The El Rastro group wandered around the street market and bought a few items -- pants, shirts, etc. The market had normal street-market stuff -- it wasn't the weird and funky market that we were expecting. But it was fun, and we stopped at an outdoor café for some café con leche.
Lauren had loaned Jordan her cell phone so the two groups could text-message each other to reconnect. We decided to meet at the in-town end of the teleférico (cable car) that runs to the middle of a huge park that used to be the Palacio Real's hunting grounds. The views from the 15-minute ride were spectacular, and even Lauren, who is not famous for her head for heights, enjoyed the vista of Madrid.
After walking around the park a bit and returning on the cable car, it was past time for lunch, and we had a tough time finding a restaurant open in the residential part of Madrid where we found ourselves. We eventually talked our way into a little neighborhood joint where we had a random assortment of good food.
Before we left the U.S., Elaine and Shelly, friends of Meg and Zac, had raved about churros y chocolate -- fried dough that you dip in thick hot chocolate, and since this was our last day in Spain, we needed to find this delicacy for the kids. We took the metro to Lavapiés, near our hotel, and walked around until we found a sidewalk café near the Atocha train station that server excellent churros y chocolate -- score!
Lauren and Tim were ready to walk back to the hotel, but our family went into the Estacion Atocha to see the rain forest botanical garden there. At one end was a lily pond with hundreds or turtles, which we watched for a long time.
After some downtime at the hotel, including repacking so that Jordan could take one suitcase to Salzburg, and fitting Zac's sword into one one large suitcase, Meg and Margy found a recommendation for a restaurant called La Finca de Susanna, near the Puerta del Sol. We walked over with Lauren and Time and found a large, lovely, modern restaurant with wonderful Spanish-international fusion food. We had duck, fish, chicken (for Zac, of course), and loved everything. (Well, actually, the desserts didn't live up to the quality of the main courses, except for Zac's tiramisu.) Jordan has an interesting local anisette-like liqueur with coffee.
We walked back to the hotel, happy and replete, leaving Lauren and Tim to look for cognac and cigars.
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