We had a lovely, lazy morning. After a stop at a little pastry shop, we wandered the streets of Madrid. Our goal was to tour the palace and see the Plaza Mayor, but the walk there was equally entertaining with its random churches and smaller plazas along the way. The Spanish really know how to plan public spaces. When we got to the Plaza, there was classical music echoing off the walls and in the center of the plaza was a show of dancing police horses. There were four brown and four gray horses, all of which performed a choreographed number. It was quite the show.
The other performers in Plaza Mayor included Mickey Mouse, Spongebob Squarepants, Chubaka and this unusual creature that looked like a goat (maybe deer) head with a loose body (imagine a sheet attached to the head) covered with shiny multi-colored tinsel. It made a noise akin to a chirp and you could find them all along the plaza. It was like nothing I have ever seen. There was also a set-up of three tables, all aligned together, with three heads on each table, wearing makeup and crazy wigs. I think only the head in the middle of each table was a real person, but when someone would get close, they´d scare the person and burst into laughter and the heads would bobble and tables would shake. It was entertaining.
After Plaza Mayor, we wandered only a few feet and found the Mercado de San Miguel. It was a dream with fresh fruit, fresh fish, fresh meat, fresh veggies, fresh ice cream, fresh pastries. Tapas were available at several of the stands. There were a couple of bars there. Tony and I found the fromagerie. Since coming to Spain, we have realized there is not a Spanish cheese we don´t like. This case of cheese was extreme temptation. We settled on the plate of 10 cheeses for 12€. It was so incredibly gluttonous! Truth be told, Tony and I were in a cheese induced haze for the next couple of hours, but we believe it was worth it.
From the mercado, we went to the Palace. They wouldn´t let us take photos inside, so we don´t have any images to share. The grandeur was like nothing I have seen. Most rooms had a fresco painted on the ceilings. There were marvelous expansive scenes, mostly angelic in nature. We were dizzy from looking up for most of the tour. One of the room´s walls and ceiling were decorated entirely in porcelain. Tony put it best when he said it represented opulence that would make Donald Trump blush. The Palace is opposite a gigantic gothic church. When we went in, we were expecting a scene similar to what we found in Mallorca, but, surprisingly, everything but the building was fairly modern. |
| The gothic church with deceptive interior |
We strolled back to the hotel, taking in Puerta del Sol, a plaza that rivals Plaza Mayor for the center of happenings in Madrid, and walked streets we had not seen yet. After some rest at the hotel, we were brought to our window by lots and lots of honking. In what I guess was an earth week celebration, several hundred bicycle riders took over Paseo del Prado and rode down the length of the Paseo and back. It was quite a sight!
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| One of the random, attractive monuments that pepper the city. |
We walked to the La Latina district for a very happening tapas experience. The scene in that neighborhood was very vibrant, mostly full of young people. I was on a mission to find patatas bravas (fried potatoes with spicy sauce), but I was also looking for some sangria. The first place we stopped had both and when the waiter asked if I wanted a "grande," I thought, "Yes, that is how much I want sangria. I want a large." I then learned that a grande was a full sized pitcher. I drank as much as I could, but we ended up passing the pitcher to a neighboring table.
Because we had spent so much of the day walking, we began to head back to our hotel, but not without stopping at another tapas bar along the way. Tony has a new favorite- ham croquettes. This bar was all about bull-fighting with pictures of famous bull fighters on the wall, as well as the stuffed head of a bull by the door. It was a bit of a whole in the wall, definitely less popular than the last place, but the decor kept us entertained and the croquettes were warm and tasty.
We went to bed fat and happy and slept very soundly.
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