PlanetEye

Two days ago, a Spanair plane heading to the Canary Islands swerved off the runway of Terminal 4 at Barajas International Airport, caught fire and blew up. 153 of the 173 died. I summarised the main elements of the story as a breaking-news item here.

Spanair is Spain's second largest national airline after Iberia.

Since then, Madrid is in shock. Zapatero made a few supportive and grief filled statements at the airport, and visited the survivers and the families of the dead at La Paz Hospital.

The news channels are showing constant updates on the event as more bodies are identified, and the whole nation is trying to analyse what went wrong on the flight -- how was this let to happen?

The flight was late to take-off as some technical issues were found. The only clarity of the accident's cause that we have uptil now is that the motor of the plane failed and caught fire. However, it seems that that couldn't be the only reason of such a catastrophy.

News like this shakes you up. I have flown Spanair a number of times, and have been planning a trip to the Canary Islands for a while now -- I could have been on that flight, so could have you.

One minute you are boarding a plane to go on vacation, the next minute your body is found dead and burnt. Makes you think about your life and how you are living it. When people quote me "life is short",  as much as I agree, the optimist that I am, I like to believe that life is long too...but perhaps I'm wrong. 

Until yesterday Spanair's website was constantly being updated with developments on the accident. Other than emergency contact numbers, a list of the passengers on board the flight, and timings for the next press conference, the page showed nothing else. Today, there's a condolence note at the top, but Spanair flights seem to be back to normal. 

Life goes on, eh. So darn sad.  

In this vast but finite world of travelers, long gone are the days when hotels, hostels, and tents, were the only options for accomodation.

If you want to save a bit of money, want to have a unique experience, and possess a little streak of adventure, here are some accomodation options you might want to check out before you give your credit card details to a lodge:

Couch Surfing.com 

Hospitality Club.org

Global Freeloaders.com 

Some of you must be familiar with these websites, but for those who aren't: They are international websites where you can find a local to host you during your stay. They are non-profit organisations where thousands of travelers from all over the world are registered to host other travelers. You can search for your "couch" basis city and personal profile. It is secure because 1) You have access to all personal information of your host before you travel, 2) You can pre-check testimonials of the people you want to stay with on the websites. Yes,  a lot of it functions on the "circle of trust" that gets created on the website, but hey, trusting is a good thing, no?

A clear validation of these services is the fact that Couch Surfing.com alone has over 450,000 (!) members globally with about 11,000 of them located in Spain; exact numbers for Madrid are not available, but being the capital city, I'm sure it's one with the most numbers. Hospitality Club has over 15,000 members in Spain with 2940 in Madrid, and Global Freeloaders is a smaller and newer group that has 677 members in Spain, of which 108 of them are in Madrid.

Oh and you don't have to be young and single to use these services as the members across the websites cover a wide demographic. Definitely worth a look into for your next trip! 

August 15 is a national holiday in Madrid and a day celebrated with much gusto. This is the day a painting of the Virgen de la Paloma is paraded around old Madrid by the city's firemen, and a procession follows.

On this day, most Madrileños dress up in traditional costumes as "chulepas" and "chulepos", there are live concerts, dance and street events all around the city. On this day, the best area to be in is Plaza de las Vistillas where the parade begins and heads towards the old part of the city.

This festival is celebrated since the 18th century making it one of the oldest Madrid festivals to date. The festival is a tribute to Maria Isabel Andrea Tintero, who healed one of the children of Queen Maria Luisa. Apparently Tintero found some children  playing with a painting of the Virgin; she bought the painting from them for a few coins. She hung this painting that had a nun counting her beads (representing the Virgin) on her door (she lived on Calle de la Paloma) and it had miracle-performing qualities. Once this became know, a chapel dedicated to the now called "Virgen de la Paloma" was built in 1796. 

On August 15, the traditional ‘taking down of the painting of the Virgin' takes place after which it is paraded around the city as the audience shout "guapa" (gorgeous).

There you go, although it's hot, August isn't a bad time to be in Madrid! 

Just like other big museums around the world, visiting the Prado in Madrid is a must, but its size does not allow you to see much of it in one day. As hard as you try, it's pretty impossible and any attempt to see everything in a day can result in museum stress, frustration and exhaustion. 

General entry costs €6, not exactly encouraging multiple repeat visits. However, every day (except on Monday when the museum is closed), from 6pm-8pm the museum opens it's doors for free! On Sunday it's free from 5pm-8pm. Pretty awesome, eh?

The Prado museum in Madrid holds about 8,500 pieces of art from national and international artists such as Picasso, Goya, El Greco, Diego Rivera, Salvador Dali, Diego Velázquez, Van der Weyden, and Bosch, to name a few. The official website has a few suggestions of how to see the best of this humongous museum in 1, 2 or 3 hours...check them out here.

The museum is open from 9am-8pm.

Closest metro: Retiro or Atocha 

While most of the city is plan chill in August, there are a few days where some barrios are rocking loud and long with their local fiestas.

Starting the first weekend of August, celebrating the day of Saint Cayetano, fiestas begin in barrio La Latina; then it moves to Plaza de Lavapies as they celebrate the day of their saint -- Saint Lorenzo, and then finally the party ends in Parque de Las Vistillas as they celebrate the fiesta of Virgen de la Paloma.

These fiestas are street festivals where people put up multiple food and game stalls, music is loud -- some live music, but mostly recorded popular music to which people dance on the street, and many locals take this opportunity to dress as 19th century chulapas.

So basically the barrios turn into a big party, so that's where you've got to be. It's crowded and chaos but definitley fun (as long as you're not staying in those barrios of course! :)

On the last Thursday of every month, a large group of bicycle enthusiasts gather in Plaza de Cibeles with their bici's at 20:00 to set out on a ride around the city in an event called "Bici-critica". The ride lasts a couple of hours and sometimes upto 1000 people show up. This time, on Thursday July 31, the theme is "Pirates", so expect to see many riders with baggy pants and eye patches!

This is a great and novel way to see the city and meet some locals; and right now the weather in the evening is just perfect to ride a bike -- sunlight till around 10pm! The ride normally ends at a bar where everyone chills and has a couple of drinks. 

Here are a couple of places you can rent bikes in the city:

Bike Spain

Bravo Bike

Rent-a-Ride

Ciclos Oteros 

Trixi-bikes 

Rental for a day is between €12-15. 

Just because Madrid doesn't have the beach, doesn't mean that you can't go for a swim or get that luminous bronze Mediterranean tan! Madrid has a large number of open-air pools that offer everything a beach does minus the sand, and are the place to be if you want to relax, take a dip, have a drink, and tan.

However, don't expect to have much room to yourself, the pools are often packed, not to mention the LOOOONG lines to get in. Most pools have "aforo limitado" which means a limited forum; so once they are full, you can only go in when some people come out, which is why the line wait could be long, but oh well. 

One time entrance to the pools costs anywhere between €3-4.50; and "bonos" of 10 visits can be bought for around €30-35, depending on where you choose to get one.

A full list of pools along with prices, locations and timings can be found here and here.