Eurasia Mega Tour 2026 - Day Thirty Five - Beginning The Madrid Photo Extravaganza

We are going to be spending three days in Madrid. This is essentially a placeholder between our two long stays in Alanya/Mahmutlar and Alicante/El Campello. This was also a time for us to spend with our favorite Niece and Red-Tunic Away Team Specialist, RMG. Unfortunately, the untimely accident causing her Father, and Wife's Brother to pass away has had her in the United States while we are here. 

So we are assuaging our pain by going into total photographic indulgence. Actually, when we were here last year visiting RMG and our Granddaughter 2.2 who was studying in Madrid at the time, I was taken by the spectacular lighting of buildings and monuments and said I would love to do a photo shoot focusing on that. That is scheduled for tonight. Yesterday, we got started by wandering the location where we are staying which is right outside the City Center while making our way to the historic center and tourist black hole.  

I've never spent time in Madrid other than transiting in and out or seeing the relatives. It is a city that was spared the destruction from WWII so there is quite a bit that goes back a long way. It reminds me of Rome (which as an Airbnb host told us, "You don't have to look for stuff. You can just walk around and it will find you." So we started out just walking though generally pointing ourself towards the major sites in the city center/

Stuff on the way as we walked

 

 

 

 In a park, we ran into some kind of filming taking place

 

 

 In said park, we also found yet another Eurasian sub-species of Espouses Fotograficus, this time the sub-species Madrianos

 

 Study of Birds Bathing

Arriving

 Plunging 

 Up for air

 

 "Hey! You're Getting Me Wet!"

 

 "I'm outta here"

 "Finally. We can bathe in peace."

 All other birds

 The street signs in this area have been made artistic and very easy to read

 

 

Back in prosperity...the return of scaffolding!

 

 

 Complete with scaffolding gnomes

 

Back to our wandering 

 

 

 

 We enter streets with interesting art work on the retail shudders and restaurant walls

 

 

 

 

I don't think this establishment is aiming for my demographic

 

 Into Tourist Central, the Plaza Major

 

 Mobbed but a great place for candid photos

 

 

 

 The Photographer's Girlfriend Series

"Hun. It didn't turn out."

"Let me take a look"

 

"Ah well, you need to be doing this, this and this, not to mention you forgot that, that, and that"

 

"AGGH Leave me alone!" 

 

Wife and I are never like this

Leaving the Plaza Major, wandering again

 

 

 

We ate something. It started to rain. We made it back to the apartment 

 Signs of the World

Don't abuse the Poop!

  

Eurasia Mega Tour 2026 - Türkiye Foodie Post #2

 While we are now deep into our visit to Madrid, Spain, we have one more piece of business to conclude with Alanya/Mahmutlar - A second foodie post. 

 Herbs

In the area of Türkiye we have been visiting, herbs are a prominent part of the cuisine. They are chopped up into the salads which are very lightly dressed otherwise with just a bit of oil, lemon juice, or tomato juice. They give them to you to add to your Lamachun. Cheese and herbs are a common filling in your Gõzleme. We started making our salads just that way when we went to a local market and found bunches of herbs to buy. We're not sure what this is. According to our online search it could be sorrel or arugula. Whatever it was, it was very fragrant and reminded us of the things we'd been eating out.

 

 We did a lot of cooking in because the ingredients were so good - especially the produce.

This is a spicy grilled beef sausage and an eggplant dish I made with tomato, onions, garlic, and herbs

 

 Uygur Turk

The name of a restaurant serving Uygur Central Asian food. Hands down the best place we ate at the whole time in Türkiye. It was interesting. Our waiter both times, a young man from Ukraine, told us they only got Russians, Ukrainians, and foreigners, no locals.

The Uygur territory was historically the link between China and the more Western areas of Central Asia. It is now located in Sinkiang China, and Eastern Kazakhstan. Its food is a cross between the two cultures with Russian influence as well from the centuries of Russian, then Soviet rule. It is the home of hand-pulled wheat noodles that became ubiquitous in China and now are found all over the world

Dishes we ate there

Fried Noodles

 

There were a ton of sweet peppers in it. The flavor was like a cross between Eastern European and Chinese. Very hard to describe. That's a hot chile paste to the right

A Special Chicken Dish

 

 The chicken itself was over cooked. But the sauce was spectacular. I researched it afterward and found it is a renowned Uygur dish and the sauce is noted to be difficult to duplicate. Those black things are wood ear mushrooms. In traditional Chinese cooking, they are added to give a crunchy texture. But here they were long cooked and absorbed all the flavor of the cooking fluid. Again there were tons of different sweet peppers that were delicious

Manti

 

Steamed dumplings. Very different from the Turkish variety which are small with a yogurt sauce over them. These had a prominent ground meat filling. I took the leftovers and fried them the next day which were very nice.

Gõzleme on the path in Sapadere  

 So nice and tranquil on the path. Made to order. There are always little accompaniments like the olives and pickles above with things you get in this area of Türkiye.

Pilav

 

 

Pilav (pronounced Plahf) is found all over the area where the Central Asians expanded, down into India (think Biryani), Persia/Iran, to Russia, etc. 

 

This was called Kazan Kebap and was like a stew rather than the grilled food we associate with kebap in Türkiye

One final Doner Kebap

 

We'd been disappointed with what we'd tried so far. I did a bunch of research and found a highly recommended place. It was not dry like many we've had with veggies and sauce in it which is what we like. And nice Ayran, the tart, salted yogurt drink I've learned to enjoy here.