When doves sweat

When you ask Spaniards, and believe me I have, why everything closes in the middle of the day and opens later they say it’s because they, sensibly, retreat at the hottest part of the day. That may have been true in a rural past without time zones, but it holds no water now. Thirty-nine degrees at 8 pm on the crowded streets of La Latina gives the lie to that idea.

I flew to Madrid via Shanghai. Not a bad flight on China Eastern, but no matter how flat the bed, it’s still 30 hours in planes and airports that can only leave you both exhausted and feeling like you misplaced your soul somewhere over the ocean. I did luck out when my hotel had a room ready at 9:30 am though. So I started the day unexpectedly showered.

I’m staying in Atocha which is close to the main station and the museums. The main streets are the sort of places where the infrastructure smells of late-night urine, but the side streets have cool bars and cafes. So I found an amazingly good coffee and contemplated what to do with my day. I already had some thoughts but they hadn’t really taken the temperature being in the high 20s at 10 am into account.

So I spent a very pleasant few hours wandering the air-conditioned halls of the Prado. Although the Prado breaks one of my Rules of Museums, in that it’s impossible to navigate in a single path, it is stuffed with beautiful and fascinating paintings.

That took me to mid-afternoon and a siesta. I’m keen to get on Spanish time quickly and so a few hours sleep would set me up for a Spanish normal night. Which brings me back to my point: I slept through the afternoon and when I awoke at 7:30 pm it was 39 degrees – the hottest point in the day.

So I headed out through the heat into my main aim for the day: the Verbana de la Paloma. The celebration of the dove is one of several traditional Madrid fiestas at this time of year. The traditional core is about parading an icon through the streets – in this case the Virgin Mary from the Iglesia de la Paloma – but it’s mutated to be, as a sign I saw said, about the people of Madrid and its bars. So lots of people and the bars selling beer, tinto verano and limonada on the streets.

The La Latina quarter was heaving with people in spite of the heat. It’s a very cool area, the heart of which seems to be a squatters collective complete with large sign denouncing, well, tourists like me. My sense, from listening to people talk, is that the majority of people out tonight are locals.

I watched the Virgin being paraded through the streets to shouts of “Viva la Paloma”. There was traditional food on sale – but given the tradition involves two types of deep-fried sheep intestine, I appreciated it only from a distance. I did love the streets decorated with traditional shawls and the dancers. Women in colourful dresses, men in waistcoats and flat caps, throwing themselves enthusiastically into detailed steps.

My luck for the day held and I got a street table at a bar so I could sit and drink beer and eat tapas – not involving sheep intestine – while watching the Madrileños dance on their streets and ignore the unrelenting heat. They may have lost touch with the best time to avoid the heat, but they do know how to have a good time.