El oso y el madrono - the bear and the strawberry tree - is an ubiquitous symbol in Madrid. You see it everywhere - city crests, public transport infrastructure, buildings, pavements, man-hole covers, just about everywhere really. The fruit of this tree is distilled into madrono, a sweet liqueur, which interestingly is as difficult to find in Madrid as it is easy to spot the madrono tree itself.
On our walking tour of Madrid, our tour guide explained the significance of this liqueur, and brought us to a place where the liqueur is most popular. Sadly for us though, in true Spanish holiday fervor, this place had closed shop for the period of August, and the owners had gone far away from the maddening crowd. Madrono liqueur is served in edible chocolate glasses here, and together they make sure your sugar levels aren't dropping anytime soon. We did look for the liqueur in several places around Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor over the next few days, but were mostly just greeted by looks of surprise by Madrilenos, many of whom had heard about the liqueur for the first time from us! Madrid wasn't really my favorite Spanish city on this visit, but perhaps this gives me a reason to come back some day - unfinished business as they say.
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