Honeymoon- Day 8 (4/26/2011)

The artwork at the Palma airport

I am sorry to report there is not much to blog about today.  The travel from Orient to the airport was significantly less eventful than the day before.  As promised, they accepted the car at the airport without incident.  The Spanair flight to Madrid was very comfortable. 

When we arrived in Madrid, we successfully negotiated three metro trains to get to our hotel.  Our hotel is somewhat famous- Pablo Picasso, among other famous folk, stayed there.  It was once the palace of a duke.  The best part about our hotel is that we got the honeymoon upgrade.  They gave us a room overlooking the rotunda in the street.  There is a gigantic statue/fountain of Neptune in the middle of it.  Across the street is the Prado museum, as well as three others next door. 

The view from our room

Our main goal when we got to Madrid was to clean our clothes.  We found a laundry and for 13 euro we were able to wash everything in the suitcase.  That is fairly expensive by U.S. standards, but, to put it in context, the hotel (and, in fairness, nearly every other hotel we have stayed in) was going to charge us 11 euro for one pair of pants.  Spanish laundromats, much like U.S. laundromats, produce little material to blog about.

After we got back to the room and unpacked, we wandered around the area.  The museums had closed, but we took in the grounds and found our way to Retiro Park, which is gigantic.  We basically got the lay of the land and found our way to dinner.  We had tapas at a small restaurant that specialized in egg dishes.  I had this delicious little bread pocket filled with scrambled eggs, potatoes and bolognese sauce.  It was a little taste of heaven (for me, though tony appreciated everything but the eggs).  We had potatoes that tasted like tater-tots (YUM!) and meatballs that were delicious, but chose another option that was unsuccessful- tortilla de camarones (shrimp and egg combo).  The shrimp was so strong Tony didn't even taste the eggs.  I like shrimp, but even I couldn't take it.  We ate the other items we ordered and were content, though.

After dinner, it was back to the room and to bed.  Travel takes a lot out of us.  Tomorrow is a guided tour of the wineries.