Dulcinea's Best of Madrid Exploration Kit: Top 10

1. Best Map of Madrid
Knopf City Map Guides: Madrid. The City in Section-by-Section Maps. After trying several other maps, this one was my favorite. The pocket-sized book contains all the main sights of Madrid, along with useful suggestions for each part of the city. Museums are marked.

The maps are very good, but a compass is my secret weapon.

2. Best Small Museum
Sorolla Museum. The painter Sorolla's 1920s home and studio, with a lovely garden outside. This is a good stop for all ages.

Fountain in Sorolla's garden

3. Best Place for Frugal Travelers to Find a Quick Snack
The cafe chain 100 Montaditos. Dozens of locations in Madrid.  Home of the 1-Euro cafe con leche, the 1-Euro beer, and over 100 types of sandwiches on tiny rolls.  Spaniards flock here as well---price/quality ratio is good.

4. Best Souvenirs 
Saffron...
Football memorabilia... from Real Madrid or Team Spain.
Leather jewelry... from the whimsical store Tierra Madrid, located on calle Gerona, 10 (just off Plaza Mayor).

Jewelry from Tierra (items pictured: 4 to 15 Euros).

Spanish fans... 
Postcards from museum gift stores...
Espadrilles from Antigua Casa Crespo (in business since 1863; calle Divino Pastor, 29; metro: San Bernardo) or Casa Hernanz (since 1845; calle Toledo, 18-20; located one block off Plaza Mayor).

Espadrilles from Spain

5. Best Places to Take Small Children
Railroad Museum.  Room to climb (on antique train cars) and relax (in an elegant dining car from the 1920s).

...or big children.

Retiro Park.  Rowboats, buskers, ice-cream stands, fortune-tellers, fountains, a Crystal Palace, and turtles sunning themselves in a pile nearby. Just a few of the pleasures of this park behind the Prado Museum.

Learning to row in Retiro

6. Best Store for Cheap, Useful, Attractive Odds and Ends
Tiger. Art supplies, toys, kitchen wares, reading glasses, notebooks, greeting cards, and other things you didn't think you needed, all with a hint of Scandinavian design. A cross between Ikea and the five-and-dime.  Various locations around town.

7. Most Intriguing Experience
Buying sweets from the Convent Nuns. (See Adventure in the Cloister)

8. Best Outdoor Running Track in Madrid
Located at Parque de Santander (also known as Green Canal) in the the Chamberi neighborhood of Madrid, at the corner of Avenida de Islas Filipinas and Avenida Pablo Iglesias.  Closest metro: Canal, Rios Rosas. Run past blooming lavender bushes, fountains, wisteria vines, and families out for a stroll.  Restrooms and water fountains provided.  Free access to track and park areas; other sports facilities can be rented on a fee basis. Track open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Rubberized 1200-meter running track in Chamberi district

9. Best Exhibition Space
Sala del Canal de Isabel II.  Located in an old water tower that has been renovated for temporary art exhibitions. Check website for current listings. Don't forget to bring passport. Entry is free, but because the tower is located within the headquarters of the city water utility, there is a security checkpoint. Located at calle de Santa Engracia, 125 (metro: Rios Rosas).  Hours: Tues-Sat: 11-2 & 5-8:30; Sun: 11-2; Closed Monday.

Sala Canal de Isabel II

10. Best Free Art Exhibit Venues in Madrid

Consistently top-notch:
Fundacion Mapfre. Paseo de Recoletas, 23.
Caixa Forum Madrid. Paseo del Prado, 36.
Juan March Foundation. Castelló, 77

Juan March Foundation. Ground floor has exhibit space.

It's a Bloody Mystery

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation / Real Monasterio de la Encarnación
05/11/12 – Plaza de la Encarnación

The Royal Monastery of the Incarnation was established in 1611, a few years after the Monastery of the Barefoot Noblewomen.  In olden times, a passageway from the nearby Royal Palace allowed the royal family to visit and worship at their convenience. The monastery conducts 1-hour guided visits in Spanish. 

  

Royal Monastery of the Incarnation

The guide told us that 10 nuns still live in the cloister today, hidden from view.  A revolving wooden counter set in an interior wall--identical to the “torno” for convent sweets at the Convent of Corpus Christi--functions as their portal of communication with the outside world.  How I would like to interview one of those nuns, or at least send a list of written questions through the wall!  

What's it like to never leave?

