Madrid - March 2026

We just returned from a month of travel, with visits to Spain, France, Algiers, Tunisia, Morocco, and Malta. I'm sharing some of our experiences through several shorter postings rather than one very long post. This was our first visit to Madrid and there was much to view just in the central city. We never made it to the outlying areas of the city.

Our flight from San Francisco to Madrid departed at 8:30am. We decided to stay at the airport SFO Grand Hyatt to avoid a very early morning wake-up and long drive. Nonetheless, we still had to wake-up early for an international flight check-in three hours prior to departure. I guess I wasn't fully awake in the early morning and left some prescription medication in our hotel room refrigerator. I discovered this misstep too late to return to the hotel to retrieve it. 

Madrid Arrival

We were able to check-in early at the JW Marriott in the historic center of Madrid. This was a great location for walking to museums, restaurants, and parks. The hotel location was also convenient to a medical clinic. 

I learned that a US written prescription is not accepted by Spain pharmacies. Thus, I needed a Spain physician to write a new prescription based on my US prescription documentation. The physician (not actually in the clinic I visited) remotely reviewed my US prescription and for about $200 USD, wrote a new prescription. No actual medical examination was needed. As this was a common prescription drug, the cost was about $8 USD to fill at the next door pharmacy. My lesson was to place a post-it note in a can't-miss hotel room location as a reminder to confirm prescription medicine is in my carry-on bag when leaving to my next destination. 

Madrid Tours, Museums and Parks

For a first-time visit to a city, we often seek a half-day walking tour by a licensed guide. Such services can be arranged by companies such as ToursbyLocals, GoWithGuide or Viator. We used ToursByLocals to find a Prado Museum guide and central city guide. Our city tour guide was especially helpful to point our historic locations, interesting shops and cultural sites and dining ideas. During our walk, we passed: 

• Puerto del Sol
• Calle Mayor
• Plaza Mayor
• Mercado de San Miguel
• Royal Theater and Palace
• San Gines
• Plaza de la Villa 
• Plaza de la Paja

Our Prado guide was an art historian and was helpful in showing us a sample of the many paintings in the museum. Without this assistance, it is easy to be overwhelmed by so many paintings and artists.

Before visiting museums, be sure to check if online advance tickets can be purchased to make the best use of your limited time.

Museum Nacional del Prado: This museum focuses on European artworks from the 12 century to early 20th century. The collection is from the Spanish royal collection and is comprised of 7,600 painting, 4,800 prints, and 1,000 sculptures. This includes works by Goya, Bosch, El Greco, Rubens, Titian and Velazquez. With about 1,300 artworks on display, a guide was essential to view some of the most important works during our museum visit. Moreover, it is best to avoid being overwhelmed with so much to see. Highlights included:

• The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch
• Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, Tintoretto
• The Three Graces, Reubens
• The Family of Charles IV, Goya
• La Perla, Raphael

The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymous Bosch

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia: This museum is dedicated to Spain's 20th century art collection. It is ranked as the eighth mist visited museums in the world. There are many well known artworks by Spain's 20th century masters, including Picasso, Dali, Miro and Gris. Highights included:

• Woman with a Fan, Maria Blanchard
• The Great Masturbator, Salvador Dali
• Violin and Guitar, Juan Gris
• Dog in Front of the Moon, Joan Miró
• Woman in Blue, Pablo Picasso
• Guernica, Pablo Picasso
• Tertulia, Angeles Santos
• Un mundo, Angeles Santos

The Great Masturbator, Salvador Dali

Guernica, Pablo Picasso

Banksy Museum: In 2025, the Madrid Banksy museum was opened and dedicated to the street-works of Banksy. The museum features life-sized reproductions of Banksy's works. We learned that street art is not subject to copyright and, thus, it was an opportunity to view 170 iconic murals.

El Retiro Park: This is one of the largest city parks in Madrid, covering 350 acres. It is located at the edge of the central city. There are gardens, monuments, a lake, water fountains and is part of a UNESCO Site that includes the Paseo del Prado, a major city boulevard. As our visit was in late February, it was too early for viewing rose and flower blooms. 

Dining in Madrid 

We enjoy searching out unique eating opportunities, whether lunch, dinner or snacks. Here is a brief summary of four of our stops.

Botin: Established in 1725, Botin is recognized as the oldest continuing restaurant in the world by the Guinness World Records. Botin's meat specialties include roasted suckling pig and roast lamb. Lunch and dinner reservations are a must as this restaurant is very popular. Lucky for us, our hotel concierge was able to make a lunch reservation for us. We shared a salad and each had a serving of suckling pig. The skin was crunchy and beneath the skin was delicious moist and tender pork. 

