sides and various gates – formerly used as a market square. In the center there is a statue of Philip III from the House of Habsburg. I enjoyed especially the paintings on one of the buildings, the Casa de la Panadería – but they are pretty young and were painted only in 1992.
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If you want to sit outside at the river Weser within Bremen, Germany and have a good drink there is one main party zone that will be recommended to you: the Schlachte. You will find numerous bars there with outdoor seats and great views on the water and the ships anchoring there (some of them are bars and restaurants, too). The name has nothing to do with slaughter (‘Schlachtung‘, ‘Schlacht‘, ‘Schlachten‘) – it refers to ‘slagte‘, the process of placing wooden piles to stabilize the shore.
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