Nick's Andalusia Travel Blog: Day 04 - Madrid Southern Neighborhoods

I like to call myself a traveler instead of a tourist. Tourist just come to look at things and take pictures. Well, I guess I do a lot of that, but an important part of traveling for me is getting off the beaten path to explore the place where people live in the present. These places may have some amazing history and great monuments but they are also a vibrant living space for the people here today.

Today I decided to include a map showing the route I took for the day. I traveled approximately 4.5 miles in about three hours.

First I headed south through the Puerta del Sol down towards the barrio Lavapiés. I sat in this square for a while and watched people come and go having conversations and conducting business.

Real Basílica de san Francisco el Grande

One of the nice things about not having a strict itinerary that I have to stick to is just wandering around to see what is beyond the next turn. I knew that there was some site that I wanted to see past the Basílica de san Francisco and I started to go one way but changed my mind and headed the other way. On the other side of the church was this nice park where I stopped for a while and enjoyed the view and watched a little dog bark at everyone who ventured too close.

Behind the park I found this huge set of stairs leading down to where I wanted to get.

One thing I've learned to do every now and then is turn around because you never know what you'll find behind you. It's always good to have another perspective on things.

Here is possibly the oldest standing building in the city. It is called the Muralla musulmana de Madrid wich means Muslim Wall. It was built in the 9th century AD when the Iberian Peninsula was under Muslin rule and called Al-Andalus. I'll be discussing this much more when I get down to Andalucia.

Santa María la Real de La Almudena in the backbground.