San Gines Chocolateria: Located in Madrid central city, this chocolateria has several Madrid locations but we stopped at the original site, located at Pasadizo de San Ginés, 5. Founded in 1894, the basement was a great place to have an afternoon snack of the restaurant's classic churros. Unlike Mexican churros, these are similar shaped but not drenched in sugar and cinnamon. Instead, the San Gines' churros are served with a cup of very think warm chocolate. Diners dip their churros into the cup and enjoy bites of the snack. The chocolate is accompanied by a spoon as it is too thick to drink from the cup.  

Casa Gallega: This casual cafe is located in the basement of the Resturante Gallega via a winding staircase. The cafe is a great place to have a light tapas meal. Our tour guide said that Casa Gallega is a favorite of many local tour guides. We enjoyed the friendly service, meal and moderate prices. 

Corral de la Moreria: If you visit Spain, watching a Flamenco show is a must. The Corral de la Moreria has offered Flamenco shows for the past 60 years. The venue is recognized for its high-quality artistic show and pre-show or post-show dining offerings. We had a pre-show dinner and noticed that a 6pm dinner provides more than enough time to finish dessert before the dance show starts at 7:30pm. We walked from the JW Marriott to and from Corral de la Moreria, as suggested by our hotel concierge. 

Source: Carlos Ramón Bonilla

Mercado de San Miguel

We like to walk through the local markets when visiting a city that is new to us. It allows us to see how local residents live and shop as well as view the variety of meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits and other market offerings. During our time in Madrid, we found the Mercado de San Miguel a great place to purchase a casual lunch of empanadas, drinks and fruit cup.

New Front Entry Door - March 2026

Background

We had our house exterior repainted about two years ago. The stucco painting went well but not so for the south-facing fiberglass front entry door. The new paint poorly adhered to the door, resulting in numerous paint blisters. The paint contractor was terrific at handling repainting of the door. However, after three different attempts at repainting, the blisters continued to occur after each repriming and repainting. The contractor had tried Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore paints in the hope of avoiding the blister results. This door faces the south and experiences direct rain in the winter and hot sun in the summer.

 

The paint contractor offered a fourth and last repainting effort but acknowledged different paint compositions over time have made painting a fiberglass door more challenging. Apparently, other area painting contractors have had issues with re-painting fiberglass doors. Our painting contractor no longer recommends repainting weather-facing fiberglass doors and will not warranty such entry door painting.

What to Do?

The painting contractor suggested a longer term solution could be door replacement and avoiding repainting a new front entry door. At this point, we decided that this would be our best solution, but the next question was which door manufacturer to select - ProVia, Anderson, Pella, Therma-Tru, or Marvin? Another alternative was to visit our local Home Depot. Ultimately. ProVia was our choice as its Signet doors have a 15 year warranty on its manufacturer finishes and lifetime warranty for door frame integrity. No other door manufacturer offered this warranty. ProVia is located in Ohio and manufactures doors, windows, siding, stone facia and roof materials..

We were impressed by the following ProVia painted entry door features:

• Self adjusting threshold
• Hardware strike stile
• Dove-tailed stiles and rails
• Insulated foam core
• Hardwood door internal edging
• Four ball-bearing hinges
• 5-ply finish process, with oven-cured multiple paint coatings
• Energy Star Certification

With a 96 inch tall front entry door, ProVia requires a multi-point locking mechanism. This is a traditional center lock accompanied by a similar locking device at the top and bottom of the door. Thus, there are three points securing the door to the doorframe. This locking mechanism enhances door security but also helps to engage the tall door into the door frame when locked and ensure weather sealing. Moreover, the ball-bearing door hinges are supported on non-hinge vertical side when the tall (and heavy) entry door is locked. Multi-point locking systems are now able to be integrated with digital locks. Thus, you can have a single digital smartlock, integrated with a back-up key lock, controlling all three locking mechanisms. 

Our new door was manufactured by ProVia with a PanoLock Plus multi-point lock, new handset, digital smartlock and a new peep viewer.  We ordered all entry door components (and component installation) from ProVia. This approach preserves the warranty coverage as the installer did not drill additional holes in the door. Our door contractor was a local ProVia certified installer. 

Source: Enduraproducts.com

The primary downside of selecting a ProVia door is the cost. ProVia fiberglass front entry door are expensive. Our selected front entry door (presently the top-tier ProVia fiberglass door offering) does not have glass panels and we have no entry door sidelights. Nonetheless, the cost of the new door, multipoint lock, new handles, digital lock and labor for old door removal and new door installation can easily run $10k (depending on door size, finish and hardware). This could be twice as much as the purchase and installation of a Home Depot entry door.  It took one installer about seven hours to remove and install the new door, with new interior three-inch door casings.

We will not repaint this ProVia door in the future and accept possible fading over time.  We've learned from our exterior painting experience.

Note: I received no compensation from ProVia or Endura for this post.