The landing approach to the Madrid Barajas International Airport introduces travelers to a national treasure. The olive groves surrounding the airport are a fitting welcome to the world’s leading olive-producing country and the fruit anointing Spanish life from birth to death in cooking, cosmetics, soap, medicine, textiles, sword making and ceremonies of Catholicism. The lifespan of olive trees is longer than most fruit trees, many live for hundreds of years. These trees have recorded much history in the rings beneath their gnarled trunks from invasions of Iberians, Phoenicians, Celts, Greeks Carthaginians, Romans, Germanic tribes, Moors and French to the present day democratic Spanish government headquartered in the capital city of Madrid.
Ornamentals in Madrid
Sharing the same latitude as New York City, Madrid’s perennial flora is surprisingly similar to the southern United States: pittosporum, magnolia, oleander, and wisteria. Madrid is a city of apartments along narrow streets. Population density affects garden design. Vivid sun-loving annuals like petunias, nasturtium, portulaca, and marigolds spill from apartment balconies. Container gardens of flowers, citrus trees, and fragrant herbs like lavender and rosemary predominate in this city of four million people.
Crops Influence Cuisine
The cuisine of Madrid features local and regional plants. Fresh asparagus is scrambled with eggs at Casa Botin, Madrid’s oldest restaurant (c.1725) made famous in Ernest Hemingway’s writings. Olives, plain or stuffed with almonds or pimento, are ubiquitous with meals. The Prado Museum’s cafeteria matches in cuisine what its galleries display in art. Sample gazpacho, a cold vegetable soup garnished with chopped onion, tomatoes, cucumber and green and red bell peppers. A favored dessert is fresh melon. Moors introduced melons to the Iberian Peninsula.
The culture of a nation can be revealed as much by the plants and produce as by the art, architecture, and religion. The main department store in Madrid, El Corte Ingles, has a grocery where the traveler can purchase bananas from the Canary Islands, oranges from Valencia, almonds from Seville, plums from Madrid, and peaches, apricots, pears, grapes and cherries from Barcelona.
Public Gardens
The Royal Botanical Garden is behind the Prado Museum. The 20 acre site displays plants from five continents such as South African iris, peonies from China and soapbark trees from Chile.
Madrid has 40 public parks across the city. Retiro Park is a favorite spot for family boating. Casa de Campo houses the city zoo and Parque del Oeste has a famous rose garden.
Ambiance of the City
Lunchtime in Spain starts late, around 2:00p.m., and continues for two hours. Stores, factories, and businesses close for the largest meal of the day and for siesta. After lunch, offices reopen until 7:00p.m.
In the evening the streets of Madrid are packed with strollers. The Spanish love to walk and talk before dining with family and friends at cafes or tapas bars. Tapas are a wide variety of appetizers ranging from mushrooms, beets, cauliflower, potatoes and olives to shrimp, eel, squid, cod, pork and snails. The choice is so wide and varied that one can easily make a meal of tapas. To cap off an evening of conversation and consumption, there are vendors serving a thin hot pastry, churro, which is dipped in thick hot chocolate. Youth take their nightcap at Club Joy Eslava, a nightclub with dancing.
Rain is scarce in Spain. The country is experiencing its worst drought in 70 years. Fresh water is priceless so don’t expect a glass at restaurants. Water conservation has become a habit. Scattered throughout the countryside are windmills. Sixty percent of Spain’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power generated by windmills.
Madrid is the heart of a country as strong as the collection of paintings in the Prado, as sweet as flan, and as spirited as portulaca. It remains the Puerta del Sol, the Gate of the Sun, to the rest of Spain’s plant treasures.
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