Book Stalls - Calle de Claudio Moyano

On Sunday I went to visit a flat and then it was such a lovely day I thought I'd walk to Retiro and take a few photos. I'd passed by the Calle de Claudio Moyano book stalls the day before with Kasia my flatmate but hadn't had my camera with me so decided to go again. The weather was beautiful! After walking for a while I ended up with my jacket, cardigan, and scarf under my arm as it was so warm.

 

 

The Calle de Claudio Moyano has been likened to the area full of book stalls that lines the Seine in Paris with its many trestle tables and wooden sheds bursting with books. The street leads up in a diagonal line at the south west corner of Retiro park and is just a little way along from Atocha metro station so it's easy to find.

 

 

 

 

 

The books are mostly secondhand and in Spanish but many stalls have a small foreign languages section with English, French, German and Italian titles. There's a good mix of modern and older titles and there are definitely some gems to be found if you do a bit of digging; I even came across a Spanish copy of Richmal Crompton's Just William along with plenty of other children's books. Amongst piles of Spanish classics I found translations of the Lord of the Rings, Twilight and Bridget Jones' Diary. There are boxes and racks of film posters, old post cards, maps and newspapers though I would definitely say that this is a place for people that mainly have books in mind. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a Sunday when I visited so some of the stalls weren't open; I'll certainly be visiting again to pick up my next Spanish book to read. The prices are pretty reasonable with an average book being around 3-5 euros, though there are plenty to be found at less than that, and stall holders are often happy to offer you a deal if there are a few that you can't bear to be parted with. I'm so happy I've found this place; it's become one of my favourite spots in Madrid and the fact that it's right next to Retiro park doesn't hurt. I've also been hearing about a potential Book Fair that might take place in the city in the summer time so am definitely looking forward to that!

Navibus!

The Christmas lights in Madrid were all aglow and I was desperate to go on a photography spree when somebody at work told me about the Navibus. An open topped bus weaves its way in a big loop around the city passing all the main landmarks like Gran Vía, La Puerta de Alcala and Plaza de Cibeles. This being Madrid the tickets for a 50 minute round trip only cost 2 euros each! If it had been London I know we would have paid at least £10. Cat and I hopped up to the top deck all wrapped up in scarves and hats against the cold and I had my camera at the ready.

 

 

 I thought I'd try something a bit different and make a video this time so here goes:

 

 



 

 Afterwards we wanted to go for a hot chocolate to warm up and ended up walking past this lovely little book shop.

 

 

We were searching for a particular coffee shop that Cat had walked past before and thought looked really cool (apparently people were drinking out of glass jars...). But try as we might we couldn't find it and after getting turfed out of another café as it was closing time we started back towards the metro. After a few minutes, however, we found another place that was thankfully open and managed to order two cups of hot chocolate. In Spain when you ask for hot chocolate you are given a cup of melted chocolate (if you want the stuff we have in England you have to ask for Colacao) but that's exactly what we wanted after such a cold evening.

 

 

I apologise for the lateness of this post, we're already nearly into February, but I was having technical issues regarding the video...and I didn't want to leave it out :)

 

If any of you are in Madrid in December definitely make sure you take a ride on the Navibus! 

Nativity Scene (Belén)

Antonio the lovely portero, or door man, at work had built an incredible nativity scene in the building's foyer which I just had to show you.

 

 

 

It was enormous and covered in green moss which he spritzed with water every morning to keep it fresh. Along with the obligatory Jesus, Mary and Joseph there were lots and lots of tiny figures dotted around the landscape he had created.

 



 

 

 

 

 

Antonio had even added a river along with a tiny bridge, farms with hayricks and all the animals and birds he could cram in; the three wise men were depicted riding their camels under a starry sky

 

 

 

 

 



African Drumming Concert - Etnopercusión

I've now been back in Madrid for over two weeks and am back into the swing of things. What with flying home and meeting friends and family over the holidays I completely forgot about my blog so there are a couple of things I'll be uploading that may seem a bit out of date. The first is the African drumming concert that my friend Cat performed in. Both Annies and I met at the metro station and set off to find what we thought was going to be a concert hall but turned out to be a kind of bar/pub/club underground.

We waited for the show to start on a raised platform to the side of the dance floor, watching the crowd below us. The audience was made up of people of all ages and nationalities and judging by the eclectic nature of the show the organisers seemed to want to cater for everybody. There were crazy international folk dances (one involving a rather dodgy looking Israeli sequence with everyone in Jewish wigs and rubbing their fingers together indicating money...), an impromptu line dancing class that everyone was invited to take part in and at the end a chorus of the theme tune to the Lion King accompanied by ukuleles. Cat's drumming group took to the stage and I made sure I filmed it as I'd promised to try so that her family back home could watch too. I'm not sure about the quality of the video but I'll post it below so that you can all see as well:

We all had a great time and when I arrived back in Madrid after Christmas Annabel and I went to a free drumming class that each audience member was entitled to. After an hour and a half of frantic drum bashing we left feeling pretty dazed but happy and with the beats still reverberating in our heads.