As the guide whisked us from room to room, she pointed out religious figures in time-darkened paintings; statues of the virgin wearing real outfits of embroidered silk; and the royal visages of Spain’s pallid, pursed-lipped Austrian monarchs.  At one point the guide chastised a hapless man who strayed several meters from the group.  Perhaps he too was trying to get a glimpse of a living being amongst the Stations of the Cross.  The windows onto the courtyard, it turns out, have opaque glass.  

 

The paintings and sculptures are not as impressive as those in the Monastery of the Barefoot Royals, and the rooms are not as lavish. My favorite painting showed a nun laid out in her coffin, covered in flowers; the guide said it was a rare illustration of the convent’s funerary tradition.  A huge painting of a biblical wedding scene shows a banquet table laden with empanadas. A life-sized 17^th century sculpture by Gregorio Fernandez, of the reclining Christ covered in blood, is all too realistic.  The final station for our group, a room chock full of saintly relics, might be worth the price of admission (7 euros).  

St. Pantalemon, usually portrayed as a mop-top

From floor to ceiling, the walls are lined with artfully displayed bone chips, the arms of eight martyrs, and the leg of St. Margaret.  A reliquary with a glass orb contains the solidified blood of St. Pantalemon, a Christian healer from the early fourth century.  According to legend, he was tortured mercilessly and then beheaded for performing miracles on sick people instead of treating them in the normal way—normal for Greek doctors in the year 303 CE, that is.  

Every year on July 27, the day of St. Pantalemon’s death, the reliquary is carried to the Baroque church next door and displayed to the public, as well as broadcasted on closed-circuit TV monitors.  On that day only, the blood in the orb is said to turn from a solid to a liquid before your eyes.  As luck would have it, we leave Madrid for home on July 27, and will not be here to see it.

Adventure in the Cloister, or, How to Buy Sweets from Invisible Nuns

Monastery of Corpus Christi / Monasterio del Corpus Christi
04/24/12 - Plaza del Conde de Miranda, 3
A Step-by-Step Guide to Buying "Dulces del convento"

In college, I was startled to see a flock of nuns in full habit out for a jog on New York’s Riverside Drive, their white veils flapping in the breeze.  I grew up far from nuns, in a southern California beach town that seemed to exist outside time.  While it’s true that I fled the land of lotus-eaters in order to attend an all-female school in New York, I was lured by Barnard’s location, rigor, and scholarship aid.  I can't imagine renouncing the secular world or the company of men, whom I find delightful much of the time.  Still, I can admire the good works of nuns around the world, as they tend to the poor, the powerless, and the sickest among us. The Vatican’s recent crackdown on American nuns for their devotion to issues of social justice shows how completely out of touch it has become.
  
I wrote earlier about the art collection in Madrid's Monastery of Barefoot Noblewomen, a cloistered order in which only two dozen nuns remain.  Another cloister has resided in the Monastery of Corpus Christi (also known as Las Carboneras) since the year 1605. 

Church entry, Plaza Conde de Miranda, 3 (doorway to sweets is at R, not shown)

To help support themselves, the nuns bake traditional sweets, which they sell while hidden behind a wooden turnstile within the convent. The recipes, it is said, have been passed down through the ages from the time of the Romans and the Moors.  Here is the buying process as I found it today:

1. Once I arrived at the set of carved wooden doors to the right of the church entrance, I rang the top bell, marked monjas (nuns).  When a voice answered, I stated my business, “Dulces, por favor,” and a nun buzzed me in. 

Ring the bell on the right side

2. I proceeded through a dim corridor that led to a small, open courtyard.

Go straight through doorway

Almost there

3. Then I passed through another short hallway, a small open space, and at last a doorway where a revolving counter is set into the left wall.

The price list for sweets is posted. A friendly, self-appointed Roma lady might be present to guide you through the process. Her Spanish was as rudimentary as mine, but I didn’t mind her assistance--nor could I avoid it!

Today's selection of sweets

4. A disembodied voice behind the wall addressed us and the nun placed the selection of sweets upon a revolving counter (the torno), then turned it until the items appeared on our side of the wall.  I told her I’d like one of each, and placed the money on the counter.  The nun turned the counter yet again, and she tallied the total aloud in a wavering voice.  “She’s really old,” the Roma lady informed me, as the voice started to tabulate a second time.  I pictured a four-foot nun of about one hundred and ten.  My change arrived, another group entered, and I left with my sweets: a box of starry pastas de almendra, and a bag of galletas, lightly scented with lemon.

Arrival of the dulces

Tea time. Crisp sugar biscuits (L) and chewy almond sweets

S1 and S2: the testers

After all that, how did they taste, you ask?  -- ¡Riquísimo!