The kids had Madrid circled on the calendar. It had been more than half a year since they had seen their little cousins and they had major plans! The four of us were so anxious, we arrived in the city a couple days before my brother and his family. This ensured that we could scout the area surrounding their hotel and advise them on the good playgrounds. We would spend the next 10 days touring the city, partaking in kid-friendly activities and continue our search for street performers. The girls were happy to cause mischief with their cousins while Paige and I were happy to have other kids around!
Before they arrived, we had a couple days to ourselves, so we split up the kids and did separate activities. You may have noticed that we do not write about art galleries. Well that’s because we only go to a few. When we do go to art museums with the kids, we generally gravitate to museums of a single artist. We can learn more and we find it easier to teach the kids (i.e. our kids can 100% recognize a Botero sculpture after our museum trip in Bogota). When there’s a huge art gallery, we generally become overwhelmed and don’t learn very much at all. The Prado Museum was the perfect example of this. Paige took Julie and they “explored” the world of Spanish art. I believe they saw Las Meninas, the famous materpiece by Diego Velázquez. However, Julie exited the gallery and only told me about the lemon tart that she ate in the museum cafe. Over the next week, Julie would point out the museum and remind us of the lemon pie she ate with mom on her date. The Prado visit was a success?…..I guess?
Isabella drew the short stick and was stuck with me. While Julie got patisseries, Isabella spent 90 minutes with me exploring all things Navy at the Naval Museum. She did humour me. While I looked at the exhibits, she tried not to touch things. I tried to teach her about the different armaments on Spanish naval vessels but she wanted no part of that. She was interested in the security alarms that went off and the security personnel who kept instructing patrons on how to behave in the museum. I can’t really complain as I was shocked we made it to an hour.
The next few days were about playing tourist with my brother and his family. To celebrate his birthday, we opted for the quintessential tourist experience, a city bus tour. In retrospect, it was an overly optimistic attempt. Two families with four kids just didn’t work on the hop-on-hop-off bus. It might have made sense if it was just me and my wife, but what we were thinking. My thoughts on the experience itself:
Why do we always fall for the allure of the double-decker bus tour? Most of the time, they are busy, uninformed and not “fun”. They feel like a glorified public bus route with an exorbant cost. I’ve taken about a dozen in my life but outside of the ones that have been completely empty (one Dublin in early spring, and Paris in late fall), they have just never been worth the hassle. This was no different. We waited 50 minutes to get on our first bus (as the first 4 that went by were full), and then were all split up on the bottom level inside (with four of us standing for the full route). On a later ride that evening we got seats on the second level beside the smashed window with broken glass!
But I don’t blame the operator as we just weren’t their target demographic. It wasn’t the best present I’ve given my brother.
Madrid had lots to offer but we decided to get out of the city one day and took an enjoyable trip to the UNESCO city of Toledo. We looked at organized tours for four adults and four kids We’d learned our lesson from the City bus tour. A 4+ hour tour with strangers just wouldn’t work for a one-year-old. In the end, we opted for flexibility and cost certainty. So we brushed the dust off our rail passes and planned for a self-guided tour of the town of Toledo. We had to reserve the train a couple days ahead of time as it was busy and many days were sold out. As a result, the families had to sit apart, which kept the kids from causing too much mayhem on the train. We exited the station with storm clouds on the horizon. At that very moment, a hop-on-hop-off double-decker bus stopped and offered us refuge from the rain. We laughed and stayed strong, opting to walk up to the town instead. Paigey found some escalators that made the journey easier and facilitated our enjoyment of the walled city. The kids would go into shops with Paige and return with sweets and other foodstuffs I would never have purchased. We visited sites that we normally would have bypassed but it was fun to visit them with my brother’s family. Many hours later, we would appreciate how used to walking our kids were. We overextended ourselves with the little cousin and my brother had to carry him back on his head. The train ride back was a quiet one as we all tried to stay awake.
Our final hurrah in Madrid was our planned big day at Park Warner. This was part of our compromise to Julie for not going to Disneyland. Upon arriving at the park, we were shocked at the number of people and buses there. It is insanely popular with school groups at the end of the school year. Fortunately, many toddler-type rides were empty so the kids could walk on most any ride they wanted. The highlight was definitely the water flume ride. It had a double drop and section where you travel in reverse. Julie was so confused as she didn’t know boats could go backwards. Only Paige got wet on the ride! We spent over eight hours at the park (which is a long time) and left when a torrential downpour chased us out of the park. We literally ran from the queue to the exit and jumped into a cab. We assumed my brother had got his family in a cab too!
Here are my general musings on amusement parks after visiting Park Warner.
1. Is there a better ride for kids to ride and parents to watch than bumper cars? I won’t say it was a battle of the families but we did enjoy them finding a kid who was boxed in a corner, lining them up and then bumping them spectacularly.
2. Food sucks at amusement parks. Just accept it and eat the hot dog.
3. If you are going to push the kids for a full day at an amusement park, you better compromise on transit home. We saved a bunch by taking public transit there but with the torrential rain, it would have been a 30+ minute wait in the rain just to catch the bus and begin our 75-minute transit journey home. The kids fell asleep in the taxi 5 minutes from the park.
4. In Toronto we take Canada’s Wonderland for granted as it is the best amusement park. The price (versus the rest of the world) is low. The number and variety of rides is massive. And they have a water park! I’m buying a pass as soon as I get home.
Up next, we say goodbye to Spain and journey to our last country on the trip, Portugal!
Where we stayed:
- Airbnb apartment: Meh. Kinda Dingy and dodgy.
By the numbers:
- Street Performers seen so far: 70+
- Average donation to street performer: 1.50 Euros
- Visits to Aldi: 5 – eating out in Spain has gotten less fun
- Number of times I told Isabella not to touch the broken window on the bus: 1 – she listened!
- Cost to visit Park Warner for the two families: about $1000 CAD – yep, that’s just head- scratching silliness
- Cost for a Wonderland season pass at home: $105 CAD
Ciao for now
Mike
Family Travel Countdown 